On Internet Radio Genres .....

With the demise of radio broadcasts of KVOD's classical music, I've found it necessary to go more online for music enjoyment. ShoutCast.COM is one and Live365 is another. They both might fill the bill. I'll focus on ShoutCast first.

ShoutCast is a central interface to several thousand servers running broadcasting software delivering music in all forms -- all different genres. With this clear diversity of interest in music, I began thinking of listeners' choices and usage patterns. What genres are hot and what are not? Classical music fans appear to be diminishing at concerts, so is it the same over the Internet?

To address with ShoutCast.com's data, I wrote a little perl routine to access it and save each one of the 19 different genre's top 20 "stations" page. The routine analyzed each page's HTML and extracted the number of current listeners and the number of potential slots, the maximum number of concurrent listeners an individual server can handle.

The following table, with some percentages, are what I observed:

                      Current    % of   Total    % of
Genre                  Users   Total   Slots   Total
----------------     -------   -----  ------   -----     
Alternative            14419    3.4%   74709    5.5% 
Classical              10110    2.4%   30973    2.3% 
Comedy                  1634    0.4%   10865    0.8%
Country                 8917    2.1%   48355    3.6%
Dance                  42693   10.2%  125477    9.3%
Funk                    8992    2.1%   43823    3.3%
Jazz                   14898    3.6%   49916    3.7%
Metal                   8508    2.0%   36024    2.7%
Mixed                   3338    0.8%   11996    0.9%
Pop                    52327   12.5%  136385   10.1%
Rap                    19169    4.6%   79631    5.9%
Rhythm and Blues       21522    5.1%   79925    5.9%
Rock                   52511   12.5%  147951   11.0%
Talk                    5224    1.2%   34151    2.5%
Techno                 31127    7.4%   80498    6.0%
TopTen                 80941   19.3%  201824   15.0%
World                  10723    2.6%   48000    3.6%
70s                     9401    2.2%   35881    2.7%
80s                    22273    5.3%   70788    5.3%

TOTALS                418727  100.0% 1347172  100.0%

So how does the classical music audience rank? 2.4% of all the listeners at the point where I took the measurements. I've done it at a few different points during the day and 2.4% is pretty consistent. For all of ShoutCast's total 400 thousand current listeners, that's still a pretty small audience.

You can also question what the "classical" genre designation means. On one other Internet radio site, the only "classic" music was "Classic Rock"! Sampling various "stations" I've found that very often it means "light" orchestral music or "contemporary" easy-listening piano music. Opera seems to be represented fairly well and some seem to be streamed in their entirety. As an aside, it is the world-wide Internet ShoutCasters are listening to. Sometimes the stations make announcements in their native language. Hungarian I don't understand!!

It's probably an open question whether or not classical audiences are shrinking. In my experience, they are "greying" and attendance is smaller -- but that's just my personal observation. Older people are generally less Internet savvy, so I guess the ShoutCast numbers aren't really surprising. It is interesting technology.

Shoutcast.Com also provides down loadable software to "run your own radio station". I installed and configured it on my Linux box. It works quite well. I was able to wire in my entire private collection of mp3s but I haven't decided whether I want to run it in addition to my other base application. With a radio, the announcer would choose what to broadcast. But what if you have all the control? Sometimes I like surprises, sometimes not. In my base music application, somewhat similar to iTunes but hand-grown and much older, I can either select specific composers and pieces, choose from some random selections or accept a mystery piece. That all appears to be a bit more work under ShoutCast's server, but clearly possible.

Boulder's Quartet Program Participation

This summer has been musically sterile for me. I've been boycotting the local Colorado Music Festival because of their crappy programming, with the Beethoven stunt and ukuleles and tap dancing and guitars and all.

There was a bright spot this past weekend, however. The university hosted The Quartet Program, a program started in 1970 by Charles Castleman. See http://www.quartetprogram.com for more information on the programs. Apparently this was the first time it was done at the University of Colorado, but it appeared to me to be quite successful.

On three consecutive nights I was entertained by a total of 9 different string quartets. There was little information about the participants but I would guess most were late-teens early twenties students from around the country. I was impressed by the quality and consistency of the playing. The fare was Beethoven, Schubert, Bartok, Janacek, Haydn, Borodin, Ravel, Dvorak and Debussy. All played impressively.

As I understand, there were afternoon solo string performances, too. I couldn't attend, but I suspect the quality was also very good.

I hope this will not be the last time the program spends the summer in Boulder.

Death of the old...

A few days ago I commented on the demise of contemporary classical music broadcast on KVOD. Well, my lament is louder now. For reasons only known to KVOD and public radio in Colorado, the broadcast frequency was switched earlier in July from 90.1 MHz to 88.1 mHz on the FM band. I noticed immediately a decrease in the signal strength in my car and at home. My expensive auto-seeking radio at home couldn't even find KVOD. What stayed on 90.1 FM? Talk radio -- round the clock talk radio, news, commentary and more talk.

