I've been quiet lately. While I've been at a few musical events, nothing really sparkled. I heard two Brahms symphonies: the First by the Colorado Symphony, and the Second by the University of Colorado Orchestra. Neither grabbed my fancy, but it's Brahms, not the performances.
We attended a fun happening last Friday night -- the annual Boulder "UnSilent Night" boom-box procession on the Boulder Pearl Street Mall. Over 100 people participated, carrying a variety of music players, all playing one of the four tracks from Phil Kline's Christmas composition. It is a new-age sound that merges chimes and percussion and electronic sounds and choruses. On a crisp, clear night the sounds are wonderful as they merge and reverberate from the buildings. Many thanks to Dan Kellogg from the CU School of Music for starting and coordinating this.
I've been watching Pandora pervade more and more devices. Nightly I listen from my Chumby next to my bed. I can listen to Pandora from my main Linus workstation and from my Mac iBook. My iPod touch has a Pandora App and now I've configured my Roku to stream Pandora's offerings --- Not bad. Still, Pandora is not for serious classical music fans because they only play individual tracks, not complete compositions. A Mahler symphony or a Beethoven string quartet is meant to be digested completely, not in little sips. A curse on the lawyers and executives that force this desecration of art.
While I'm cursing, a pox on the Chumby developers, too. When I'm finished reading at night I like to set the Chumby timer to turn off the music. Clearly no one would ever want to listen for more than 60 minutes! What a silly limitation. Then, when I try to turn the timer on I press and press and press and curse and curse because it just ignores my touch. If I'm lucky I can set it after 5 touches, though sometimes it's many more. I don't know if it's the hardware touch-screen or the software, but most other Chumby features seem to work okay.
Happy holidays to everyone.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Music in a silly movie
In previous rants, I complained about how the legal profession, supporting the recording and movie industries, is damaging art: limiting internet streamed music to tracks, desecrating music by stopping the composers intent.
Last night I was watching a silly 1994 Coen brothers' movie "The Hudsucker Proxy" on my Roku. The background music often was from ballets by Aram Khachaturian. The romantic theme was the luscious "Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia" and at another point I believe they were using "the dance of Gaditanae", both from his "Spartacus". There were other clear quotes from "Gayane" -- the famous sabre dance.
What bothers me is the the lawyers want music to be protected and its use restricted and controlled. However, what's good for the goose isn't apparently good for the gander. As I watched the credits flash by there was only a passing reference to "Themes by Aram Khatchaturian". I guess that's the best creative types can come to giving someone else credit for art. The creator of "themes" is equivalent to a driver, key grip, associate executive assistant or dresser.
Last night I was watching a silly 1994 Coen brothers' movie "The Hudsucker Proxy" on my Roku. The background music often was from ballets by Aram Khachaturian. The romantic theme was the luscious "Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia" and at another point I believe they were using "the dance of Gaditanae", both from his "Spartacus". There were other clear quotes from "Gayane" -- the famous sabre dance.
What bothers me is the the lawyers want music to be protected and its use restricted and controlled. However, what's good for the goose isn't apparently good for the gander. As I watched the credits flash by there was only a passing reference to "Themes by Aram Khatchaturian". I guess that's the best creative types can come to giving someone else credit for art. The creator of "themes" is equivalent to a driver, key grip, associate executive assistant or dresser.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Kinetics
Listening to music is an active thing for me. Ever since I was a little kid I've always listened with my body. My fingers "play" the notes; my head bobs for emphasis; my chest heaves at some endings; feet and legs bounce and bounce and bounce. Nobody has ever complained about it, though sometimes I'm sure I get carried away. Anyway, that's how music affects me -- kinetically.
The reason I bring this up is that the other night I went to a concert of the University of Colorado's student Chamber Orchestra led by Gary Lewis. Conductors move -- that's how they conduct. I don't know why I began looking at the musicians' feet but it dawned on my that there was no motion. Only occasionally would I see some one's foot shift. Not consistently, mind you, but sometimes there was a rhythmic change of the light off the shiny patent-leather shoes. One violinist seemed agonized in wrapping his feet together, almost struggling to stay put on the chair. The pieces were Mozart's "Jupiter" symphony and Prokofiev's "Classical" symphony.
