The Penitent Wagnerite

"Wait a minute!"

2009-10-29T22:12:00.002-05:00

So let me get this straight? Thanks to Yamaha (and Zenph), we can get Tatum or (most recently) Rachmaninoff back in the room, and now -- thanks again to Yamaha -- we can play a perfect recreation of (seemingly) any piano?

On one hand, this seems like the perfect sort of things for music programs at cash-strapped institutions. I remember when my alma mater, Wabash, got a donation from an alumnus to restore its Bösendorfer. It was a big deal. This product seems like it could spare colleges and secondary schools the expense of buying, tuning, and maintaining acoustic pianos. With the wide number of possibilities inherent in what amounts to sound files and other information, piano manufacturers could license their "sounds" and "feels" to Yamaha, and, though I don't know much about the technical aspects of the AvantGrand, adding the piano to the AvantGrand's repertoire could be as easy as plugging in an ethernet or USB cable. Music students could play any piano they want and know that it's always going to be in tune.

On the other hand, I'd have to hear it before I got too hyped up about it. Acoustic instruments, unsurprisingly, have a sound to them that neither good recordings nor good imitations can reproduce accurately. I'm positive part of that is merely the experience of being immersed totally in sound waves (which is why good speakers trump good headphones for the visceral experience of music, even though you can buy great headphones at a fraction of the cost of a great hi-fi setup). There's also natural decay and all that. I wonder how well Yamaha's engineers have managed to simulate decay and sustain. It sounds like they relied on recordings within acoustic pianos to derive their sound, but I am uncertain that it would be as easy as that. I want to think that the vibrations of the piano as a whole, moving air at a given frequency, would have an effect on the sound -- even if it can't be heard.

On the whole, though, I think this is a neat product. I am considerably more sanguine about this than I am about Zenph reperformances (even though the Rachmaninoff disc is nice, though not SACD -- apparently Sony doesn't believe in its idea any more, even though it sure will sell you a player for a super-niche product). Unlike something that seems to raise the recording to an end in and of itself, this product has some potential (albeit conditioned on its verisimilitude) to provide a real, tangible benefit to students of music and musicians who need to practice, but cannot afford an acoustic piano and its upkeep.

As much as I enjoy putting my Cicero mask on and reciting the part of In Catilinam that everyone knows, I really can't complain too hard when something comes along that might make the teaching of serious music more widespread and financially viable. Based on my reading, I think the AvantGrand may well do that.

L'Affaire Nobel

2009-10-09T23:47:00.002-05:00

Leave it to me to complain about something right before something related to it gets really controversial. For example, I groused about another "Continental nullity" (I said that elsewhere) getting the Nobel Prize in Literature the day before President Barack Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize, for which he was nominated no later than ten days into his presidency. One commentator has remarked that the level of prestige afforded the Prizes does not necessarily comport with the reality they represent, and she paused to comment on my stalking horse:

The same, I'm afraid, is true of the Nobel Prize in literature, which is selected by Swedish judges. Sweden is a larger and more cosmopolitan place than Norway. Nevertheless, almost without fail, the Nobel laureate turns out to be an obscure writer, usually European, whose works are hardly known outside of a few German-speaking and Germano-centric countries.

Anne Applebaum, Who Cares Who Wins The Nobel Peace Prize?, Slate (October 9, 2009).

While I am happy that President Obama has gotten the Peace Prize (just as I would have been happy had President Bush gotten it while he was in office), I cannot help but think that the Norwegians have missed the point of the rise of Barack Obama and concentrated on the fact that he's not George W. Bush. Which is really too bad, since that does a disservice to both men and their respective accomplishments to date.

"Mediocrities everywhere, now and to come..."

2009-10-08T16:28:00.003-05:00

In keeping with their current policy of awarding the Nobel Prize for Literature to second-rate authors from Europe (lest a first-rate author from the United States be honored), the Swedish Academy has awarded the 2009 Prize to Herta Müller, who had, up until the Swedish proverbial purple found its way to her shoulders, been the recipient of awards from many German cities and Länder.

She had not, however, written Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West. That was Cormac McCarthy in 1985. Or American Pastoral. That was Philip Roth in 1997. Yet another Nobel season has gone by without either McCarthy or Roth ending up with the Prize in Literature. While there have been recipients during that period who have obviously deserved the award, e.g., J.M. Coetzee in 2005, by and large, the Swedes are appearing increasingly desperate to avoid the appearance of having anything nice to say about an American author, lest they appear to have something nice to say about America.

I get it. It's hard to admit that the United States actually has a culture, much less a culture more relevant in recent years than Europe's collective culture. Nevertheless, let's not punish some of the most important authors in recent years because of it, eh? All it does is water down the Nobel Prize into a parochial award given to Europeans (and residents of former European colonies and possessions) by Europeans as a memento of Europe's once-mighty cultural output. That's fine, I suppose, but there's no reason to care any more about the Nobel Prize in Literature than the Bonn Prize for Literary Merit or whatever Müller's biggest prize until now was.

At least we have been spared the egregious Horace Engdahl this time around.

"I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

2009-09-17T21:45:00.003-05:00

One of the most difficult reads I've encountered in some time, Andrew Sullivan's open letter to George W. Bush in the October Atlantic is essential reading as far as I am concerned. The passage that really got me was this one,

Torture is the ultimate expression of the absolute power of one individual over another; it destroys the souls of those who torture just as surely as it eviscerates the dignity of those who are its victims. And because torture is so awful, it also often requires a defensive embrace of it, a pride in it, an exaggeration of its successes. And those so-called successes invariably lead to more torture until we end up with the record of wanton and systematic abuse that occurred under your command.

While the meltdown of political discourse in the Republic has occurred over health care, I think that the torture debate -- though there isn't much room for debate -- still needs to happen. Eric Holder has, as Dahlia Lithwick has pointed out at Slate, fallen victim to the mindset that a legal memo means an absolution from culpability. That is not the case. I doubt that Sullivan's piece will have much effect, but it should force people to take a long, hard look at what the United States has done and whether or not it was worth it -- in the long run.

Who indeed?

2009-08-30T13:55:00.004-05:00

I read, with both great interest and mounting horror, this piece in The New York Times Magazine about the killings (though I'd use another, more specific, word) that took place at New Orleans Memorial Medical Center during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I offer, by way of analysis, this comment by another on a very similar program to the one described in the article,

People, he told his congregation, were not like old horses or cows, to be slaughtered when they were of no more use. If this principle were applied to human beings, 'then fundamentally the way is open to the murder of all unproductive people, of the incurably ill, of people invalided out of work or out of the war, then the way is open to the murder of all of us, when we become old and weak and thus unproductive.' In such circumstances, he asked rhetorically, 'Who can trust his doctor anymore?' -- Blessed Clemens August Graf von Galen, Sermon of 3 August 1941, quoted in Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich At War, p. 98.

I have my doubts, however, that the people (I wouldn't insult other doctors by granting these men and women the same dignity) who made their patients so "comfortable" (if that was indeed their intent) would be capable of taking Cardinal Graf von Galen's point fully.

Summer Reading

2009-08-27T21:55:00.002-05:00

Now that my summer is about over (classes resumed yesterday), I think it appropriate to reveal -- not that anyone cares too deeply -- my summer reading list. While this seems a little weak, I think it should be noted that Cultural Amnesia and The Third Reich At War are massive books -- tomes, even -- that consumed a lot of time (the latter book still consumes a lot of time and it's about all I've done for the last week or so).

Hannah Arendt, Eichmann In Jerusalem (1964)
Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich At War (2008)
Clive James, Cultural Amnesia (2007)
Ernst Jünger, Storm Of Steel (1920/1931 ver.)
Cormac McCarthy, Suttree (1979)
Peter Pettinger, Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings (1999)

I've also been dabbling in Frank O'Hara's Collected Poetry (1971/1995) and Rilke in Mitchell's translation (The Selected Poetry of RMR). For whatever reason (and in the case of the O'Hara volume, it's partially a baffling-to-me editorial layout), I don't like reading poetry straight through -- unless it's meant to be read straight through. I'll admit coming to O'Hara largely because the second season of Mad Men was laced with allusions to his Meditations In An Emergency (1957), but I'll also admit that it was a pleasant surprise to find him as engaging as he has proved.

Of course, it wouldn't be an interesting summer book list if I didn't recount all the books that I have yet to get to -- and, thanks to law journal and moot court, probably won't for a while.

Italo Calvino, t zero (1967)
Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero (1985)
Kazuo Ishiguro, An Artist Of The Floating World (1986)
Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich: A New History (2000)
Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin (Stanley Mitchell, trans., 2008)
John Reed, Ten Days That Shook The World (1919)
François Truffaut, Hitchcock/Truffaut (1967/1983)

Of course, I think having such a deep shelf of books that I need to read is a bit of subconscious rebellion against the imperial demands of the law school on my time. While cases are interesting (especially if you want to pass the classes, as I do), I don't think many rise to the level of great literature. Even Justice Antonin Scalia, often praised for his prose, tends toward tendentiousness in a way that wouldn't pass muster in the circles of serious nonfiction.

Bach/Evans

2009-08-10T23:11:00.002-05:00

I'm currently in the middle of Peter Pettinger's Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings (Yale UP, 1998), and a theme that has emerged so far is Evans' fondness for Bach. For example, for Evans' senior recital in college on 24 April 1950, the pianist chose to play -- among other pieces -- the B-flat-minor prelude and fugue (BWV 867). His appreciation, particularly of the Well-Tempered Clavier, apparently continued through the years.

This is, of course, just a little bit of musical trivia; however, it's interesting to me to see to what Evans himself liked to study and to play. It also says a lot about Bach's genius.

R.I.P. John Hughes

2009-08-07T14:32:00.003-05:00

John Hughes died yesterday. It's no overstatement to say that the man, in his writing and directing, probably defined the 1980s for a lot of people. At the very least, he made a lot of the movies I think of as "iconic" when I think about the 1980s. Between Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Hughes did a lot to define what growing up during that time in middle America meant. His vision resonated with a lot of people. One particularly moving tribute came from a woman who was his pen pal during the 1980s. Hughes seems like he was a pretty decent fellow, even at the height of his fame. Dana Stevens, at Slate, takes a broader view to much the same effect.

When Michael Jackson died, I wasn't really struck by the event largely because I am too young to remember Jackson at the height of his own fame. All I remember is the increasingly sad sight of a man hounded mercilessly by the same media that slathered him in near-hagiography until the early 1990s. Hughes, on the other hand, retired in 1994 and retreated into relatively anonymous private life. There's something to be said for that. In a way, Hughes' art never had to take a back seat to his personal life, and a lot of the images I associate with Hughes (particularly the end of The Breakfast Club or the restaurant scene in Ferris Bueller) are just that -- images I associate with John Hughes. His authorial voice, so to speak, is stronger for that.

That's what's really very extraordinary about John Hughes -- something I didn't realize until just now. He realized, at some level, that Hollywood can and often does turn on its darlings. His pen pal talked about his comments about what the industry did to John Candy. The same goes for Michael Jackson or anyone who makes a big enough statement. Orson Welles, for example, was cast out and kept out from the Hollywood establishment even as Kane was praised to high heaven. The allure of fame is well documented, as is the struggle a lot of people have with leaving the limelight. It takes someone with a fair amount of perspective to just up and leave. It takes someone who can read the writing on the wall.

While I could talk about Hughes' perspective on modern American life for middle-class teenagers, I won't. Hughes let his movies do all the talking. We should too. We should remember, furthermore, that sometimes the best way to make sure you're heard is to say almost nothing at all.

Austin Pendleton Speaks.

2009-07-30T16:12:00.002-05:00

It was some surprise that I saw an interview with character actor Austin Pendleton on the Onion AV Club. I knew his work, primarily for what the author, Nathan Rabin, calls "his daft, sweet, quirky presence," from a lot of movies. Like some other actors (all of whom deserve the title "veteran character actor"), Pendleton has done a lot - much of it good - but he's always Austin Pendleton, if for no other reason than the fact that he has a very memorable, distinctive voice.

It turns out, much to my surprise, that Pendleton is probably a better raconteur than he is an actor, and he's not a bad actor. For example, he discussed Peter Bogdanovich's relationship with Orson Welles,

[This is Orson Welles is] the best book about Orson I’ve ever read. And it’s just Orson talking. It’s absolutely delicious, and perceptive, and profound, and all those things he was, in addition to being a very bad boy. And his bad-boy aspect comes out in it, too. He would boast on the set of Catch-22 how he had thrown Fred Zinnemann off the set for his scene in A Man For All Seasons, and directed it himself. He loved to do that. I met Peter, because he would sit with Orson in the middle of the desert in a canvas-backed chair, right next to Orson, with a tape recorder, just for hours. And Peter would be dressed every day in a black suit, in that heat, and his skin would of course be totally pale, and it was the most unforgettable sight. And Peter was very unapproachable in those days. He’s now the opposite of that. But he was very serious. It was before The Last Picture Show and all that. At that time, he was essentially a film historian who had made one film for Roger Corman.

I am not a fan of Bogdanovich for much the same reason Dick Cavett has never engaged me (despite Clive James' scintillating essay on Cavett in Cultural Amnesia): being friends with a famous artist -- be it Orson Welles or Groucho Marx -- gets you so far, but then you need to stop talking about it. That's probably asking too much of two men whose job it is or was (to some extent) to talk, especially when they knew two of the 20th century's seminal artists. I ask anyway.

Pendleton manages here to encapsulate the strangeness of a relationship that I find strange indeed (especially if, as I do, you think Bogdanovich didn't get much out of the deal other than a perennial spot in any Welles documentary). One can imagine the massive, voluble late-period Orson Welles telling his stories to pale, skinny, black-dressed, but deeply grateful Bogdanovich in the desert -- which may be one the most magical images I can imagine. In a way, Pendleton has given us an image that says a lot about Orson Welles -- even if his audience was a film nerd in a suit with a tape recorder, Welles was ready to perform his favorite role -- Orson Welles: Frustrated Artist.

What is even more interesting is the fact that Pendleton has a similarly engrossing story for each of the films discussed -- ranging from My Cousin Vinny to Buck Henry's flop, First Family. I, for one, would welcome Pendleton's memoir after this little example of the stories he has to tell and his way of telling them. There is a seeming lack of self-serving artifice, which may well be self-serving, for all I know, which gives his accounts the air of being retellings of stories he likes rather than an opportunity to gild his lily.

God knows, and I think he'd say this, anyone who has been in a Hulk Hogan vehicle probably shouldn't be gilding his lily. Anyway, an interesting interview well worth the read.

That loving feeling

2009-07-16T22:02:00.004-05:00

I'll be honest: I haven't found much to excite me in the realm of serious art music lately. I've been busy with law school and a summer clerkship, too; that, however, doesn't explain it.

The fact of the matter is this: the recording industry is undergoing a change. People have been pronouncing classical dead for a while. Prematurely each time, I might add. There are still interesting releases, and I think that -- despite my initial skepticism -- DVD/BD is going to be a large part of the way forward. And why shouldn't it? High-definition media and televisions, coupled with audio reproduction systems that can get us closer to the concert halls, makes visual opera-going an easy and attractive option. Indeed, Wagner needs to be experienced visually (even if in a bad production, though one should know what a good production would look like first) to be understood fully. Orchestral works benefit less from visual presentation, but a tasteful production can be very nice.

We're seeing more releases on the order of the "Wagner cube" of last year (was it?), which is -- ultimately -- a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it's nice to hear out-of-print performances; on the other, how many times can we look at a conductor in a work and say the same thing? Unfortunately, too, a complete Verdi-from-La Scala set leaves me cold. As does a complete Haydn. Audite's Furtwängler-RIAS set looks neat, but how many times can I say the same thing about Furtwängler's Beethoven 5th? I find it harder and harder to justify completism.

I'd rather not see this blog fall victim to stagnation, which -- I am acutely aware -- is a real risk (if not already a problem). So, for the moment, anyway, I'm going to open the borders. I still would like to do my part in resisting the "dismal tide," so I won't be throwing the gates wide. I'll just expand my musical focus and introduce some more topics. Film will, naturally, be a big one. Books. Talking -- again -- about how Karl Böhm's Wagner works for Meistersinger, but not the Ring (it does, in my book) might be fun, but I'd rather compare Bill Evans' 1967 stand at the Village Vanguard to his legendary 1961 dates. Or why Al Reinart's For All Mankind deserves more notice than Moon-anniversary-mania will afford it.

Let's try this and see what happens. If I can get out of this blogging slump, then I'll draw the boundaries a little closer to their original locations. Heck, I might even decide that I like the new way forward.

On budget-reissue packaging

2009-06-17T08:07:00.003-05:00

Pliable, some time ago, wrote about the declining standards of one label's budget reissues.

It's a shame that a Warner property is putting out bargain sets with such shoddy packaging. That's doubly true when you consider that Warner put out the reissue of Daniel Barenboim's Bayreuth Ring (originally on Teldec). I have praised it here before, but that set really was the gold standard for bargain reissues -- as it contained reprints of the original books, which were, in that case, most excellent for what they are.

I understand that the economy isn't great and record companies need to squeeze every last bit of blood from long-ago-amortized recordings, but let's maintain some dignity, shall we? Look at the Warner Ring or the RCA Living Stereo sets. Nothing extravagant about the packaging, but there was nothing shoddy about it, either. ECM, a UMG property these days, more or less, put out the excellent 1986 Standards Live by the Keith Jarrett Trio (Jarrett, Gary Peacock, and Jack DeJohnette), as part of its Milestones series. The disc is pretty much the same -- if not the same -- as the original release, but it's in a cheap paper sleeve. Now, I'd rather have the disc than not, but I'd most like to have the disc in quality packaging. The major labels need to understand that a reissue series will never become great based on its packaging, but it might become crappy that way.

Just a thought.

Listening to you...

2009-05-14T16:34:00.002-05:00

I've been busy with finals of late, so I haven't really had the time to engage in a whole lot of serious listening, which means that I try to keep the music solidly in the realm of pop. It annoys me to no end when people talk of Bach or Beethoven as "study music." If you are going to reduce something like the Goldberg Variations or one of Beethoven's sonatas to sonic wallpaper, then you're missing the point. Serious music deserves to be met on its own terms, not while working a bunch of derivative problems for calculus.

Here is what has been on my headphones a lot lately. With the exception of Siegfried, I don't feel too bad if I tune out from time to time with this stuff, but it's a good idea to pay attention, too.

1. Bill Evans - Explorations (Riverside 1961)
While Evans' work at the Village Vanguard is notable, I prefer Explorations as a rule. Tracks like "Nardis" show what a force Evans, La Faro, and Motian were during the all-too-brief time they collaborated.

2. Buddy Holly - For the First Time Anywhere (MCA 1983)
Worth it for "Bo Diddley." Interesting to hear a sort of raw, live-in-the-studio (more or less) sound for Holly. In a lot of the tracks, there's a more propulsive sound that I like. The road between Holly and other artists like Johnny Cash is better illuminated here than elsewhere.

3. Richard Wagner - Siegfried (Naxos' potted Melchior set)
Sometimes it's nice to be able to hear a Heldentenor of the first rank. I think, given the state of both Wagnerian singing and the record industry today, that well-mastered recordings of the greats are more essential than ever. Melchior, I am becoming firmly convinced, was the greatest exponent of Siegfried and a contender for the greatest Siegmund on record (I really like James King's performance for Böhm, though).

4. The Smiths - Hatful of Hollow (Rough Trade 1984)
It's worth tracking down the original RT issue (Rough CD76) instead of the Sire/Reprise issue. For whatever reason, I think that the bass is a better reproduced on the French MPO-made discs from the original issue. The contributions of Morrissey and Johnny Marr need no defense, but heard on the RT CD, Andy Rourke's role becomes clearer and integral.

5. Bob Dylan - New Morning [remaster] (Sony 2009)
This record, most notable for The Big Lebowski's use of "The Man In Me," is one of Dylan's criminally underrated gems. I don't know if it's Al Kooper's organ or Dylan himself, but there is a lighter, exuberant mood to the record that I like.

"That's how people grow up"

2009-05-12T23:11:00.003-05:00

Growing up, ancient Egypt was, as I am sure it was to many people, about as wonderful and distant as it got. I kept my interest in ancient cultures and, as it turned out, studied classics (with an emphasis on ancient Rome) in college. I ended up going for a J.D. rather than a Ph.D., but I'd be kidding myself if I said that the culture of the ancient world didn't have a major influence on me.

So, I too respond with disbelief when I heard that the legendary bust of Akhenaten's wife, Nefertiti (who may have been Neferneferuaten and Smenkhkare, but that's another story), has been called a modern fake.

I haven't read Mr. Stierlin's book, which would answer my questions, but I'd like to talk to an expert about what this revelation does to our understanding of New Kingdom art in general, with specific reference to the Amarna period. We've got plenty of art from that time, but that bust of one woman is probably better known than any number of friezes and stelae from that period. It is also the second most recognizable symbol of ancient Egypt, at least in a non-architectural sense (though I'd say, even if you include the Great Pyramid and the Great Sphinx, she'd still come in no lower than fourth). On some level, then, it would be a bit upsetting to see it exposed as a fake -- a European fake, no less.

On the other hand, who cares?

The bust is beautiful. From the slightly enigmatic expression to the proportion and balance of the features, the sculpture has considerable charm. Even the missing eye adds something to it. At some point, the provenance of such a work ceases to matter too much, even if a reevaluation obliterates the meaning the viewer gives the work. Would ancient Egypt have held the same charm for me as a little shaver if I'd known that this work was a fake? Probably. Would I have chosen classics for my undergraduate major? Probably. So what difference does this revelation make? Not much.

Though we probably should reevaluate the sculptor.

State of the art

2009-04-22T00:48:00.003-05:00

The local Borders looks to be getting out of the CD business. The Barnes and Noble has already downsized, replacing a good portion of its once large (and bizarre, frankly) CD racks with a selection of Blu-Ray discs (bizarre, too). None of my preferred independent local stores stock much, if any, classical that I can tell.

That's probably for the best, since none of the major-label releases are all that attractive to me at the moment. It's expensive and burnout-inducing to follow some of the boutique labels. I mean, really, who has the money to collect another stereo Keilberth cycle from 1955 (to take an example at random)? I really could have skipped the Kempe cycle from 1957, but it has its moments (and it gives us a chance to hear Kempe in the full Ring). I understand that we're not collecting Morrissey singles for the B-sides or anything, but it's still a lot of hassle to follow some of these smaller labels.

I will probably buy the forthcoming Testament releases of Giulini in Bruckner's 7th and 8th from mid-1980s Berlin, though, so how burned out can I really be?

In some ways, Thomas Mann's Doktor Faustus is a fine analogy for the United States (and world) economy. We've had our financial geniale Zeit, and it's now over. We made our deal and we've settled our account. I won't go into the analogies for Schwerdtfeger and Echo now, but I think they're there. It is natural, then, that we find ourselves in a collective state not unlike that of Dr. Leverkühn after his collapse at the "premiere" of the Lamentation of Doctor Faustus. Such a state – even in economic analogue – does not necessarily make the consumer entertainment market all that much fun.