A letter to the editor to the Boulder Camera complained that even with a new pricey high definition radio KVOD didn't come in around Boulder. Then today a similar letter from a friend, Barry Knapp, pointed out that KVOD went from a 50 kilowatt transmitter for 90.1 MHz to a "puny" 1.2 kilowatt transmitter fpr 88.1 MHz. That's okay. Folks north of Denver didn't want to hear classical music or listen to the Metropolitan opera anyway. Boulder really only wants News! "News, News, News has a kind of mystery" sings Nixon in John Adams' "Nixon in China"

So it is with great regret that we bury KVOD and forget all about it. They took away contemporary classical music and now they've taken away all classical music. Who needs Bach and Beethoven and Mozart and Brahms and some of the other great composers? KVOD already stopped broadcasting Mahler and Bruckner and anyone who was foolish to compose music longer than about 25 minutes anyway. Colorado public radio wants News!! Forget the listening audience.

People have told me that I can always "listen" over the Internet. That just doesn't work in my car, of course. Nor is it convenient at night in my bedroom. I do sometimes listen from my desktop, but with Comcast being Comcast, I also get intermittent interruptions and dropped signals on my broadband connection. Frankly I don't want to replace the radios in my car nor in my home.

The radio was neat! You pressed a button and it instantly was played was was being broadcast. It was free except for the purchase of the radio. Now what are my choices?

Forget the high definition radio that was being touted by KVOD. Based on others experiences it won't be any better and will be a waste of money. Last weekend I went to three different electronic stores looking for information and pricing about HD radios. Only one clerk knew anything about them and she said they weren't very good according to the customers that brought them back. I appreciated her honesty.

Internet radio? Somewhat acceptable for when I'm in my office and at my computer, but what about late at night when I want to read in bed? I do have a small Nokia wireless tablet which I've made work with my local MP3 collection. But can I turn it on and instantly play something? Not way. Boot time is about 2 minutes. I then have to open a browser, wait for it find my wireless network and then go to the MP3 library and select something. I could buy a small portable PC and keep it always on sitting on my night stand, but I don't want to waste electricity nor spend more money just for classical music.

XM or Sirius satellite radio? Wow! What a deal. $100 for a "boom box" without receiver, $40 for the receiver, plus $40 for one for each car. Then it is only $13 a month for home plus $7 monthly for each car. What a deal! How can I miss!!! Sirius has 3 classical broadcast streams: symphonic and chamber music, Metropolitan opera radio, and classical pops. XM apparently has 3 similar offerings. With the proposed merger of XM and Sirius does that mean 6 or 3? Ask the FCC since I'm not interested in shelling out several hundred dollars a year to replace what I was getting for free for the last 60 years.

So what am I left with? A few MP3 players and my Cd's. Amazon's MP3 download library isn't bad, but how will I hear anything new or be exposed to unfamiliar composers or works? Just take some chances I guess at 99 cents a pop. While we do have classical music in Denver and Boulder, new works aren't performed much since they might drive away audiences.

I was going to end with RIP KVOD, but why give them the benefit of peace?

Death of the new......

Saturday nights at 10 was always a good time for me. KVOD, the Denver all-classical FM station, would broadcast two hours of 'contemporary' music' -- their definition. While sometimes it was only Prokofiev or Shostokovich or Copland, other times it would be Rautavaara or Kaipainen or Del Tredici. It was new music and I hadn't heard it and I liked that!

Reviewing my private library, I believe I've also heard music by the likes of Alwyn, Andriessen, Berio, Bolcom, Ciurlionis, Corigliano, Creston, Crumb, Diamond, Feldman, Golijov, Gorecki, Harvey, Henze, Higdon, Kancheli, Kernis, Laderman, Larsson, Lauridsen, Part, Reich, Riley, Rorem, Rouse, Sallinen, Salonen, Santos, Takemitsu and Varese during those late Saturday nights. I knew about some but hadn't heard much from them, others were completely new.

The announcer had interesting things to say. One sequence went through compositions from the 1940s, then the early 1950s, then late 50s. Centennials or deaths brought an entire evening of one composer, often with longer works that seem never to be played in normal hours. It was almost always interesting and challenging.

Sometimes after listening I would get on a kick and buy CDs by guys like Rautavaara. (What a great first name Einojuhani -- so much better than Sam or Robert or Arthur!) They might be good, sometimes not. Often the CD would also have something by another unknown. Again some good some bad, but fun listening to anyway. KVOD lead the way and I followed.

