A friend's question

A good friend, after a concert, posed a question to me: "How is it that you do not listen to other types: (jazz- there are all varieties, oldies - 40's through the 70s, modern contemporary, new age, religious, country and blues, etc. etc.)? It seems to me that these various genres include many selections that overlap parts of the classical music spectrum." In a nutshell, why classical above all else?

Like all things, we start somewhere and live on through it -- such was the case with music. In recalling my early musical experiences, I'm reminded of three things: symphonic music shorts at the movies; accordion lessons and my teacher Mr. Williams. When I went alone to movies for the first time, way back in the 50's, theaters showed short clips other than ads for popcorn and coming attractions. There were cartoons, news reels, and sometimes concert performances. They weren't long, but I distinctly remember watching the magnificence of a conductor in front of a large orchestra and the final amazing clash of the cymbals. I really liked that. My parents cleverly decided that the cymbals weren't the way to go, so off to Keyboard Studios where I took accordion lessons for many years. I learned to read music, perform it poorly, and develop a sense of what went where. Fast music was more fun, slow was sad, loud didn't go with slow and the right hand needed to cooperate with left. Then along came Mr. Williams, our music teacher in high school. A somewhat strange looking fellow that some kids teased, he exposed us to the classics, choral music, "musicals" and band. Since playing the accordion in the band was frowned on, I skipped that part now wishing I hadn't. He was dedicated and with a passion for what was "art" and what was "right" -- not just classical music, but singing on key and acting the role properly - no messing around. He was devoted, as best I can remember, to the 3 B's, and that became my first real exposure to the giants. I've always held Grieg and Khachaturian close because I played "In the hall of the Mountain King" and "Sabre Dance" fairly well, but fast, on the accordion.

So my youthful experience lead to me thinking more about music. I grew up in the 50 and 60's, so I heard Elvis, Rickie Nelson, Fats Domino and the Beatles. I listened and danced to folk and rock 'n roll stations like other normal kids. But one night, on a date, a rock announcer completely mispronounced Wagner's name and "Siegfried's Idyll". I knew better, so why ever trust them again? Rock's credibility was blown. I made money delivering papers and saved enough to buy a used component stereo system, so next the challenge was to buy records. My first purchase was Stravinsky's "Petrouchka", though I can't now imagine why. I would stand in the middle of my small narrow bedroom and blare it out and pretend to conduct it. That was, I believe, the start of my continuing kinetic reaction to music -- absorb it but play it and conduct it and feel it. Over time I collected many records, mostly "classical", but a sprinkling of the Kingston Trio, Joni Mitchell, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Dave Brubeck, the Beatles, Ahmad Jamal, Harry Belafonte, Ramsey Lewis and many others, some known and some not. This small writing exercise somehow makes me want to listen again to some, but old scratchy LP's are all I've got. When I google some I find them, but it's not satisfying. I found Ahmad Jamal's Trio performing "Poinciana", but it's definitely not what I remember. It is why I don't appreciate about jazz -- the lack of repeatability and dependence. To me much of what I tend of ignore in music is improvisational and not repeatable. Composers composed. They wrote down what they wanted to say and offered the performers guidelines. For me the art and the emotion and the reaction is in the performance of well composed music. That's not to say that jazz and rock and folk and country isn't well-done, to me it's just not what I like.

In remembering Mr Williams, it occurs to me that I can be influenced by other's suggestions. My college music instructor, Larry McIlvain, introduced me to a lot of new music: German lied, Benjamin Britten, Olivier Messiaen and string quartets. I've enjoyed books by the current critic for The New Yorker, Alex Ross. His latest, "Listen to This" had some interesting chapters on musicians that I ignored. He writes about Radiohead and about Björk. Okay, I said, if he found them interesting I'll try them. Our resident violist, Rachael Gibson, shared some Radiohead and also recommended Sigur Rós. YouTube had some Björk. I guess I can see why some people (make that many of people) like them, but they really don't appeal to me. Listen once or twice, then forget. Listen once to Mahler or Beethoven or "The Ring" or even Arvo Pärt and you don't want to forget. You want to hear it again and again and again.

I'm not sure that fully answers the question, but it's a start.

Restarting in 2011

Silence is golden. Actually here it's been activity and lethargy, running hot and cold, and finally motivation. I haven't written anything since early October and I'm overdue.

It's not that I've been missing concerts. During the fall and early winter I continued to do my thing and listen to the Boulder Philharmonic, the Colorado Symphony, the CU Faculty Tuesdays, the CU Pendulum concerts, the Takacs String Quartet, the Boulder Chamber Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera simulcasts, a few student recitals and an occasional single performance here in Boulder. I just never wrote about any of them because I was busy, busy, busy. At least that's my excuse.

So the new year is here and I'll start afresh. I recently attended the CSO's performance of Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony with Michael Daugherty's “Time Machine”. The later was fun watching 3 separate orchestras respond to 3 different conductors, simultaneously synchronized together. While normally a fan of contemporary compositions, the first movement didn't do much for me, but “Future”, the second movement got me going.