Indeed, this seems like precisely the excuse the major labels need to start sloughing off reissues to Arkiv for the ArkivCD program or Testament or to internet-only releases, leaving the lucrative crossover and central-repertoire markets ripe for the picking. I guess. I assume that it's safe to assume that the RCA Living Stereo and Mercury Living Presence SACD rerelease series are most definitely dead as doornails (and have been for years). Too bad about the RCA series winding down, since it was nice to have a ready source of Charles Munch recordings in good sound. UMG seems to have launched a new Decca bargain rerelease label, however, but I don't call another version of Solti's Das Rheingold a reissue.

Already, I'm seeing fewer and fewer really inspired titles. For example, the Goldberg Variations on harp sounds like a record designed for undergraduates in search of "study music" and young married couples planning their dinner parties. I'm not demanding that every release be cummings ist der Dichter or Mahler's 9th, but let's not kid ourselves either – you can have intelligent, mainstream releases.

I don't know what will happen to the boutique labels, whose business model seems somewhat more precarious, particularly if the majors decide to use licensing fees as a quick revenue stream. The recording sessions are long amortized and the tapes aren't going anywhere, though that won't always be the case. The broadcaster tapes, too, seem like a fast revenue source for public media. The Medici and BBC releases, though, don't seem to be slowing down too greatly.

Maybe this is what the business needs, though. Maybe now every flashy, reasonably attractive kid with some talent won't be rushed to stardom before they've had a chance to mature. Maybe now we can finally break the habit of putting every conductor's wish to tape. In other words, maybe we'll start getting well considered releases done well by people who know what they're doing. It's clear that something will come of this economic meltdown, and it's easy to assume it will all be deleterious to serious music and serious musicians. It probably will be, but sometimes you just need to take it on the chops to get your head about you.

Of Wagner and Watchmen

2009-03-12T11:28:00.003-05:00

Having seen criticism, implicit and less so, of Zack Snyder's use of Wagner's overture to act 3 of Die Walküre in Watchmen, I think it's necessary to point something out:

Alan Moore uses it in the book. True story.

In the end-of-chapter text for Chapter 1, "At midnight, all the agents...," Hollis Mason's Under The Hood (pp. 27-32) recites the origin story of that character – who became the first Nite Owl. That story involves the Walkürenritt, but in a sad, ironic context. I won't spoil the book, but I assure you that there is as much distance between the Watchmen use and Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now as there is between Moscow and the Kamchatka Peninsula.

Snyder, then, had an opportunity to be clever and give hard-core Watchmen fans something about which they can smile. He, instead, chose to give a "homage" to Apocalypse Now and, in the process, adding an absent and contradictory meaning to Moore's already near-perfect book. From Hell is Moore's perfect book, but that's another post.

Tom Service is highly wrong about everything in that quoted passage, though. About Wagner. About the Valkyries. About Watchmen. He also seems dangerously impervious to irony. Indeed, thinking about this makes Snyder's choice even more perverse – it's funny to talk about a piece of music showing bloodlust when a theme of Watchmen is Dr. Manhattan's disconnection from humanity and emotion.

Onions all 'round.

La Mort de Marat

2009-03-03T16:22:00.003-05:00

The ever-wonderful Kate Beaton has a comic presenting her take on the death of Marat at the hands of the infamous Charlotte Corday. The payoff is, strangely enough, found about halfway through in the seventh panel. Suffice it to say her approach differs from that of Jacques-Louis David.

She also did one about the James Joyce – Nora Barnacle letters that, particularly the third panel, just about did me in this morning. Worth a look. While I like Kate Beaton's work, let me say that there are a lot of literate, intelligent webcomics out there. The current fixation with superheroes, viz. Watchmen-mania, might disincline some from partaking of the animated arts. There is more out there.

On a completely unrelated note, why did DG reissue the Jochum Meistersinger on the Originals marque? Seriously. While the Böhm 1968 performance on Orfeo is about as good as it gets, I have to say that I always thought the studio crown had been taken by Von Karajan's remarkably intelligent and sensitive EMI set from 1970. I understand UMG wants to get some revenue from amortized back-catalog recordings, but there are probably better recordings to squeeze. Also, I'm not sure that a thirty-or-forty-dollar set is the best way to make the best out of this economy, but maybe the UMG whizkids know something I don't.

Probably not, but you never know.

Requiem for the Cinemat

2009-02-24T19:21:00.002-05:00

The Cinemat, one of Bloomington's independent downtown movie-rental establishments is apparently closing. Too bad. Just another reason to start saying "Keep Bloomington Weird." To do that, remember that, if you're in the Bloomington area, you can patronize:

TD's CDs and LPs (Kirkwood, across from the library)
Landlocked Music (Walnut and 6th)
The Video Saloon (Walnut and 7th)
Plan 9 Video (Walnut, between 6th and 7th)
Suburban Lanes (Way the way up on Walnut)
Upland Brewing Company
Bloomingfoods

Buy local. Bloomington isn't the north side of Indianapolis, and some of us like that idea.

Boulez/Mozart

2009-02-21T02:06:00.002-05:00

I've tried to write this review, and I can't.

When I first got the new Decca disc of Boulez leading the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Mozart's Serenade no. 10, KV 361, and Uchida and Tetzlaff in Berg's Chamber Concerto, I listened to it. I liked it, though I'll confess that I don't know nearly enough about Berg to really comment too authoritatively. I then listened to something else.

I got busy, so I forgot about the record. I remembered that I haven't been doing a very good job keeping TPW updated, so I picked it back up to review. Then Morrissey's Years of Refusal came out a few days back. I made my choice, and the Berg/Mozart disc wasn't it. À propos Morrissey: Don't believe the comparisons to Your Arsenal, but do check out the record.

So, what gives?

The record is boring. Boulez does his thing, and, if you like it (as I do), you'll like it here. His Mozart, better heard in a 1974 "Coronation" concerto with Sir Clifford Curzon, is competent – though it is a little light on that inner joy that one often finds in Mozart. The Berg is interesting, with Uchida and Tetzlaff in apparently solid form, but I usually return to Webern when I go to the land of the Second Viennese School. Truth be told, though, I will take Bruckner's 8th over the combined output of the Viennese gang at this point.

Boulez' recently mostly completed Mahler cycle (I doubt he's going to return to Das klagende Lied, which means that Sony should rerelease it) was interesting because Boulez had something to say about Mahler. There were some hits (the 6th), misses (the 5th), and releases that will please enthusiasts and no one else (the 2nd and 8th). Boulez is not the only person to adopt the lighter, precise approach to Mahler, but he has been a consistently interesting advocate for it. I should note that, in the concert hall, Mahler takes over the show – viz. that 2005 Vienna boot of the 2nd (not to mention my own experience).

I am somehow less sure that Boulez has anything terribly interesting to say about Mozart. What he has had to say about Berg is well known (on both Sony and DG). This release, then, became an exercise in technical prowess.

I made the right decision by sticking with Years of Refusal the last few days.

Rediscovering Paul Schrader's Mishima

2009-02-18T13:35:00.003-05:00

I have read several best-of lists from the last year, and, in so doing, have seen Paul Schrader's 1985 film, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, several times. Now that I have seen it held out as an example of a "good" movie in a piece on Slate, I think it's time to discuss it briefly.

It's hard to define, with any real specificity, the charm of Mishima. It comes down to two things: the story (and storytelling) is interesting and the filmmaking good. It sounds simple, but how many movies manage to be technically brilliant and utterly vapid? How many more have a great story, but no technical elegance? It is a rare movie, like Ang Lee's 1997 The Ice Storm, to cite another example, that combines beauty with content. Schrader managed to make just such a film, though (unlike Ang Lee, who has, when he cares to use it, one of the best eyes for beauty since Stanley Kubrick) he did so by redefining the game.

Schrader redefined the biopic genre first. By balancing stylized representations of Mishima's "major" works (at least as major as any of Yukio Mishima's works are in the United States) with fairly realistic biopic fare, Schrader makes the individual points about Mishima's life more effectively – in addition to the overarching theme as life as art. The boring theme to do would have been to intercut scenes from Mishima's last day with scenes from his life up to then. Schrader turns that on its head by forcing the comparisons and contrasts between Mishima's life and his work (particularly when autobiographical material is "identified"). Like a good book, the subplots and digressions manage to further the overarching themes of the movie. Breaking the movie into four "chapters," balancing the three veins for each chapter, furthers this novel-like feeling in the movie.

The direction and cinematography, as I said, are extremely well done. The adaptations of Mishima's work are done in stylized, minimalist – almost abstract – settings in a limited environment. The stories, which are so crucially important to the main themes of the film, are allowed to come to the front. Recreating Kyoko's House in lush detail is less important than communicating the themes, as Schrader sees them, of the book. There is a concentration and precision to the "real-life" parts of the film, which, when coupled with Schrader's talent, combine to make them as compelling as the literary adaptations.

I should think that I've made it clear that I find this a beautiful and interesting film, and I don't think I'm alone. The Criterion Collection, which is just about the only really consistently interesting studio these days, has done us a favor by putting it back out there in fantastic packaging and with excellent features. They also issued Mishima's own film, Patriotism, separately. The rediscovery of this film forces me to ask, however, when did we lose it? This isn't like Sam Fuller's White Dog (beautiful, disturbing, intelligent, and haunting in its own way – not to mention another fine Criterion set), which wasn't mainstream to begin with; this had Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas backing it.

The problem, like White Dog, is that Mishima requires some concentration and some thought. Movies like Mishima are probably a little more taxing than "good" movies today; Capote does not require nearly as much intellectual labor as Mishima, for example. Twenty years' worth of utter dross have pushed serious movies to the fringes. Now, the Criterion Collection generally puts forth serious films, but there are plenty Criterion discs that don't really get a lot of press - why Mishima? What has happened, I think, is that people are ready for good movies. Mishima fits that bill. It is diverse enough to please almost any intelligent and serious cinéaste, though it doesn't rely on eclecticism.

The world of the enthusiast and connoisseur is full of recent "discoveries." Most of them suck. There is a reason why a lot of works are left in a drawer somewhere. Mishima, however, seems to have been a victim of changing tastes and what has been charitably called "the dismal tide." The fact that it has been rediscovered might indicate that, even in more-mainstream circles, that tide has begun to ebb.

Sometimes the good [record] wins

2009-02-14T23:12:00.003-05:00

I'm still doing a sub-par job keeping TPW updated, but blogging during property seems like a great way to do not-so-great on the final.

In any event, I was pleased to see Hilary Hahn's Schoenberg/Sibelius disc walk away with a Grammy. Given the fact that Coldplay's ersatz-U2 disc, Viva la Vida, took home some serious loot (thank God, though, for Robert Plant, Alison Krauss, and the stopper of the year), it is a refreshing tonic indeed to see an intelligent record get an award.

Of course, paying attention to awards shows like the Grammys or the Oscars is a great way to realize that, while great products of mainstream (and slightly off-mainstream) culture are still being made, the "industry" rewards itself as much as it rewards anyone else. The galling thing is, of course, the self-congratulatory tone that everyone gets when a slightly nontrivial choice is made – as though letting Little Miss Sunshine get Best Original Screenplay makes up for the tripe usually rewarded.

That having been said, it would be nice to see somewhat more coverage of the classical music awards. It might get people interested on something beyond Vivaldi and the first movement of Beethoven's 5th. Pop music is something like a vast wasteland these days, pace Chairman Newton Minow, and it isn't getting better. For every record like Byrne and Eno's Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, you get a Katy Perry or whatever. While those who appreciate serious art music can, will, and do argue over performances, stagings, and the like, they agree on this (for the central canon): the notes on the page are good. Beethoven's 7th is good. Wagner's Meistersinger is good. A lot of music today is crap.

You do the math.

Where is my mind?

2009-02-03T22:29:00.002-05:00

I haven't been updating TPW as often as I should, since life at the Maurer School of Law has my attention all day most days. I promise I'll try to do better. I'll start now.

Testament is issuing Götterdämmerung from the second cycle of the 1955 Ring. Conducted, once again, by Joseph Keilberth and packing some cast differences (Mödl for Varnay seems to be a big one), this probably portends a second 1955 stereo Bayreuth Ring. At nearly $100 at Amazon, though discounts might crop up eventually, I don't think I'll follow this one as closely as I did the first-run Keilberth Ring. Indeed, if a whole Ring is forthcoming, though Testament doesn't make it clear, they did stick The Second Cycle on the box, I might wait until Testament drops the "bargain" complete box set. I would have saved some serious scratch had I done that the first time 'round the pole.

I applaud Testament for taking such an aggressive approach to releasing historical Wagner recordings, particularly Golden Age Ring cycles. Good luck convincing a major label to do that. In the past five years or so (I think), I've seen one Keilberth 1955 stereo cycle from Bayreuth, Kempe's 1957 Covent Garden set, and now another Keilberth 1955 stereo set (at least Götterdämmerung as of now). The problem is, particularly with the first Keilberth set, following three music-dramas at nearly $100 a pop and the Vorabend at $50 or something gets expensive. Following another cycle at that price gets, well, really expensive. I don't mind supporting independent labels with good ideas and good products, largely because one should reward creativity wherever it's found, particularly in an alarmingly dull environment, but there comes a point when a student can't drop the cash without making other sacrifices. Like food.

This, though, is where another good idea would be great. Why not go digital? Tahra, which is, despite being a darling of critics and collectors, not a mainstream label is on iTunes and Amazon's MP3 service. The bitrates could be higher, though that wouldn't help many of the source recordings, but it is a way to get scarce recordings easily and cheaply. I'm also the kind of guy who will buy a record on CD that he's already downloaded legally simply because he likes the record and wants the CD. If Testament started putting out these releases in digital format, I would bet that, assuming they were priced reasonably, sales would skyrocket, relatively speaking, without requiring manpower or infrastructure expansion.

Now, the response that anyone familiar with such enterprises would throw out would be (1) the licensing agreements probably don't allow for it, and (2) why would anyone license their historical recordings to Testament if they could drop them on iTunes themselves? Well, I don't know the terms of the licensing agreements, but it would be the dominant strategy to let Testament put the stuff out online. Depending on the royalty percentages, Universal could get a reasonable cut by just boxing up the tapes and shipping them. Since UMG doesn't seem obsessed with historical recordings, it would tap into a new market using someone else's labor and expertise. Everyone would profit. That bit about labor and expertise is the answer to the second part of the objection: why train engineers and producers to do historical work when someone else already has? Historical-recording aficionados know crappy transfers when we hear them.

There are probably more and better objections to my little scheme, though if I were betting, copyright issues might be the biggest hangup. Regardless, I've talked a lot about Testament, but that's just because the "new" Götterdämmerung has me thinking about the situation. Too many historical-recordings and archival-recordings labels seem to have missed the digital boat. When giants like UMG, which seems to be stuck in a rut of crossover packages, revenue-streaming reissues/repackages, and rare insightful or intelligent releases, can figure out how to play the digital market, it seems unfortunate to see a lot of really innovative and imaginative labels get left behind.

Benjamin Button didn't leave me any younger

2009-01-07T03:03:00.002-05:00

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button proved that, while a good movie can make you forget about time, a bad one can make one acutely aware of time's passage. Perhaps that was the meta-message of a movie about time's passage, in two directions, but I doubt it. It is, perhaps, better to explain the mess that I saw in terms of an attempt to make a deep, sensitive movie gone horribly awry.

If you want to read a review, but don't want to read mine, Charles T. Downey at Ionarts makes the points I would make if he had not made them. On to my take, then. I'll keep it short, since this isn't a movie site and I don't want it to be a movie site.

My problem with Bryan Singer's Valkyrie was that the film made too many safe, easily anticipated choices. Fincher's Benjamin Button didn't even do that. It belabored the same two or three points, even going so far as to include a superfluous and deeply redundant coda, for three hours. There were no choices: this is Calvinist movie-making, as everything is predestined. This movie was like M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, but with the twist given away at the beginning of the movie. A good movie should draw you in, force you to surrender to its ebb and flow -- like a powerful river; Benjamin Button was like watching a pond. You pretty much get the idea and then you're ready to move on to something else.

I figure that this was supposed to be the holiday feel-good flick to counter the more serious run of Changeling, Milk, The Wrestler, Doubt, and Valkyrie (to name a few of the more noteworthy last-minute releases). The problem is, of course, that, if one wants to be the sort of family/date-night alternative, then one must either be as good as the competition or a mindless comedy. Even then, the mindless comedy can't be too bad, viz. Yes Man. The movie is deeply flawed because it doesn't actually do much, and it looks worse against movies that are actually really pretty good.

That having been said, as much as I was looking forward to Gran Torino, I'm on pins and needles, if only to cleanse my palate of the repetitive schmaltz with some good, old-fashioned Clint Eastwood vigilantism glorification.

'Fact, I'm going to go watch Magnum Force.

The rise of digital recordings

2009-01-04T02:23:00.002-05:00

Pliable, who worked for EMI back when EMI was a record company, has a fascinating post about the advent of digital recordings.

I knew that Willi Boskovsky's 1979 Neujahrskonzert was the first major-label (i.e., European) digital record, but I didn't know much about why that delightful concert was the first choice. I certainly didn't know about EMI's damage-control. I had always assumed that digital recordings just sort of happened, so it really is intriguing to learn a little bit about the competition and the circumstances surrounding digital recordings.

Of course, I can't say I have the experience to comment with any great authority on the quality of those early records. I'll take Pliable's review of the Boskovsky Neujahrskonzert on faith. In my experience, the perfect signifier for the whole affair comes with the reissue of Glenn Gould's 1981 Goldberg Variations. Originally done as a digital recording, when it came time to remaster the set, Sony went back to the analogue tapes. A lot of those early digital recordings were too shiny, too slick, and not too great on the ears.

Good engineering, now as then, overcame a lot of the problems that digital presented, but -- in the days of spot-miking and already-slick sound -- there were a lot of crappy-sounding records made, digital or not. Well-recorded analogue tapes sound great, even on CDs, as Wilma Cozart Fine's loving remasters of the Mercury Living Presence series and the RCA Living Stereo reissues (either project) can attest. Those records were fifteen or twenty years old, in many cases, when digital appeared. They still sound better than those early digital records.

It is amazing to think that, save for half-hearted stabs toward HDCD and SACD, the technology for recording most classical records burst into the major labels in 1979 (1976 if you count American labels). Analogue recording technology has been around for a long time and was around for a long time when digital appeared, but look at video. In my lifetime, Betamax, VHS, and DVD all rose and fell. Blu-Ray looks like it's the new format, replacing DVD in ten or fifteen years. There has not been a viable contender to the CD (as far as hardcopy music media goes, which is to say, other than the MP3) or digital recording since the introductions of both. One would think, given the essential requirement of accurate reproduction of sound that serious music presents, that wouldn't be the case. One would be wrong, though.

Since classical music is in some turmoil right now, I doubt we'll see much happen any time soon. Interesting reading from Pliable, however, and something about which one should think.

A brief comment on a missed opportunity

2009-01-02T01:59:00.003-05:00

Note: There are some spoilers below, so please do bear that in mind.

I saw Bryan Singer's Valkyrie a few days ago. It wasn't terrible, despite the misgivings I had about putting the story of Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg on film. People, of course, need to remember that, in the darkest moments of Germany's night, there were men and women willing to try to do the right thing. I think Singer oversimplified the German Resistance, but there are limitations to a holiday blockbuster that are best solved in a multi-part documentary. That would, of course, defeat the purpose of the holiday blockbuster. I also had a problem with the idea that the 20 July 1944 plot could be turned into a thriller, since the result is easily determined.

That aside, I felt that one scene could have been utilized to make a powerful point. When Stauffenberg (as played with admirable two-dimensionality by Tom Cruise) presents the revised Walküre plan to Hitler at the Berghof on the Obersalzburg, Hitler asks whether Stauffenberg knows his Wagner. He rambles on about the Valkyries and their role in selecting heroes to live or die and their role in carrying them to Valhalla. All well and good (I suppose), but then the film has Hitler make the dramatically obvious comment that in order to understand National Socialism, one must understand Wagner.

This topic has been much-debated and will continue to be debated by scholars and critics, but not here. What I will say, however, is that it would have been powerful for one of the characters to quote (or, better still, the music play) Wotan's act 2 monologue, particularly,

Zum Ekel find' ich
ewig nur mich
in allem, was ich erwirke!
Das andre, das ich ersehne,
das andre erseh' ich nie:
denn selbst muss der Freie sich schaffen:
Knechte erknet' ich mir nur!

That would have, properly understood, had a lot of dramatic impact: the free man must create himself. Compare that with Wotan, who finds only himself in all his plans. Archetypal as the Wagnerian drama is -- and I hazard to say that Wagner the dramatist produced one of his greatest scenes with this monologue; indeed, the best analogue is Aeschylus' hoi Persai -- one can draw all manner of ambiguity and pathos from this scene and its music.

It is my view, then, that Mr. Singer missed a grand opportunity to make a dramatically powerful point subtly (which his use of the Walkürenritt during the bombing raid was assuredly not) with Wagner, rather than repeating a contentious old saw about Wagner. That was, others have noted, the problem with the movie: it was neither good nor bad, great nor terrible. It was competent and did everything one would expect it to do. It tried to the whole ambiguity thing, but it's hard to introduce too much moral ambiguity or sympathy without causing problems with both dramatic sufficiency or historical accuracy. To say nothing of moral appropriateness.

That was a minor "mistake," then, but it was characteristic.

Reconsidering the Boulez/Chéreau Ring

2008-12-30T10:31:00.002-05:00

N.B. This post started life as a series of posts responding to questions about the Boulez/Chéreau Ring at one of the interweb classical-music message boards I frequent. I have made some changes and minor additions/subtractions to adjust for the change in venue. If you would like the unadulterated original text, shoot me an e-mail.

Musically, it's [i.e., the Boulez/Chéreau production from 1976-80 at Bayreuth] unidiomatic. Dramatically, it's interesting, but it introduces a political content that may or may not be present in Wagner's conception of the Ring.

Boulez flies through the cycle and clarifies the orchestral architecture to the point where every sinew and nerve, so to speak, of the piece is visible. Let me put it this way, imagine putting a magician or an illusionist in a white room, surrounded by bright lights and cameras, and then asking him to show you his tricks. There would be no illusion to it, because you can see every nuance of every move. Clarifying and simplifying Wagner's orchestration does just that. The illusion to be created by Wagner's orchestration is lost. Also, I might note that Richard Wagner was a composer of no mean talent: if he wanted skeletal renderings, then he would have arranged for them.

The cast is about as good as one could expect for 1976-1980. That's not saying a whole lot, though. Gwyneth Jones was in her Wagnerian best for Karl Böhm in the 1968 Bayreuth Meistersinger.

Chéreau's staging is unabashedly Marxist, though it doesn't go for Stalinist socialist realism. Indeed, the allegory to be found in Chéreau's Konzept is trivially obvious. If one takes a teleological view of the Ring, then the pursuit of wealth and capitalist excess, in Chéreau's view, will lead to the end of the world. Only the labors of proletarian heroes like Siegmund and Siegfried, despite their divine lineage, will bring things back to order. I'm sure that there are far better explanations offered by Chéreau and others, but the symbolism is so trivially obvious that it forces similarly obvious interpretations.