All that has changed. Now KVOD broadcasts on Saturday at 10 contemporary composers like Bach, Mozart, Debussy, Puccini and some seldom-heard pieces by the new guys Friedrich the Great and Ignace Pleyel. The two hours late on Saturday are now just like the remaining 166 hours each week. There's nothing to look forward to, nothing new and unknown. Just pap, pap, and more pap!

Who knows why KVOD changed its format? Perhaps they ran out of CDs, or, more likely, perception about the contemporary. Regardless, they've lost an interested listener.

Opera Colorado's "Nixon in China"

"Nixon in China" has always been one of my favorite contemporary operas. Twice, at the Colorado Music Festival, I've seen concert performances of it, back when the CMF was a bit more adventuresome. I've had the original cast performance on CD, with James Madallena as Nixon and Carolann Page as as his wife Pat.

Opera Colorado decided more than a year ago to present it in Denver in 2008 and I looked forward to the performance. As I often do, I listened to the CD several times to "practice" before the performance. I had read about the original Houston Grand Opera staging with a 747 on stage, but I knew from reading the local reviews that this was different. Different is okay.

What surprised me the most was how the sequences played out, always different from the way I imagined it. For example, in Act 2 there is a storm, whose musical content always reminds me of Wagner and "Siegfried". For unknown reasons, I've always imagined that Pat, who interrupts this wonderful orchestral music to sing "Thank God you came.....". is alone in her room waiting for Nixon to return. It sounds that way, to me. Wrong!!! It all transpires, as per Opera Colorado's performance, as part of the long second act dance scene where Kissinger sings "whip her to death!". I was way off, clearly.

The last act also surprised me. I guess I was so enamored of the earlier parts that I forgot the slow diminuendo that ends the opera as all the characters think to themselves their own relevance. While long, it is beautiful.

Robert Orth sang Nixon, Maria Kanyova was Pat, Chen-Ye Yuan sang the role of Chou En-lai and Marc Heller was Mao. The highlight to me though was Tracy Dahl belting out "I am the wife of Mao Tse-tung". Great fun!!

Once again, a real performance with the words visible in the super-title box changed my impression and acceptance of an opera. Normally I have the words turned off so I can focus on the music and singing. I guess that's a mistake. Kudos to Opera Colorado.

Broadcasting Beethoven Piano Sonatas

Several months back I was curious about the frequency of broadcasts of Beethoven's string quartets. I chose 3 of the larger classical music radio stations: New York's WQXR, Seattle's KING and Denver's KVOD, the one I listen to frequently. I also chose these three since I calculated daily their symphony broadcasts as part of my classicalfmradio.org statistics.

Like the Beethoven symphonies, the string quartets were broadcast in a similar pattern -- long quartets broadcast less frequently than short ones. I expected similar results for Beethoven sonatas but I was somewhat surprised. Here is the table of the sonatas, their durations and the frequency of broadcasts by the 3 stations:

Beethoven Piano Sonata                     DURATION    KVOD      KING     WQXR   |
=================================================================================|
#01 in F minor, Op 2 No 1                     17:10       2       11       13    |
#02 in A Major, Op 2 No 2                     22:33      14       15        9    |
#03 in C Major, Op 2 No 3                     25:17       0       11       12    |
#04 in Eb Major, Op 7                         28:36       7       11        9    |
#05 in C minor, Op 10 No 1                    18:54      10       15       10    |
#06 in F Major, Op 10 No 2                    14:01      28       13       27    |
#07 in D Major, Op 10 No 3                    25:20       5       12        9    |
#08 in C minor Op 13, 'Pathetique'            18:28      70       47       25    |
#09 in E Major, Op 14 No 1                    14:13      41       13       25    |
#10 in G Major, Op 14 No 2                    17:00      19       16       24    |
#11 in B Major Op 22                          22:46      16       20        9    |
#12 in A Flat Major, Op 26                    11:43      11        4       14    |
#13 in E Flat Major, Op 27 No 1               15:46      17       12       17    |
#14 in C# minor, Op 27 No 2 'Moonlight'       16:21      88       57       39    |
#15 in D Major, Op 28 'Pastoral'              24:52      54       16       33    |
#16 in G Major, Op 31 No 1                    22:56       8       14        9    |
#17 in D minor, Op 31 No 2 'Tempest'          22:01      33       27       24    |
#18 in G Major, Op 31 No 3                    22:19      11       29       10    |
#19 in G minor, Op 49 No 1                     8:11      17        2       24    |
#20 in G Major, Op 49 No 2                     8:14      51        8       25    |
#21 in C Major, Op 53 'Waldstein'             22:12      53       40       20    | 
#22 in F Major, Op 54                         11:29      27        9       21    |
#23 in F minor Op 57 'Appassionata'           21:47      68       44       26    |
#24 in F# Major, Op 78 'Fur Theresa'           8:23      23        8        0    |
#25 in G Major, Op 79                         10:07      22       10       25    |
#26 in E Flat, Op 81a 'Les Adieux'            16:37      49       35       29    |
#27 in E minor, Op 90                         12:34      17       18       21    |
#28 in A Major, Op 101                        20:41      22       17       17    |
#29 in F Flat Major, Op 106 'HammerKlavier'   42:52      20       25        7    |
#30 in E Major, Op 109                        23:49      29       20       14    |
#31 in A Flat Major, Op 110                   23:13      30       25       21    |
#32 in C minor, Op 111                        29:05      14       22       10    |
=================================================================================|
Average Length of the Beethoven Piano Sonatas 19:22                              |
=================================================================================|
Total Performances of all Beethoven Piano Sonatas       876      626      569    |
Average Performances for all 32 Sonatas                27.4     19.6     17.8    |
=================================================================================|
Number of Broadcast Days by the Stations in Study      1980     1698     1698    |
Average Performances per day                            .44      .36      .34    |
=================================================================================|