Takacs kicked off 2011 with 2 Haydn quartets and Smetana's “From My Life”. Haydn's “Apponyi” quartets were fairly late (1793) but didn't send me into ecstasy. The Smetana did!

Last night Erika Eckert, Associate Professor of Viola at the University of Colorado's Boulder campus, mesmerized the audience with her “The True Nature of Things” faculty performance. Playing sometimes with others, sometime with electronics and computer synthesis and finally with an overtone singer, the program was extremely entertaining. Kudos to Erika for providing such an entertaining evening.

Two pieces in particular stood out: “At Rome around Jovian Moons” a collaboration between Erika and Paul Rudy and “Down the Stream” another cooperative effort with “throat singer” Paul Fowler. The combination of the viola with Fowler's harmonic singing/whistling, with visual cues and student percussions and rain sticks made for an enjoyable end to a fun concert. Coincidentally I recently bought Shostakovich's “Odna (Alone)” film music which features an overtone singer in one section.

I also want to mention a TV program on Glenn Gould that I saw a few weeks back. Gould, a favorite of mine, was featured in depth with many interviews and a lot of Bach. I was surprised at the program's end that the cover music for the credits wasn't Bach but instead Wagner's “Siegfried's Idyll”. I was curious and tracked down on Amazon two versions of “Idyll” involving Gould: one with him conducting and one playing a transcription. The TV special emphasized that Gould did things “his way” and this carried over into the “Idyll”. His "Idyll" is 24:31 minutes long with orchestra, and a gorgeous 23:35 on piano. As a comparison, Bahman Saless conducted the Boulder Chamber Orchestra in a speedier 20:21, but slow compared to a version by Roger Norrington who zips along at 16:19. a mere 10 seconds slower than Toscanini's 16:09. I've listened to them all repeatedly one afternoon and it's the piano transcription hands down.

Some past concerts

This is just a quick comment on some concerts past, including one last night.

I only went to 2 performances by the Colorado Music Festival. Their programming hasn't appealed to me since they switched focus to world music. Their Wagner evening, essentially "The Ring without Words" with some Tristan, featured Jane Eaglen. It was fine though the audience was surprisingly small for such a great singer. I heard her sing Brunnhilde at the Seattle Opera's Ring in 2000 and 2005. The CMF season ended with Mahler's 5th, well played but strangely paired with a piece of aboriginal chant, electric guitar and didgeridoo. World music, indeed.

The University of Colorado has cut back on it's summer music offerings this year, probably for budgetary reasons. However, that didn't prevent them from two operatic offerings, one of which I missed. The one I did attend though, "The Autumn Orchard" by Dan Kellogg with words by Michael Martinez, was very good. This is apparently Kellogg's first venture into opera. I've heard a bunch of his vocal music including "Arise my love" and some selections from Ben, but I wasn't sure how he would handle the solo voice. He did fine. It's a chamber opera, with 5 singers accompanied by piano, in this case Robert Spillman. It's nicely packaged and was well sung. One thing did strike me as odd. When the lovers are physically together, they didn't sing together -- they sing to each other. However, when they are separated, he in jail and she at home, they sing a duet. A spiritual thing, I guess.

When the university resumed the fall session, I started back into my weekly trips to the newly renovated Grusin Hall in the Imig music building for the Faculty Tuesdays. My first exposure to the changes was a concert of bassoon and piano. I thought the sound was a bit harsh to my ears, but later concerts, have changed my mind. While the cover for this year's programs features the new stage with drapes across the back, it's always been barren, so I've nothing to compare it with. Other listeners that I've talked to are quite satisfied, so I'm not going to worry.

Over the past few weeks I've heard the Boulder Philharmonic do an okay Beethoven's 3rd Symphony; heard the University of Colorado's Symphony Orchestra also do Beethoven's 3rd; and heard the Boulder Chamber Orchestra with Andrew Cooperstock perform Beethoven's 3rd Piano Concerto. Lot's of Thirds. Attendance at the CU student performances is up this year now that music appreciation students must attend a certain number of concerts and proving their attendance electronically with a "clicker". With the exception of one rude student texting through a whole symphony, the young audience was well behaved, and, hopefully, appreciated the performance.

The Takács quartet started their season with the welcome return of Karoly Schranz, just recovered from shoulder surgery. Their performance of Shostakovich's 2nd Quartet sent shivers through the audience. Ed Dusinberre's violin sang plaintively against the other's drone-like lament. I had prepared for this concert with a cursory listening to the Shostakovich, but nothing prepared me for the real thing. This has been my musical highlight of the fall thus far.

Margaret McDonald is Assistant Professor of Collaborative Piano at CU. So we had a collaborative pianist collaborating with a collaborative pianist from UC-Santa Barbara, Natasha Kislenko. Piano 6 hands, piano 4 hands and two pianos -- such great fun, particularly the Poulenc Sonata for Two Pianos.

The night after McDonald's concert the Stockhausen 2010 series started the CU Pendulum New Music program. I wrote about it earlier and I'm still scratching my head over it.