Now, an astute student of Wagner would realize that the problems begin when Alberich renounces love to gain the Rheingold. Now, there are some general dramatic and musical problems with Götterdämmerung, which others have examined elsewhere, but it is clear that Brünnhilde's act of love restores balance by wiping away the corrupt and debased world of the gods. Indeed, the theme of love is apparent throughout the Tetralogy in a way that silly Marxist screed is not. George Bernard Shaw was an intelligent and perceptive critic, but I don't think he should be taken as the final authority on Wagner. In any event, assuming Wagner regressed to 1848 (which isn't impossible for Rheingold, done in 1853-1854, though it's unlikely) and wrote a socialist parable, why make the allegory obvious? That's not dramatically clever, so such a move on Wagner's part would be massively out-of-character for Wagner.

Chéreau's staging wasn't all bad, and it's downright reactionary in the light of productions like Harry Kupfer's or Alfred Kirchner's 1997 show. It does do some clever things moment to moment, even if it's a little obvious in the long run. It would, however, be more appropriate to a Zeitoper revival than Wagner's supreme artistic achievement. Jonny spielt auf is not Siegfried, hard as that may be to believe in our time.

I do like the set, though Philips' recorded sound is a little anemic. Boulez' interpretation requires some close-miking, otherwise it sounds weak. It's unidiomatic and dramatically sort of obvious, but it's enjoyable. Boulez has a different take on Wagner, and his approach deserves attention, even if it is ultimately rebuked. Chéreau's production is important for the history of Wagnerian performance and for theater generally. Whether or not that approach was the right one, or even well done in its scope, is a lingering question, but it deserves attention. It's not a first recommendation, like Solti or Keilberth, but it deserves a listening/viewing -- like Karajan or Böhm.

You're depriving yourself of a valuable Wagnerian experience if you don't give the Boulez/Chéreau Ring a view. It is simply impossible to understand Wagnerian staging in the second half of the twentieth century without seeing Chéreau's production. I might go so far to say that the 1976-1980 cycle was the last really interesting one at Bayreuth. Peter Hall's production was a failure even at the time, and Georg Solti couldn't save it (for a lot of reasons, not least because of casting holdovers like the odious Manfred Jung). Harry Kupfer's production is even weirder than Chéreau's, though Barenboim turns in a musical contribution that is more idiomatic and full-throated, so to speak, than Boulez' (and Tomlinson simply embarrasses McIntyre, as do some other singers to their counterparts). Kirchner's has been, more or less, forgotten (though it has its moments of being reminiscent of Wieland Wagner's Neu Bayreuth). I can't be bothered to remember the last couple of directors, though it was a shame when Lars Von Trier pulled out of the Ring.

You see, then, that the very heart of Wagnerian performance has Chéreau's Ring as a major artery. You can say what you will about the trend of Wagnerian staging post-1976, but make no mistake: the most recent epoch (excepting really offensive productions like Schlingensief's Parsifal) is most assuredly denoted "post-1976." It is, of course, fairly easy to punt on the Boulez/Chéreau Ring, though -- in my opinion -- Levine's DVD set is dull as dishwater, even by traditional standards, and I understand that. Siegfried is the weak link, with Rheingold and Götterdämmerung (sans the "epilogue," which I can and might discuss later) coming out strongest. The thing is, as I keep saying, musically and dramatically, it's unidiomatic. It's also a little obvious in places, which isn't good for effective theater outside the mystery or morality play genres. It is however both important and instructive.

The benefits, in my mind, of a traditional approach are not clearly shown by excessive productions like Kupfer or Kirchner, but by productions like Chéreau's, which are not so apparently revolutionary with a few decades' worth of hindsight. The latter sorts of productions force consideration beyond a visceral reaction. Wagner's music-dramas deserve at least serious consideration, if not serious study.

TPW Year in Review

2008-12-27T23:44:00.003-05:00

It has been an interesting year for music, but I suppose they say that about every year. I was, I think, surprised to see Kanye West veering wildly toward Joy Division (indeed, at times making Joy Division look like ABBA) with 808s and Heartbreak, but I was heartened by the Killers' Day & Age. The Smiths' The Sound of the Smiths, while duplicating Louder Than Bombs to a certain degree, was a compilation deserving of attention. That's saying something when you consider how many compilations they've gotten for only four studio albums. If the pop scene has been interesting, the classical scene has been even more so in its own way. We've seen impressive and intelligent releases from major labels and the usual, lovable independent labels alike, but I think that the year can be boiled down into ten records:

1. Wagner: The Great Operas [sic] from the Bayreuth Festival (Decca)
2. Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Karl Böhm cond. (Bayreuth 1968/Orfeo)
3. Mahler: Lieder, Bertini cond. Quasthoff/Hagegard soloists (Phoenix Edition)
4. Schmidt: Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln, K. Järvi cond. (Chandos)
5. Beethoven: Symphonies 2 and 7, O. Vänskä cond. (BIS)
6. Liszt: Transcription of Beethoven: Symphony 9, McCawley/Wass, pf. (Naxos)
7. Bach: Die Kunst der Fuge, Aimard, pf. (DG)
8. Schoenberg/Sibelius: Violin concertos. Salonen, cond. Hahn violin. (DG)
9. Messiaen: Quatuor pour la fin du temps. Trio Wanderer and Pascal Moragues (HM)
10. Mendelssohn/Chopin/Strauss: Cello sonatas. Gregor Piatigorsky, vc. (Testament)

I don't know that I'll do a blurb for each entry. I suppose, on the other hand, that I should give my general rationale for the selections. First and foremost was my personal taste. There are all sorts of "important" records each year, and they seem to garner critical praise regardless of whether or not I like them. They might be "important," but if they're not good, then what does it matter? Second, I looked at merit. This can best be defined as the question, taste aside, how interesting is the record? There are a few entries on the list that are, to my mind, so interesting that I could not help but like the record. The Schoenberg violin concerto, for example, is a work that is fascinating and pretty enjoyable (despite its forbidding idiom). I gave bonus points, so to speak, to major-label releases that piqued my interest and curiosity. Why? Well, when an industry based on the pairing of Beethoven's 5th and 7th turns out an interesting record, it's an occasion for celebration. Finally, I considered the records vis-à-vis their discography. If it filled a major or notable hole in the catalog, then it got some points.

We'll see how 2009 shapes up, then.

Alfred Brendel's last concert

2008-12-17T23:27:00.002-05:00

This item, from the BBC, has informed me that Alfred Brendel will be winding up his public-performance career tomorrow (i.e. Thursday, 18 December) in Vienna. Barring any comebacks or perpetual "retirements" like some other performers, it will be the end of an interesting career. I guess, despite a fondness for Glenn Gould and Maurizio Pollini, that Brendel has made appearances in my recording library. His relatively recent recording (2000, I think) of KV 331 is one of which I am rather fond. In any event, he is generally -- at least as far as my listening and cursory search of the literature is concerned -- regarded as intelligent and thoughtful, neither as deeply personal as Gould nor as icily cerebral as Pollini (stereotypes both, but stereotypes rooted in some truth). The kicker for me, of course, is this quote, from a 2002 profile:

It takes a lot of imagination to bring a work alive but it is on the terms of the compositions and not on the terms of showing off. It is not possible without you, but I am responsible to the composer and particularly to the piece.

Such an attitude, to my mind, can do many things to a performance, but -- at the very least -- it's an insurance policy of a competent, reasonably transparent performance.

Of course, during Brendel's first explosion into the Philips stable, even the idiosyncratic performers were deeply interested in understanding the music and representing their approach to that music. Things have changed, and I need only to cite to a pianist so nice he used his name, which rhymes closely with a common onomatopoeic word, twice to make my point. Idiosyncrasy without thought seems to be a bit of a fashion statement these days, and that makes a solid, intelligent performer a rare commodity. Brendel has been performing for 60 years (though his big break came in the 1970s), but I would hope that someone else can pick up the torch of clarity, simplicity, and fidelity.

At the very least, one can hope that Brendel keeps recording for a while. If he doesn't, at least I have my Backhaus records.

"some safe, undecisive [sic] pc mush mouth ..."

2008-12-17T15:12:00.003-05:00

Due to a posting elsewhere, the previous post has earned some criticism from an poster on one of my increasingly infrequently frequented message boards, which criticism, as best as I understand such a typical response from someone who can be called charitably "not a contender for the Fields Medal," is the title of the post.

While the interested can track down the discussion, I won't get into the debate over how music can be dangerous. Like all abstractions, it is nothing until put into action, and it is remarkably hard to put music into action in such a way that would cause actual peril. Of course, if one accepts the proposition that ideas and trends of thought have their own lives, then it is possible for another, contradictory, vein of thought to create a danger. That would, of course, anthropomorphize abstractions and render them somewhat less abstract.

As to the remainder of the "critique," such as it was, I can only say that responding to stereotypical criticism is roughly akin to using a pancake to fix a Diesel engine. It might work, but it's probably more for your benefit than the machine's. That aside, my views on Boulez (ever-evolving as they are) are fairly clear: it's obvious, in 2008, that dodecaphonic atonal music didn't win the battle for the hearts and minds of the musical cognoscenti. Boulez' own music, for what it's worth, didn't even win the battle for preeminence, which is to say the token programming spot. He is a talented conductor, but, even then, he isn't universally beloved. When he gets it, he gets it, but when he misses, the results aren't pretty.

When I say that Boulez' music and conducting work for me, that's what I mean. There are plenty of folks on the other side of that divide who would vomit at the suggestion that they listen to Pli selon pli. That, in and of itself, is not a probative point of much other than de gustibus non disputandum. It is, for me, the fact that Boulez and his musical cohorts ran rampant for, at best, 15-20 years. Looking at the recorded output for that period on major labels, there was still a lot of stuff from the "main sequence" of the European canon. Indeed, the Mahler renaissance (such as it was) got started in earnest around the same time that the post-Webernian serialists and their fellow-travelers were in high swing. What do I mean by that? Largely I mean that the phenomenon was academic. No lasting phenomenon can survive in the anemic, anoxic halls of the academy without making some allowances to the environment.

These aren't new criticisms, but that doesn't mean they're not valid. The problem, of course, is that I like the music on a visceral (and, to a certain degree, intellectual) level. So, responding to criticism that most of my devoted readers probably haven't read, I stand here vis-à-vis Boulez at this point: I like his music, but his music has passed its prime and its relevance.

"...my music is also seductive, even spiritual"

2008-12-13T00:36:00.003-05:00

I'm sorry not to have posted more frequently, but I am smack-dab in the middle of finals right now at IUSL-B, which is now the Maurer School of Law. I did, however, want to call your attention to this interview with Pierre Boulez.

The title is, of course, a quote from the interview. I would agree with the former, but not the latter. I am also not entirely sure that I like the idea that seduction is on the way to spirituality, but I don't see the need to get into that right now. No, I am reminded of a interweb message board comment by someone whose judgment on music I trust, the gist of which comment was that Boulez' music was attractive but dangerous (like a poisonous snake), or something like that.

It is, I think, the barely controlled violence of Boulez' best work that makes it so attractive to my mind. While the works have a glittering beauty (I think, of course, of Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna and Mémorial, which led to ...explosante-fixe...), they also seem perpetually on the edge of devolving themselves into pure atonal violence, almost to the point of sheer noise. There's also, in some of his works, a sense of festination -- of explosive speed, though that doesn't have quite the same connotation as "to festinate" -- as though the work is hurrying to get through itself before devolving into violent noise.

Of course, whether the seduction will be successful -- or even accepted -- depends entirely on the listener. That, of course, forces one to ask how seductive the music really is, after all. It works for me, but that doesn't mean it's universally successful.

Not even a little surprised

2008-11-30T19:05:00.002-05:00

The great little-d democrat of the Western world, Hugo Chavez, is apparently going to try to "persuade" the people of Venezuela to reconsider their rejection of his presidency-for-life proposal. He wants to be president until 2019 or 2021.

I shouldn't have to say a word. Perhaps, once the Mesopotamian adventure has come to an end, President Obama can start dealing with backyard tin-pot potentates. Domestic misdeeds notwithstanding, it isn't like Venezuela isn't doing things on the foreign policy front that would worry anyone with a computer and a 12th-grade education.

Wait. It is. In a big way.

I just wonder how much more Venezuelan magic is going to go down before people start to say "no" to cultural ambassadors of a regime that is not even remotely pro-American.

Pop: Revise and Extend

2008-11-28T20:20:00.002-05:00

After pulling out Louder Than Bombs and comparing "Shoplifters of the World Unite," I'm going to say that The Sound of The Smiths is probably on the nasty side of loud.

The newer record sounds good, but if you have headphones (or a system) with any forward lean at all, you're going to be reaching for the volume knob but quick. The Sound is a little heavier than the Sire Louder Than Bombs, which might be a source issue (analog vs. digital) or it might be because Johnny Marr and the other mastering engineers jacked the bass EQ way up to give the songs a heavier low end. Frankly, I'd rather do my own volume-boosting and EQ (though I try to keep it no louder than 50% with a flat EQ) than have some engineer deciding what I want.

The problem with a prolific band (at least on the singles and compilations front) is that you've got so much floating around that a one-stop-shopping-style collection is needed, but if it sounds wonky, then you might as well make a playlist with Louder Than Bombs and Meat Is Murder. A retrospective box set, mastered well from the original source tapes, would be much needed right now.

Final judgment on The Sound: Pretty good selection (and they pitch-corrected "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby") and the sound isn't as bad as most records today, but you're still better off with Louder and Meat if you want a quick introduction to The Smiths. Of course, you're best off buying as much of the discography as you get at once, since you might save some money on transport costs.

You'll buy it anyway.

Pop: "The Sound of The Smiths"

2008-11-24T15:35:00.002-05:00

It seems strange, but the new compilation, The Sound of the Smiths, handles its place in the over-compiled oeuvre of a band without voluminous output nicely. I think, however, that Rhino needs to do for The Smiths what it did for Joy Division. That is, put out all the studio albums -- reasonably remastered (The Sound is loud, i.e., compressed, but it doesn't sound too bad, better than most, in fact) -- coupled with rare live performances or singles. I don't know that compilations, "Rank," or the like really need to be redone. A singles box and a rarities box wouldn't hurt the U.S. market, either.

We'll see, though.

"Top" Ten Immolation Scenes?

2008-10-30T23:13:00.004-05:00

I'm told that Mike Ashman, in this month's Gramophone, made a list. And, boy howdy, what a list!

You see, and this was a surprise to me, Mr. Ashman decided to make a list of the top ten Immolation Scenes. Until learning of this, I didn't think there were ten "top" recordings to wedge into a list. I'd be conservative and say, maybe, there's half a dozen to be found. Maybe.

Which one did Mr. Ashman name "Number One"? Why, it was that perennial favorite: Lillian Nordica under Alfred Hertz and the Met orchestra. According to Ward Marston's website listing for the compilation featuring the Götterdämmerung excerpt, this recording (in the sense of its constituent parts) was made on 23 and 28 February 1903 on one of Mapleson's wax cylinders. Now, forgive my intolerable ignorance, I was under the impression that a 1903 recording was useful as a historical document, and my experience confirms that recordings of that vintage are best avoided if you want to glean real musical information from them.

Of course, on the flip side, you have John Culshaw's earth-shattering engineering of Georg Solti's Ring. On a good system or on good headphones (think the wood-bodied Grados, for various reasons), there is a realism and presence that a wax cylinder just cannot match. I'll admit that the Culshaw production is a little over-the-top, and Joseph Keilberth's 1955 Ring has a far more natural sound to it (done by Decca). Regardless, when listening to Birgit Nilsson's Immolation Scene, you can tell what's going on -- both orchestrally and vocally.

Mr. Ashman declined to include Nilsson's performance for Solti or Böhm or Kempe (Covent Garden 1957). In other words, Helga Dernesch and Herbert von Karajan made the cut, despite frankly unidiomatic contributions from Karajan, but Birgit Nilsson -- under three different conductors, all in better sound than a 1903 wax cylinder.

In other words, this list seems -- and there are several more egregious examples, just none more egregious than this one -- intentionally designed to obscure and weirdly specialist. Sometimes, and I'm not universally enamored with Solti, the commoner examples are common because they are that good.

Minority Report on Dr. Atomic / Redux

2008-10-28T14:48:00.004-05:00

Ron Rosenbaum has a scathing critique of Peter Sellars' libretto for Dr. Atomic over at Slate.

I'll concur with an even more general point: a lot of modern opera libretti aren't terribly good. Now, I don't know that one needs to lavish the sort of care on a libretti -- especially in a traditional (i.e., non-Gesamtkunstwerk) opera -- that Richard Wagner did in, for example, the Ring or Parsifal; I do know, however, that libretti are something more than an excuse for a pleasing vocal line.

I do not, however, think that the folks in love with Dr. Atomic really care about the quality of the libretto. I see three alternate possibilities: (1) people love the music, (2) people love the staging, and/or (3) people love the philosophical/political content or implications. I think most folks would be pretty upfront about (1) and (2), but I get the impression that it might be a little déclassé to admit that one loves a work of art solely because it fits into one's subjective political or philosophical worldview.

At the risk of making this really awkward, I am not at all surprised that the libretto ranges from not the strongest point of the work, in some of the better reviews' judgment, to Rosenbaum's walkout-worthiness opinion. This opera seems to want to make a point that anyone who's ever been an undergraduate or precocious high-school student has made, probably at a party when it wasn't terribly appropriate to do so. In other words, this opera seems to want to make the point that using (developing) terribly destructive weapons is a difficult moral choice. It's along the lines of the Philosophy 101 question, "Would you kill one man if you could save a thousand? A million?"

Of course, gentlemen of a certain age didn't and don't really express a lot of moral angst about the use of atomic weapons in August 1945. Indeed, there's a reason why Dr. Atomic is about Oppenheimer rather than Edward Teller, to say nothing of combat-weary men who saw -- rightly or wrongly, given the later revelations of history and the effectiveness of firebombing Japanese cities -- only the rising sun in their futures.

It's not a great surprise the libretto was done poorly, or at least not brilliantly.

Period-performance Bruckner

2008-10-26T21:21:00.002-05:00

In a sense, Herreweghe is doing with Bruckner what Boulez did with Wagner, circumventing a century of performance practice and move from massive density to more transparent clarity.

Charles T. Downey, writing on the ever-interesting Ionarts, briefly discusses Herreweghe's Bruckner recordings. To be blunt, I don't find the works particularly successful.

While I don't subscribe to the Bruckner-as-the-Wagnerian-symphonist idea, especially since the second part of Gustav Mahler's 8th symphony is as Wagnerian as anything Bruckner ever wrote, I think it's essential to understand Bruckner coming out of the tradition that informed Wagner. There is an emphasis on sound in Bruckner's works, and while the cathedrals of sound analogy is stale, I don't think it necessarily inapposite.

Boulez' Wagner is not necessarily universally beloved or even successful. Indeed, absent the Chéreau staging, I get the sense that it would join his 1970 Parsifal on the "for specialists only" rack in the metaphorical Wagner record shop. I like his Ring -- I like most Boulez interpretations, to the point of experiencing firsthand how different the live experience is from the occasionally anemic recordings -- but I would never say that his Ring is idiomatic. Indeed, it is the antithesis of idiomatic Wagner, thought out with an icy logicality and precision.

Herreweghe's Bruckner, on the other hand, doesn't strike me as a bold statement on Brucknerian idiom and modern practice. It certainly doesn't strike me as clearly delineated and thought out as Boulez' Wagner. Indeed, the recording of the 4th, which does seem to be a bit of a low point of Herreweghe's recordings to date, strikes me as a slapdash attack on Bruckner using some HIP practical and theoretical tools. Others have said this (maybe David Hurwitz, or maybe it was a message-board denizen: I'd give better attribution if I were inclined to track the comment down, but I want to make it clear I was not the ur-source), but just because Herreweghe likes Bruckner doesn't mean he's any good at conducting the works.

Listening to the recorded Bruckner corpus, one sees that there are a lot of ways to conduct the works. One can be as massive and powerful as Otto Klemperer's Köln 8th (1957), as expansive and slow as Reginald Goodall's BBC 9th (1974), or as dreamlike and spiritual as Herbert von Karajan's final Vienna 7th (1990). All of those conductors, in their own ways, however, understood the Brucknerian idiom and worked within those guidelines. To my mind, it is a little silly to apply period-performance techniques to the works of a composer who fell solidly in the "modern" musical age. There are no pressing questions about Bruckner performance like "With what shall we replace the Serpent?" or "What gives us the most authentic hautbois sound?" Bruckner knew the modern orchestra, so I don't see any need pretending that we're going to get any closer to Bruckner's world than Otto Klemperer, Wilhelm Furtwängler, or Bruno Walter did.

Of course, I have never been one to get too hung up on period-performance theory. A good performance of a given work knows no period and requires only the authenticity it gives itself.

OT Fun: Stone, Bush, Nixon(?)

2008-10-22T20:57:00.003-05:00

There is an interesting "discussion" over at Slate about Oliver Stone's W. Unlike most movie-related jaw sessions, this one has some commentary from folks who might know something about the Bush Administration. Two players are Stone himself and Bush court historian Bob Woodward. It's interesting enough to read.

I saw the movie last weekend, and I think that Stone fell short of his own personal best, Nixon. That's understandable, however, since comparing the current President Bush to Richard M. Nixon is like comparing MTV's The Hills to Shakespeare's King Lear or MacBeth (probably the latter). In both cases, the former provides drama while the latter provides tragedy. Stone didn't reveal his subject to be a roiling mass of contradictions and conflicting motivations, undeniably great and almost pathologically driven to wreck himself in his time and for posterity, but that's because I doubt George W. Bush is all that conflicted.

Richard Nixon could be a generous, progressive-minded visionary and statesman; three seconds later, however, he could be petty, vindictive, and nasty in the basest way. (Anthony Summers had a better turn of phrase along those lines in The Arrogance of Power, which is a little more gossipy than Ambrose's three-volume snoozer, but I probably didn't have to tell you that.) Even an author like Joan Hoff, writing a reevaluation cum defense in Nixon Reconsidered, has to call Nixon "aprinicpled," like someone is amoral. George Bush, on the other, hand is always George Bush. It's hard to dissect and analyze the motivations of a man whose public persona is, if not transparent, at least easy to read.

I think the other major problem with Stone's latest movie is, of course, the simple fact that we have been living in the epoch of George W. Bush for the last eight years. All of us are familiar with the specific incidents and general personalities that make up the story of the 43rd chief magistrate of the Republic. Any judgments about George W. Bush that needed to be made after 2000 (see, e.g., 121 S. Ct. 525) were made in 2003-4. Oliver Stone, to be frank, isn't telling us anything we didn't know or sense and he's not informing a decision most of us have already made. In the absence of a compelling character or novel story, what is there in a movie?

Well, there's cinematography and individual performances. Stone follows the Nixon formula nicely in W, but uses some weird dream sequences and other things that don't quite work. Indeed, Stone follows the Nixon formula without the Nixon ingredients. W is a far less experimental (or creative, if you will) film than its predecessor. Hardly coincidence, if you ask me, which you didn't. The technical moviemaking is fine, which is to say both that it's at least as good as anything else you'll see this fall, and that you shouldn't throw out your Criterion disc of Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc.

Josh Brolin deserves praise for his portrayal of George W. Bush, and you'll hear that elsewhere. What I found impressive was James Cromwell's turn as George H.W. Bush, however. That veteran character actor, which isn't an insult, created a man who appeared bound by tradition and propriety, but still expressing his emotional side as he knew how. Everyone ranges from very good (Toby Jones' turn as Rove) to a Pacino-esque, scenery-chewing caricature (Dreyfuss. Cheney. QED)

It's worth a view, and, with the increasing uniformity of quality to be found in most movie-theater popcorn selections, to say nothing of DIY Flavacol and "butter" stations, you'll get something out of the trip. Even if it is a clogged artery.