How did they hold back? Weren't they affected by the music? Didn't they get carried away, too? Why were the musicians so still?
As we walked back to the car, I was informed by one of the musicians that tapping toes to keep time is totally forbidden. Music is for the mind and not the body, except where needed to press, pull, pluck or perform a note. Silly me. Of course, it make sense, but I just never thought about it before. Good thing I don't play in an orchestra.
The reason I bring this up is that the other night I went to a concert of the University of Colorado's student Chamber Orchestra led by Gary Lewis. Conductors move -- that's how they conduct. I don't know why I began looking at the musicians' feet but it dawned on my that there was no motion. Only occasionally would I see some one's foot shift. Not consistently, mind you, but sometimes there was a rhythmic change of the light off the shiny patent-leather shoes. One violinist seemed agonized in wrapping his feet together, almost struggling to stay put on the chair. The pieces were Mozart's "Jupiter" symphony and Prokofiev's "Classical" symphony.
How did they hold back? Weren't they affected by the music? Didn't they get carried away, too? Why were the musicians so still?
As we walked back to the car, I was informed by one of the musicians that tapping toes to keep time is totally forbidden. Music is for the mind and not the body, except where needed to press, pull, pluck or perform a note. Silly me. Of course, it make sense, but I just never thought about it before. Good thing I don't play in an orchestra.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Singing, meaning and art
Heavy topic here. Skip if it you like. A few recent concerts have me thinking about the relationship of song words to art. How sung words give meaning.
Last week I heard a spinto soprano, Irene VanHam Friedlob, in recital with Mitsumi Moteki on piano. Spinto was a new term to me, but Wikipedia says it's 'a soprano or tenor voice of a weight between lyric and dramatic that is capable of handling large dramatic climaxes at moderate intervals.' She certain fit that description.
While mostly she sang in Italian or French or German, for the final piece she sang in English. The earlier songs had translations, while the last one didn't, of course. Most words were understandable as she sang, but not every one of them. Words would pop out clearly but their associated meaning didn't. She sang well and enunciated well but the vocal gymnastics necessary to produce song hid the meaning. I didn't think it the singer's fault.
Then this past Sunday night Thomas Hampson sang at the University of Colorado's Mackey Auditorium. It was part of his traveling 'Songs of America' series, with Wolfram Rieger on piano. The performance enthralled the audience. Hampson sings and enunciates as well as anyone. His beautiful baritone was crystal clear even at the back of the auditorium. However, to me the meaning of the songs and the cadence of the sentences from poems just weren't clear enough to understand.
An example was his singing of "The Dodger" by Aaron Copland. I've heard this fairly familiar song several times before and it's a fun song reminiscent of any earlier time in America. The stanzas refer to candidates, preachers and lovers, all "dodgers" with "Yes and I'm a dodger too!" In the intervening stanzas the singer tells why each is untrustworthy. It was here in all cases that the meaning got lost. I don't remember clearly enough if the music was different, but there was something that hid the words explaining why these reputable folk weren't so. You couldn't read the words as the singing progressed because of the lighting. But would that have helped?
So was art preserved? Did the combination of piano and singer and words and music yield good art? Entertainment, surely. But did the composer accomplish what he set out to do? I'm confused here.
Last night CU's favorite baritone, Patrick Mason, sang some Rachmaninoff songs in a recital with Alexandra Nguyen on piano. There was no question of understanding anything sung -- it was all in Russian. So was Rachmaninoff's art achieved? I quickly read some of the translations, but the meaning could only be inferred by some chords, vocal lines, facial expressions and timing. Enjoyable, of course. But successful art?
I'll end with a question that's been simmering within me for years. Is vocal musical art almost always failed art? Is opera, the epitomy of vocal musical art by definition failed art?
