Robert Hurwitz vs. Master P

From SomethingAwful.com. Actually, I think they've got something here... I mean, Four Tet and DJ Spooky are nice and all, but how about "Proverb (Akon Mix feat. Akon)"? Somebody call Nonesuch Records, right now.

Speeders: Worse than Child Molesters?

Overgrown Path says yes!

Maury Felice!

Maury D'Annato celebrates his one-hundred-thousandth-or-so hit this morning. My favorite My Favorite Intermissions, I have to admit, is the same one La Cieca quoted earlier this year:

The role, as we all know, is unsingable, and so unsing it he did.

But is that my favorite line from my favorite My Favorite Intermissions? Or is it, re: Debbie Voigt,

No, the top is not the same shiny thing it used to be, but neither is the statue of liberty and we still like her.

In any case, I quote both of those one-liners like thrice daily. Informed, discerning, funny, self-effacing, Maury is truckloads of the very best that opera criticism has to offer. Happy D'Anniversary!

Life Imitates Dargel

So I wrote this thing on my friend's blog about gay marriage and/or divorce, and when I was done I could not get "Move to Vermont" by Corey Dargel out of my head but it looks like it's not on his mp3 page anymore. Didn't it use to be? You'll have to accost him in the street and demand he sing it for you in person so that you have some idea what the hell I'm talking about. And then I wrote this other thing about Lisa Bielawa's Chance Encounter for the local paper. As usual, I'm guessing I got everything wrong, but I hope somebody out there sees it and decides to go to the concert.

Who Blogwatches the Blogwatchmen?

I don't follow Greg Sandow's blog, but I understand there are people who do, so I've always assumed there's something he does right and I'm just missing it. Gramophone cast a little doubt on that assumption this month by selecting for its Blogwatch feature an especially ill-informed and poorly thought-out piece on the music and legacy of Luciano Berio. Sandow's conclusion:

And in Berio's modernism, delightful as it now sounds to me -- and not just delightful; irreverent, too -- you run into a brick wall of limitation. Berio can twitter and burp all he likes, but the connections that he thinks he's making to the world outside classical music are all to highbrow theorizing, cultural, linguistic, and literary. You'd never catch him echoing a snatched memory of popular culture (unless you count folk songs, which I don't, because they're theorized, in Berio's world, as authentic, while pop culture, supposedly, is commercial and corrupt). So that's the boundary. He can giggle all he wants, and also cough and hum and murmur, putting sounds in free association with each other. But if I'd written a piece like this, and my free association took me to a fragment of Led Zeppelin, eyebrows would have been raised. Likewise, when Elliott Carter says that he's inspired (as, for instance, in his piano piece Night Fantasies) by the slither of unconscious thoughts in Joyce's writing, what he'll never do, as thoughts skitter in his music, is let them skitter toward popular culture (by, for instance, echoing a popular song), as Joyce does on just about every page. That's an odd, restrictive limit, typical of modernist music, but not of other modernist art. And it helps explains why modernist music has never had the appeal of modernist literature or painting.

Was somebody asleep at the wheel of the Gramophone? Within two days of this posting, Sandow had already received a reply correcting the basic error of fact underpinning this argument. Berio loved popular music, and his love was reflected in his composition. Commenter John Abbott wrote:

....yet Berio liked jazz, arranged Beatles songs (supposedly also influencing The Beatles prior to Sgt Pepper), and included all sorts of cultural references in works like Sinfonia. I always associate him with Umberto Eco, who loves mixing "highbrow" and "lowbrow" culture.

And Sandow replies:

I'd love to know more about this. I didn't know about the Beatles arrangements! But -- and maybe this is my fault -- I don't remember pop references in "Sinfonia." That Mahler movement, with the singing and speaking voices, struck me, last time I heard it, as quite notably Mandarin in its culture. I most clearly remember the Samuel Beckett text. I love Beckett -- he's one of my cultural touchstones -- but he's certainly not popular culture.

Err, Berio's Beatles arrangements are not exactly a secret; I'm pretty sure they're mentioned right in his New Grove entry. Here's Cathy Berberian singing "Ticket to Ride," three minutes into this clip.

As for pop references in the Sinfonia, yeah, it's your fault. Maybe listen a little closer to the stylings from Rod Swingle and his Swingle Singers, the gang for whom the piece was composed. Their vocal production is not quite as operatic as one might expect in an hommage à Mahler. Another pop-influenced Berio moment that comes to mind: the drumkits and brass hits of Laborintus 2. Great piece! Give it a listen.