I'm not sure what this tells me: a few surprises like KVOD never broadcasting his Sonata #3 in over 5 years and WQXR not broadcasting #24. Come on, even on a bad day, Beethoven was way better than most. It appears that nicknamed sonatas are broadcast more than ones without, but I guess that's not surprising. The real long one, "Hammerklavier" does get played some and you can plan on hearing one of his piano sonatas about every other day or so. Not bad, I guess.

Golijov's Oceana

Osvaldo Golijov's Oceana was performed the other night by the Pro Musical Colorado Chamber Orchestra and the Ars Nova Singers. Last summer I got turned onto Golijov, though somewhat grudgingly, by a performance by the Colorado Music Festival of his Ainadamar, which I commented on earlier. Golijov is "hot" and has several recordings of which I have a few. I've been meaning to track down his St, Mark Passion, but it's a pricey album, with only so-so reviews.

The FM stations don't seem to like him, even though he's getting big billing nationally. Only WQXR in New York and KING in Seattle have broadcast anything by him thus far this year. KVOD, my local station, continues to pretty much ignore him, though they have played some of his songs from Ayre and broadcast his Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind once in 2007. KVOD, Denver, Cow town -- I'll say no more.

Back to the performance. I have the CD and knew what to expect, but the audience didn't. While they responded admirably, I sensed a certain unease with the piece. It is sung in Spanish from poems by Neruda with a diverse orchestra and extra percussion. It was hard to grasp and follow, though I wonder if a Spanish speaker would have had a different reaction. I had earlier told my dinner hosts that I only really like the last part "Chorale of the Reef" and the performance confirmed my opinion. But let's give a big three cheers to this new orchestra and the Ars Nova for giving us something new and different. It's just too bad that you can only get music like this live and not on public radio.

One negative comment: why is it that a somewhat inconsequential performer sitting up front, the fellow playing the "Talking Drum", which seemed mute from where I was sitting, wore a white shirt while everyone else was in a tux or black dress? Didn't get the message, I guess.

Movie music

Vincent D'Indy's ''Souvenirs" was broadcast last night on KVOD in Denver. The announcer, Charles Andrews, commented that D'Indy would have been a wonderful movie composer. While I am familiar with D'Indy's "Symphony on a French Mountain Air", "Souvenirs" was new to me. As I listened I agreed with Andrews' comment and then began the mental game of imagining what movie I would be watching: a western; a forlorn big city romance; maybe a mystery; a documentary; certainly not science fiction or horror. I don't know exactly what it would be. That is music's limit. Instrumental music can't tell a tale or specify reality. Set the idea first, then music can help define it.

John Ireland

Last night I turned on KVOD and heard the end of a nice piece: John Irelands's "Orchestral Poem", a 15 minute work. The announcer commented at the end that it's too bad that we don't get to hear it more often. I've never heard it performed, but it certainly sounds like it would please an audience.

The announcer proceeded to play Brahm's "Tragic Overture". Okay, KVOD, do what you suggest. The "Tragic Overture" has been broadcast 129 times in the last 1996 days (since 2003). If Ireland's "Orchestral Poem" is that nice, how come KVOD has only broadcast it 21 times over the same 5 and a half years? For every time Ireland's work is played, you play the "Tragic Overture" over 6 times.

I suspect orchestras don't play music by John Ireland much because audiences aren't familiar with him. An English composer, Ireland (1879-1962) has a late-romantic, impressionist sound. I've just downloaded some mp3's from Amazon of his piano concerto and two symphonic studies. Amazon doesn't seem to have the "Orchestral Poem" in its catalog -- too bad. We'll see how much I like the others.