Last week I heard a spinto soprano, Irene VanHam Friedlob, in recital with Mitsumi Moteki on piano. Spinto was a new term to me, but Wikipedia says it's 'a soprano or tenor voice of a weight between lyric and dramatic that is capable of handling large dramatic climaxes at moderate intervals.' She certain fit that description.
While mostly she sang in Italian or French or German, for the final piece she sang in English. The earlier songs had translations, while the last one didn't, of course. Most words were understandable as she sang, but not every one of them. Words would pop out clearly but their associated meaning didn't. She sang well and enunciated well but the vocal gymnastics necessary to produce song hid the meaning. I didn't think it the singer's fault.
Then this past Sunday night Thomas Hampson sang at the University of Colorado's Mackey Auditorium. It was part of his traveling 'Songs of America' series, with Wolfram Rieger on piano. The performance enthralled the audience. Hampson sings and enunciates as well as anyone. His beautiful baritone was crystal clear even at the back of the auditorium. However, to me the meaning of the songs and the cadence of the sentences from poems just weren't clear enough to understand.
An example was his singing of "The Dodger" by Aaron Copland. I've heard this fairly familiar song several times before and it's a fun song reminiscent of any earlier time in America. The stanzas refer to candidates, preachers and lovers, all "dodgers" with "Yes and I'm a dodger too!" In the intervening stanzas the singer tells why each is untrustworthy. It was here in all cases that the meaning got lost. I don't remember clearly enough if the music was different, but there was something that hid the words explaining why these reputable folk weren't so. You couldn't read the words as the singing progressed because of the lighting. But would that have helped?
So was art preserved? Did the combination of piano and singer and words and music yield good art? Entertainment, surely. But did the composer accomplish what he set out to do? I'm confused here.
Last night CU's favorite baritone, Patrick Mason, sang some Rachmaninoff songs in a recital with Alexandra Nguyen on piano. There was no question of understanding anything sung -- it was all in Russian. So was Rachmaninoff's art achieved? I quickly read some of the translations, but the meaning could only be inferred by some chords, vocal lines, facial expressions and timing. Enjoyable, of course. But successful art?
I'll end with a question that's been simmering within me for years. Is vocal musical art almost always failed art? Is opera, the epitomy of vocal musical art by definition failed art?
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Two good concerts
Friday night the University of Colorado Symphony Orchestra, lead by Gary Lewis, offered its first concert for the semester. There were three works on the program, all of which tested this young orchestra and all of which were performed very well. The control and evenness of the strings impressed me. I particularly liked Daniel Kellogg's "Western Skies", musical ruminations on the Colorado landscape. Last year at one of the Pendulum Series programs (I think) another Colorado-inspired Kellogg piece was premiered and I liked it too. This was not a premiere for "Western Skies", as it been played by the National Symphony Orchestra in places as far away as Japan and Korea. It is a full orchestra, fairly loud reflection on the openness of the plains, the crystalline clearness of snowy night and the dramatic jump into the mountains. How big a jump? The lowest point in Boulder County is 4890 feet above sea level, the highest 14,255 at the top of Long's Peak. That is a 9365 feet difference in one county, 1.8 miles! Kellogg is from back east (Yale) where the horizon is always muffled by trees and more trees, so his music reflects his agoraphobic reaction to all this open space. "Western Skies" would sound wonderful if it were performed in the thundering wooden shed of Boulder's Chauttauqua Auditorium with Michael Christie leading the Colorado Music Festival.
The second half of the concert was Beethoven's "Fifth Symphony", enthusiastically played. Lewis was so energetic in his conducting that he poked his baton into the principal cellist's instrument and dropped it from the stage.
The other night a new vocal faculty member at Colorado, soprano Jennifer Bird-Arvidsson, made her local debut as part of the Faculty Tuesdays. What a stunning opening! All her selections were female roles "Speaking Her Mind". Particularly striking were two excerpts from Gounod's "Faust" where first an impressionable Marguerite sings of her beauty into a mirror, and then later pregnant bemoans her abandonment. Bird's voice was wonderful and her facial expressions outstanding. As she got into Frau Fluth's character she shot a glance at the pianist Christopher Zemliauskas that told the audience who was in control. Once again the University of Colorado as snared another terrific singer.