Last night a young and attractive Chinese pianist Di Wu re-introduced me to the French Impressionists: Debussy and Ravel. Each year the Takács programming introduces other artists, mostly other young string quartets. This year it was Di Wu, a pianist with amazing technique. I was seated forward and on the far left and had a great view of her hands flying over the keyboard. She performed Debussy's Preludes, Book 2 and, for comparison, Ravel's "Miroirs". I've always favored DeBussy's piano composition versus Ravel's piano music, though Ravel's is the better orchestrator. Now I'm not sure. Wu's "Le vale de cloches" ending the Ravel was phenomenal. Her fingers flew so quickly and surely it amazed me. Great concert.

You can't blink.

After a summer's slumber, I've finally gotten back to my blog. I'm taking a leap forward to the present and will later comment on some earlier concerts, but today I finished my attendance at the University of Colorado's Pendulum series “Stockhausen 2010”. I missed one concert and a colloquium, but attended three events, all surprisingly fun.

Stockhausen isn't in my music collection anywhere. I've known about him and Varese and Cage and others like them, but never had an affinity for them. Alex Ross, in “The Rest is Noise” relates him to the Darmstadt's hypermodern musical scene and comments on Gruppen and Licht and generally views him as important.

I went to the first concert not really knowing what to expect. A Stockhausen piano specialist, Frank Gutschmidt, played two pieces from 2005/6, “Natürliche Dauern” 10 and 15, the first played with 4 bells on his right hand, tinkling along wonderfully on all the high fast notes. Then a John Cage piece was performed (twisted, cranked, turned) on 12 radios by 24 performers. By pure coincidence, Alex Ross just this week had an article in the New Yorker, "Searching for Silence" on John Cage and commented on “Imaginary Landscapes No. 4”, the self-same piece. Talking of Cage's development, Ross says “As randomness took over, so did noise.” He'll get no argument for me on that.

The first concert ended with a 16 minute Stockhausen piece “Komet” performed by percussionist Stuart Gerber, striking a variety of instruments and somehow summoning various tracks he had earlier sampled. Fun but perplexing, I guess.

I missed one concert when I succumbed to Beethoven and Mozart, but more on that at another time.

I set aside Sunday afternoon for in-depth Stockhausen. Karlheinz Stockhausen, who died in 2007, used Bryan Wolf for 10 years as his personal sound engineer. Wolf, in his spatialization demonstration, described the technical content of the works for the later concert, explaining the evolution of the sounds and technology and playing short bursts of samples. I was puzzled by the comments of the “taped” sounds, but after the concert asked Wolf who clarified that all the sounds were from 24-bit WAV files.

Then the concert. Since much of it, attended by 150 people, was performed by the electronic music in the dark, we all quickly learned about the unintended consequences of the law. Exit signs must be lighted at all times, even if it destroys the environment for art – I had to shut my eyes to avoid the glare. In the dark, a small moonlike projection up front should have been the only thing to focus on, as Alex Ross's New Yorker article mentions that Cage used too. Oh well.

A small ensemble played “Kreuzspiel”, an early Stockhausen piece. Christina Jennings performed “Flautina” from 1989 on flute, piccolo and alto flute, commendably of course. The final work, all 32 minutes of it, was “Cosmic Pulses” from 2007, a selection from Stockhausen's unfinished Klang cycle. As explained by Wolf at the earlier lecture it had 241 musical loops of sound circling the audience on 8 high tech speakers in the Atlas Black Box auditorium. Loud, complex and appealing with a final coda of high and low frequencies ending in silence.

So what does all of this amount to musically? I'm not sure. Generally it seemed unemotional and without consequence, just pure sound. Interesting? Yes. Would I want to hear it again? Yes, I've actually just listened to “Cosmic Pulses” again, after a few clicks on Last.fm. My wife came down, listened for a few minutes and then scurried away, so I guess it wasn't to her liking. While listening during the concert I noticed something about my reaction to this music. I'm a kinetic listener – my foot bounces, my fingers play along, my head bobs and weaves. With Stockhausen, I was frozen and still -- that has to say something.

As to this blog's title, again while sitting in the dark and absorbing all these loud and strange and changing sounds, it dawned on me that you can't blink. When the sun shines brightly in your eyes, you blink. There nothing physically equivalent when you listen. I think Stockhausen makes you blink.

Shared denouements

Mahler's 5th Symphony, for some reason, seems to be a favorite final piece for a conductor leaving his post. This past Sunday my wife and I heard Jeffrey Kahane lead the Colorado Symphony Orchestra in rousing and emotional performance of the 5th. While the CSO had performed it on Friday and Saturday, Sunday's was Kahane's valedictory performance as the Music Director for the CSO. At the end, the large crowd sprang to their feet, cheering, whistling and applauding Kahane's tenure.