Sandow goes on:

And the Beatles -- I've long thought that the interest in them among classical musicians back in the '60s has been misunderstood. For one thing, it didn't last very long. But mainly, people like Bernstein and Ned Rorem liked the Beatles because their songs did the same kind of things (with melodic and harmonic sophistication) that classical music does. So it wasn't that highbrows started liking rock. It was that rock musicians had started moving into classical territory. If Berio had arranged Rolling Stones songs, I'd have granted him a serious interest in rock & roll. Or if all these classical people had gone crazy for The Band, I'd agree that they had some understanding of rock. The Band's music is easily as sophisticated as the Beatles', but the sophistication derives entirely from American roots music, and isn't like to speak to classical music people who don't move easily on the rock side of the fence.

Why all this speculation about what Berio thought of rock? Let's Google "Luciano Berio" and rock; the first hit is Berio's "Comments on rock," excerpted in the anthology The Lennon Companion. A pity to see how much is omitted in this translation, but we get the idea--what does Berio like about rock? Its eclecticism, the simplicity of its materials, and of course the ease with which those materials can be reconfigured to assimilate Beatles-style avant-gardism. Artists mentioned: yes, Zappa and the Beatles, but also the Four Tops, the Grateful Dead and, guess who, the Rolling Stones.

(Non seq.: Find my new favorite Berio anecdote here.

The conversation was a kind of litany containing the great names of twentieth-century composition: Cage, Messiaen, et al. Then Rihm mentioned Sting. Boulez was shocked. Berio told him to go and listen to Sting's latest album, that he might be surprised.

Heh.)

Postscript--

So after seeing Sandow in the Gramophone, I sent another Greg, one of my Gregs, over to check out the post. His response was immediately to dig up an article in which Luciano Berio actively rails against the kind of "enforced ideology" Sandow claims was propagated by "the crowd [Berio] ran with" (nevermind who Berio actually "ran with"):

In 1968, Berio published an essay in the Christian Science Monitor titled "Meditations on a Twelve-Tone Horse." (available for purchase here.) This essay contains the following notorious passage: "Any attempt to codify musical reality into a kind of imitation grammar (I refer mainly to the efforts associated with the Twelve-Tone System) is a brand of fetishism which shares with Fascism and racism the tendency to reduce live processes to immobile, labeled objects, the tendency to deal with formalities rather than substance. Claude Levi-Strauss describes (though to illustrate a different point) a captain at sea, his ship reduced to a frail raft without sails, who, by enforcing a meticulous protocol on his crew, is able to distract them from nostalgia for a safe harbor and from the desire for a destination."

Sandow:

Serialism is taught in music schools these days -- or rather the history of serialism -- with great respect. Certainly it was when I was in music school. Nobody mentioned the derision of intellectuals like Levi-Strauss, which was as legitimate a part of the history as Boulez's excitement.

So true! Errr, except for the parts you misread, misremembered, or just plain made up.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts

From the letters page of USC Trojan Family Magazine, winter 2007:

Opera Opprobrium My husband and I attended the April production of Miss Lonelyhearts at USC (Autumn 2007, “Arts & Culture,” p. 26). Appalled, disgusted, shocked and terrorized by the unnecessarily graphic and downright pornographic gestures, gesticulations, language and Christian-bashing plot, we were forced to leave after the first unfathomable act. We could only assume the director (Ken Cazan) had forgotten that this was supposed to be a student production for educational purposes, edifying and building the careers and skills of the finest young singers that come to USC. I did not see any “NC-17” posted warnings upon entering the theater, on the tickets, on the cover of the program, or posted on the doors, as there should have been. Audiences must be warned in advance – we have a right to know whether to expect graphic violence, graphic sexual scenes, objectionable language and adult situations before entering the theater. That is the law for movie theaters, rented DVDs and CDs for purchase today – why are Ken Cazan’s opera productions exempt from such guidelines? Were any children under 17 admitted to any performances of this opera? If so, he should be charged with endangering the welfare of a child with what he shamelessly instructed college students to do on that stage. Opera fans go to the opera to have a higher artistic experience than we can find in the movie theater or on television. We go to be uplifted, to be moved, to be taught, to laugh, to cry, but we do not go to watch the beautiful art form we so cherish be treated with irreverence, disdain, mockery, smut and hatefulness. While my letter only “officially” represents the opinions of two audience members who attended that performance, there were many more people who left the theater (in disgust) at intermission, not to return for the second act. Arts audiences need to stand up and be heard when they witness something that is an endangerment to students, audiences, university opera programs and the operatic art form in general. Many opera patrons oppose the downward-spiraling moral trend spearheaded by Cazan and other university opera directors. I urge those patrons to voice their opinions and protest a little louder when they are offended by the “entertainment” they see and hear on college stages. Perhaps then administrators and directors will begin to listen. Tricia Oney DMA ’07 and David Gibides VALENCIA, CA USC Thornton School of Music Dean Robert Cutietta responds: The Thornton School is one of the finest music schools in the country. As such, it is critical that we provide students in the opera program experiences that are not available at other institutions of higher education. Therefore, when the occasion presented itself for us to collaborate with the Juilliard School and the College-Conservatory of Music of the University of Cincinnati on a world premiere of an opera, it would have been irresponsible of me to deny our students this unique opportunity. As artists they had to conquer demanding contemporary music while creating characters for which they had no former role models. Professional opera singers will be confronted with this dual challenge, but very few schools of music are in a position to provide such an opportunity. We signed onto the project before the piece was composed (as is always the case with commissions and premieres) but we were aware of the story line. Ms. Oney seems to have missed the point that Professor Cazan did not write the story. Instead, it is the accurate portrayal of the classic 1933 book by Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts, by one of today’s major living composers, Lowell Liebermann. Prior to this production, the book has been made into a Broadway play and two movies. It is read and studied in college-level English classes at USC and many other universities across the country. Last, Ms Oney is mistaken when she states that no warnings about adult content were present. We took extreme measures to assure that audience members were clear that the performance contained adult subject matter and was not appropriate for children. This included a letter from me to all of our regular opera audience members specifically to make this clear. The mission of an academic institution is to provide top educational experiences for its students. The mission of an outstanding educational institution such as the USC Thornton School is to provide an unparalleled array of professional experiences that are not available at other schools. I think we succeeded very well in fulfilling this mission.

1) To all who had the misfortune to miss Miss Lonelyhearts: Aren't you kicking yourself now? I know I am. This show sounds awesome, all of a sudden.

2) To Dean Cutietta: Ummm, didn't someone else help the composer and the director adapt Miss Lonelyhearts? I seem to recall that the dismayingly prolific J.D. "Sandy" McClatchy, America's Librettist, had something to do with this. Let's give the man his props.

3) To Ms. Oney & Mr. Gibides: Kids, you just wrote a letter to the editor of your alumni magazine, complaining about a naughty opera staging. I mean, DMA '07? According to my calculations, that makes you wayyyy too young to be a bitter old person. Please, please get out more. Let's start with a stroll to the lovely Los Angeles Public Library and work up from there.

Okay, that's all. Fight on, Trojans!

Consider Yourselves Warned

The music of Martin Bresnick can be hazardous to your health! Tim Munro of eighth blackbird reveals the hidden dangers, here. He's all right, thank goodness.

All Your Favorite Nazi Artists, Now DRM-Free!

So, please allow me to join the chorus of heavy breathing over Deutsche Grammophon's new mp3 store. I've been terribly curious about DG's recent recordings of the Sandström High Mass and the Berio Sinfonia, but not $18-per-disc-curious, since I've already got a top-notch recording of each (and not 128kbps-curious, either). Not much I can add to AC Douglas, Steve Smith and Alex Ross's enthusiasm over the return to catalog of various out-of-print recordings, except to note that (a) Henze's complete symphonies are available, they're just (like a lot of stuff on the site--searching for "Taneyev" reveals a lot more than picking him out of the dropdown menu) well-hidden, and (b) the webshop seems to offer the added bonus of eliminating the Atlantic divide in release/reissue schedules. Want a CD of Karajan conducting Bruckner's Third? Tough luck. Here's the only available issue, a $144 German import. Want it on mp3? That'll be $12.36, please. Or even better, want to hear Pierre Boulez's "forthcoming" Mahler recording? $23, and you'll get to hear it before it shows up at your local record shop. If I had $23 to spend on Mahler right now, I'd be listening to that bad mother even as I type this. You just know it's gonna be mad lucid. My only disappointment is that I am unable to download much evidence that the ill-conceived "DG ReComposed" project ever existed. Those friends of mine who have never heard the dancehall remix of Karajan conducting Dvořák will have to persist in their blissful, blissful ignorance.