The second half of the concert was Beethoven's "Fifth Symphony", enthusiastically played. Lewis was so energetic in his conducting that he poked his baton into the principal cellist's instrument and dropped it from the stage.
The other night a new vocal faculty member at Colorado, soprano Jennifer Bird-Arvidsson, made her local debut as part of the Faculty Tuesdays. What a stunning opening! All her selections were female roles "Speaking Her Mind". Particularly striking were two excerpts from Gounod's "Faust" where first an impressionable Marguerite sings of her beauty into a mirror, and then later pregnant bemoans her abandonment. Bird's voice was wonderful and her facial expressions outstanding. As she got into Frau Fluth's character she shot a glance at the pianist Christopher Zemliauskas that told the audience who was in control. Once again the University of Colorado as snared another terrific singer.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
A George Crumb Celebration
The University of Colorado's Faculty Tuesdays has started up again with the beginning of the fall semester. The first two weeks featured Peter Cooper on oboe, and David Korevaar's Clavier Trio. Both concerts were good starts for the season.
Korevaar chose an interesting transcription of Arnold Schoenberg's "Verklärte Nacht" by Eduard Steuermann. I've always liked this piece but was somewhat taken back by the use of the piano. The violin (Arkady Fomin) and cello (Jesus Castro-Balbi) were too often covered by the piano that it just didn't sit right with me.
And then this week ....... A George Crumb Festival!!
Steve Bruns, Hsing-ay Hsu and Daniel Kellogg, all Colorado faculty members, coordinated four nights of the music of George Crumb to celebrate Crumb's 80Th birthday. Crumb was there each night and was warmly received by the audience, faculty and performers. Some of the scores of some of his music were posted on the walls of a reception room and aren't like anything that I could figure out. Circular staffs, clusters of chords; pointers and arrows; strange inscriptions which must mean something to someone. Typical Crumb, I suppose. At CU there were also afternoon lectures and master classes and recitals that I couldn't make but which, I'm told, were fun.
Crumb began his academic career at Colorado in the early 60s, then taught at the University of Pennsylvania until his retirement in 1999. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1968, among other international prizes. Much of his music is available on 13 CDs from Bridge records.
My first exposure to Crumb was back 8 or 9 years ago when Giora Bernstein conducted a performance of "Ancient Voices of Children" at the Colorado Music Festival. In this work a soprano sings Lorca poems into the sound box of the piano with woodwind and percussion accompaniment I liked it enough to get a CD at the time but over the years when I returned to it the sound wasn't the same. When it's a CD compared to a live performance the CD always pales.
What is Crumb's music like? He's hard to categorize but you can recognize him when you hear him -- I think. I bought several of his CDs and I'm listening to some now. While I can't say I really like it, it is mysterious and interesting.
The first night's concert saw David Korevaar perform Crumb's "Eine Kleine Mitternachtmusik" on a "well tampered-with clavier", ruminations on 'Round Midnight' by Theolonius Monk. During the week the pianists performed on a "well tampered-with clavier", a Baldwin. It was modified with a "Dampfenader" to control the damper and sustain pedals so the pianists could stand up and reach the piano's insides without worrying about the pedals.
Also on the opening Tuesday, 4 percussionists from the Colorado Symphony, Hsing-ay on piano, Patrick Mason, baritone and Julie Simpson, mezzo all coordinated by Allan McMurray did "Voices from A Forgotten World". The program stated there were over 150 percussion instruments on stage and I believe it. The songs included some familiar tunes abstracted in Crumb's way. Strangest to me was "Beautiful Dreamer" with Mason and Simpson whispering words to each other -- very memorable for some reason.
