The Lighter Side of Staff Cuts

My New Year's Resolution just got a lot easier to keep. Best comment is here, from Paul of OperaBlog:

I’m guessing his buyout package consisted of a box of Ring-Dings and bus fare to Hoboken.

Tee hee.

I Am Sick and Tired of Writing About This Guy

And no, I don't mean Franz Schubert. But seriously, this has got to stop. First, the Timeseses Bernard Holland takes it upon himself to defend the concert hall against the likes of Cornelius Cardew, Earle Brown, and Christian Wolff, whose "1960s arrogance and self-absorption" was actually "damaging to music"—ah yes, who doesn't remember the 1960s as an era dominated by the likes of Cornelius Cardew, Earle Brown, and Christian Wolff! And what does this music-damaging oeuvre sound like? What pieces were performed? I guess that's not so important, since our critic declines to offer any description. What's important is "arrogance and self-absorption," but we might have guessed that: this is, after all, a Bernard Holland column. Well, the deaths of Cardew and Brown have ended their respective reigns of terror, but maybe there's still hope for Christian Wolff. Where can he look for a new aesthetic model? Hey, how about Radio City Music Hall, where the Rockettes put on a world-famous Christmas show each year? Well, I'm not exactly sure how this is even a musical event, since didn't the Rockettes tour with a CD in the orchestra pit one time and nobody noticed but the union? Holland isn't sure either; 875 words in this piece and only fourteen describe the music: "On its elevating orchestra pit Gary Adler and his players perform in high style." "High style," huh? Thanks! I feel like I was there. (For perspective, that is one fewer word than Holland uses to explain that the Rockettes arouse him sexually: "I like them especially with their antlers on. They can pull my sled any day.") [Shudder.] Now there's a piece about the deaths of brilliant young composers, which, as it turns out, aren't such a big deal after all. For instance, "Schubert died at 31. How much music did his early death deprive us of? Not a lot."

Friend #1: "Yes, no one talks much about the music he wrote 3 years after his death. You ever notice that?" Friend #2: "Me, I'm just relieved to see I'm not the only one who hasn't finished On Late Style."

Can anyone make a lick of sense out of this article? I'm starting to think he just bet somebody money he could get an incredibly filthy double-entendre into a New York Times headline.

Ugh, good night, everyone! New New Year's resolution: I will not put this goober's name in my mouth for another twelve months.

A. is for Anonymous

A.C Douglas, blogger and mystery writer of note, also has some issues with that Bernard Holland piece on how to prepare (or not) for a premiere performance. Of course, it's not Holland's method of preparation that Douglas has trouble with:

A perfectly sensible way to go about the thing, actually (remember, as a professional critic Mr. Holland has to write not only about the new work, but about the work within its total context which might very well have to take note of “what the composer eats for breakfast”), and certainly no cause for setting anyone’s teeth on edge. Unless, of course, one disregards the context of what Mr. Holland wrote, and, as absurd as the conclusion is, concludes from his words, as it seems did at least one blogger, that Mr. Holland makes his judgment on the new work without listening to it or to any other work the new work’s composer has written previously when it was perfectly clear that what Mr. Holland meant was simply that he doesn’t listen to the new work via any source before hearing it at its premiere.

Emphasis mine. (Syntax his.) The burning question: who is this "one blogger"? Who could possibly read the words "I don't listen to anything" as meaning anything other than "I don't listen to anything [with the possible exception of other recorded pieces, if any, by the same composer]"? No names are named; no links are linked... If anyone can fill us in, feel free to leave a comment (anonymous or otherwise) below.

"Surprise Me."

Bernard Holland, New York Times, 11/4/07:

How do I prepare for premieres? I read about the people and the circumstances, where the piece came from and what the composer eats for breakfast. If I have a score, I look at the orchestration. It’s nice to know how many crayons are in the composer’s coloring box. I don’t listen to anything. Surprise me.

Dan Johnson, blog, 11/4/07:

Jesus, and I thought I was lazy! Is this where the bar is set for classical criticism? I can't imagine the world's laziest pop critic actually bragging that he doesn't bother listening to a band's records before he goes to hear them play. It's nice that he wants to maintain the magic and specialness of a New York Premiere or whatever, but that's a small price to pay for journalistic rigor. For one thing, a listen on your home stereo or at the will tell you whether the flubbed moment you hear onstage is a slip of the composer's pen or of the fiddler's fingers, and you can assign blame/credit where it's due. That's just good sense. For another--as glad as I am that the critical pendulum has swung away from the attitude High Fidelity magazine called "Who Cares If You Listen?"--audiences should be, and in fact are, more charitable and more engaged with the composer's project than Holland seems to expect. People who shell out for Carnegie Hall tickets really do have some idea what they're getting themselves into. Most of them don't walk into Zorn hoping it'll sound like Glass, or vice versa. While reading about a composer or the origin of a piece can be a useful strategy too, it's far less useful than just using your ears. Paying too much attention to the intentions and techniques that go towards the construction of a piece can lead a listener straight into what Richard Taruskin calls the "poietic fallacy," or as Dr. David Thorpe put it (both re: critical reception of Arnold Schönberg), "This guy probably thinks his $100 Mishka shirt is pulling off some awesome look, but to most of us he is indistinguishable from a guy who just spent $7 at the worst thrift store in the world." Furthermore, reading too much about "where the piece came from"-- Hey, wait a minute. I just remembered something.

Bernard Holland, New York Times, 3/19/07:

Explaining why Elizabethan church music and pieces by the young American Nico Muhly were found together onstage at Zankel Hall on Friday requires intellectual gymnastics beyond my competence.

Dan Johnson, program note, 3/16/07:

Nico Muhly's Clear Music literally begins where Taverner's Mater Christi Sanctissima leaves off. An unaccompanied cello quotes a passage, near the end of Taverner's antiphon, in which the trebles soar to a pitch two octaves higher than the next part down.

Dan Johnson, blog, 11/4/07:

Hmm. So, maybe he doesn't always read about the people, or the circumstances, or where the piece came from. And he never listens. What, exactly, does he get paid to do? Show up to free concerts and then write about his feelings? Please, let's do our homework! Mr. Holland, we all care. Please listen.