National security and intellectuals

2008-10-21T19:11:00.003-05:00

I say this with some confidence: No one in the Bush Administration cares about John Adams. He is an undeniably good composer, and that alone guarantees him a resounding yawn from the least intellectual government in recent memory. If he's on a list, it's not because the men and women into whose hands we have entrusted the Republic, but rather because, probably, of Klinghoffer or because he shares a name with some IRA terrorist from the late 1970s.

I've pointed this out before, and it still blows my mind: Angela Merkel has interesting things to say about Wagner and various directors, though the things are interesting, probably, because of the low standards for cultural awareness to which most Americans hold their leaders. George W. Bush would probably be hard-pressed to name one or two of Wagner's music-dramas. I'd even spot him Walküre. If one of the titans of Western music doesn't register on the Generalissimo's radar, then I doubt John Adams is even in the same universe.

That's the tragedy here. I don't ask that the First Magistrate be able to hold forth intelligently on Thomas Mann or Friedrich Nietzsche, but I would like him to know who Mann and Nietzsche were. Our leaders, regardless of innate intelligence, have been forced to pander to the base (take that how it's meant) to the point where you'd have a hard time telling them apart from barely literate teenagers.

John Adams might be under surveillance or an INS flag, but it's not because he's an intellectual. It's either because some Google-searching flack in the bowels of one of the government agencies managed to get a hit connecting "John Adams" and "Palestinian sympathies" (from Klinghoffer), or because some terrorist has the same name. Intellectuals don't matter in the current equation of the Republic.

Thanks to Pliable for the point.

The interweb comes through again!

2008-10-20T22:19:00.002-05:00

So, in browsing iTunes and Amazon, I found the 1996 (as I recall) Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln, with Horst Stein leading the Wiener Symphoniker. Score!

Now, I would like to point out, once again, that Dimitri Mitropoulos' legendary 1959 Salzburger Festspiele recording is still unavailable -- either in electronic form or on a CD (which is, I know, as electronic as a MP3) -- but I won't harp on unpleasant matters. In fact, if ArkivMusic really wanted to make this blogger happier than he already is with them generally, it would most certainly put out the Mitropoulos Das Buch with full documentation on their ArkivCD series. I digress.

It is unfortunate that there isn't an unreservedly great Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln out there, as it really is one of the neglected triumphs of the 20th century. Horst Stein leads an interesting account, but, like Järvi, I don't feel like the climaxes were played to their fullest. The Wiener Symphoniker does a good job, as do the singers, but one gets the sense that the relative obscurity of this work creates a certain uncertainty. There are a lot of big moments in this piece, too, and to let one of them go by without really hitting it hard (as I get the sense Stein does in a couple of places) seems like a waste. In other words, there isn't an unreservedly great Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln out there. I don't regret the purchase, since I am happy to get any recording of this work, but it drives home the fact that there is a wide opening available for a conductor who understands Schmidt's idiom and has a great cast and band. If DG would give Fabio Luisi the WP, René Pape, Ben Heppner, and a great quartet, then I am sure that there would be a good record in the final balance.

That having been said, I am sure that there are at least two sets (Nikolaus Harnoncourt's set, which went straight to Berkshire, I'm told, and Mitropoulos') that major labels have. Direct-to-digital releases aren't a bad idea, as Profil has shown us with the Stein set. Let the hard-core Das Buch nuts have their records without going to the cost of printing and marketing sets of an obscure 1937 oratorio.

Now that I've wandered around a while, let me say that -- for the money -- Stein's set is a solid download. Burn it to a CD, put it on your iPod, and listen to it for a while. There is a lot of great music to be found in Schmidt's magnum opus.

What's next? "Alex Ross Facts?"

2008-09-24T00:07:00.003-05:00

When you look up "bad ass" in the dictionary, you'll see a picture of Alex Ross.

Why is a classical-music critic and blogger now the definition of "bad ass?"

Let's look at the facts:

(1) He just won a MacArthur "Genius" Grant.
(2) He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
(3) His book, The Rest Is Noise, is insightful, intelligent, and readable. (And award-winning!)
(4) He is a columnist for the New Yorker.
(5) In the classical blogosphere, he is the only guy about whom no one has a cross word to say.
(6) He's clearly hyper-well-educated, without being pushy or weird about it.

Need I go on? Of course not. No, the only way Alex Ross could be more of a bad ass is if he saved a busload of widows, orphans, nuns, and a president whose popularity rating was above 40% (Reagan or F.D. Roosevelt, depending on your bent, for example) from the clutches of an evil supervillain, while simultaneously addressing the National Press Club and curing cancer. And, well, after the last year, don't be surprised if you see something like that on CNN. At this point, Mr. Ross has only feats of sheer superherodom let to conquer.

I'm being crass, infelicitous, and hyperbolic, but - let's face it - Alex Ross is pretty goll-darned cool by any objective measure. He's clearly earned his "Genius" Grant, as well as the thanks of anyone who cares about art-music literacy in the Republic today.

Add to Meitner, Noether

2008-09-14T01:55:00.003-05:00

Pliable has an excellent post on Lise Meitner, the woman who was responsible in no small part for the discovery of nuclear fission, which earned Otto Hahn the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In l'affaire Meitner, Hahn comes off as halfway decent, though not nearly as decent as he would have been had he insisted on including Dr. Meitner in the glory.

Another woman whose contribution to modern science, at least mathematics, which is somewhat more precise than experimental science, is often neglected is Emmy Noether.

She struggled to find acceptance in the male-dominated field of mathematics, which, while still heavily weighted toward men today, was something less than hospitable to women in Germany after the First World War. Despite a climate that wasn't conducive to such work, Noether revolutionized the field of abstract algebra in a way that, in my view, is an equal to Évariste Galois' invention of group theory at 20 the night before he was killed in a duel. To see how important Noether's work is to abstract algebra, imagine what it would be like without the isomorphism theorems. It would probably still be workable, but it would look way different.

Add to her struggles to find a place in the academy the fact that she was driven from her post by the Nazis and that she died before her time in a bizarre and tragic manner, and you have a life that was far from the pleasure cruise one might think necessary for someone that smart to produce at her peak levels. She had to work to find her place in institutions that judged her on the most facile and superficial levels, and was driven from her homeland by a more egregious form of that same intolerance. She lived only two years after coming to America, and the mind boggles to think what she would have done with another twenty or thirty years.

Noether received attention from colleagues like David Hilbert and Albert Einstein, and praise of her genius is not wanting; still, I think that an example like Emmy Noether might inspire young people to take an interest in mathematics. The notion that someone like Évariste Galois or Emmy Noether (and they really do need to be mentioned in the same breath) might be out there, but bored to tears by a math class they comprehended long ago or discouraged by various factors, is really astonishing to behold.

Also, when we hear alarmist stories about women in science, it's a pleasant tonic to know that genius is genius, regardless of the gender of the body it inhabits. The beautiful thing about mathematics is that, in its pure form, it requires no laboratories or major research institutions - only curiosity and a lot of paper.

Satisfying Stravinsky from an unusual source

2008-09-14T00:45:00.003-05:00

Ionarts reviews the new Rattle/BP disc of some of Stravinsky's symphonies. I've got the Boulez disc, so I don't think I'll be running out to get Rattle's entry.

What I will do, however, is listen to Celibidache's 1984 performance of the Symphony of Psalms, coupled with a Fauré Requiem, as part of EMI's Celibidache Edition.

I don't go so far against the late Director Celibidache as to call him a quack or fraud. I will say, however, that there was music that was suited to his style and music that wasn't. He had interesting things to say about Bruckner and his Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem is among my favorites of a work that I could not do without at times.

His Symphony of Psalms, while lacking the same incredibly precise rhythmic articulation and clarity of Boulez' recording, presents the content of the Psalms a little better in my mind. Indeed, as Ionarts notes, the Symphony was written in a spiritual and religious context, at least in terms of Stravinsky's life. Celibidache represents that nicely.

Another work, out on EMI's bargain series, that does the religious content justice is Franz Welser-Möst's 1996 Bruckner Te Deum. It's coupled with an Alpensinfonie which, given my antipathy to that work, is useless ballast, but it's hard to justify seven dollars for about twenty minutes' worth of music, even music as sublime as the Te Deum. Pick it up, it's good. It might be my favorite modern version - all time honors go to Karajan's 1960 Salzburg performance on EMI, too.

Toward a defense of silence

2008-09-14T00:08:00.004-05:00

Alex Ross has a typically wonderful piece about concert mores and the like in the New Yorker.

I generally don't talk much about the whole debate over concerts, historical practice, and music's place in society. I'll do so now, only because Mr. Ross has me thinking about the subject.

Some things deserve to be contemplated and appreciated in silence. Would one read one of Vergil's Eclogues or an ode of Horace in a shopping mall or on a subway train? Only if s/he wanted to look like a pretentious jerk, which might be hard to do considering the abysmal state of literacy in this country today.

Pretense and ostentation can be the only reasons for doing that, largely because it's damned hard to appreciate nuance and beauty when one is bombarded by awful music, bizarre fashions, and parents listlessly telling little Gavin (or whatever) not to do whatever it is that he's decided to do.

The quieter passions really do require quiet, largely because of the protean efforts of concentration that the best of culture can produce. Regardless of his odious politics, about which I can discourse at length, Ezra Pound's Cantos represent - at their best - a work of art with which one must grapple. This is not accomplished in the press and noise of modern society. How, then, should great music be treated differently?

Why, more to the point, should we treat great music differently? If I shouldn't be expected to wrestle with, say, Canto 79 in the midst of a crowd, then why should Bach's Prelude and Fugue in C sharp, BWV 848, require less concentration? The obvious answer is that is shouldn't. The force of intellect required to crack a dense poem and Bach's music really isn't all that different in the final analysis. The difference, of course, is that literature isn't wallpaper and music is. Real silence is rare these days, even in libraries - where sedulous law students labor away at Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 26 and secured transactions - there is a proliferation of iPods and the like.

When music becomes a commonplace, then treating it like a commonplace isn't that big of a deal. No one expects mighty feats of cogitation over lightbulbs and television sets, largely because they're assumed parts of daily life. Music is, more and more, something that you have around so you aren't bothered by silence.

The one bulwark against this dismal tide is, of course, the concert hall and the opera house. Like a liturgy, the rituals surrounding these activities protect against profanation. When one feels the need to put on a coat and tie, to be prompt, to be still, the atmosphere is conducive to contemplation of the materials presented. Or sleep. Assuming prices for reasonably good seats at the CSO is roughly representative, an eighty-dollar nap in a necktie seems excessive, but I'm not going to judge them. It might be bourgeois to take such things so seriously, but these are things that deserve to be taken seriously.

It might not be cool to hold the opinion that serious music requires a certain baseline level of seriousness, but making classical music hip is roughly equivalent to making Latin grammar hip. Youths are as likely to consider Mahler's Kindertotenlieder cool as they are to get excited about the dative of agent and its use with the passive periphrastic. Not very, especially if they want a non-miserable high-school experience. The point is that some things should be held aloof from the ebb and flow of popularity and common standards. It's like a video I once saw showing how the "loudness war" really did its damage: if there is no good culture, then there is no bad culture. We get a greyish mélange of mediocrity, which is only good enough to be spread about indiscriminately.

Oh, wait. There, as the man says, it is.

Gods, Kings & Demons

2008-09-05T17:11:00.004-05:00

So, the DG recital disc by René Pape is out there, and, as one would expect, there's a teaser. Pape sings Wotan's monologue from scene 4 of Rheingold, beginning "Abendlich strahlt der Sonne Auge." Naturally.

Mostly Opera has this to say,

However, though represented only by the rather short “[Abendlich] strahlt der Sonne Auge“ (a Wotan/Hans Sachs CD with Christian Thielemann is upcoming) it is plainly obvious that René Pape is the Wotan everyone has been waiting for as long back as memory goes. It has been speculated he will be the best Wotan since Hans Hotter. In fact he will most likely surpass Hans Hotter. The glorious nobleness of the voice, the legato-lines, the phrasing...

I'll go one better: if Pape continues along his current course, it won't be an issue of post-Hotter, it will be an issue of post-Schorr. I'm not entirely sure it won't be "Schorr and Pape" as opposed to "Schorr, then Pape." The man is a phenomenon, in that he seems to have been born to sing Wagner's bass (or bass-baritone) roles. For the last few decades, we've had to make do with a lot of very good singers working with Wagner (Windgassen comes immediately to mind as an example of a singer whose intelligence made up for his deficiencies), but not innately suited to his music. Pape is, and he's young enough still that we might be so lucky as to get a Ring out of him and on records.

Marke's monologue from Tristan, act 2 sc. 3, of course, is equally splendid. Indeed, Pape's nobility makes the emotional impact of the content so damned powerful. Some time back, on one of the standard interweb classical-music message boards, there was a discussion of Marke's music and its perceived dryness (as I recall). Pape takes care of that by delivering an account of the monologue that makes Marke's pain, despite his regal character, easily understood. Now, anyone with a libretto can figure out that Marke isn't happy with the situation, and, indeed, feels pretty darned blue about it. That is simple enough, right? Well, on the off chance it isn't, Pape brings the point home. Talk about a good singer.

The other stuff is good, but Pape could sing Bob Dylan's Shot of Love from end to end and it would still sound good, notwithstanding inherent limitations in the material. I'm not familiar enough with it to make too many judgments. Wagner, though, I know reasonably well, and I know Pape hit a homerun with the Rheingold and Tristan selections.

If you're not in the United States, what are you waiting for with this? If you are, download it from DG, write the ten bucks off, and buy the CD when it comes out in a couple of months. Once you've digested it properly, you can start getting on pins and needles for a Wagner-devoted disc of Pape and Thielemann. That should be pretty great, since both will be in their element.

Late-Summer Heavy Rotation

2008-08-22T19:56:00.004-05:00

(1) Roy Orbison - All-Time Greatest Hits (MFSL)
This record seems to have a magnetic pull for audiophile labels: it was done on DCC with Steve Hoffman mastering it, and now it's out on Mobile Fidelity (mastered by Rob LoVerde and Shawn Britton). The MFSL release is louder than Hoffman's DCC set, but, when push comes to shove, both sound pretty darned good. As to the music: if you're not familiar with at least some of Orbison's tracks, then you're either a horrible space monster from the year 3000 or you're not paying attention. Great stuff. It doesn't need much commentary.

(2) Johann Sebastian Bach - Motetten (Hilliard Ensemble, ECM)
Most audiophile releases of pop records would die happy deaths if they could sound this good. The Hilliard Ensemble, despite doing one-voice-per-part, unaccompanied performances of these pieces, of which BWV 225, "Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied," is the showpiece, though BWV 227 receives its due, is intelligent and convincing in its interpretation. These motets are cornerstones of the Western canon (either individually, since, as the booklet notes, Richard Wagner had nice things to say about BWV 225), but they're durable enough to take a range of interpretations. ECM's sound is wonderful, though whether you want to pay ECM prices is up to you.

(3) Joe Pass - Virtuoso (Cisco/JVC XRCD)
This is a classic of the jazz guitar repertoire, and rightly so. The sound is pretty darned good, especially on something with reasonably good resolution and good treble response (e.g., Etymotics ER-4P, though the wood-bodied Grados, e.g., RS-2, sound nice with this stuff), and the performances are great. Coming in 1973, with fusion at the height of its power, this must have been like a kick in the teeth for all the right reasons.

(4) Bob Dylan - At Budokan (Columbia)
While the foregoing are pretty much unquestionably good records, Dylan's document of the 1978 tour is not so beloved (up there with Self-Portrait on the dislike-o-meter). Dylan's perpetual revising and reconsidering his tracks did not necessarily lead to lurching, Elvis-style rockers that never went out of their way to sound like the originals. Bad move, Bob. Fanatical fans don't seem like they're the first to like the idea of Vegas-tinted big-band interpretations of songs they know by heart. It's not as bad as you'd think, though. Some tracks, like "Shelter from the Storm," "Simple Twist of Fate," and "I Want You," come off looking pretty nice in their new clothes. Others could have done without Bob's ministrations and reorchestrations. Not for everyone.

(5) Steely Dan - Gaucho (DVD-A, MCA)
The Steely Dan remasters aren't universally beloved, but the DVD-A is generally liked. It was remastered for DVD-A back when the engineers couldn't do some of the standard tricks that they use on CDs. This isn't the Dan's best record, though I really dig it most of the time, but, sonically speaking, they were at the top of their game (with no DBX foul-ups like Katy Lied). It's a great hi-res release, but, unless you're more into sound than music, which, while soulless and horrible, is fine by me, don't start your Steely Dan collection with Gaucho in any format.

(6) The Louvin Brothers - When I Stop Dreaming: The Best Of (Razor and Tie)
Mastered by Steve Hoffman, this set appeals to a certain crowd. It should appeal to just about everyone. I'll admit that it sounds pretty darned good, but coming from serious art-music, what is audiophile for pop connoisseurs doesn't necessarily make the grade. Regardless, this is just good, old-fashioned country music (heavy on mandolin, which may or may not be your stringed instrument of choice). Their close harmony style might not be for everyone, but it cannot be denied that these guys were good. Really good, and that's from someone who isn't a big C&W fan.

The bleeding edge of the 1957 Kempe Ring

2008-08-12T20:50:00.002-05:00

After a missed visit by the UPS carrier and a late-evening visit to the local UPS facility, I have the Testament release of Rudolf Kempe's 1957 Covent Garden Ring. I have a final tomorrow in my criminal law class, so I really don't have the time or the inclination to sink my teeth deeply into this set.

My first impressions, however, are that this isn't a bad set. The 1957-vintage mono sound isn't terrible. Indeed, it sounds marginally better than the Orfeo release of Knappertsbusch's 1956 Bayreuth Ring. It's reasonably detailed and clear, though there is some hiss, so if that bothers you, then you really should consider something else.

The vocal and orchestral contributions? They definitely sound like a Golden Age cast and an orchestra directed by Rudolf Kempe. I don't know too much about the staging for the performances whence this set comes, so some of the balance issues remain mysterious to me. Not having Kempe's Rheingold excerpts from Les Introuvables du Ring, I cannot make much of a comparison, but if this set spurs some interest, maybe EMI will put that back out (much like they did with the Hotter/Nilsson/L.Ludwig Walküre scenes).

More as I have the time to develop it.

High fidelity recordings (if it's 1957)

2008-08-08T00:53:00.003-05:00

It goes without saying, or at least it should, that audiophiles are weird.

Seriously. Go, at your first convenience (i.e., after finishing this post), and check out some of the major audiophile message boards. Did you know that a well-nigh unavailable West German pressing from 1985 of your favorite record is, hands down, the best nunc et semper et in saecula saeculorum. Well, it is. So we're told. There's also a progression from the latest original-engineer remasters being the best to the ones from ten years ago to the ones from Japan to the ones from West Germany (If the MFSL/DCC issue from 1992 isn't the best). Or some such similar progression.

While I am certainly no fan of over-compressed, super-bright, and painfully loud recordings or botches passing themselves off as remasters, I am forced to say that, for 80% of music out there, it doesn't really matter. The Mobile Fidelity release of Who Are You by The Who (UDCD 561, June 1992) might be the best release of that record - and there is some debate - but that's not saying much. (I should note that "Sister Disco," "Trick of the Light," and the eponymous track are pretty enjoyable, but that's neither here nor there.) Releases such as this are, more or less, triage operations: they'll make the records sound as good as they can for people who care.

The two areas of music, however, where audiophile standards matter are, of course, jazz and serious art-music (i.e., classical). Scott La Faro's work with Bill Evans at the Village Vanguard in 1961 (Sunday at the Village Vanguard) should sound good. So should, for that matter, Pierre Fournier's traversal of the Bach cello suites. In the case of 'classical,' the dynamic range and various orchestral - and human - voices require engineering that would blow most "audiophile" pop releases out of the water. Put simply, where acoustic instruments matter so shall there also be first-rate recording work.

Now, this isn't a universal maxim, even among so-called "demonstration quality" records. Let's remember Zubin Mehta's LAPO Planets on Decca, which is spot-miked to the point of perversity, though some folks like to use it to show off their equipment. That's a noble-enough cause, especially in modern society, but let's not pretend it sounds natural or even particularly good. Of course, there are some records that get the treatment that deserve it, like Lovro von Matačić's 1967 Bruckner 7th with the Czech Philharmonic, which received the JVC XRCD24 treatment - though the set is Japanese and usually available only through specialty shops (though it's still cheaper here than in Europe). In other words, the baseline sound for 'classical' releases is very good, but "audiophile" recordings are more of a mixed bag.

Except in two cases: RCA's excellent Living Stereo reissue series and what of Decca's Mercury Living Presence project remains. Since UMG has been so slipshod with the Living Presence reissues (and since the redbook layers are identical), I'm just going to talk about the regular CD reissue series from the 1990s. They were supervised by Wilma Cozart Fine, who played a not-insubstantial role in the initial releases. The discs, which of them you can find is largely up to you - I've had good luck at various Barnes and Noble stores, are relatively cheap, mastered intelligently, and better than good. Now, whether or not you really have to have Frederick Fennell and the Eastman Wind Ensemble playing a transcription of the finale from Rheingold is up to you, but there are some gems among the discs (Starker's Bach cello suites are well-regarded, and I'm a big fan of Byron Janis' Pictures at an Exhibition). The sound is as good as one could want.

Another instance of this is the RCA Living Stereo SACD rerelease series. I don't know if they went back and polished up the redbook mastering from the 1990s CD series, but, even if they didn't, it sounds great. Clearly, the producers and engineers cared about sound and capturing great conductors like Fritz Reiner and Charles Munch with ensembles like the CSO and the BSO. Pick up Munch's 1959 Saint-Saens 3rd symphony, and wait for the four-hands piano in the Maestoso (e.g., rehearsal figure S on p. 126 of the Int. Music Co. score). It's nice. The RCA catalog is full of moments like that, which is to say music that's played competently and recorded wonderfully. Of course, having Fritz Reiner and Charles Munch around never hurt anything or anyone.

The main draw for the RCA SACDs is, of course, the three-track SACD layer, which reproduces the three-track masters used to get the "Living Stereo" sound. Whether that's your thing is, necessarily, your decision. Frankly, the vagaries of multichannel sound have eluded me to date, not least because most stereo recordings do a pretty good job of creating a soundstage, and the Living Stereo (and Living Presence) stereo mixdowns do a better job than most. Really, reference-quality, at least to me, means that the vector doesn't get in the way of the information it communicates - i.e., transparency. While, if you take time to listen critically, the sound is pretty darned good, the Living Stereo and Living Presence sets have sound that doesn't get in the way.

To put it another way, they, as a consequence of not using thirty tracks, sound pretty natural.

They're also relatively cheap. Oh, glorious amortization, especially when it took place long before I was born.

Putting it all back together, the RCA Living Stereo sets - in particular - sound better than pretty much every pop release out there and a good number of 'classical' discs, they've got great conductors and ensembles, and they're priced to sell. If you're serious about audiophile-quality sound, you might as well start here (assuming you're into serious music), since these provide a good introduction (albeit a half-century old) to the idea.

Enough of my gassing, though.

Pop: Get Innocuous!