The next three nights were more Crumb -- lots of percussion; instruments played in peculiar but interesting ways; and voices whispered, shouted and often very beautiful (particularly Kristin Gornstein). While listening I sometimes wrote notes to myself of impressions of what I was hearing. Here are some in no particular order: instrumental abuse; shouts-singing-whispers; long "loud" silences; round-robin piano - 12 hands; minimalism without repeats; stand-alone sounds; missing melodies; sly inserts; lost sounds; unknowable wrong notes; piano inside and out - a real percussion instrument; tippy-tap and slam; unappetizing sounds; make believe music; endings of long silence.
Crumb has an affinity for Lorca and offers musical settings of his poetry. I've no command of Spanish, so whatever was sung meant nothing to me. Others commented to me about the same language issue. Why not have the songs in ancient Phoenician or Esperanto or some lost language from the Amazon? The communication would be the same.
I tried seeing what the Internet music streaming service Pandora "computed" for a George Crumb "station". After seeding Pandora with just George Crumb's name, it broadcast one of Crumb's "Makrokosmos" piano pieces. Pandora proceeded to then play tracks from works by Stockhausen, Bartok, Varese, Shostakovitch, Morton Feldman and Berio. I tuned it on the next night and got similar results. Crumb's music genome clearly computes to the 20Th century, but he has a distinctly voice.
Was the Crumb Festival successful? Most certainly! Concerts were all well attended, performances garnered standing ovations and everyone seemed to be smiling when they left. I'm glad I went and congratulate the school of music at CU for tackling an ambitious project like this.
Korevaar chose an interesting transcription of Arnold Schoenberg's "Verklärte Nacht" by Eduard Steuermann. I've always liked this piece but was somewhat taken back by the use of the piano. The violin (Arkady Fomin) and cello (Jesus Castro-Balbi) were too often covered by the piano that it just didn't sit right with me.
And then this week ....... A George Crumb Festival!!
Steve Bruns, Hsing-ay Hsu and Daniel Kellogg, all Colorado faculty members, coordinated four nights of the music of George Crumb to celebrate Crumb's 80Th birthday. Crumb was there each night and was warmly received by the audience, faculty and performers. Some of the scores of some of his music were posted on the walls of a reception room and aren't like anything that I could figure out. Circular staffs, clusters of chords; pointers and arrows; strange inscriptions which must mean something to someone. Typical Crumb, I suppose. At CU there were also afternoon lectures and master classes and recitals that I couldn't make but which, I'm told, were fun.
Crumb began his academic career at Colorado in the early 60s, then taught at the University of Pennsylvania until his retirement in 1999. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1968, among other international prizes. Much of his music is available on 13 CDs from Bridge records.
My first exposure to Crumb was back 8 or 9 years ago when Giora Bernstein conducted a performance of "Ancient Voices of Children" at the Colorado Music Festival. In this work a soprano sings Lorca poems into the sound box of the piano with woodwind and percussion accompaniment I liked it enough to get a CD at the time but over the years when I returned to it the sound wasn't the same. When it's a CD compared to a live performance the CD always pales.
What is Crumb's music like? He's hard to categorize but you can recognize him when you hear him -- I think. I bought several of his CDs and I'm listening to some now. While I can't say I really like it, it is mysterious and interesting.
The first night's concert saw David Korevaar perform Crumb's "Eine Kleine Mitternachtmusik" on a "well tampered-with clavier", ruminations on 'Round Midnight' by Theolonius Monk. During the week the pianists performed on a "well tampered-with clavier", a Baldwin. It was modified with a "Dampfenader" to control the damper and sustain pedals so the pianists could stand up and reach the piano's insides without worrying about the pedals.
Also on the opening Tuesday, 4 percussionists from the Colorado Symphony, Hsing-ay on piano, Patrick Mason, baritone and Julie Simpson, mezzo all coordinated by Allan McMurray did "Voices from A Forgotten World". The program stated there were over 150 percussion instruments on stage and I believe it. The songs included some familiar tunes abstracted in Crumb's way. Strangest to me was "Beautiful Dreamer" with Mason and Simpson whispering words to each other -- very memorable for some reason.