Why on Earth Are Old People So Afraid of iPods

Seriously. If you haven't read this Anthony Tommasini piece on the subject, I'll give you the gist: he's convinced that the audiophile is a dying breed, basically for no reason other than that this meme is frickin' unkillable. He speaks to a number of people who actually work in home audio equipment and therefore might know better, and indeed they assure him that this is not the case, but he decides they're wrong because he likes his scratchy Schnabel records and because the Gramophone doesn't dedicate as many pages to vacuum-tube receivers as it used to. Okay. First of all, I question how many iPod naysayers could really tell the difference between a variable-bitrate mp3 and a CD of the same music. A high-quality mp3, in fact, sounds really, really good. A clean, flawless record sounds better, yes, but doesn't a Super-Audio CD sound better still? Every high-profile classical release comes out on SACD nowadays, and more and more homes are equipped with SACD-compatible 5.1-surround setups that take a big ol' crap on the quadrophonic sound spectaculars of the audiophile heyday. Know somebody with one of those new PlayStations? Guess what: according to a report in a recent (yup) Gramophone, the PS3 happens to include an extremely competitive SACD player. So that means, the turntable your creepy rich uncle wouldn't let you touch? Probably doesn't sound as good as your friend's new toy. Maybe the reason advertising for the audiophile market has gone down is simply because not many people can shell out for truly state-of-the-art audio. Have you ever talked to one of these people? Ask how much they spend on speaker wire alone. Mp3 players, on the other hand, are not only convenient, but affordable--the market is much larger. And, look, iPods and audiophilia are not mutually exclusive. Nobody puts a gun to your head and says, "Compress." The newest iPod holds 160 GB, which is enough to contain the complete works of Bach and the complete works of Beethoven, without compression, in CD-quality sound, for under $400, and it's the size of a pack of cards. Still not fancy enough? Here! Accessorize with vacuum tubes.

Nightstand! Of! STEEL!!!

Look, I've already said this to two people tonight, so I'm going to post it here, and I won't have to repeat it again: No, I have not read the Alex Ross book. I'm sure it's great. I know everyone's read it but me. I can't wait to pick it up. But I have not even bought a copy, and I will not buy a copy until I have finished reading Now, Voyagers by James McCourt (of Queer Street fame). If you haven't heard, Now, Voyagers is the sequel to Mawrdew Czgowchwz, the opera-queen novel as unpronounceable as it is indispensible. (Actually, it's pronounced "Mardu Gorgeous," so maybe just call it "the opera-queen novel" and we'll leave it at that.) If you are a faggot, like myself, and care enough about classical music to be reading this blog, you should probably be reading Mawrdew Czgowchwz right now instead of anything I have to say. And even if you are just a homo and do not care about classical music in the slightest, and have stumbled across this website through one of those crazy internet accidents, you should definitely be reading Queer Street instead of anything I have to say, because that book is the user's manual that they should have handed out with your homosexuality. Anyhow, I've only read the first few, insane pages of Now, Voyagers, because I've decided I'm not going to start reading it in earnest until I finish War and Peace. Yeah, you heard me. See, I've never read it, and here it is in this new translation from Pevear and Volokhonsky, our two most faithful guides to Russian literature, and check out how beautiful, just to look at! Now take off the dust jacket--still beautiful! Gorgeous. I smile to see it on my shelf. And there it sits. Because of course, before I even start in on War and Peace, I'd better finish reading Sodom and Gomorrah, because otherwise that would be one enormous novel too many--Sodom and Peace, War and Gomorrah, I'd get it all mixed up. But I've taken a short break from Sodom and Gomorrah to read La Colmena (The Hive), an astonishingly vicious novel of life after the Spanish Civil War by Nobel-laureate Camilo José Cela. Cela was an interesting character: a nobleman, an officer and, later, spy for Franco (betraying his fellow writers to the Fascist government), he was also famous for having claimed, in a televised interview, to be able to take a liter of water into his body through his asshole. (He offered to demonstrate for the cameras.) This translation is terrible, though, and so I've stopped reading it except as a crib to the original Spanish, which I'm reading in a beautiful scholarly edition, except that I've paused to read the most charming little thing: You're an Animal, Viskovitz! by Alessandro Boffa. A novel, kind of, it tells the story of Viskovitz, everyschlemiel, as his soul wanders from beast to beast--snail, dung beetle, chameleon, elk, parrot--looking for love. I hate to say, "Think blank meets blank," but maybe it'll help if I tell you to think, What if Woody Allen wrote Invisible Cities? Not as deep as Calvino maybe, not as funny as Allen at his best, but still a terrifically funny, insightful, remarkably sustained performance. Each chapter is a self-contained fable on the animal in man (and woman). And look, Roz Chast did the cover! It's great! You love her! Yeah, you'd better read this book, too. Anyhow, I'm delighted to add Alex Ross to the list. I'm just sayin', it might take a while. Bear with me, people.

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.