Apollo and Dionysus

Listening to KVOD last night, the announcer Charles Andrews introduced Bruno Walter conducting Beethoven's Symphony #8. KVOD has broadcast this symphony 14 times thus far in 2008, compared to only one time for Symphony #9, by the way. Andrews normally has interesting comments and insight. He said something about the Apollonian versus Dionysian characteristic of Bruno's Beethoven. Apollo represents harmony, order, and reason while Dionysus represents ecstasy and disorder. Was Andrews saying Beethoven's symphony was an example of reason conducted in a disorderly fashion by Bruno Walter? I was confused by the comment but I wondered since the performance was very good.

Later, in the middle of Bach's Violin Concerto, I noticed something that we don't often hear in Boulder -- the sound of rain. I turned off the radio and listened to its quiet trickle on the roof. Apollo and Dionysus were still wandering in my head when it dawned on me that I was right in the middle of both. The sound from the skylight was Dionysus: quiet, pleasant random rain. On my right, with the window slightly open, I could hear the steady uniform plunk of water dripping into the gutter. Dionysus in the skylight, Apollo sliding down the roof. Thank you Charles Andrews!

More on the Alaskan John Adams

In an earlier posting, I mentioned John Luther Adams, the "Alaskan" Adams, to differentiate him from John Coolidge Adams, the "California" Adams, and the more well known John Adams. John Luther Adams had been written up in an article by Alex Ross in The New Yorker. Impatiently I had downloaded some of his music from Amazon, all done by the Cincinnati Percussion Ensemble. I wasn't overly impressed by it, but I decided to wait it out and see what the mail might bring. I had also ordered Earth and Great Weather, a piece commented on by Alex Ross in his New Yorker article. Today it arrived and I'm listening to it as I write this. "Earth and Great Weather" or, as the composer calls it "Nunavlusilaqpauvlu Nan Kak Nats'aa Gweedhaa", is more of the same and, unfortunately, I'm not much impressed. In both Ross's article and in the liner notes there are references to Morton Feldman. I have but one piece by Feldman, his Piano and String Quartet with Aki Takahashi and the Kronos Quartet. Apparently like a lot of Feldman's works, it goes on and on and on -- for an hour and 20 minutes. I like it. While I wouldn't quite rate up in my top 10, I do enjoy listening to Feldman. Unfortunately, I was somewhat disappointed with the "Alaskan" John Adams.

I don't expect to hear any performances of either Feldman or Luther Adams locally, even in a town like Boulder where somewhat adventuresome music is often performed. Percussionists may know Russell Peck's "The Glory and the Grandeur" a concerto for 3 percussionists. I heard it for the first time about 10 years ago at the Colorado Music Festival, under Giora Bernstein. It was fun to listen to, and, equally important, fun to watch. Now, the Boulder Philharmonic is planning on performing it this fall. Unlike the Luther Adam's pieces I've heard, it's percussion AND orchestra, not just percussion. Perhaps that's why I like it more.

Is it performed on the radio? Not on the stations I monitor. It is available on CD since I have a copy, but do they play it. No, but perhaps that's best since you only really appreciate it in a live performance.

John Luther Adams, at first blush

Today, I got my weekly New Yorker and found an article by Alex Ross. Entitled Letter From Alaska, it is about John Luther Adams. This Adams is not to be mistaken from John Coolidge Adams, the "California" Adams of "Nixon in China", "Dr Atomic", "Death of Klinghoffer", and so forth -- the one we really listen to and appreciate. I'm a fan of contemporary music and actually saw a reference to this article earlier this week on Alex Ross's blog "The Rest if Noise". I've read Ross's book of the same name and enjoy reading his writing. I though, good, another new composer! What is he all about? Is this going to be another winner?

After finishing the article I went to Amazon and looked for "John Luther Adams" and found several hits. I looked for titles that Ross referenced and found that some that were available. A few were only available as CD's, so I ordered one "Earth and the Great Weather". I could immediately download some mp3's for only 99 cents, so I did. I patched them into my home-grown mp3 database and listened. Perhaps my choices weren't any good, but I was disappointed. There were 5 pieces, performed by the Cincinnati Percussion Ensemble. They were uninspiring and frankly boring. Dare I say it? Like tedious Edgar Varese.

Ross wrote about 20Th century composers in his book "The Rest is Noise". Prokofiev, Messiaen, Stravinsky, Sibelius, Strauss, -- all the major 20Th Century composers. He also mentioned many many composers like Varese and Feldman, two he referenced in the New Yorker article. Are they Important? I don't know. Listenable? Again, I don't know. I remember getting a record of Varese's music: Ionisation, Density 21.5, Integrales, Octandre, Hyperprism and Poeme Electronique. I still have the record, though I haven't converted it over into mp3's yet. I'm not sure it's worth the effort. Luther Adams from my first brush with him appeals much like Varese.