The next three nights were more Crumb -- lots of percussion; instruments played in peculiar but interesting ways; and voices whispered, shouted and often very beautiful (particularly Kristin Gornstein). While listening I sometimes wrote notes to myself of impressions of what I was hearing. Here are some in no particular order: instrumental abuse; shouts-singing-whispers; long "loud" silences; round-robin piano - 12 hands; minimalism without repeats; stand-alone sounds; missing melodies; sly inserts; lost sounds; unknowable wrong notes; piano inside and out - a real percussion instrument; tippy-tap and slam; unappetizing sounds; make believe music; endings of long silence.
Crumb has an affinity for Lorca and offers musical settings of his poetry. I've no command of Spanish, so whatever was sung meant nothing to me. Others commented to me about the same language issue. Why not have the songs in ancient Phoenician or Esperanto or some lost language from the Amazon? The communication would be the same.
I tried seeing what the Internet music streaming service Pandora "computed" for a George Crumb "station". After seeding Pandora with just George Crumb's name, it broadcast one of Crumb's "Makrokosmos" piano pieces. Pandora proceeded to then play tracks from works by Stockhausen, Bartok, Varese, Shostakovitch, Morton Feldman and Berio. I tuned it on the next night and got similar results. Crumb's music genome clearly computes to the 20Th century, but he has a distinctly voice.
Was the Crumb Festival successful? Most certainly! Concerts were all well attended, performances garnered standing ovations and everyone seemed to be smiling when they left. I'm glad I went and congratulate the school of music at CU for tackling an ambitious project like this.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Right angled tracks
I was listening to Pandora last night, using it's Quick Mix amalgamation of my play list selections. The apparent legal requirement to play only tracks of unrelated music can lead to horrible results. Pandora selected an orchestral piece by Elliot Carter, an atonal disjointed murky piece of music. Then, without a second's break, an equally dissonant contemporary piece by Gregory Kurtag was next. The mathematical similarity between the two pieces, based on some distance function calculation of music content, was obvious. But the musical clash to the ear was jolting -- I really, really objected to the immediate right angled turn. I wasn't really aware it was Carter and Kurtag, but the abrupt clash forced me to figure it out and to think about it. Yuch! I turned off Pandora.
I switched my "chumby" to listening to WQXR in New York. When I lived in Connecticut it was my favorite station, the "voice of the new york times". listened nightly to good music, played in its entirety with entertaining announcers commenting appropriately. It was a first class operation.
When I first connected to WQXR, Haydn's "Farewell" symphony was about finished. The announcer made a few cute remarks about it and then signed off. And then it was just music -- unannounced music -- complete music -- but unknown music. I guessed (correctly as it turned out) that it was guitar concerto by Rodrigo, but why was nobody saying anything? After about 25 minutes it ended with someone saying "check out our online play list to identify the piece you've just heard". Wonderful. Big media's economic problems manifest themselves on WQXR by eliminating the personal touch. Now, at the stroke of midnight the station seems to go on autopilot, playing music from a play list with occasional recorded fragments telling the listener to go to a web site to check out the play list and figure out what was being played. If that isn't a crock! The city that never sleeps now is entertained by an automaton. So much for the state of classical music on the radio and the Internet.
I switched my "chumby" to listening to WQXR in New York. When I lived in Connecticut it was my favorite station, the "voice of the new york times". listened nightly to good music, played in its entirety with entertaining announcers commenting appropriately. It was a first class operation.
When I first connected to WQXR, Haydn's "Farewell" symphony was about finished. The announcer made a few cute remarks about it and then signed off. And then it was just music -- unannounced music -- complete music -- but unknown music. I guessed (correctly as it turned out) that it was guitar concerto by Rodrigo, but why was nobody saying anything? After about 25 minutes it ended with someone saying "check out our online play list to identify the piece you've just heard". Wonderful. Big media's economic problems manifest themselves on WQXR by eliminating the personal touch. Now, at the stroke of midnight the station seems to go on autopilot, playing music from a play list with occasional recorded fragments telling the listener to go to a web site to check out the play list and figure out what was being played. If that isn't a crock! The city that never sleeps now is entertained by an automaton. So much for the state of classical music on the radio and the Internet.
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