In the summer of 1999, Giora Bernstein also chose to end his career as the Music Director of Colorado Music Festival, in Boulder, with a performance of Mahler's 5th. Giora was the founder of CMF and it's conductor and music director for over 20 years. He was a fan of Mahler and Brahms, Beethoven, Bach and Mozart. Giora was adventuresome, once programming the long Bruckner's 8th, Chavez's 1st Symphony, and George Crumb's "Ancient Voices of Children". I was always mystified as to why Giora chose to end with Mahler's 5th.

Mahler's 5th is a long piece, with a beautiful and familiar "Adagietto", with a glorious and happy ending. But it's the ending that puzzles me the most. It's not as grand or as overwhelming as the 2nd or 3rd. The strings slide upward to a brass minor chord and bass drum thump, then a full orchestral chord and another thump. I don't know why, but that last 15 seconds always seems to me as if Mahler was thumbing his nose. I hope neither Giora or Jeffrey Kahane felt that way.

In mentioning the "Adagietto" I'm also reminded of my growing displeasure with our local "classical" music station, KVOD. Many months ago they switched frequencies and lost most of Boulder listeners who couldn't receive their signal. Now, KVOD is also broadcasting on another frequency that comes in stronger, sometimes. But it's not their signal I'm concerned about but the content. Colorado Public Radio, CPR, was always somewhat of a "kitch" classical music provider. Play popular and short, ignore the challenging and long. Now, I've noticed that they are at times only broadcasting individual movements of longer works of art. They would broadcast Mahler's "Adagietto" but not the whole 5th symphony. A few weeks back they played one movement from Elgar's "Enigma Variations". So would it really be a variation? You couldn't say "Enigma Variation" (singular) since a variation assumes a base for comparison. No base, no comparison, no variation. I guess it should have been announced as Elgar's "Interesting piece of music". Bah!

I wonder if there has been some change of commercial broadcasting rights? Perhaps copyright enforcers now limit over-the-air transmissions to individual tracks, as they do on internet radio stations. If so, this is desceration of art, legally enforced.

Since I'm complaining, I'll also return to an annoyance about the Colorado Music Festival and their web site. The site is decent enough but I was unable to find any reference to Giora Bernstein, their founder and music director for over 20 years. A shameful omission.

Boulder MahlerFest XXII

The Boulder MahlerFest has just concluded its 22nd festival, a remarkable achievement. Congratulations to the festival board and good luck to the new president, Barry Knapp.

This past Wednesday night Jennifer Bird-Arvidsson and Patrick Mason collaborated with Mutsumi Motoki in a selection of late Romantic songs, two by Mahler. I heard Bird-Arvidsson earlier this year at one of the university faculty concerts and she is just wonderful, a great addition to CU. Her rendition of Mahler's "Ging heut morger übers Feld" was perfect. Mason, too, was in top form. I had to laugh with him singing Hansel in a duet from Humperdinck's fairy-tale opera, normally sung by a mezzo. The final Delius "Prelude and Idyll", though, was a bit tedious.

On Saturday night and again on Sunday afternoon, the full Mahlerfest Orchestra, all 102 members strong, performed the Third Symphony, . I've always like the third a bit less than the second, "Resurrection", but now I'm not so sure. Robert Olson conducted with a pace and passion that sometimes brought me upright in my seat, particularly in the middle of the 6th movement. Julie Simpson's "O Mensch!" was spot on. The Boulder Chorale was very good, along with the combined Boulder Children's Chorale and Niwot Treble Choir with their bells of "Bimm, Bamm".

In both performances I was drawn to the trombonist John Neurohr. He's a big fellow and was in complete control of his phrasing and intonation. I was very impressed as was the audience who responded noticeably louder when Olson pointed to him during the applause. We also liked the principal trumpet, Doug Reneau, beautifully playing off-stage solos in the third movement. Maestro Olson brought both players to the front to share the standing ovation, something you rarely see. Annamarie Karacson (violin), Charles Lee (cello) and all the horns also deserve special notice.

Mahler used off-stage bands in the second symphony and here in the third, a single trumpet. Only a live performance can give the listener an appreciation of these subtle little performance enhancements. Recorded music just fails to do this, I'm afraid.

My wife and I heard the evening performance down on the main floor of the auditorium. Sunday I went up into the balcony and had a better, more complete view of the orchestra and choirs. Since I could see better, for some reason I seem to hear better. I guess it's me but when I can see a musician play, I seem to receive the sound better. Sunday's overall performance was better, to me.

I've got tickets to more Mahler this summer, in Denver with the CSO and the Colorado Music Festival here in Boulder. Both are Mahler's 5th Symphony, a bit of musical redundancy. Too bad local orchestras ignore what others schedule.

I ended to soon!

In my last post I commented about the end of the University of Colorado student year and the wealth of music that each semester brings. I guess I hurried to much and forgot some. Since one student observed that I missed a good one, I thought it best to "catch up" and correct my mistake.

Over a three night period last weekend I heard 3 performances over at the University: A DMA recital, the CU Opera and the Boulder Phil. Then last week I heard the CU Orchestra reprise of their CU at Boetcher concert and last night I heard the final Takacs String Quartet performance. I really was a bit early in ending the semester.