2008-07-28T14:40:00.007-05:00

No, this isn't a post about LCD Soundsystem's Sound of Silver, which is probably one of the best records of the last five years (some competition that isn't), and it would be if "All My Friends" were the only good song on the disc (it isn't). I was, however, reminded of the first track off Sound when I heard Vampire Weekend's eponymous album.

"Innocuous" is a pretty good descriptive adjective for the LP. Now, let me say at the outset that they're talking about stuff that I don't have as much facility with as others. I went to an all-male college in the Midwest, and I am now, for whatever bizarre reason, doing a "summer start" program at IUSL-B. My perspective is, to borrow a word from David Byrne, a little skewed on songs like "Campus" and "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa."

I know people who would probably say "That happened to me sophomore year," or "It's like they know me," but I sure ain't one of them. Of course, there is something approximating chilling uniformity to the upper-middle-class collegiate experience (referring more to the college than the actual socioeconomic post one inhabits), so there are some shared points of reference. Let's not, however, assume that the themes in this one are universally applicable, though I'm not sure how far one can take the collision of worlds business (James Spader vs. Molly Ringwald, for lack of a better analogy).

All that is, as Justice Scalia would no doubt say in this heavily armed post-Heller world, a preamble with little bearing on the substantive commentary which will follow.

I really like this record. Now, most of the songs sound like they were written in postgraduate hope that Wes Anderson will either use your songs or, better still, commission a bunch of new songs for his new movie about a family or something. The world can be a scary place when all that stands between a man and bone-crushing poverty is a liberal-arts degree, which is isn't exactly a golden parachute. I know that's an unflattering supposition, but it's the best way to get my point across vis-à-vis their sound.

It's clearly influenced by afropop, but not too deeply, as David Byrne notes when he - and he's welcome to correct me on this (I offer only because it's unlikely) - more or less implies that they're musically name-checking Soukous guitar. Of course, there's a history of upbeat New-York-scene place commentaries, so many of their songs are world-music-tinged successors to stuff like Steely Dan's "Barrytown" (Pretzel Logic). Indeed, the songs on Vampire Weekend could well be the music made by the kids of the folks who rocked out to Steely Dan; by that, of course, I mean that it's got a similar lyrical feel (more on that anon)- though the musical styles are clearly pretty divergent. I'll just say that I hear as much Mark Mothersbaugh here, especially in his work for Wes Anderson, as any world-music influence, though the harpsichord-and-string arrangement for "M79" seems to hearken back to a certain style of music from the 1970s. Very Paper Chase in its own way.

As I listen to the songs, which are pretty obtuse and obscure as far as their lyrics go, I think more and more that Vampire Weekend has combined Steely Dan's lyrical style with fairly diverse (within the genre of nice, quirky pop) musical influences. Indeed, despite the discussion of the music and its diversity, I think the interesting story here is the sweet, slightly ironic tone of the lyrical side of things. Now, I wouldn't say that Vampire Weekend matches Messrs. Becker and Fagen, but I would say that they're working in the same building, if not the same room.

That is, taken as a whole, the sort of charm of Vampire Weekend: Nothing is earth-shatteringly new, but it's done with such a seeming naiveté that the old ideas and styles seem new. I keep coming back to Steely Dan, and I think I've finally figured out the relationship - Steely Dan is the knowing, world-weary brother to Vampire Weekend's happy, fun, and slightly wussy (but still clever in his own way) recent grad.

N.B. It's getting near the middle of summer, which means that we're in the blog equivalent to the Sargasso Sea, and buddy is it ever becalmed here. I can get away with this stuff because, exaggerating for humorous effect, I'm just about the only game in town at the moment.

Brideshead to Bill Murray

2008-07-27T18:54:00.003-05:00

I'm not going to waste a lot of space here dealing with the new Brideshead Revisited movie. I haven't seen it, and I have no plan to do so. From all accounts, at least from people whose judgment on such matters I trust, it sounds like it augered in at the start, and I'm not at all surprised.

Indeed, my Schadenfreude centers lit up when I heard that the movie wasn't going to be fighting for an Academy Award. I just couldn't bear it.

I'll just say this: It is something approaching a sad commentary on modern life that a straightforward, relatively facile read like Brideshead, which spawned a pretty darned good miniseries (from what I saw, which wasn't much: I refused to watch it on other grounds), has to be made into a movie. The book can be read, if one doesn't do much else, in a weekend or maybe three days. Who has time for that, these days? Certainly not the target audience of this movie, this attempt at having Evelyn Waugh do script work on a remake of Howards End, which seems to be the thrust of the posters.

So very, very wrong. Oh, well, Schadenfreude ist die schönste Freude.

Quoting Caddyshack, then, "I've got that going for me."

So I've heard (July 2008)

2008-07-21T20:20:00.004-05:00

Since class has started and, while I have several drafts kicking around the ether, I haven't had the time or the energy to make a full-scale attempt at a "real" post. I thought, however, that I would mention a few recordings that I've acquired and that are worth a spin. I won't get too in-depth, for the foregoing reasons, as well as the fact that I am shooting for a sort of in-a-nutshell review.

Beethoven, Sonatas nos. 22-26, András Schiff/2008 (ECM)

Schiff's Beethoven cycle presses on, and it's probably tautological to say that this release is obviously deeply considered and intelligently played. Ultimately, I prefer Wilhelm Backhaus in Les Adieux, largely for the same reasons I prefer Backhaus in a lot of cases, though not all (Pollini's Hammerklavier, for example, has made pretty significant inroads with me, coming abreast of Gould, but not quite trumping yet) but Schiff makes a convincing case for his interpretation. I don't really have to say that Schiff has clearly devoted a lot of thought to his Beethoven, and the sonatas on this disc are both well-known and well-recorded. His playing can tend toward the mannered at times, but he's come a long way since that 1983 Goldberg recording. His additions to the discography, in any event, come from the intelligence he brings to something like the Appassionata, which tends, in my view, to become a caricature of itself in some readings. I don't know that I'll be pushing some of my favorites aside for Schiff, but I do know that I'll find room somewhere for the sets.

Bruckner, Symphony no. 9, Goodall/BBCSO/1974 (BBC Legends)

It's worth noting at the outset that this is an "official" release of a pirated (they put it more felicitously) copy of a broadcast recording done in studio. It is, accordingly, lacking in the finer nuances of analog sound circa 1974. If you're used to historical recordings, then the SQ won't bother you. If not, try another record.

Goodall is known for his glacial Wagner (which, in some places, makes Levine look like Pierre Boulez on uppers), and he seems to have a reputation as an opera conductor. His Bruckner is pretty slow and not to everyone's taste. Indeed, some of his recordings have been panned pretty roundly, but praised by others, most notably (in the instant case) by the American Record Guide. Regardless of who likes it and who doesn't, I find that it's either going to work for you or it isn't. I like Goodall's approach to the 9th: the breadth manages to work without slipping into Celibidache-like excess or, worse still, torpor. There is something fundamentally grand about the last three of Bruckner's symphonies, and Goodall seems to bring that out without running into the trap of seeming self-consciously grand.

Bruckner, Symphony no. 4, Tennstedt/LPO/1989 (LPO)

I have long harbored the suspicion that Klaus Tennstedt was a great conductor. His EMI Mahler 8th is pretty good confirmation of that fact, but his live recordings do just as good of a job. The problem is that it's hard to tell precisely what is going on with them. There's a Beethoven 9th and a Haydn Schöpfung pretty well rendered second-rate by the boomy, over-reverberant acoustics. This Bruckner 4th, however, is pretty clear and detailed. It's worth noting that the former two come from the mid-1980s, while this one comes from 1989.

This is, simply put, a thrilling recording of Bruckner's (in my opinion) most accessible score. Celibidache's 1988 Munich recording tends to get mentioned as a contender for tops in this category, and I can honestly say that I think Tennstedt knocks the tar out of that recording down the line. The timings are pretty comparable in the first three movements, with Celibidache drawing the finale out a bit, but Tennstedt and the LPO have a verve and vigor that really seems palpable at times. Tennstedt achieves as much as the other major recordings of the 4th, but he does so in an engaging and seemingly open way.

There are more records to be discussed, but I'd rather save my energies for a discussion that I've been turning over in my head for a little while.

Mahler's saturation point

2008-07-13T16:14:00.003-05:00

This blog post by Tristan Jakob-Hoff, from the Guardian Online, deals with the not-unknown phenomenon of finding Gustav Mahler's music a bit too much. He notes,

What is striking is that I don't seem to be the only one. Last year, a fellow fan announced that he had finally had it with Mahler. He could no longer listen to his music: it was just too cloying, too riven by insecurity, even - whisper it - too long. These were the sorts of accusations my girlfriend - who had never really "got" Mahler - had often levelled at his music. But to hear it from a fan - and, worse, to find myself secretly agreeing - was deeply concerning. Perhaps it wasn't just me - maybe the collective consciousness had moved on too.

He goes on to say,

So has the shine finally come off Mahler? In a post-9/11 world - a world in which we are fed a constant, wearying diet of terrorism, climate change, genocide and epic natural disasters, but one in which we are crucially short on optimism - has our appetite for Mahler's brand of dualism been diminished? Perhaps the problem is that, while the more extreme passages in his music seem to reflect all too accurately the world in which we live, the sentimental aspects feel more and more like false consolation.

In other words, this is a sort of logical antipode to the Lewis Thomas / Leonard Bernstein approach to Mahler. The thing, though, is that there have been some new approaches (i.e., post-1970) to Mahler's works, even the 9th, that have adopted - as a premise - clear-eyed and rational approaches to the works. The two most notable conductors to do this are, of course, Pierre Boulez and Michael Gielen.

That isn't to repeat the old saw about Boulez being cold, however; having been in the hall for his Mahler 7th, I can tell you that there is both a lot of precision and a lot of power. There is, however, an absence of emotion for its own sake, which was, in my view, the hallmark of a couple of other conductors.

I would also raise the point that Mahler wrote eight other symphonies, a symphonic song-cycle, and substantial parts (in draft form, orchestrated and not) of a tenth symphony. Of those symphonies, I would say that the 9th makes pretty substantial emotional demands, though not to the level of Das Lied von der Erde. In my view, however, one cannot discuss Mahler's symphonies without mentioning the 4th and the 7th, neither of which necessarily exude angst or are Mahler's personal expressions of his emotional state. The 8th, which is Mahler's most difficult symphony (in my book) by a furlong, isn't exactly a lighthearted romp around the Maypole, but neither is it a dour symphonic tearjerker.

Now, the foregoing is not to say that I dismiss Mr. Jakob-Hoff's position out of hand. Indeed, I think it's an interesting commentary on something that I would assume most art-music lovers have experienced themselves. I would say, though, on the matter of Mahler, the larger issues are more complicated that one might first imagine (and I've purposely avoided bringing irony into the mix).

"Hard it as may be, I know you should be with me"

2008-07-06T02:18:00.001-05:00

This might come as a shock, but I had never really seen Luchino Visconti's 1971 Death in Venice, based, obviously, on Thomas Mann's 1912 novella Der Tod in Venedig. I spent the last academic year working with Mann's story, going so far, after having done some work on it for a class, to arrange an independent study. My work focused on Gustav von Aschenbach's classicizing rhetoric and its implications vis-à-vis Friedrich Nietzsche's Die Geburt der Tragödie. This really isn't the place to unpack my argument, nor am I really hot about doing so tonight. I will say, however, that Mann did some really very subtle things in Der Tod.

Visconti's film, however, is notable, also, for its heavy use of Gustav Mahler's music (the 3rd and the Adagietto from the 5th). It seemed appropriate, since I have a few days (quite literally) before class starts up again, that I should take an evening and watch the movie. Perhaps it was being overfamiliar with Mann's novella, but I really was left with mixed feelings at the end of the film. So many important themes and subtexts are lost in the movie that one feels almost compelled to go through it with a copy of Mann's book and say, "When Dirk Bogarde is looking pained there, it's because Aschenbach is thinking about this (or that or what-have-you)." The movie, to function in the same way as Mann's original, requires a lot of knowledge of that latter work. Otherwise, it's a little mysterious.

Indeed, when it comes to Aschenbach's motivations, the movie deviates wildly, coming 'round the other side, so to speak. You have the ongoing debates between Aschenbach and his friend about beauty - is it created or merely expressed and the like - which really don't appear in the book. The idealization of beauty does appear in Mann, but it doesn't work in quite the same way as in the movie. Indeed, it is Aschenbach's intellectualization of beauty that sets up some of the major problems of the novella (in addition to setting up the fundamental Nietzschean conflict, though that's reversed by the end of the story). Visconti, in other words, has made a very compelling film based, more or less structurally, on Thomas Mann's novella, but let's call a spade a spade - it's a loose adaptation in many ways.

That is, I suppose, the problem posed by a book as tightly packed with symbolism and omniscient narration as Der Tod in Venedig. Maintaining absolute fidelity to Mann's text would probably create a very long very dense movie. At the same time, Visconti's movie has a sort of languor and mystery that Mann's novella never has. With some outside knowledge, there is a very clear and precise internal logic to Der Tod. Nothing just "happens," at least in the way that it does with Visconti's movie. Indeed, missing such crucial structural elements such as the swamp scene at the beginning, the two Phaedrus scenes, the "other God" ["Der fremde Gott!"] scene, and the specific characterization of the old fop and Aschenbach's later transformation (a connection that is left to the viewer) as it does, Visconti's film introduces a lot of ambiguity where Thomas Mann left clues to the reader. To put it another way, some of the clear themes of Mann's novella are considerably less clear in the film.

I also have to take particular umbrage with the clumsy half-completed interpolation of a scene from Doktor Faustus (where Leverkühn is led to a disorderly house, plays some music from Freischütz, and runs out after Esmeralda touches him) into the life of Gustav von Aschenbach. Recasting the latter as a composer, clearly modeled on Gustav Mahler (an allusion Mann disavowed beyond the physical make up of the recently ennobled author of Maya), I suppose makes the leap from Aschenbach to Leverkühn superficially facile; it is, of course, highly inappropriate given the differing thematic content of the two works. In other words, Visconti, with this little alteration, was merely sloppy.

Now, this criticism should be taken with a grain of salt - someone who has spent a lot of time with (some might say obsessing over) Der Tod is necessarily going to have easily disappointed expectations for the movie. At the same time, however, it isn't like Visconti only discarded the least essential components of the novella. No. Some major themes were pretty much cut out and themes that had pretty clear subtexts and secondary meanings were taken at face value. This highlights, though, an issue that most filmed adaptations of works of literature face: how close does one play to the literary basis for the work?

It would be pretty hard to find a blow-for-blow adaptation of a novel. Some works cry out for it, while others don't seem to need it. For example, Stanley Kubrick's 1975 film, Barry Lyndon, which I have contended for a while and still contend is his greatest movie, follows the Thackeray book with some license. Indeed, Kubrick (like he did later with Gustav Hasford's The Short-Timers, which you really should read) made a movie, which happened to be based on the Thackeray novel. That is to say that Kubrick's movie, which stands on its own merits, is actually better than Thackeray's book. Making a 2001-like jump-cut from the particular to the general, then, it is safe to say that adaptations that can stand on their own need not be scrupulous with regard to the source material. Indeed, such scrupulosity can hobble a director's vision; Kubrick's was such that hobbling it would have been (1) likely impossible and (2) a bigger crime than any textual infidelities that might have crept in to the movies.

The question, then, is whether Visconti's vision was sufficient to create a movie that stands on its own. My answer is "Probably not." What I didn't mention is that Kubrick, even when improvising on the source material, always kept the feel of the text in his film. Watch Barry Lyndon, and tell me that it isn't entirely in keeping with Thackeray's tone and feel. You'll find that a tall order, at best. Visconti, in discarding what he did and redirecting the emphasis, lost the feel (intellectually speaking, of course) of Der Tod. Mann's book is, of course, so dense and tightly argued - so to speak - that it would be difficult to rearrange much without losing the feel. There would have been, on the other hand, ways to do it. Introducing Mann's all-important narrator would go a long way to preserving the feel of the book.

There is, I understand, the chance that in preserving the feel of the book one will make a boring, didactic, and ultimately unenjoyable movie. So I admit that my position more or less creates either a very narrow tightrope or a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't Morton's Fork for the director, but that's why a good director is a good director. That, then, is my conclusion on the matter: only the best directors should be in the business of making adaptations of books, and, even then, they should have an understanding of which books cry out for adaptation.

Visconti, for whatever reason (and this could, admittedly, be a function of my overfamiliarity with Der Tod), seems to have either misjudged Mann's book or his own talent.

The war for the hearts, minds, and middle names of the electorate

2008-07-01T18:56:00.003-05:00

I saw this, first-hand from some folks with whom I went to college.

Now, it's just the interweb - and Facebook at that - but let's get real, here.

Let's say I were really into the band Steely Dan. Now, I am, as it happens, really into the work of Messrs. Becker and Fagen, but that's not entirely the point. Let's say that I thought that judicious compulsory listening of, I don't know, either Pretzel Logic or Aja would bring about lasting change in the Republic. Now, such a project might, in fact, cure some of the ills current in the nation, but sooner or later we'd have to get to Countdown to Ecstasy, The Royal Scam, or Katy Lied - and the folks rocking out to "Any Major Dude Will Tell You" or "Peg" might start getting a little balky, though that's more of a slur on them than Messrs. Becker and Fagen, but I digress.

My point is this, friend: If someone thought that such a program of Steely Dan listening was the hope for the future, then would they be rational if they wanted to change their name to John Walter Becker and Donald Fagen Public?

Of course not. That is not a rational act, even in the pretend interweb world, no offense, of course, to Messrs. Becker and Fagen. Why, then, is it any more rational vis-à-vis a figure who has, arguably, contributed considerably less to the life of the Republic than Messrs. Becker and Fagen?

Short answer: It's not. Personal comment: It's going to be a long summer.

Varviso's Meistersinger: Take One

2008-07-01T17:36:00.002-05:00

I said that I'd get to Varviso's 1974 Bayreuth Meistersinger later when my post on the Wagner Cube ran long (over Levine's Parsifal, fittingly enough). Here, then, is my opinion. The commentator here who was "impressed" by the orchestral contribution and less so by the singing was, in my view, correct. The problem, of course, is the fact that Wagnerian singing took a major downturn at the end of the 1960s - even on the Green Hill - and it took twenty or so years to begin a recovery, which, even at that, was far from complete. Karl Ridderbusch is the star of the Varviso set, and, while an excellent Hagen, he was not an ideal Sachs. The rest of the cast is, at best, second-rate (including but not limited to Jean Cox' Walther von Stolzing). The choral work, though, is really very good.

Varviso's orchestral contribution is and should be the main draw to this set (though that's misleading, since the other 29 CDs in the Cube might be more of a draw seriatim or otherwise). In a way, I think Varviso's approach is the logical complement to Wilhelm Furtwängler's 1943 Bayreuth set. The latter, though technically primitive (not unlistenable, just not great), shows a concept of really solid internal dignity. Now, I don't mean to imply that oft-cited "granitic" adjective that is usually thrown around when Otto Klemperer is mentioned. I mean that the orchestral contribution is well-honed and balanced. Furtwängler, even in this Wagnerian comedy, brings a fundamental dignity to it. Nothing is overplayed or underplayed. Varviso's approach is similar, but he brings an internal lightness and buoyancy that suits the material just as well as Furtwängler's approach.

It's a quick interpretation, but I wouldn't say that it's unnecessarily or unduly fast. Given the general approach, a slower reading would seem a little out of place. Let me put it another way: It runs quicker than a standard reference version like Von Karajan's 1970 EMI set (which has, oddly enough, a far better cast), but it is still - to my ears - idiomatic. It does, for lack of a more felicitous phrase, glisten and gleam. Varviso's lightness, while avoiding the trap of turning Meistersinger into Figaro or Così, creates an atmosphere that isn't quite as heavy as Karajan's set. One must remember, too, that there is much celebrating in the drama. Varviso manages to affect a sort of festival atmosphere, while matching the moment-by-moment mood of the plot.

That's just my take on it, though, and I'll probably need a few more run-through listenings before I can make a final judgment on it. That's the thing, there are some impressions that can be had quickly and easily, but others require some time to form. Meistersinger is a deceptively difficult music-drama, passing itself off as a comedy, but like the Mozart-DaPonte collaborations, there is much more going on there than mere comedy. It does, then, take some time to form a coherent and reasonably rational opinion of it, just like the rest of Wagner's mature oeuvre.

The Wagner Cube

2008-06-26T11:52:00.002-05:00

I've had a chance to digest those parts of the behemoth Decca set, Wagner: The Great Operas [sic] from the Bayreuth Festival, with which I didn't already have some acquaintance. That is to say that the Böhm Ring and Tristan (both from the late Sixties) have been in my collection for some time now, so I didn't feel the need to listen to those music-dramas one more time. Indeed, for the latter music-drama (the importance of which to Wagner's oeuvre can hardly be overstated), I generally recommend Leonard Bernstein's SOBR 1983 recording on Philips. It's not without its flaws, but Bernstein knows that you can't hurry love - or Tristan, depending on how metaphysical you want to get.

Bernstein's Tristan (like Donald Runnicles' BBCSO recording of the same on Warner) was done, as I recall, over a series of live concerts done one act at a time. It is not, however, from Bayreuth, which means that it is still as obscure today as it was before the Cube dropped. It seems that the Universal people more or less released the bulk of the Philips' Richard Wagner Edition, with some key changes (Sawallisch's 1961 Holländer for Nelsson's 1985 recording and Böhm's Ring for Boulez', which isn't as big of a transition as the other one). That means, of course, that if you like the approach to Wagner of either Wolfgang Sawallisch or Karl Böhm, then you're in luck. You'll get the former's Holländer, Tannhäuser, and Lohengrin - all from 1961-62. What you'll get from the latter I mentioned earlier.

The Sawallisch stuff is nice, since it documents Bayreuth at the end of the Golden Age. There are better documents for Höllander and Lohengrin (Keilberth '55 and Von Matačić '59, respectively), but compared to what was coming down the pike, there's not much wrong with Sawallisch's entries. His conducting is pretty straightforward by Wagnerian standards: he is certainly in the Joseph Keilberth mold of conductors (Sawallisch followed Keilberth in Munich). I suppose you could, in a fit of derogation, call Sawallisch a Kapellmeister, but that would imply that he spent years working through the same material (though he did début very young at Bayreuth). Nothing wrong with that, given the proliferation of conductors who really have no business touching a Wagner score with anything other than a wistful "Someday..." on their lips.

His readings are all very solid, musically speaking, even if I prefer other conductors and other singers in the same material. As fits the time when these were recorded, Jess Thomas and Wolfgang Windgassen are his tenors (Lohengrin and Tannhäuser, respectively) and Franz Crass is his Holländer. Really, I have always felt that Thomas was at his highest and best use as Parsifal for Hans Knappertsbusch in 1962, though I prefer Jon Vickers from 1964, despite the mono sound. Anja Silja features prominently as Sawallisch's go-to gal for the soprano roles of Elsa, Elisabeth, and Senta. I don't know that I am in love with Silja, but she's not terrible. I could go on about these recordings, but they're well-known and known quantities just like Karl Böhm's Ring and Tristan (love 'em or hate 'em - you know where you stand).