Morton Feldman does have his appeal. Perhaps the CD of Luther Adam's work Earth and the Great Weather will be more like Feldman than Varese. I'll have to wait for delivery to find out.

Does the radio audience get to hear John Luther Adams? Not for the FM classical stations I monitor. Looking for "Luther Adams" I found nothing with both names together. There were 1170 broadcasts of "Adams" and all appear to be the California one, not the Alaskan one. Luther was found 40 times, but were either by Martin Luther or involving Lutheran.

When to play what and reality.

I tend to listen to my local FM classical music station at night, either preparing for bed, or, as is often the case, while snuggling in bed prior to sleep. The ear-plugs are in so not to bother my wife, a classical music lover but a sleeper first. Many nights I've listened to KVOD out of Denver for hours after the lights have gone out. Sometimes hours and hours.

The reason for setting the scene is that I've come to wonder why this station, and probably others, chooses to broadcast pieces when they do. Last night at around 10:30 they broadcast Bach's Brandenburg Concerto #1. I wasn't exactly snoozing, but it jolted me more awake. The brass seemed too loud and too throbbing for this time of night. Later they played Mozart's "Coronation" piano concerto, which, too, seemed out of place for the late hour. Maybe it's me, but at that time of night I expect long, soothing romantic symphonies ala Mahler, Bruckner, etc. Of course these composers are too long for the radio these days, but why not hope? Anyway, I got to thinking what is an appropriate time for different types of classical music? Baroque all the time? Contemporary only late on Saturday nights the way KVOD does it? Renaissance early in the morning? Classical only at supper time? Should it correspond to the orchestration? The average volume? It's length? Composer? Period? I don't have an answer, but for some reason I want to hear intellectual depth and challenge late at night. On KVOD I don't seem to get it. When I lived in Connecticut, I faithfully listened to WQXR. The late evening was for the late romantics -- not always, but most frequently. Denver was and is a cow town. We get whatever the programming director wants to foist on us, unfortunately. Artistic consistency and planning aren't important.

One other point of interest. I went to a chamber concert performed by musicians from the Colorado Music Festival on the afternoon of April 20th, 2008. My wife and I hosted 2 of the performers, both friends who had visited with us over the past 5 or 6 summers. After the concert, while driving home, I had the car radio tuned to KVOD and lo and behold, the rarest of pieces! They were broadcasting a performance of Beethoven's 9th symphony. While listening I could tell it was a live recording. It had somewhat of a hollow sound, with an occasional audience cough, etc. The Colorado Music Festival had ended its season a few years ago with it, so I suspected it was the CMF orchestra under Michael Christie. It went on, so when I got home I immediately put it on my home radio and continued listening. I was surprised to find out it was not CMF but the Boulder Philharmonic, performed the same year, under the baton of Michael Butterman. Okay, so far, so good. What surprised me next was a week later when I checked my web site (http://classicalfmradio.org) and looked for the frequency count of symphonies I discovered that it had not been counted. Was my programming that bad? How could I have missed it? I investigated and discovered that the KVOD listing for Sunday, April 20th, did not include anything by Beethoven during that time slot. Mozart, Resphigi, Vivaldi, Schubert, Hayden, etc, but not Beethoven. I hadn't tuned to another station; I hadn't mistaken the piece since both my wife and our Japanese guest were with me and agreed. So I can only conclude that the daily listings from the KVOD only partially reflect reality. Should I be surprised? I guess not.

Janacek's Intimate Vixen

Last evening I saw a performance of Leos Janacek's "The Cunning Little Vixen" at the University of Colorado. It was surprisingly good with a large cast and an interesting staging. In preparation for the performance, I'd been listening to it in it's original Czech -- but I didn't understand a word sung. The CU Music school used super-titles and had it sung in English. That was good choice. Clearly it's best to understand what an opera is all about.

This is the second performance of a Janacek piece in a week for me. Last Friday night I heard the Tasman Quartet play his "Intimate Letters", the second string quartet. The Tasman Quartet from New Zealand are the ensemble-in-residence at the University of Colorado School of Music. They will be studying for 2 years with the famous Takacs Quartet. The Takacs did "Intimate Letters" in the fall of 2007, so I wasn't surprised that the Tasman tackled this difficult piece, too. They played it very, very well.

Do we hear Janacek on the radio? Some. It appears that the "Lachian Dances" and "Sinfonietta" are actually played with some frequency on most of the stations I monitor. A suite from "The Cunning Little Vixen" is also performed occasionally, though looking it looks like the full hour and a half opera was only broadcast once in 5 years, over KUSC in Los Angeles. "Intimate Letters" has been broadcast, but it must be too long and too complicated for the KVOD team, who have chosen not to broadcast at all in the last 5 years. What a pity!