While I normally don't attend a lot of student solo recitals, I attended this one with my wife and a friend because a young Canadian violist, Rachael Gibson, has been living with us this year. Rachael is a member of the Altamira String Quartet, along with Oscar Soler, violin, Kahyee Lee, violin and Clayton Vaughn, cello. The quartet performed Schumann's E-flat Piano Quintet with Eneida Larti, who was presenting her Doctor of Musical Arts Recital. Ms. Larti also performed two other Schumann pieces. one with cello and one with violin. While normally not a big Schumann fan, all three were performed with great student zest and were well received.

Zest and enthusiasm was about all on display for the Friday night performance of "Our Town". Thorton Wilder wrote this famous stage work back in the 30ths and just recently Ned Rorem wrote an opera based on the play. I remember seeing the play back in college and have a mental image of a blank stage and two stepladders. The CU music school faithfully confirmed that image. My wife had read the play with woman she is tutoring, so I also could check to see the words were faithfully sung unchanged. The student performers were in top form, particularly Sarah Gilbert as Emily and John Lindsey as the Stage Manager. Unfortunately as an opera, though, it did little for me. Perhaps it's lack of familiarity contributed to my reaction, but there just didn't seem to me to have any musical appeal. While I normally enjoy contemporary opera, this one left me cold. A few years ago CU did Poulenc's "Les Mamelles de Tirésias", also somewhat stark and surreal. It, too, just didn't give me much music to latch onto. Oh well, next year we get the musical "Carousel", Carlisle Floyd's "Susannah" and Bernstein's "Mass"; a musical, an opera and a work for stage. I hope this doesn't mean that CU is moving away from an opera repertoire.

This summer, running in its austerity mode, CU has cut the normal musical offerings. When I first came to Colorado in the middle of the eighties, Gilbert and Sullivan ruled. The famous patter tenor John Reed sang and directed many of the famous ones. Wits at the music school "localized" some of the famous songs bringing local Boulder into the middle of Japan or jolly old England. It was all great fun. That said, there will be some "Opera Scenes" offered mid-summer, featuring composers Robert Altridge, Herschel Garfein and Daniel Kellogg.

Daniel Kellogg is on the CU composing faculty and one of his works was opening music for the Boulder Philharmonic's final season concert. Dan spoke a few words about "Rush" from the stage, amusingly commenting it was from his "early" period and detailed his emotions of sitting in a car in big city traffic. That little insight made the music more enjoyable and I could transport myself to those same frustrating emotions.

Following Kellogg's piece was "Rainbow Body" by Christopher Theofanidis, in town from Yale for the performance. Conductor Michael Butterman did a neat thing by broadcasting a short snippet of the main theme of "Rainbow Body" as was originally written by Hildegard von Bingen during the 12th century. This fairly short 6 or 7 note chant stayed in my mind as Theofanidis's work was performed. It returned many times, beautifully orchestrated. I was going to order a CD of it, but Amazon was out of stock. I've got to hear that one again.

The Boulder Phil's performance ended with a rousing "Carima Burana". What more could you ask for? A large orchestra, lots of percussion, a huge chorus, a cute children's choir and 3 distinguished singers. I've heard "Carmina" live eight or ten times now, even in the two-piano version, and it never fails to please. I've got a friend who said "Oh, I've heard that one before so I don't need to hear it again." Sheesh! I've seen the Mona Lisa once, so there's no need to look at it again, I guess. The tenor William Parsons sang the roasted swan, and Dennis Jesse sang the baritone voicewell, but it was soprano Mary Wilson who impressed me most. In the ending, she put down her music and sang beautifully above everyone. The crowd sprang to its feet applauding the singers, the orchestra, the conductor and the end of a good Boulder Phil season.

Mid-week we went to the CU Orchestra's final semester performance. It had been performed the night before in Denver to a decently sized audience at Boettcher. The concert was only two works: Beethoven's "Choral Fantasy for Piano, Chorus and Orchestra" and Mahler's First Symphony, both conducted by Gary Lewis. The large chorus had a minor mishap and a few soprano's left the stage before the singing actually began. David Korevaar played flawlessly but the audience responded strangely with only a luke-warm reception. The Choral Fantasy was where Beethoven first introduced the major theme used to end his Ninth Symphony, so perhaps the audience wasn't expecting to hear it. Maybe the audience expected it to continue, but while they warmly applauded, then didn't stand as had been the case in Denver the night before, as reported to me by Rachael. After intermission, a larger CU orchestra did a fine job on the Mahler. The pace was a little slow at times, but this long early symphony was greeted with a well-deserved reaction from the audience.

Last night the Takacs, with Lina Bahn substituting for the recuperating Karoly Schranz, played late Beethoven. It must have been exhausting for the quartet to play two full concerts hours apart, but their playing was effortless and the audience responded with rousing applause. They played the last quartet, Opus 135 to open the concert and ended it with The B-flat Major, Opus 130. Displaying their virtuosity, the Takacs chose the "Grosse Fuge", the original last movement of the 130. It's often played by itself and is Beethoven as his most complex. I enjoy it yet find my mind often trapped into thinking of the "wrong next note".