What were, however, less well-known to me were, of course, Silvio Varviso's 1974 Meistersinger and James Levine's 1985 Parsifal. I knew the latter somewhat better than the former through a highlights disc I had at one point, but one does not "know" any Wagner music-drama, much less Parsifal, through a ten-or-thirteen-track highlight disc. I'll start with Levine's work, though. This is a slow, slow Parsifal. Of the nine versions I have, this one takes the prize for the longest runtime. Here's some statistical information that might put that into context:

Levine '85 ---- 4:38:14
Barenboim '91 ---- 4:16:12
Knappertsbusch '64 (Orfeo) ---- 4:15:46
Karajan '80 ---- 4:15:09
Kubelík '80 ---- 4:12:44
Knappertsbusch '62 ---- 4:09:53
Thielemann '06 ---- 4:02:11
Kegel '75 ---- 3:40:06
Boulez '70 ---- 3:38:34

Now, runtime doesn't say a whole lot, since a good conductor is going to go at a pretty good clip in some places and linger in others, but you can begin to see a correlation, at least from the orchestral contributions, between versions that are pretty solid and a runtime around ten minutes (rough, eyeballed average) over four hours, with Thielemann at the low end and Barenboim at the high end. Levine takes almost thirty minutes more than that, or, to compare it to another, equally radical version, about a hour more than Boulez did in 1970.

Flexibility be damned, a recording with a runtime like that is going to be a little slow. Levine's Parsifal is slow. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but Levine's recording falls short of the standards set by Knappertsbusch and Kubelík. A spin of the recordings by those two conductors shows where the problem is. They let the music dictate the terms of the performance. Their approaches are tailored to allow the internal pulse of Wagner's score carry through and carry the day (you might call it a sensitivity to the longest lines). Levine's Parsifal, though, is a little bit stretched. Call it the opposite of the Boulez set, which is Parsifal compressed and thinned out to reveal the interior architecture (which really isn't idiomatic Wagner); in this case, it's Parsifal expanded to emphasize what would have been clear from the music itself.

Is it a bad performance? Well, no. It's probably better to add fifteen or twenty minutes and have a blogger twenty-some years later call it a slightly self-consciously grand and affected performance than it is to cut half and hour and strip away Wagner's sound. Knowing both the Boulez and Levine sets reveals the brilliance of Hans Knappertsbusch and Rafael Kubelík because it shows how precarious the balance of a great Parsifal really is. Take it too fast, and it sounds weird; take it too slow and it feels a little affected in places

This post has gone on far too long, so I'll deal with the Varviso Meistersinger later.

Mirabile dictu...

2008-06-25T20:53:00.004-05:00

It appears that Senator Obama's ghastly seal has seen its last day.

While the slightly grating, paranoid ramblings of some of the commentators don't seem quite justified, I really do want to know who convinced the campaign managers and handlers that Latin is cool. Latin is, in fact, pretty neat, but so, then, is abstract algebra and the theory of numbers. That does not, though, make it "cool" by any stretch of the imagination.

No, Latin and math literacy are not as cool as "change" and "hope," or whatever other abstract nouns the marketing gurus and speechwriters think will sell with the slacker crowd or the painfully earnest meritocrats covering college campuses in flyers.

Senator Obama's key demographic, last time I checked, is not known for a love of litterae humaniores. Neither, for that matter, is the demographic to which Senator McCain appeals, but you don't see the senator from Arizona putting Latin on a campaign logo. I am reminded of an Onion article of particular piquancy vis-à-vis this issue.

There's a lesson here: Never, ever trust public figures on matters of Latin syntax and style. Consult your neighborhood philologist or buy a good grammar.

Read J.M. Coetzee before you die (?)

2008-06-23T00:16:00.002-05:00

This list, of the 1,001 books you must read before you die (their words, not mine), has - I think - ten entries from South African-Australian author J.M. Coetzee. For comparison, Thomas Mann has four entries, Gore Vidal one (and Myra Breckinridge, at that), Günter Grass two, George Orwell five, and none from Vergil, Homer, Horace, Catullus, Cicero, Caesar, Herodotus, Thucydides, and...well, you take my point.

The message I take away from this list is that I really should just read everything J.M. Coetzee has ever written. Point taken and noted for the record.

Now, I really liked Waiting for the Barbarians. It was good. I haven't felt the need to delve more deeply into Coetzee's oeuvre, despite his recent Nobel Prize, largely because I am pretty sure that I will only be disappointed when I compare the work to Waiting. At the same time, does the author of this list really mean to suggest that I need to read Coetzee's Slow Man or Philip Roth's The Plot Against America before I read Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathustra or Homer's Iliad?

If not, he really should qualify his list a little bit. As I sit here venting my humanities-major steam, it crosses my mind that, if you're going to read Zarathustra, then you'll want to read Die Geburt der Tragödie, Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen, Der Fall Wagner, and Götzen-Dämmerung, and that's just enough to give you a flavor of Nietzsche's thought - not exhaustively or completely, though, by any means. It also forces me to realize that the selection of those books - just by Nietzsche - are motivated by my own readings and my own interests: thus, they highlight the problem of these lists. What I want and need to read before I join the Choir Eternal is different, in some way or another, than that which must be read by someone else. These lists are just too subjective for my taste.

Better, especially in today's world, to say "You must read 1,001 books before you die." Such a required project would, to my mind, solve many of the problems of today.

Ionarts had it first, by the by.

Yes, we can (except when it comes to Latin)

2008-06-21T22:29:00.002-05:00

Well, Senator Barack Obama has a new logo - which I suppose was intended to make him look "presidential," whatever that means in this race - and it included the Latin phrase, vero possumus.

That translates to, "Certainly, we can." This is obviously an attempt at translating his campaign's motto, "Yes, we can." The problem, as I see it, is as E.C. Woodcock notes,

125. Possibility. Except in the main clauses of conditional sentences (Sections 192, 197-9), the ideas of 'can', 'could', 'could have', 'may', 'might', 'might have', expressing possibility, are more often conveyed by the indicative of possum with the infinitive, than by the potential subjunctive. [Woodcock, A New Latin Syntax § 125, pg. 94; bold mine - pjs]

Senator Obama's new motto, vero possumus, lacks an infinitive. That's no surprise, since "Yes, we can" makes an effective rhetorical point in English, but doesn't quite go as far, as best as I can tell, in Latin. To but it bluntly, it's really very bad Latin. Indeed, though I took my A.B. in Classics, as opposed to Latin (a non-trivial distinction in my former department, but hardly the point for this post), I might go so far as to say that it's pseudo-Latin at best. At the least, assuming that it's functional in the way that it was intended to function, it's really inelegant, which makes it pseudo-Latin in my book.

A better way to put the motto would be vero possumus excurrere, or "Indeed, we can hasten forwards." Or whatever verb Obama wants us to affect, since there's probably an analogue in Latin and there's an infinitive form of that verb.

Or, how about this: Go with what you know, and clearly Latin ain't it.

Off-topic? Sure. As I like to note, however, it's my blog.

Didn't we just do this?

2008-06-21T18:04:00.002-05:00

Mostly Opera reports on the new Bayreuth Parsifal, directed by Stefan Herheim. This tantalizing little blurb reveals, to me, more than it really should,

According to Bayreuth Festival spokesman Peter Emmerich, the staging concept is "a kind of time travel" with scenes ranging from "The Wilhelminismus of the 19th Century to the First World War, the 1920s, the Nazi era, the founding of the Federal Republic and the economic miracle." Heike Scheele is the set designer. Both the Bayreuth Festival House and Villa Wahnfried will play "a visually important" role in the concept. He furthermore promises the production will be "controversial".

So, in other words, this is a meta-Parsifal, full of ironic, self-referential winks and nods to the audience.

So, like I say: Didn't we just do this with Christoph Schlingensief's headache-inducing production of some years back? It seems like sensory overload to have one "controversial" performance after another, and - like with any repeated shocks - these productions run the risk of blunting their effects.

Furthermore, directors should avoid kitschy Wagner-references just because Katharina Wagner's half-baked Meistersinger alluded to Wagner himself in one scene. That strikes me of the visual equivalent of the director standing on stage and screaming, "THIS IS POSTMODERN, GET IT?" every time some ersatz-ambiguity or tripe-filled trope is forced down the gullets of the audience members who paid good money to see the stuff.

There is plenty of room for creativity without idiocy, though, with productions of the sort that this one appears to be, that might be a bit of an overstatement.

Zenph finally gets it right

2008-06-16T14:58:00.002-05:00

I will continue to hold that the "reperformance" of Glenn Gould's 1955 Goldberg Variations was nothing short of eldritch necromancy out of a Lovecraftian nightmare. Indeed, Dr. Herbert West, M.D., couldn't have imagined something quite as macabre as resurrecting such a performance. Only Joseph Curwen would have dreamed it.

All levity aside, my problem with the Zenph disc was that Gould did in fact record a super-digital version of the Goldbergs. It bears little resemblance to the 1955 set, and the digital tracks were scrapped for the better-sounding analog tapes; it is, however, a modern stereo interpretation of the same work by the same pianist.

Now, the latest release from Zenph is another story. It's Art Tatum's Piano Starts Here (a combination of his first discs cut in the 1933 and a live concert from 1949), and it shows what Zenph should be doing with its new technology. Having some experience with live recordings (and recordings in general) from the 1930s and 1940s, I can tell you that there isn't anything there that you would want to use to show off your Klipsch La Scala speakers. The problem isn't the artist's interpretation, but the primitive technology.

Tatum was good. Very, very good. Indeed, the only thing holding him back is the neolithic (relatively speaking) technology used to capture his style on disc. Zenph, using whatever eldritch trickery they've devised to get every aspect of a performance off the acetate and onto a MIDI file, has managed to get his brilliance onto a modern, well-tuned piano and capture it in modern sound.

That's the idea. Don't fix what isn't broken. Now, let's hit up some of the great masters of the last century.

Another political post? You know it.

2008-06-13T12:17:00.002-05:00

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama has launched a new website: www.fightthesmears.com.

I comment only to say that this race is not that nasty. Indeed, if the Obama campaign (or the McCain campaign for that matter) thinks that they are taking unwarranted heat and getting "smeared," then they should seek out some information on the elections of 1824 and 1828. The former ended up in the "Corrupt Bargain," and the latter ended with the death of Rachel Jackson, General Jackson's beloved wife.

I think most people forget how rough-and-tumble political life was in the early years of the Republic. Short of reading a stock academic history or one of the dreadful popularized histories (e.g., Team of Rivals), I recommend Gore Vidal's Burr. Having some experience with Vidal, I can say that his books - particularly the Narratives of Empire, though Julian is also a good example - are meticulously researched and readable. Now, it's fiction (spirited and feisty fiction), but Vidal does a wonderful job evoking the partisan, personal, and pointed competition that marked political life in the early Republic.

I mean, before the current incumbent, what sitting Vice President had ever shot anyone, much less a former Secretary of the Treasury?

"Fight the Smears"? Give me a break. This is polite teatime conversation compared to what it used to be.

Really? No, I mean, really?

2008-06-11T16:13:00.003-05:00

File this one under "really bizarre."

I don't know how to start this one, so I'll just quote the LA Times.

One of the highest-ranking federal judges in the United States, who is currently presiding over an obscenity trial in Los Angeles, has maintained his own publicly accessible website featuring sexually explicit photos and videos.

Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, acknowledged in an interview with The Times that he had posted the materials, which included a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows and a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal. Some of the material was inappropriate, he conceded, although he defended other sexually explicit content as "funny."

I know, right? Alex Kozinski. The same judge who is occasionally mentioned as a potential Supreme Court nominee. Really very bizarre. Frankly, though, what he does on his own time is his own business. I don't think arguing that some of the stuff is "funny" is a good course of action, but I don't think that dragging him from pillory to post is a good idea, either.

A lapse in judgment is just that. I think judges should be held to a higher standard, but I know judges are people, too. Frankly, given some of the other "scandals" that have beset one or the other Constitutional branches of government over the last couple of years, this is pretty tame. (Though I never saw the pictures in question.) It's still a surreal thing to read. In fact, I am most reminded of the time David Souter got mugged.

Maybe Judge Kozinski should consider a brief leave of absence while this blows over. He could write a book or, I don't know, review the blogs of law students who didn't shout Crucifige eum!

I'll be free in three years.

Varviso's coming

2008-06-05T23:54:00.003-05:00

It is with no small excitement that I am awaiting Amazon's delivery to me of the new Decca set, Wagner: The Great Operas from the Bayreuth Festival, which - despite the inapt and frankly inappropriate title - contains Silvio Varviso's 1974 Meistersinger. The set has received some really glowing praise from some quarters, and I am interested to hear it - and not the version available from under-documented ArkivMusic on demand service (I really would like to know what the source material is, what the digital transfer vector looks like, and more about the CD-R media before I get too happy about paying their prices).

Kempe's Ring. Varviso's Meistersinger. Good times.

Mengelberg's Mahler

2008-06-05T20:50:00.002-05:00

My previous post, which mentioned Willem Mengelberg's 1939 Mahler 4th with the Concertgebouw, has got me thinking about the issue of the authenticity of Mengelberg's Mahler. By that, of course, I mean: How close is Mengelberg's Mahler to Mahler's Mahler? The Pristine Classical site notes,

Secondly we have to look to the performance, as this is one which is simply unique. [Mengelberg] had been a close friend and associate of Mahler's; he had been present at the premiere of this symphony; the two conductors (for conducting was for what Mahler was chiefly known during his lifetime) worked on the score together, adding timing marks, annotations and fine detailed notes throughout.

A more reflective and incisive analysis of the situation comes from Tony Duggan,

Mengelberg sat in the audience in Amsterdam in 1904 to hear Mahler conduct the symphony with the Concertgebouw Orchestra twice in the same concert. He also attended the rehearsals, discussed the work with Mahler, and made copious notes in his score with Mahler's co-operation. Mahler in turn had a very high opinion of Mengelberg's conducting of his music so any recording by the Dutchman must carry a degree of authenticity but with the caveats that need to be applied to that word in this context. Whether what we hear in the "live" concert recording from November 1939 [...] can be said to represent Mahler's own wishes is another question. I would only point out that by this time twenty-eight years had passed since Mahler's death and Mengelberg, a conductor known for a very expressive style, must have developed his interpretation in those years however much it may have been influenced by Mahler to start with. However, I think we can say this recording gives us a window into the way the generation nearest to the composer saw and performed his works.

Now, in the case of Mahler, everyone knows that there are no extant recordings. He died in 1911, just at the cusp of the recording period; had he lived ten or fifteen more years (still dying relatively young as such things go), he undoubtedly would have made some recordings, given his stature as a conductor - if not a composer. The thing is, however, that (through the Welte-Mignon player-piano magic) some performances by Mahler exist. One of them is the fourth movement of the 4th, which Mengelberg performed here. There are some issues, however, with the Mahler 'performances.' The primary concern is that a person playing the piano is not going to have the same concern for the human voice in the fourth movement that a conductor would (the same thing goes for ensemble and the other concerns). That's a polite way of saying Mahler's interpretation is very fleet. He does, though, vary his tempos pretty wildly (though in ways we'd expect). Indeed, Peter Gutmann isn't far off when he calls the interpretative approach "far more akin [...] to hysterical passion."

The problem is, as I noted, comparing Mahler's 1905 piano rolls to Mengelberg's 1939 performance of the 4th is like comparing apples to oranges, speaking in a substantive sense. Mahler performing at the piano solo is going to do things differently than Mengelberg leading an orchestra, but there are approaches to the same material that are going to remain roughly constant, regardless of media. That's where the piano rolls (and another source, to be touched upon anon) come in handy. We see that Mahler had a very fluid, very variable approach to his music. Fast, slow, relaxed, and tense seem to flow together in sequence, if not always in congruity; Mengelberg seems to have a similar orchestral concept. It seems as though he is constantly adjusting, nudging the orchestra in different directions as the performance progresses.

Another key piece of evidence is the "Remembering Mahler" oral history piece, containing interviews with people who played under Mahler. One former player notes, with palpable excitement, "Flexibility, that's what Mahler had. There must be a certain liberty in the tempo [...] No matter where it is and what it is, it is what the composer demands, not what the composer, what his composition demands." [Transcription mine] So, then, this sort of variation, bar-by-bar, phrase-by-phrase, was an integral part of Mahler's approach - at least as far as we can tell from anecdotal and limited recorded evidence. Mengelberg seems to have had the same idea, and we know that Mahler and Mengelberg were reasonably close (indeed, there seems to have been a lot of cooperation and collaboration on the 4th).

So, then, what does this mean?

Ultimately? Not much. By the time we get Mengelberg's Mahler 4th (1939), the composer had been dead for 28 years. It would be a prodigious feat of memory indeed if, 28 years after the death of the composer (and 35 years after Mahler's performance of the 4th in Amsterdam, when the younger conductor did his work with the composer on the symphony), Mengelberg could remember Mahler's interpretation well enough to affect a reasonable facsimile of Mahler's performance. I think that's suspending disbelief a little too much.

So, then, what gives? Well, I think it's relatively simple: conductors before the advent of a certain one of whose centennial we're currently in the throes modulated tempi and dynamics to fit the music. Look at Mengelberg, look at Furtwängler, and look at the rest of the Mitteleuropa-trained composers in the past one hundred years. They all knew how to do it. Mengelberg's Mahler sounds rather like Mahler's Mahler because they came out of the same musical tradition. Does Mengelberg's approach reflect Mahler's precisely at the time of the Amsterdam premiere of the 4th? Of course not. Memory and approach changes over time: Look at Solti's Decca Ring and his 1985 Bayreuth Ring. They have some similarities, but there are some key changes. The tradition leaves an imprint, regardless of changing taste (and Mahler's approach, by his own account, changed day-to-day based on mood and taste), and that imprint is where the similarities appear.

It's ultimately an academic question, but - more than that - it's a testament to what has been lost in conducting over the last fifty or so years.

More on the historical front

2008-06-05T19:01:00.002-05:00

As you might have noticed, an anonymous comment on the post immediately below this one pointed the curious to Pristine Classical, whose downloads include (some) of the Music & Arts discography. Pristine also has some interesting releases on its own, like that 1939 Mengelberg Mahler 4th, with Jo Vincent, which has been floating around for some time (and has attained some measure of popularity).

It's an interesting site with some interesting music. The problem, of course, is that it's priced in the euro, which means - if you're an American - you'll take a bit of shellacking on the exchange. Vissi d'arte, I suppose, right?

Tahra's getting the right idea

2008-06-04T19:27:00.002-05:00

Tahra is one of those small, independent record labels that seems to beat all expectations. Run by Rene Tremine and Miriam Scherchen, famously the daughter of Hermann Scherchen, the records are somewhat obscure and hard to find in the United States. Here is a NPR story on the label. I suppose, and they seem to agree, that their issue of Wilhelm Furtwängler's 1954 Lucerne performance of Beethoven's 9th is their best-known CD.

They have started, however, to put some of their recordings on Apple's iTunes Music Store (iTMS). These include Eduard van Beinum's 1955 Mahler 6th and Bustabo's 1943 Beethoven violin concerto with Mengelberg (which performance helped contribute to the premature end of Bustabo's career). I have, privately - though I might have made the sentiment known here, long wished that historical labels would enter the digital age. Their distribution is so narrow and sporadic (Arkiv, for example, doesn't appear to have any Tahra titles in stock) that a digital sales model seems perfectly fit to the situation. Indeed, I have often - after seeing something at Arkiv or Amazon - have wished that Orfeo, Testament, and Music and Arts have had some sort of readily available digital downloads.

Tahra, it seems, is making progress with the digital downloads I have mentioned. My only issue is that they are issuing them in the DRM-laden iTMS 128 kbps format. Another small, historical label - Arbiter Records - is putting out its stuff on iTMS, but in the iTunes Plus (i.e., 256 kbps, DRM-free) format. Now, I suppose this is just me dithering around, but I have two points (vis-à-vis Tahra). First, for the 1943 Bustabo / Mengelberg Beethoven VC, 256 kbps might be excessive. Indeed, it probably is, but I want to find that out on my own. It makes little sense to hear how much sound quality matters to the Tahra folks and then see these apparently carefully crafted transfers in 128 kbps AAC files.

Taking an example from Arbiter, the 1951 Brahms violin concerto with Fritz Busch as the soloist sounds terrible. It sounds, in fact, about ten years older than it is. It could, probably, be pretty happy at 128 kbps, but it's in 256 kbps and DRM-free. It's nice to have the extra bandwidth and to be able to do what I want with the record. Now, the thing about Arbiter is that some of their stuff does not really appeal to me (though they've got a couple of Paul Jacobs collections that are pretty nice - including a very interesting live Waldstein).

That leads me, however, to my next point: Tahra's catalog selections for the online nods are not nearly as broad-based or as comprehensive as I would like. Granted, beggars can't be choosers, but there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason behind their choices, and easy picks - like that '54 Furtwängler 9th - seem to be overlooked. Now, don't get me wrong, the Bustabo / Mengelberg thing is nice, but when you consider the popularity of some other records like that Kondrashin Mahler 7th from Amsterdam, it's hard to square the issued stuff with the popular stuff.

Such, however, is the record business, I guess.

To sum up, Tahra (and Arbiter) is leading the way for independent historical record companies (or record companies with a substantial investment in historical releases). I wish, however, that Tahra would release more of their catalog on the iTMS (or, better still, Amazon's MP3 download store) and in high-definition. So much is made of Tahra's meticulous remastering that 128 kbps seems like a paltry share for the fruits of someone's labor.

From the Editor's Desk

2008-06-04T01:34:00.003-05:00

Well, I'm not so much an editor as a sole proprietor. Regardless, I forgot to mention at the time that Vincent Vargas' Wagner Operas site has joined the other interesting sites in my Links of Interest.

It's an interesting reference source for Wagner's life and works.

This is why historic recordings are safe

2008-06-03T15:32:00.006-05:00

The splendid Mostly Opera reports on an opera singer's response to a blogger's criticism. Frankly, I would be honored if a singer took my criticism seriously enough to respond, but since most of the singers I discuss are dead (and have been for a little while in some cases, longer in others), I doubt that's going to happen.

This does, though, raise the question in my mind: When did classical music get so nice? I don't mean the 'Riot of Spring' time mêlées when I say that I have a more muscular, rough-and-tumble attitude to art music, but I do mean that criticism isn't always nice. Maybe the singer in question hasn't experienced the give-and-take the way others have, but - come on! - Slonimsky shows that the reviews of great music (whether Turandot meets that criterion is for a greater mind than mine to determine) have been meaner and ruder than the tidbit that got the knickers of the singer in question in a knot.

To wit, I append a selection from Slonimsky's great book, Lexicon of Musical Invective, concerning some music that has since taken some stature onto itself,

"Cette musique ne peut que remuer les sens les plus bas. La musique de Wagner réveille le cochon plutôt que l'ange. Je dis pire, elle assourdit les deux. C'est de la musique d'eunuque affolé." (Figaro: 26 July 1876)

That's right, friends: Richard Wagner was called, in effect, a demented eunuch (a charge with at least half of which Mathilde Wesendon[c]k might have disagreed). One wonders what our singer would have done had he been called as much.

Waiting for Kempe

2008-06-02T12:58:00.002-05:00

Let's see if lightning can, indeed, strike the same place twice.