One final note about the CU opera performance. First, clearly the students at CU must have smallish bladders. OVer the last 10 or 15 minutes of the performance, small groups of them had to get up and disturb the audience and run off to piddle (or whatever). We read in the paper about the CU students drinking a lot, but come on, guys! If we older audience members can hold it, why can't you?

Lastly there is William Gustafson, the stage director. He always sits in the back and laughs too loudly or breaks out clapping as loud as he can. I feel he is trying to indicate to us, the audience, that now is the time to show our appreciation. Please, the show deserves applause, but let us choose when and how much.

Performers or the performed?

Last night, KVOD broadcast Haydn's Cello Concerto #1. The announcer, Stephanie Wendt, praised the cellist, Matt Haimovitz, raising expectations about the performance. As I listened I wondered about his performance. What could I really sense about his playing? How did it rate compared with others? Could I tell? More importantly, could I tell over the radio?

I go to many live concerts. Live artists are always at risk during the playing. What if they flub a note, miss some, go out of tune, etc? You can watch and feel the intensity of playing and appreciate the artists' skill. But can you judge that over the radio? For me, no -- it's an imperfect medium for judging talent. Radio just can't compete against a live performance.

It turns out that the Haydn Cello Concert #1 has been performed 5 times thus far this year on KVOD. Twice by Truls Mork, twice by last night's Haimovitz and once by Jacqueline du Pre. So is it the intention of the radio station to show us different artists or to play music? I don't know. Personally, I'd rather hear different music rather than different artists playing the same piece.

How to judge a masterpiece.

I earlier commented that I had read Alex Ross's "And the Rest is Noise", an intriguing book. It's a bit of a tome, but well worth the effort. When writing about Olivier Messiaen, Ross gives somewhat short-shrift to his Turangalila Symphony and doesn't have a lot to say about Vingt Regards su L'Enfant Jesus, but at one point he refers to Des Canyons aux Étoiles (The Canyons and the Stars) as Messiaen's masterpiece. Well, after getting a copy, I have to say it really does sound like Messiaen with his distinctive percussiveness and stange chords and plent of bird-like sounds. But his masterpiece? Both Turangalila and Vingt Regards are much more impressive to me, but Ross must have some reason for favoring Des Canyons. Beats me why, though.

Given that December 10th, 2008 is the 100th anniversary of Messiaen's birth, here in Boulder we have been luck to hear quite a bit of his music. I've tracked down and listened to a lot of Messiaen lately. He's been featured by Hsing-ay Hsu several times at the University of Colorado. Wouldn't you expect some of the FM radio stations to play some of his music? Well, not yet this year. KVOD, in Denver hasn't played anything yet, nor have many of the other stations I monitor. When they do play something by him, it's typically his Quartet for the End of Time, historically significant and penetrating, but not on my all-time favorite Messiaen list.

Boulder has many music lovers, a strong music faculty at the university, several critics and a bunch of musical organizations. Surprisingly, I haven't found anyone yet that has also read Ross's book. I've lent my copy to a friend who promises to read it and give me feedback, but he hasn't yet. That's surprising for an often written-about book that made the Pulitzer finals this year.

What did they hear that I didn't?

I went to a Takacs String Quartet concert last night and was treated to the string quartet number 59, known as "The Rider" or the "The Horseman". A well-played, typically Haydn-esque quartet, As usual, the Takacs was flawless. What I got thinking about as they played was how did this get nicknamed "The Rider"? The program notes (by Andreas Anderswo) said ".. is immediately apparent after that pause that follows the unison introduction to the opening Allegro: the instruments enter one by one imitating each other with the first subject upon which a lilting subject follows". Now I ask, what does this have to do with riding horses or being a horseman? [Note: I tried to track down this Andeas Anderswo (Andrea Elsewhere???) at the University of Colorado but to no avail. However, someone in the know told me that Andreas Anderswo is the pen-name for none other than one of the local classical music critics, Wes Bloomster.]

As I sat listening, I wondered if, shortly after the premiere of this work, the composer, the performers, the patrons and some hangers-on didn't convene in a local tavern or palatial home and sit around and chat about the piece and the performance. They probably had port or something stronger and smoked their favorite tobacco and gabbed. At some point, someone probably mumbled something about "It sounded like horses" or "did you hear the loud horse's hooves rumble by during the first movement" and, wallah! a nickname was born.

I read the introduction by Anderswo and listened carefully to the opening and, for the life of me, could not get any perception of horses, riders, hooves, whatever in that opening movement. The name stuck with me and I kept wondering and, just perhaps, during the finale I might have heard something like restless horses. But what do I know?