Between the Beethoven, the Takacs programmed "A Cool Wind" by the New Zealander John Psathas. Ed Dusinberre commented about the piece from the stage, explaining that Psathas crafted it based on music for the duduk, an Armenian double reed instrument said to be one of the oldest in the world. He explained that it was played with limited intervals, so the string writing does so. Ed humorously said he couldn't really find any "happy sounds" during his searchings on YouTube. The quartet played it fairly soulfully and I wasn't certain if I liked it or not, but as it progressed I changed to favoring it. It's one of those pieces that requires a second hearing. Lina Bahn's solo ending it was wonderful.

Now maybe the spring season of music is over.

Ending the student year

It's about the end of the school year at the University of Colorado. Within the next few weeks exams start and then they leave, blessing Boulder with a more quiet environment. Unfortunately that also means the end of the faculty and student recitals. Summer will bring the Colorado Music Festival back, but their season, once the highlight of my summer, has been dismally broken with crappy world music and miserable programming.

Last week I heard 3 concerts, two at CU. First was a performance of the Colorado Symphony in Denver with Ralph Kirschbaum in Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1. It was sterling performance and he really drew me into the long cadenza which separates the second and last movements. The CSO admirably played Dvorak's "From the New World", with the anticipated audience reaction. Kirschbaum apparently also held a master class at CU later in the week.

The Pendulum series at CU has always been one of my favorites, where students and faculty have new works introduced by various players from the music school. This time a guest group, "The Playground Ensemble", was featured in two separate works by graduate students Anthony Green and Leanna Kirchoff. A frequent complaint of mine has been the diction of the singers. Even when singing in English and singing something as familiar as the Gettysburg Address, I just have a hard time making out the words. As a result, the art suffers.

What surprised me most at this Pendulum performance was a piece performed by Hunter Ewan. A graduate student and frequent participant in Pendulum, Ewan performed his own composition "Ohi'a and Lehua" on alto saxophone wired into a system which manipulated and synthesized play back. He controlled it with a foot pedal and got very interesting results. I couldn't help but think that music like this would make good movie background music.

Finally, I attended a performance by Oscar Soler, violin and Clayton Vaughn, cello doing their DMA chamber recital. They first performed Ravel's Sonata for Cello and Violin, a work I've never heard. It was very well played. Then they were joined by Kahyee Lee, violin and Rachel Gibson, viola to form the Altamira String Quartet. Rachel has been living with us this past year and I try to follow her performances and her quartet. The quartet did two, now fairly familiar works: Bartok's Second Quartet and Haydn's Op 76 No 1. Somewhat to my surprise I enjoyed the Bartok more. As I told them later, they really hit a home run in the second movement. Crisp, snappy and perfect.

I'll probably not contribute much more to this blog until the fall season starts again. I think I've got a Boulder Phil performance of Carmina Burana coming up, but little else. It's a good thing that I've got a large collection of MP3s to keep me happy.

Some Prokofiev

Over the year I've really grown fond of Prokofiev. "Kije" and "Nevsky", "Three Oranges", 2 string quartets and 5 wonderful piano concertos. I've put two of his ballets, "Romeo and Juliet" and "Cinderella", on one of my mp3 players and listen to them as I ski -- it's seems to help my rhythm sometimes. So it was a good week when I heard two of his works in two different concerts.

Ending the University of Colorado's "Music Faculty Tuesdays" was Margaret McDonald, the Assistant Professor of Collaborative Piano. I guess we used to call them accompanists, but now collaborative pianist is the preferred and more accurate term. Dr. McDonald appears quit frequently with other CU faculty, but this time she was the center of attraction. She performed the "Seven Popular Spanish Song" by de Falla with mezzo Julie Simpson; two Schumann pieces with Michael Thornton, horn and alternating with Dan Silver, clarinet and Judith Glyde, cello. The clarinet and cello took turns collaborating, an interesting idea. Christina Jennings got me going, though, in Prokofiev's "Sonata in D Major". McDonald commented before each work what instruments were paired with the piano. I've heard the Prokofiev with violin, so it was exciting to hear it with flute, which is normally not one of my favorite instruments.

Last night Prokofiev's Second Violin Concerto was performed by Lindsay Deutsch with the Boulder Chamber Orchestra, Bahman Saless conducting. I must admit that I was a bit apprehensive about it because it's reputed to be a complicated piece for all involved. Deutsch and Saless pulled it off successfully. I'm tempted to go again tonight, but we have Japanese guests so I can't. Deutsch seemed to play effortlessly and with joy and the larger-than-normal orchestra responded.

The concert began with the premiere of Saless's own "Tango Variations for Violin and Orchestra". Saless apparently wrote the piece with Lindsay Deutsch in mind and it was a success. The audience responded very positively to this new, highly accessible set of variations on an old Nat King Cole theme "Nature Boy". Interestingly, my own reaction to the variations was that it would have been more interesting if it had a different theme. However, I did recognize the theme as it recurred and tangoed. My wife, on the other hand, said she didn't recognize the theme at all, but enjoyed how it all fit together anyway. Let's hope Saless gets his new composition performed again.