Testament promises, though I haven't seen any indication that it's on the U.S. market yet, a 1957 Ring from Covent Garden with Rudolf Kempe leading the band (SBT13-1426). I am surprised that Medici didn't take this opportunity to have a flagship recording on their ROH Heritage series (which has a very interesting Solti Don Giovanni from 1962), but it looks like Testament has the set.

After the 1955 Keilberth Ring from Bayreuth and the 1950 premiere of Strauss' Vier letzte Lieder (which has a nice - and impressive, given Flagstad's age - Götterdämmerung finale on the disc), I am becoming convinced that Testament is one of the smartest labels out there. They seem to know what will be popular, and they seem to have good licensing agents. Scoring the Keilberth tapes from Decca, in particular, given the reissuing impulse of Universal at the moment, was a major coup.

The Kempe Ring, though, seems a bit more complicated. The conductor has had some fine Wagner records on the market under his name (Lohengrin and Meistersinger, both EMI), but he seems to be more or less obscure. Like Klaus Tennstedt, his relatively early death might have something to do with his second-tier status. The cast seems pretty solid and solidly Golden Age (Nilsson, Hotter, Windgassen, Vinay, Uhde, and Böhme all apparently appear). That, then, is my one reservation about the set.

Will this be something other than the Keilberth cycle? That is to say: Didn't we hear this one with the Keilberth/Bayreuth set? I understand Varnay sang Brünnhilde, but we got Nilsson with Böhm in - what? - 1967. I can understand the need for the Knappertsbusch Ring from 1956, since he and Keilberth had two different approaches to Wagner's score. I guess the question is this: Is Rudolf Kempe's approach to the Ring so fundamentally different that it overcomes the substantial duplication of most of the key roles?

I suppose, too, if you really want to hear Birgit Nilsson's Brünnhilde in 1957, you can get the EMI (and Testament) set with the finale from Walküre - with Hotter in excellent voice. The latest EMI release - which might be the same as the mastering on the now-legendary Les Introuvables du Ring set.

Now, for all my dithering, I'll probably buy the Kempe Ring when it becomes widely available (unless Testament wants to send me a review copy, which would be very nice, but highly improbable). Still, I think - in a reissue market that's becoming crowded - that consumers should use some rational thinking when it comes to releases like this.

Off-topic, but still strangely compelling...

2008-06-01T23:51:00.004-05:00

As I read this report, provided through Slate's Hot Document series, I was struck by the almost Kafkaesque absurdity of the situation. It really is like a Stalinist show-trial: a child, apparently diagnosed with autism, is taken from a classroom under police escort for disruptive behavior, and when he returns, he is confronted with the "evidence" against him and voted out of the classroom.

The really bizarre thing is that a state-paid teacher, whose job it is to instruct students, let a student's continued participation in class be determined by what amounted to a popularity contest. This strikes me as a silly exercise - at best - designed to camouflage seemingly well-justified weariness and exasperation with the will of the students.

Now, let me say that this is based off one document and not all the sides are presented in the same manner (naturally, one person is complaining about another), but - even if there is a grain of truth in the incident - it's still a weird exercise that really has no place in any school.

Bizarre, bizarre, bizarre.

What is it these days?

2008-05-22T15:21:00.001-05:00

Are record companies getting smarter or are performers being given freer reins over their recordings? Pierre-Laurent Aimard's Deutsche Grammophon début was Bach's Kunst der Fuge - not exactly light after-dinner fare. Hilary Hahn increased the Schoenberg Violin Concerto discography by 25% when her disc of that and the Sibelius concerto dropped. These are major-label releases of works with a lot of publicity, and I wouldn't expect either release to be backed by the labels as strongly as they have been - especially considering the eldritch necromancy being practiced on Karajan's discography for the umpteenth time.

I am not a big fan of the cult of performers - conductors, soloists, and groups alike. The composer should be the primary focus (part, I am sure, of the nausea that rolls over me when I see a Karajan anniversary advertisement), not the performer. The cult of performer, however, is a clever and effective marketing tool. It seems, though, that some artists are using it as a platform to perform and promote valuable and intelligent music that is underrepresented in the catalogs and underestimated by the mainstream musical establishment.

I can live with that.

Aimard's Bach

2008-05-22T12:57:00.003-05:00

I am fairly familiar with Pierre-Laurent Aimard's work through his performances of György Ligeti and Pierre Boulez, so I - like many reviewers - approached his recording of Bach's Die Kunst der Fuge with some trepidation. It is, however, as I almost expected, an intelligent and articulate exposition of one of Bach's towering masterpieces.

Hugo Shirley, on Musical Criticism, had this to say,

Listening to the concentration and sheer pianistic skill on show on this new recording, though, this definitely muscles its way in as an important addition to the catalogue. Immediately any fears we might have about Aimard mastering the notes and delineating the counterpoint clearly and cleanly are allayed. His technique is such that he's able to articulate clearly the voices within the most complex textures, dotted-rhythms are always tight and passage-work is purposeful and strong.

I agree, more or less, with that assessment. I have reservations about Bach - especially something like Kunst - on a modern fortepiano (unless Glenn Gould is at the keyboard). Aimard discusses this at some length in the interview contained in the liner notes. He notes,

In fact, The Art of Fugue is written for a keyboard instrument, but which one? The harpsichord seems to be suitable for Contrapuncti II and IX and Canons I and III, whereas Contrapuncti I, III, V and X are better suited to the organ. In turn, the expressive but interior lament of Canon IV suggests a clavichord. And then there is Contrapunctus IV, which evokes a chamber-music ensemble, Contrapunctus XII, which seems to have been conceived for an a cappella choir, and the highly expressive Contrapunctus XI, in which the successive chorales contribute to a powerful sense of drama, plunging us with its daring modulations and insistent chromaticism into the world of the Passions.

He goes on to say, "Properly regulated, the modern piano of our day, with its wide range of possibilities, is an excellent instrument for The Art of Fugue, allowing a realization that is both convincing and unrestricted."

I suppose, ultimately, my preference for Bach on the harpsichord comes from the lack of dynamics imposed by that instrument. The contrapuntal writing of Kunst (i.a.) works best, to my ears, when every voice is given equal prominence. Unless one is superhuman (e.g., Gould), a modern fortepiano can allow one voice to be given more attention or prominence. I don't Aimard falls into that trap altogether, but there are times that I think he falls somewhat short of Gould's standards.

Of course, Gould recorded many of the Contrapuncti on an organ and was probably the greatest pianist of his generation (and on the all-time shortlist), so that's not a fair comparison. It's inescapable, however. All in all, Aimard's record is a very good one. We've seen stuff like Simone Dinnerstein's echt-Romantic wallow through the Goldberg Variations of late. (Or is it ersatz? I can't remember. It seems to have a weird duality to it.) It is nice to have intelligent and high-quality Bach on a major label by a major pianist.

Aimard's modern-repertoire training, I am sure, served him well. I am sort of reminded of Pollini's reference account of Boulez' Piano Sonata no. 2 and his brilliant Hammerklavier, from something like 1977 and 1978 respectively in reverse. In Aimard's case (though it's applicable to Pollini, too), one might be afraid of a certain emotional vacuum in his work, given his impeccable modernist credentials. Of course, some facility with Aimard's Ligeti would show that there is plenty of feeling, but appropriate feeling - none of this emotion for its own sake nonsense. Aimard presents Kunst with precision, concern for the variables that separate good Bach from bad Bach (vis-à-vis performance, never text), and intelligence.

It's also interesting - as well as heartening - to see the major label début of a major performer be something as challenging and serious as Bach's Kunst der Fuge. Deutsche Grammophon, I am sure, would have felt more comfortable with some Chopin or Beethoven. Even within the realm of Bach's solo keyboard music, Kunst is a fairly difficult - in a lot of ways - BWV entry. Aimard deserves some credit for choosing the work, and DGG deserves some credit for allowing him to do so.

All in all, a good release. It might be one of the better ones of the last few years.

Apologies for the delay

2008-05-21T15:47:00.002-05:00

I know that I have been remiss in updating the blog as often as I should, but I doubt that my five or six (I'm likely being generous) regular readers care.

If you do, then here is a rundown of the stuff I have had to do between then and now:

1) I was graduated from college with my A.B.
2) I had to move out of my old dwelling of four years.
3) I had to move back home briefly.
4) I had to move in to my new dwelling for the next three years.

Four items. Not too hard, you say? Ha, I say. Ha.

Without getting specific, my computer access has been spotty and not necessarily blog-centric.

I'll try to be better. I really will.

Ihrem Ende eilen sie zu

2008-05-04T00:10:00.003-05:00

It's official. Wolfgang Wagner is stepping down as Festspielleiter on 31 August 2008, and his daughters Katharina and Eva Wagner-Pasquier are the front runners to get nod from the Wagner-Stiftung to take up the reins.

Everyone knows that, and I've been busy with finals and pre-graduation business. I haven't given the matter much thought, other than this is a bad idea.

Katharina's Meistersinger is not the beginning of a new era in the same way that Wieland's "Meistersinger ohne Nürnberg" was. Indeed, having seen some of the pictures and read the reviews, it seems to me that the Wagner-Stiftung would be better served getting Patrice Chéreau, Harry Kupfer, or Robert Wilson to head up the Festspiele. At least they're good at the Regietheater style. Katharina's production, as best as I could tell, was not that great. It seemed to me from what I saw that she was making "Important Statements" rather than articulating a Konzept. Regardless of what one thinks about Regietheater or Brechtian dramatic theory (I have theater-major friends), "Important Statement" theater smacks of trying too hard, and it lends itself to a sort of disjointed, schizophrenic approach to a score.

If the Neu Bayreuth of the 21st century is "Important Statement"-based, then the point of the Bayreuther Festspiele is lost. The acoustic is not, in the final accounting, sufficient to warrant years of waiting, expensive tickets, an expensive trip to Bayreuth, and a week in likely stifling heat. The best singers will show up in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, London, Vienna, Berlin, or any of a whole host of great cities. There are a few excellent conductors of Wagner's works. There are several really good Wagner bands.

The point is this: If Katharina's Meistersinger is the harbinger of things to come, then Bayreuth's day is done. Productions verging on the insipid diverge so wildly from Wagner's Konzept - which should matter more than it seems to these days - cannot be redeemed by a great acoustic, solid singing (though, even that is occasionally in doubt), and variable conductors.

Eva Wagner-Pasquier is a solid administrator and designer, though she isn't going to win any prizes for theoretical and literal fidelity to the Ur-Konzept, and one can hope that she'll moderate the wackiness on the Green Hill.

Another Buch in the Wall

2008-04-18T19:37:00.005-05:00

Franz Schmidt's Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln (1935-7) is, in my view, one of the most neglected and underrated "great" works of the 20th Century. Schmidt's unfortunate political views, including his support for the Anschluss of 1938, have no doubt contributed to the relative obscurity of both the oratorio and the composer. Of course, no one seems to mention that Schmidt's wife was confined to an asylum and later murdered as a result of Nazi eugenics policies. Schmidt paid a price never exacted from others like Böhm, Karajan, or Schwarzkopf.

There are really only two "canonical" versions of the piece: Dimitri Mitropoulos 1959 Columbia/Sony account from the Salzburger Festspiele and Franz Welser-Möst's 1998 record on EMI with the SOBR. Mitropoulos' has an intensity and a power that appropriate to the source material, the Apocalypse of John, and Welser-Möst has a certain commitment and style. Also, the latter recording has René Pape as die Stimme des Herrn: an inspired (if you'll forgive me) choice.

There is also a recording out on Querstand's "Fabio Luisi Edition" of the eponymous conductor leading the MDR forces in a sensitive account that is well played and well sung. It's hard as nails to find, but it's worth a look.

Chandos has entered the game, too, with a performance conducted by Kristjan Järvi and the Tönkunstler-Orchester. The set has great sound, good singers, and a solid band behind it. I would say, however, that the thing that sets it apart is the presence of the Wiener Singverein, which makes the choral parts as thrilling and broad or as terrifying as Schmidt intended. A point for example would be either the great chorus in, "Und als das Lamm der Siegel erstes auftat," (König des Könige...) or the choral work in the section generally headed up by, "Nun sah ich, und siehe, mitten vor dem Throne."

It's not a perfect performance. To be honest, I think Järvi underplays some of the moments on which I would go full bore. Also, the Evangelist for this one, Johannes Chum, seems a little underpowered. Let's remember that Anton Dermota premiered the role during Schmidt's lifetime. I don't think a lyric tenor is the best choice or the original intent for Das Buch, though a Heldentenor with the ability to deal with the high end of the tessitura might be a little hard to find these days. (Maybe Ben Heppner, but I don't think it would work out super-well).

This is, however, a better performance than we should have any right to expect given the relative obscurity of this piece. I will stick with Luisi's performance, since Herbert Lippert's Evangelist is more in keeping with my (and I think Schmidt's) concept of the part. It's worth noting that Johannes Chum sings on Luisi's record, too: as the tenor soloist. A voice suited to "Heilig, heilig ist Gott der Allmächtige" is not, in my view, suited to "Gnade sei mit euch." Jan-Hendrik Rootering and Robert Holl both have their charms, and I simply prefer Rootering to Holl. Neither of them, sad to say, can hold a candle to René Pape for Welser-Möst. Between his voice and his intelligent way with the text, he nails the role precisely. Take that for what it's worth.

A new recording of Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln, even if I prefer other recordings, is always welcome Franz Schmidt's music can make up for a lot of flaws - especially when those flaws are ones of preference, not technical issues.

We're number 47?!

2008-04-03T12:12:00.002-05:00

A.C. Douglas has compiled the classical-music blogosphere top-50 rankings for 1Q 2008. Your humble correspondent and his blog, this blog, made the list at number 47. His methodology is here, and here are all the competitors.

Ultimately, having some experience with math, I like his methodology. It seems pretty fair and reasonably accurate. I do, however, take something approximating issue with the underlying premise. More links does not necessarily mean quality. For example, I got a lot of links for suggesting that supporting Gustavo Dudamel was, essentially, supporting Hugo Chávez, whose regime is execrable at best.

Depending on your view of such matters, those links do not imply quality. Indeed, given the tone, the opposite is likely true.

While a ranking based on content quality is, by its very nature, more subjective, it could also more accurately reflect the state of the blogosphere hereabouts. It does get us into quality-by-whose-standards concerns and bias, but that is easily corrected by having two or three people compile lists and average the rankings.

Beyond that, Mr. Douglas deserves credit for taking upon himself to compile a list about as objective as anyone could want.

Beethoven was always hip

2008-03-24T19:05:00.002-05:00

Bad title, I know, but this Ionarts piece about a new HIP-informed version of Beethoven's 3rd forced my hand.

I thought that I would give a plug for my favorite HIP Beethoven recording: Jordi Savall's 1997 3rd. Good luck finding it, as it seems to have disappeared in the ten or so years since its release. Writing in Gramophone, Richard Osborne had this to say,

There is a real sense of burgeoning excitement at the start of Savall’s performance; and the sound of the orchestra really does conjure up the sense of one being transported back to some dusky Viennese concert room c1805 where the musicians are as dangerous a crew as the militias roaming the mud-filled streets outside. Yet as the musical arguments begin to multiply and deepen, so the performance gets more garbled. For all Savall’s skill in moulding and modifying the pulse, there’s a jauntiness about parts of the first movement development section which muddles and trivializes the music.

He went on to note,

Again, in the Marcia funebre, the Savall performance is astonishing for the mood it conjures. The drum (calf skin head, hard sticks) is fierce and seductive, an instrument of war that suggests also the soft thud of death. Savall’s brass are similarly remarkable, at once brazen and mellow-sounding. The horn section alone – Thomas Muller, Raul Diaz and Javier Bonet – deserves an award for the way the players colour and characterize this astonishing music.

Osborne noted that the tempi for Savall's recording are unconventional. Yes, they are. Very much so. It is one of those things, having begun my Beethoven investigations with Furtwängler, that I don't really mind. I do, however, take issue with the 'jauntiness' claim. There is a certain swagger in Savall's interpretation, but never where I find it inappropriate.

I haven't heard Manze's version, but I would like to point out that Savall's recording - if you're lucky enough to find a copy - provides an excellent example of the HIP approach on historical instruments. None of this mealy-mouthed hybridization.

Ac toto surget gens aurea mundo

2008-03-24T14:52:00.004-05:00

Vltima Cumaei uenit iam carminis aetas;
magnus ab integro saeculorum nascitur ordo.
iam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna,
iam noua progenies caelo demittitur alto.
tu modo nascenti puero, quo ferrea primum
desinet ac toto surget gens aurea mundo,
casta faue Lucina; tuus iam regnat Apollo. - Verg. Ec. IV.4-10

Like a lot of Wagnerites, I am not usually terribly interested in revising my views on Wagner recordings and what deserves a spot on the list of undeniably great records.

Keilberth's 1955 Ring is one example of a set that reorders my particular Wagnerian universe. EMI's just-released set of Wagner arias and duets with Birgit Nilsson and Hans Hotter is, likely, another such disc.

"Arias and duets" is probably not the best description, especially of the selling point for most listeners: the whole of scene 3 of Act 3 of Die Walküre. This set was done in 1957, released in 1958, and - as such - it predates Hotter's performance for Solti by nine or so years. His voice, as such, bears more in common with Keilberth's 1955 Ring and Knappertsbusch's 1956 reading of the same (out, most notably, on Orfeo). Birgit Nilsson takes the soprano roles, and - as one would expect - she acquits herself wonderfully.

Nilsson here is in fresher voice, but, to my ears, the expiration date with her was somewhat later than 1966 or so. I might even say that her voice has a softer edge here than it did later (e.g., Böhm's 1977 Die Frau ohne Schatten in Vienna). She never really had the warm, human ('womanly,' too might be apropos) aspects of someone like Flagstad or Varnay; still, catching her in 1958 reveals her not to have as much steel as she would later. A Gramophone reviewer called her tone her "clear, gleaming," and I wouldn't object. I would point out that, though, there is a difference between that and a steely, ringing voice.

Suffice it to say that Hotter is in much better voice here than he would be for Solti. To be fair, on the low end there is still a tendency toward what can only be called woofiness, but it is much more constrained and controlled here than it would be by 1964 (Knappertsbusch's final Parsifal at Bayreuth) or Solti's Walküre. It came as some surprise to me to find that Hotter's last Walküre Wotan was in Paris in 1972, unless his wobble and low-end problems stabilized, that would have been a painful experience for anyone who had heard him in his prime. In a post-Keilberth environment, where we could see just how great Hotter was in his prime, it only cements the opinion of long-standing with a recording under ideal studio conditions.

His reading of Wotan's Farewell ("Leb wohl, du kühnes, herrliches Kind..." to the Feuerzauber music) is worth the price of admission. In addition to a voice that sounds like a deeply conflicted god, trapped by his own designs, we have a reading of the text with intelligence and pathos. In other words, we have Wagner's fusion of music and drama. You know what? Hotter's performance here might be the downright saddest I have heard. One is deeply moved with this scene, just as Wagner intended.

Leopold Ludwig, like Joseph Keilberth, was a Kapellmeister of the great German tradition. Really, once the maestro became the industry standard, such conductors - trained in their repertoire by long evenings in the various local and regional opera houses - were outmoded and relegated to session work. There is something to be said about learning the trade through solid work without flash or pretense. Given a band as good as the Philharmonia was in 1957, Ludwig's solid chops as a conductor who understands Wagnerian idiom, the orchestral contribution cannot be faulted.

I should note, before making some general comments, that this EMI release seems to duplicate - to some degree or another - a couple of Testament releases (the Tannhäuser, Holländer, Lohengrin, and Walküre excerpts were on one set, with the Tristan and Isolde track on another). The Walküre excerpts have been released before in at least one EMI set, but this appears to be the first time when the whole run has been collected together on CD (correct me if I'm wrong).

Hearing this disc wasn't a surprise to me. After Keilberth and Knappertsbusch, it is no secret that Hotter in full voice is bested only, really, by Friedrich Schorr. Nilsson is a known quantity, from the Solti and Böhm sets, plus some of her other records, so there is no real question about her. Leopold Ludwig is a bit less well-known, especially in Wagner (He did a fine Mahler 4th back in 1957 with Ammy Schlemm and the Staatskapelle Dresden); still a quick listen reveals him to be a competent, if not world-beating, Wagner conductor.

The surprise to me is that the major labels continue to churn out sets like Domingo's Scenes from the Ring, his Tristan, or any of the self-indulgent messes put out monthly when they have sets like this one in the vaults. For example, did we really need to have Herbert von Karajan's complete recorded output dumped onto a market already saturated with...well, Herbert von Karajan's complete recorded output? No. We did not.

My distaste for the record business is pretty clear at this point, and sets like this one only serve to further my disdain for the process of putting these records on the market. In my view, this should be the go-to set for 'bleeding chunks,' especially if you want the emotional climax of the Ring in one scene. (I'm prepared to justify that statement at some length, but not here.) It has enough other selections to provide a pretty good overview of Wagner, but its primary appeal are those Walküre tracks. It is also another set that justifies and amplifies the glories of the Golden Age of Wagnerian performance.

At a time when Wagnerian performance - both orchestral and vocal - is not at its all-time best, Golden Age sets remind the listeners that there have been moments where Wagner's music, text, and intent blend together seamlessly to form a dramatic statement unseen since the great Greek dramatists (especially Aeschylus and Sophocles.)

This set is, as I have intimated, such a reminder.

Kirchner's Götterdämmerung Redux

2008-03-19T21:29:00.004-05:00

Mostly Opera, a blog that has all the news you can use, especially when some of us are off on our tangents, reviews Alfred Kirchner's Götterdämmerung, out on DVD. I trod the same soil a while back. Here are my comments.

Our correspondent from Copenhagen, however, hits the nail on the head when she notes,

The major point being, however, that Kirchner does not really seem to have a sense of direction of the work. In that respect, it distinctly reminds of the current Bayreuth Ring production by Tankred Dorst, in which the characters also wear odd semi-Japanese Star Wars clothing, as well as being placed in a production with no intrinsic drama. Wagner can be about many things. But in this production, nothing seems to happen underneath the surface.

She is, of course, right.

My comment would be: Look at the epithet applied to the Kirchner Ring. It's not called the "designer Ring" because it is a sensible, intelligent, and sensitive approach to a cycle of music-dramas that demands nothing less. I am sorry, but most avant-garde fashion is the triumph of form over utility or substance.

On later viewing, I was reminded of nothing more than, say, P. T. Anderson's Magnolia. Kirchner's Ring is a very slick, very stylish, and very smart production that doesn't say a whole lot on its own power. It has a good cast, a good conductor, and an audience that likes it some Wagner. Nevertheless, it skates on the surface of the Ring.

This goes back, in my mind, beyond Chéreau and Kupfer, back to Wieland Wagner's stagings.

A.C. Douglas has a view of Wagner's designs that places them at the root of the Welt-Asch of Regietheater (Eurotrash) interpretations of Richard Wagner's music-dramas. The intent, [as Mr. Douglas points out - see below], behind Wieland's designs was - in my view - to strip away eighty or so years of baggage and superfluities and arrive at a staging that allowed the fundamental drama and music to make their points. Regietheater, by its very name, makes it pretty clear that the "fundamental drama" is the last thing on the book for these productions.

The problem is one of a tipping point. If you carry this minimalism and text/music-focus too far, you arrive at a place where the reduced and decentralized surface becomes the focus. In other words, you're too busy looking at Brünnhilde's fabulous bloomers to worry much with Wotan's Farewell or the prelude duet from Götterdämmerung. To put it still another way, you arrive at a situation where the surface becomes an end in itself.