Too often we hear on the FM radio pieces broadcast with their historical names? "Eroica", "The Prague", "The Surprise", etc, etc, etc. Sometimes they seem to mean something and sometimes not. I can understand where some of the names and tag-lines come from, but often not. It just causes me to wonder. and, in the case of "The Rider" ponder, how it all came to be named.

Symphonies tomorrow......

Last evening I went to another "Fusion" concert of the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra. Over the past year they attempted to fuse music with art, cinema, dance, Shakespeare and pizza-flipping -- not really! Several friends agree that the evenings haven't been well received -- not exactly flops, but distractions to the music being performed. Next year, the Boulder Phil gives us an evening of Frank Sinatra style singing, one with the world premiere of a concerto for Tabla and orchestra, and a family concert "Alien encounter 2: Schnoodle meets Sch(n)ubert." Why?

The Colorado Music Festival, where I seldom miss any concert, has announced a season heavy with "World" music and extremes. How about a night of ukelele music; one of tap dance; the Brazilian Guitar Quartet and the stunt of performing all the Beethoven symphonies in one week? Is this intended to develop audience and generate donations? What is going on here? What happened to a balanced season of plain old classical and contemporary music? Chamber music? Piano soloists? Some new music? I give up. I can see the next CMF season: all 104 Haydn symphonies one long evening and a concerto for claves and washboard.

In the blog Alex Ross: The Rest is Noise Justin Davidson writing about the financing of symphony orchestras notes that "....this doesn't mean that the symphony orchestras are no longer viable, or that they're about to be extinct, only that they have to do everything right.". I have always supported my local orchestras, donating regularly (with a company matching grant) and buying a couple of full subscriptions. Now, looking at what I'm being offered I'm reluctantly deciding that I'll not subscribe but only selectively buy tickets. I'll let the ukelele fans in the area make the donations instead of me. The orchestras just aren't "doing everything right".

Am I being a stick in the mud? Am I failing to adapt? I look forward to contemporary classical music on the radio and love live concerts, but what's happening here?

Strauss had to be wrong.....

Last night I was listening to KVOD (Denver) when the announcer Charles Andrews mentioned that Richard Strauss considered the Mozart String Quintet in g, K 516 very highly. I don't remember the exact words Andrews used, but I thought to myself that if Strauss thought this to be the case, the String Quintet (apparently a string quartet with 2 viola) must really be pretty good. It was written in 1787, somewhere between the "Prague" and the 39th symphony and between the 20th and 21st string quartets. Much to my surprise I found the K 516 mundane. How could a fellow composer like Strauss have held this piece in such high esteem? Strauss comes across as a somewhat enigmatic character in Ross's "The Rest is Noise". I wonder if this comment about this particular Mozart quintet came after the war? I don't know, but to me the quintet was a bore.

Olivier Messiaen

I had the pleasure of attending a concert of all-Messiaen piano music at the University of Colorado the other night. Hsing-Ay Hsu, director of CU's Pendulum New Music series, performed 5 works, some with MinTze Wu on violin and Alejandro Cremaschi, piano. What a great concert and such interesting music. It's Messiaen's Centennial so over the next few weeks there will several local performances of his works.

In Alex Ross's "The Rest is Noise" Messiaen plays an important role. Ross writes about his influence and about his World War II imprisonment in an Nazi concentration camp where he wrote The Quartet for the End of Time. Surprisingly Ross is silent about the Turangalila Symphony and praises From the Canyons to the Star, which I've never heard and which has not be broadcast on any of the FM stations I catalog. Amazon has it, but the price is awfully high. I guess I'll have to wait on Canyons.

What I particularly liked at Hsing-Ay's concert were two excerpts from Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jesus. She gave a brief explanation of the setting of the work, and called it one of the greatest piano pieces in the 20th century. While I thought that might be a bit of hyperbole, I started to wonder what would be the greatest. The piano music of Ravel and Debussy would probably rank up there, but then what else? I'm not sure that Hsing-Ay's hyperbole might not just be correct.

While I guess it is not surprising, Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jesus, is seldom broadcast on the 7 all-classical FM radio stations I monitor. Only WQXR(New York) and KUSC(LA) have broadcast movements from it in the last 4 years. Here in Denver, nothing, though, for example, Debussy's Children's Corner Suite has been broadcast 103 times in the last 4 years. Now I really enjoy Debussy's piano music, but as I'm writing this, I'm also listening to an interesting performance by Madelaine Fort of six pieces of Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jesus with commentary by her husband Alan Forte. The Debussy suite or Ravel's Pavane for a Dead Princess (133 broadcasts in Denver) are, to me, just not that much better than the Messiaen. So why have the radio stations not chosen to allow us to hear him? Your guess is as good as mine.