Music and murder

I went to the St. Patrick's day performance of the Boulder Phil the other night. Too bad I had to miss one of the university's Pendulum Series, but Angela Cheng's playing of Chopin's Second Piano Concerto was something I didn't want to miss. She has always been a favorite here and she didn't disappoint. Conductor Michael Butterman also showed great initiative in selecting Andrej Panufnik's "Hommage à Chopin" to precede Ms Cheng. Audiences need to be exposed to more than just the old war horses and this one fit the bill -- accessible and lyrical.

Earlier my wife and I went to the university's performance of "Don Giovanni". The students always amaze me with their professionalism and vocal capabilities. The graduate student Wei Wu, in particular, was outstanding as Leporello.

Something missing in Boulder. though, are reviews and previews of classical music in the local paper, the "Daily Daguerreotype", née "Camera". Granted main stream media is having some difficulties in the Internet age, but if they can pay staff to put together several weeks worth of agonizing detail about a local murderer and his victims, you would hope that management could find a few pennies to promote art locally. Nah! No money in it. Anyway, if the school systems continue to eliminate music in the schools, why worry?

A busy musical week

Over that last 8 days I've attended 6 concerts -- such is the wealth of music in Boulder and at the University of Colorado.

First was the CU student orchestra under Gary Lewis, with Mozart, the "Three Cornered Hat" and "Til Eulenspiegel". I enjoyed Lewis's quick overview of the themes and settings from "Til", though the violist living with us complained it was like playing the whole thing twice. The concert ended with an interest piece by contemporary composer Arturo Marquez "Danzon No 2".

Next night, Saturday, was a performance by this year's Graduate String Quartet-in-Residence, the Tesla Quartet. They studying with the world famous Takacs Quartet at CU and consist of Ross Snyder, Xian Meng, Kimberly Patterson and Megan Mason. It was a busy two nights for Xian and Megan, who the night before performed the Mozart Symphonia Concertante. This night they did Beethoven's Opus 18, No. 6, Bartok's No. 2 and Smetana's "From My Life". Bartok I can leave or take -- it just doesn't do anything for me. The Smetana was my favorite that night, particularly the sedate second movement.

Sunday night my wife and I went to the Boulder Phil's Spanish Valentines day concert. No Spanish composers, mind you, but a Capriccio, Symphony, and Rhapsody -- all of the "Espagnole" flavor. Music of Rimsky-Korsakov, Lalo and Ravel respectively. The Lalo was wonderfully played by Jennifer Frautschi. Several people commented about the sound she got from her violin, which apparently is a Strad. The conductor, Michael Butterman ended the concert with a 10 -- Ravel's "Bolero". It's a fun piece and the audience responded, but I think that Butterman should have placed the snare drummer in front where the audience could see her (Hiroko Hellyer). I've seen several performances of Bolero and it's been fun watching the performer start with a muffled drum, typically a cloth covering over the head of the drum. As the music progresses, at one point they need to keep cadence but swiftly remove the cloth. It seems hard to do and is easy to miss if you don't know that it's going to happen.

I took a two night break, missing some additional opportunities at CU, but started back up on Wednesday night with the CU Pendulum series of contemporary music. This series has always been a favorite of mine, though it has it's ups and downs. Unfortunately this time was pretty much a down. Perhaps it was the longish jazz piece by Liz Comninellis that got me off on the wrong foot, but nothing that night really appealed to me. During two of the pieces I kept wondering about the distinction between sound and music. The sounds were interesting, but was it music? I'm not sure it was, though the effort was valiant. The new professor of musical entrepreneurism, Jeffry Nytch, performed his own new composition with Michael Dunn on tuba. Nytch is a countertenor, which has always been somewhat off-putting to me. I just couldn't understand the words, so it all went over my head, no pun intended.

The following night I was back at CU at Mackey Auditorium for the Artist Series. Pianist Haochen Zhang absolutely floored the audience. He is not yet 20, but has already won the prestigious Van Cliburn competition. What talent! He tenderly treated Mozart, Brahms, Chopin and Schumann, then savagely attacked Stravinsky's "Petrushka" The orchestral version of "Petrushka" was the very first record I purchased back in the late 50's, with Pierre Monteaux conducting. As a kid I'd stand in the middle of my small bedroom and "conduct" the music, always annoying my mom. I still have the record, but really no way to play it anymore. The piano version just seems to have a lot more notes and Zhang played with a speed and intensity that was amazing. He had to have an extra finger or two on each hand to make that much sound. He's one to watch.

Finally, on Friday night, I attended the Boulder Chamber Orchestra's chamber music mini-concert, the "BCO Musicians and Friends". I was fortunately sitting next to Kelly Dean Hansen, a local music reviewer and PhD student at CU. Kelly had brought the scores for two of the night's pieces, Dvorak's "Five Bagatelles" and the Brahm Piano Quartet No. 3., so I watched both the scores and the performers. What a treat to see the music in all it's complexity and to hear it as happens. I've got several scores at home and I sometime follow a recording of a Beethoven quartet or, choke-choke, one of Wagner's "Ring" operas. If you've never tried it, give it a whirl because you sometime will see something that you hadn't heard before.

I'm really glad all these performances are so easily avaible in Boulder. And they say retirement is boring?

More good music

A few weeks ago I heard the Colorado Symphony Orchestra in Denver then last weekend I listened to the Boulder Philharmonic. The CSO played Beethoven's Seventh Symphony and the Phil played Beethoven's Fifth. Since both works are so familiar and ingrained in my mind, your ear picks up anything out of the ordinary. The CSO's performance was crisp and clear. The brass seemed extraordinarily strong. The Phil's performance was nearly as crisp, but the first violins seemed a bit reticent and quiet. Still, while I prefer new and unfamiliar music, when the old warhorses are played, your listening is tested.

Two facility performances at the University of Colorado started off the new semester. The first was Lina Bahn, Judith Glyde, Daniel Silver and Alexandra Nguyen performing Paul Moravec's "The Tempest Fantasy" with Alexandra Lewis acting the role of Miranda and Lyndia McGaughey doing interpretive dance. For some reason Moravec's music reminded me of Leonard Bernstein. I don't know what it was, but in the middle of the piece that thought came to me and stayed throughout. The dancing did little for me, but that's normal. The spoken words were delivered well, but one phrase stuck out in my mind, summarizing my reaction to this whole work of art -- "thorns without roses".

The second faculty performance was by pianist David Korevaar. I've always been a fan of his and I have several of his CD's. He played Debussy and a Beethoven sonata "Pastorale" and ended with a favorite of mine, Liszt's "Years of Pilgrimage: Switzerland". Someone commented last night during the intermission of the Metropolitan Opera's HD movie performance of "Der Rosenkavalier" that she thought the Liszt was so sad. I agree. On the morning when the Denver airport opened for the first flights after 9/11, I took a Japanese friend to the airport and saw her depart. On the drive back "Années De Pélerinage" was on the radio and it just exaggerated my sadness. Korevaar's playing confirmed that sadness with an excellent performance.

"Der Rosenkavalier" is one of my all time favorites. I've seen it live at Santa Fe and at Opera Colorado, but the music sticks with me mostly from Cd's. Just listening to the music doesn't do it justice, though. This performance with Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Christine Schäfer and Kristinn Sigmundsson was outstanding. I sat fairly close to the huge screen and got drawn into it. My German is rusty so the sub-titles helped me understand more about what was really going on. The Marschallin's sadness at her aging comes out more than you can get from just a musical performance -- and in the end of the first act you could see Fleming's tears on the big screen. Now I wish I had gone to the Saturday morning broadcast a few weeks ago so I would have seen it twice.

UnSilent Pandora and Chumby

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

An observation on Internet streaming music

With the rise of Internet music, in many ways replacing terrestrial FM radio, I've noticed something that's missing from the experience -- the announcer.

Since the Internet means computers and a user's computer has a keyboard and screen, the Internet music providers assume the listener is in front of a screen and attentive. Not so!

I generally listen to Pandora, Last.FM, Live365 (Contemporary-classical.com) or my own music from my MP3 library. At night I use my "Chumby", an interactive media player which is wirelessly connected to my internal network and thus to the Internet. It's actually a small linux-based touchscreen computer with some neat features. Normally I listen to Pandora while reading then set Chumby's timer to turn off as I go to sleep. I still listen to the music after the lights are turned off. But what I'm hearing is often a puzzle -- I know the piece but can't place the name or I don't think I've ever heard it before and really like it. But what is it? Classical music on FM had an announcer saying something like "Now, Bela Bartok's String Quartet No 3 with the Takács Quartet" and then the announcer would say it again after the piece was broadcast. Stations would also publish their prior day's play lists, so that if I missed the announcer's comments I could go to the web page and figure it out. This doesn't seem possible with Internet classical music streaming today.

When you think about it, the insertion of phrases like "Now Bela Bartok's String Quartet No 3 with the Takács Quartet" and "That was Bela Bartok's String Quartet No 3 with the Takács Quartet" is essentially the same as the insertion of an advertisement inserted on web pages by Google's AdSense -- aural additions versus visual ones. It's actually the insertion of two adjacent phrases "That was" PriorPiece followed by "Now" NextPiece. I've suggested to one of the Internet stations that they provide these announcer tips. It could be optional and possibly an additional revenue stream. Make sense to me. While I'm only interested in classical music from these music streaming services, my son agrees that it would be useful for his music(?) too. I guess no surprise there.

Since the recording industry despises their customer base and forces music streamers to live within the tyranny of tracks the inserted phrases would thus have to something longer like "Sibelius symphony number 6 in D minor, Opus 104, second movement, allegro moderato with the Vienna Philharmonic lead by Lorin Maazel". A bit of a mouthful but better than silence and ignorance.