The music and drama are left in the dust, and the artistry of the Konzept becomes the primary concern. Just like haute couture.

Not an outcome devoutly to be desired, to put it mildly.

Revision: 20 March 2008

A.C. Douglas, in the comments section to this post, notes, "You've given the impression here that I've said otherwise, and took a negative view of Wieland's original stagings of the Ring. I did no such thing."

For context, and since the link is what Mr. Douglas left us with, here is the relevant passage from his post, "Elegy,"

And who was the very first there to break totally with Bayreuth tradition and Wagner's original stagings of his works, and replace them entirely with his own? None other than Wagner's grandson, the hugely gifted producer, stage designer, and director, Wieland Wagner. His so-called New Bayreuth production of the Ring — first presented in 1951, and subsequently each succeeding year thereafter through 1958 (and about which I here write as firsthand witness) — set a new standard for Wagner productions worldwide, and showed what could be done by the use of inspired modern stagecraft in the service of Wagner's own idealized dramatic vision, that last being the key to this production's great artistic success.

With the production's almost total absence of stage furniture, and its use of non-period-or-place-committal costumes, and the creative use of lighting to model and shape space and the characters who inhabit it, Wieland — taking his grandfather at his word when in 1853 he declared that the yet unwritten music of the Ring "will be such that people shall hear what they cannot see" — created, so to speak, a neutral "frame" for the tetralogy that permitted the music itself, working in tandem with the audience's own imagination, to fill in all the missing stage detail as if it all were right in front of their eyes. It was a brilliant stroke, a stroke of genius even, as it made manifest to the audience in the most intimate way imaginable Richard Wagner's deepest interior vision of the Ring, while rendering Wieland's all but invisible.

Unhappily, this wasn't to last. Along with Wagner's physiognomy, Wieland inherited as well Wagner's monstrous ego, and it wasn't long before he began not only to replace Wagner's original stagings with his own, but Wagner's original idealized vision as well, and thus did Regietheater first ensconce itself within the Bayreuther Festspiele where it still reigns supreme to this very day, influencing Wagner productions everywhere.

As Mr. Douglas has pointed out, he does not take a negative view of Wieland's Neu Bayreuth style, but apparently objects to later designs (i.e., 1958-1966) that "replace[d] Wagner's original staging with [Wieland's] own." Point taken. He does, however, place, as I paraphrased, Wieland at the top of the flowchart from Neu Bayreuth to Schlingensief's execrable Parsifal.

On a less-contentious issue, has Mr. Douglas ever addressed his own 1958(?) visit to Bayreuth at length? I can't recall, and - since, with the release of the Keilberth set and the Knappertsbusch set from 1956 having made the rounds for a while now, interest in the Golden Age seems high - it would interest me, and likely others.

Adding to Amadeus

2008-03-18T14:37:00.003-05:00

A.C. Douglas has this to say about Milos Forman's* Amadeus,

But even though Amadeus is Salieri’s story about Mozart and a work of fiction, the film’s portrayal of Mozart captures and embraces in a brilliantly dramatic, theatrical, and, as is befitting of Mozart, comic way the awesome contradiction between the to all appearances ordinary man — a man, pace Maynard Solomon, as much child as man — and an astonishing body of work that in number, multifariousness, and profundity beggars the imagination as I’ve elsewhere put it on this blog.

I might say that Milos Forman's adaptation, written by Peter Shaffer - who wrote the play Amadeus - amplifies the themes in the play, even as he downplays others. The play had much more about the conflict between man and an inscrutable, distant God (as Salieri sees Him in the play) as anything else. Indeed, the title of the play - which could very well have been Mozart with no concomitant loss of effect - gives away the game at the beginning: God's love. [1] Indeed, if one wanted to boil down the play to a very cursory and very glib summary: "Salieri sees that Mozart has more talent, which apparently came from God. Salieri does not respond well."

That is a gross oversimplification, but one must realize that contradictions and confusions are at the heart of the work. When we see Mozart himself as a complex, three-dimensional character, it is because the context of the work demands it. Otherwise, he becomes a parody of the genius with the bad sense of humor, or the image on a Mozartkügel wrapper. To have a work as deeply rooted in very human responses to situations that transcend the human, but have a two-dimensional parody, would be to subvert the work itself. As drama, Shaffer's play only really works if the audience connects and empathizes with Salieri - not Mozart! As viewers the contradictions of Mozart - in Salieri's view: a man with the greatest talents and very human flaws - must work on us the way they work on Salieri.

Does that necessarily imply that we react in the same way as Salieri does in the play? No. Of course not. Indeed, I would say that the message of the play demands that we react differently. Salieri couldn't rectify great talent with humanity, and he was driven to grotesque extremes as a result. He cannot be any more a cartoon villain with a vendetta than he can be totally reasonable and correct in his assessment of the situation. In other words, Shaffer's Salieri is a human-all-too-human protagonist.

The only way that happens is if Mozart is a human character with all the genius and flaws that he had. Flaw is also a pretty strong word. What do we really have? By the time of 1791, it looked like the days of borrowing heavily were on the way out and he started to make payment. In other words, Mozart was not without his faults, but we're not talking about incurable alcoholism or penury.

That's the genius of the play and the movie: where the temptation existed to paint in glittering generalities with a broad brush, Shaffer and Forman chose a human presentation. The sympathy such a presentation engenders makes Amadeus the sort of drama that really works in a classical sense (is there another?) for me.

*I continue to contend that Forman is the only director who has made an intelligent, funny movie starring Jim Carrey, Man on the Moon, which is more of a testament to Forman than anything else. Even Amadeus.

[1] The history of how Mozart ended up with 'Amadeus' is a bit complicated. He was baptized, Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. It appears that he dropped the John Chrysostom bit, leaving himself with Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. Amadeus is the Latinization of the Greek Theophilus, but Mozart seemed to like Amadè - though Amadeus and Gottlieb were used somewhat interchangeably.

Stochastic Tuesday

2008-03-18T08:46:00.001-05:00

Check out Alex Ross' "Random Rules" on the Onion AV Club site.

That lasted through the Dylan moment: I was in Berlin staying at a friend's apartment with only five records, and for whatever reason, it was a quasi-religious experience. You know when you're in isolation—William James talks about this in The Varieties Of Religious Experience—you're kind of prone to it. So I became this crazy Dylan fanatic, and then started working on a piece that took several years to write, for TheNew Yorker.

It's worth a read.

With a little bit of concentration...

2008-03-13T08:58:00.004-05:00

George Grella, responding to my post expressing my distaste for Testament's integrale of the Keilberth Ring, makes a valid point,

With each of the separate recordings, I had the opportunity to spend many months listening to them, and they are tremendously listenable performances, really alive and musical and direct. They gave Wagner the chance to start to work his particular magic. Yes, like the other writer, I did pay more cash to buy them separately than to wait for the whole box, but the opportunity I’ve had to get to know the work has been worth the small premium.

I don't know that I necessarily disagree with that point, either.

I am not the sort of listener who hammers through a set at once. I am not implying that Mr. Grella is, either; in fact, I get the impression that he takes his time. With Wagner, especially in the Ring, you have to take it slowly. Miss one important plot point or any of the relevant Leitmotiven, and you're S.O.L. as we say here in Indiana. I generally approach a new set of the Ring (the complete set, as I'll get to in time) by listening to it once through, and coming back to it - either in certain passages or complete evenings. (Like Messiah, there are a few scenes that have to be absolutely right before I start throwing around the superlatives.) There is also a process of comparison and intense review.

For example, in the prelude to the second scene of Rheingold, as Fricka starts to wake up, there are some string runs underneath the brass work with the Walhall theme. Neither Pierre Boulez or Karl Böhm focuses on these to any great degree, which is to say that he doesn't really add emphasis, while Von Karajan (unsurprisingly) for a set known as the "Chamber Ring") and Lothar Zagrosek (on Naxos) do make them apparent. Did Wagner intend for them to be heard? Probably not, since Von Karajan brings them out, but they're something for which I listen.

Mr. Grella, I think, comes pretty close to making the point that - let's say - some of Wagner's intended orchestral magic needs to be reviewed and appreciated slowly and carefully.

It's never been about that for me, though. I am a believer in choice. If Testament, and I know it's a silly business decision, offered listeners a choice, then I wouldn't complain. I'll put it like this, don't give me coal and tell me it's a diamond. Give me both and let me pick. Buying the whole set wouldn't make me approach it differently. I would have listened the same way that I always do, but I would have done it at a different pace (i.e., not waited egregiously long before finally buying Götterdämmerung).

That's all.

Ross wins award; No one shocked

2008-03-10T00:22:00.003-05:00

Proving that Alex Ross is wonderful in every single regard, he won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.

He then went on to singlehandedly cure most forms of cancer, teach tough inner city kids to trust and to love again by setting down rules and giving them self-confidence in his music appreciation class at a rough high school, and led the slobs of Camp Sioux Valley to a resounding victory over the snobs at Camp Greenbriar Hills in a no-holds-barred game of football.

He has been greeted at most events with, "Santo subito!" and "John Paul Who?"

All levity aside, having read The Rest Is Noise, I can say that it is a fantastic book and Alex Ross is probably, though I don't have much doubt, the preeminent music critic of the times. "Il miglior fabbro" and all that.

He's really good.

Criteria for success

2008-03-07T16:36:00.003-05:00

I like the Criterion Collection. Indeed, any serious movie fan should have more than one Criterion release on their shelves. It is hard to imagine a commercial venture that is more serious about art and its preservation and presentation than the 'studio.' There is, though, a side to the business that seems - at best - pretty silly, and - at worst - mendacious.

Let me use two examples, Bertolucci's 1989 film, The Last Emperor, and Huston's 1984 movie, Under The Volcano.

I like films like Michael Cimino's 1980 Heaven's Gate and The Last Emperor. They are bloated, ecumenical messes that labor under their own bulk. Judgment-in-a-nutshell on the latter (the former, too, if you're interested): Beautiful visuals cannot make up for a confused movie. Scott Tobias, of The [Onion] AV Club, though, had this to say:

Because Pu Yi wields so little control over his destiny, his passive nature makes The Last Emperor a difficult epic; it doesn't help that Lawrence Of Arabia himself is around to remind viewers what a more purposeful hero can do. But from The Conformist to The Dreamers, Bertolucci has always been fascinated by characters who are whisked away by powerful forces; that a "son of heaven" and ostensible leader of half a billion people could be among them is one of the film's many rich ironies.

That's generous. Pu Yi is not an entirely sympathetic character. Indeed, it seems that Bertolucci went out of his way to introduce a sour note every time the audience looked like it might like him. There is, to my mind, a serious problem when the Maoist prison governor is more sympathetic than the protagonist. It's like a half-witted attempt to recreate Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, where a second-tier character becomes more interesting and pathetic (etymologically speaking) than the hero. Unlike - oh, say - Heaven's Gate, The Last Emperor is not an unmitigated disaster. It's pretty good, but it seems that a little judicial trimming and some plot-focused drama would have taken a good movie and made it great. I disagree with Mr. Tobias' argument that, "The new four-disc Criterion edition makes an imposing and mostly convincing argument for the film as a truly great epic, one which attempts to capture the political turmoil that gripped 20th-century China without getting too reductive or bogged down in minutiae." The film is not a truly great epic, on the scale of - for example - The Godfather or even Spartacus. It's a big movie, it's pretty good, but it's not a great epic.

My problem is with Criterion's presentation: Does The Last Emperor really need four DVDs? Do we really need a television version, with a Bertolucci-approved cinematic version in the tray to the left? Do we really need two discs of supplemental material? No, no, and no. For contrast, let me give you some intra-Criterion statistics:

Resnais' Hiroshima mon amour and Nuit et brouillard: 1 disc each.
Truffaut's Les Quatre Cents Coups: 1 disc
Carol Reed's The Third Man: 1 disc
Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon: 1 disc
Federico Fellini's 8 1/2: 2 discs
Jean-Luc Godard's À bout de souffle: 2 discs
Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus: 2 discs
Terry Gilliam's Brazil: 3 discs

Those are all 'safe' movies, which is to say that they are all safely better than The Last Emperor. Indeed, Resnais' two entries on my list are - even with we just go with Nuit et brouillard - safely miles ahead of Bertolucci's set. Now, I can understand the case of Brazil, where the studio ruined Gilliam's original vision and forced an 'omnia vincit Amor' (Ver. Ec. 10.69) ending on the director. Even if Criterion is making a case for its film in this case, it doesn't need so much material that the film is given a premature apotheosis. The age of the sweeping historical picture is over, and - in my not-so-humble opinion - it reached its apogee in 1975 with Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. The Last Emperor is good and entertaining in most of the right ways, but it torques my gears a little bit to see it given a treatment that not even Citizen Kane received.

But then Criterion redeems itself with the release of a film like John Huston's Under The Volcano.

If you haven't seen it, let me say that, to get a good idea of the movie's general character, imagine if Evelyn Waugh co-wrote A Woman Under the Influence (1974) with John Cassavetes, and set it in Mexico. Malcolm Lowry's book is probably much better than that, but a boozy British ex-consul melting down and hurtling toward the gaping maw of the sepulchral abyss does lend itself to certain comparisons. I won't spoil the movie more than I already have, other than to say that Albert Finney's Geoffrey Firmin is one of the great performances of the 1980s, and the fact that it has been overlooked, more or less, this long is a crime against art. I know: He was nominated for an Academy Award, but - let's be fair - which do you remember from 1984: F. Murray Abraham's brilliant turn as (a heavily fictionalized) Antonio Salieri from Amadeus, or Finney's Firmin?

You remember Salieri.

What makes this release so great, especially compared to the overblown, overloaded The Last Emperor set, is that its extras are confined to one disc and so tastefully chosen as to be exquisite. They have the requisite making-of documentary, which isn't as bad as the genre usually is, an interview with co-star Jacqueline Bisset, an archival interview with John Huston, and the coup de grace, a 1976 documentary: Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry, about the author of Under The Volcano. This documentary, directed by Donald Brittain and narrated by Richard Burton, was itself nominated for an Academy Award. It's not Hearts and Minds (Peter Davis, 1974) or the aforementioned Nuit et brouillard, but it's pretty good. As Larry David would say, pretty...pretty...pretty...pretty good.

I've dawdled around with this long enough. The Last Emperor is a decent movie, but not one that deserves four discs with more features than Spartacus. It's silly and it smacks of mendaciousness. On the other hand, if Criterion wants to keep up its standards, then it should imitate its release for Under The Volcano. That is, it should choose classics - neglected or not - and package them with interesting extras that enhance the movie, not make a Richard Nixon (circa Checkers)-style plea for acceptance and forgiveness. In other words, it should follow its mission statement.

I'm done.

It's the pictures that got small

2008-02-26T10:24:00.002-05:00

A.C. Douglas links to some things, decrying the loss of the whole movie experience on an iPhone or something like it. (David Lynch's brilliant parody, for one).

Ordinarily, especially when it comes to cinema, I'd agree. Let's take Mr. Lynch's advice, though, and "get real." The people likely to put a movie on their telephone are not the people likely to be putting the Criterion Collection version of Godard's À Bout de Souffle on there, or - for that matter - Altman's Secret Honor or anything by Welles.

They're putting movies on their iPhone, most likely, of the most execrable popcorn-matinée variety. All the schmaltzy, sappy stuff that Hollywood churns out like so much sorghum does not need to be treated specially, since it doesn't really need the experience to work. Melodramas, shoot-'em-up action flicks, and cheap comedies can be preserved on an iPhone, since there's nothing to preserve.

Great movies deserve to be viewed as intended when possible; good movies deserve to be viewed and appreciated as art; bad movies deserve the iPhone. If they're lucky. It's like the difference between ripping a good recording of Das Rheingold at 320 kbps and the latest Killers record at 128 kbps. You might be losing data at 128 kbps, but you're not losing anything.

Ross on Nielsen

2008-02-21T10:04:00.003-05:00

Alex Ross has made my week with this piece on Carl Nielsen. Nielsen's 4th might be on the very short list of pieces that I tie to a particular place and time. Strangely enough, at least for this Danish composer, it's modern Pompei last spring. As part of an immersion trip for my Ancient Roman City class, which was - in addition to an interesting course - a great excuse to spend better than a week on the Bay of Naples and in Rome in May, we started out in Pompei in a nice-enough hotel (the Hotel Iside, which I recommend highly for various reasons). It might have been our first or second night there, and - still a little frazzled from the jet-lag - I laid awake one night listening to Nielsen's 4th. For whatever reason, it clicked and it worked.

Ross, though, has this to say,

Given the blazing individuality of Nielsen’s voice, it’s puzzling that he has yet to find a firm place in the international repertory. He is ubiquitous in his native Denmark, where he holds the place of National Composer-Hero; he is a mainstay throughout the Nordic countries and, to a lesser extent, in Britain. For American orchestras, however, he remains a tough sell, despite periodic attempts to whip up the same enthusiasm that has long attended his contemporaries Mahler and Sibelius. Leonard Bernstein tried to set off a Nielsen fad at the New York Philharmonic in the nineteen-sixties, but it didn’t quite take. Orchestral players, percussionists excepted, tend to groan a little when Nielsen shows up on their music stands; his habit of writing furiously fast figures, and then passing them from one section to another, relay style, can make even an ensemble of virtuosos sound like a mess. Audiences, for their part, often go away from Nielsen performances pleased but a little dazed, not sure what hit them.

I, for one, would not mind it one bit if Nielsen became more popular. After forty years, Gustav Mahler entered the standard Germanic canon as it is performed in the United States. Bruckner is making strong inroads, though I don't think Bruckner is nearly as popular as Mahler. Nielsen, though in different ways, has at least as much claim to a spot in the Pantheon as Mahler or Bruckner. As to Sibelius, though, I am still not sure that he has gotten quite the spot that Mahler has. He's certainly canonical, but - let's be fair - if a music director wants to fill seats, he's going to program Mahler's 5th or 9th, not Sibelius' 7th. Those are the breaks.

In any event, Ross' article is - as usual - well worth your time.

Now what gives here?

2008-02-17T18:57:00.002-05:00

Orfeo, as part of its series of releases from the Bayreuther Festspiele (including Knappertsbusch's monumental 1956 Ring and Lovro von Matačić's 1959 Lohengrin - which might be the best on record), is coming out with Wilhelm Furtwängler's 1951 Beethoven 9th from the Festspiele.

Ah, my perceptive reader, you've no doubt said, "But, Smith, wait. Hasn't EMI had that 1951 9th on the books forever?" Yes, they have. I could understand if this were some other, heretofore unheard, performance, but it says - on the Orfeo cover, "Live Recording / 29. Juli 1951." The EMI release, in its Great Recordings of the Century incarnation, gives, "29.VII.1951, Festspielhaus, Bayreuth," as its recording information. In other words, EMI says that its record was done on 29 July 1951 - the same date as the Orfeo disc.

At first blush, something is wrong here. Orfeo, as part of its Bayreuther Festspiele releases, has covered familiar ground, like Knappertsbusch's '56 Ring and 1964 Parsifal, the Von Karajan Tristan from 1951, and that Lohengrin, but they have, more or less, been doing 'official' releases of material captured by the 'historical' labels. Indeed, it seems, that they have been getting Bayreuth's imprimatur and better Bayerischer Rundfunk tapes for stuff put out, mostly, by Golden Melodram. In this case, though, they are duplicating a famous EMI recording that has seen itself liveried in several different series. In my estimation, anyone who wants Furtwängler's 1951 Bayreuth 9th already has it.

As a brief aside, the 1951 9th is generally the third-ranked Furtwängler 9th. His 1942 Berlin performance and his final 1954 Lucerne 9th generally get higher marks. Of the postwar 9ths, I generally gravitate to his 1954 Bayreuth performance, out on Music and Arts, as it has - in my book - the better soloists: Gré Brouwenstijn, Ira Malaniuk, Wolfgang Windgassen, and Ludwig Weber. The sound is not what I would call good, worse even than the Berlin performance, but the performance and the singers are first-rate. So, I'll revise my statement, anyone who wants the 1951 9th already has it, and most people interested in Furtwängler already have a 9th, usually '42 or '54-Lucerne, that they like.

The EMI liner notes shed some light on the matter, though how much is a matter of interpretation,

One of the soloists, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, later recalled the atmosphere as being 'incredibly moving'. She remembered that there was a rehearsal in the morning, and a 'run-through' just before the performance. (p. 6)

That's the thing, as far as I can tell. If that run-through was a complete performance, as its definition of 'an uninterrupted rehearsal' seems to imply, then EMI could have snagged it and the performance, inter-cutting the two as necessary. The recording date would be accurate, and there would be a performance under near-studio conditions whence to draw any patches. (There has been some discussion on RMCR about this issue.) This would not be unheard-of with Bayreuth performances. When the Keilberth Siegfried from 1955 dropped, there was talk that the Forging Scene had been patched, as Windgassen's anvil-strokes were off the beat. I don't know if Decca or Testament ever made a definitive yes-or-no statement, but it wouldn't surprise me. What would surprise me even less is if Walter Legge did some magic at the mixing board in 1951 for Furtwängler.

I don't have the Orfeo release, and I would like a little more certainty as to what precisely is going on with the recording. I agree with the RMCR poster who raised the point that a sense of outrage or the need for a special release because a recording was drawn from multiple performances is a complicated issue. It raises all sorts of questions about all manner of recordings. There are several Ring sets, from Bayreuth, that were drawn from several recordings over a period of time: does that mean we need a rerelease of one-off, single-night recordings? I don't know.

If a one-off Bayreuth 9th is your order, Karl Böhm has a great one from 1963. It has Jess Thomas in the tenor role in good sound. That's enough to recommend it to me.

Belated Boulez

2008-02-17T18:37:00.002-05:00

Tears of a Clownsilly has a screamingly funny post, of some time ago, on Pierre Boulez' hair.

Let's face it: Boulez has some of the worst hair of the current crop of composers and conductors. His comb-over is painfully obvious and shellacked down with what I can only assume is some sort of industrial epoxy. He also doesn't seem to jump and jive in concert, so that probably helps fly-aways. In the late 1960s, he sported an H.R. Haldeman-esque 'do that made him seem like a slightly irritable chemistry teacher. His penchant for white, button-down dress shirts and dark ties didn't help, but his current penchant for sweater-shirts buttoned up to the top seems even less appropriate.

I have decided that Boulez is everyone's nice, very smart grandfather who used to be a holy terror in the 1950s and 1960s, but - for whatever reason - has decided to mellow out and be agreeable.

Before you ask, Stockhausen is everyone's slightly kooky uncle with grandiose ideas and massive schemes, and is the guy your father refuses to talk to at family reunions.

As a bonus: Graduate thesis: Modern archetypes in the modern nuclear family - 1950-2007. You'll do very well in comparative lit. programs, and you might just get an appointment at some sort of progressive American university.

Ring up the bill for Keilberth

2008-02-02T09:10:00.000-05:00

Testament, after their wildly successful release of the 1955 Keilberth Ring, which was seriatim, beginning with Siegfried, passing through Walküre and Rheingold, and ending with Götterdämmerung, is now releasing a complete all-in-one box of that Ring. This might be a great opportunity for people curious about the Keilberth set, if they haven't sampled it by now, to take the plunge. It also provides considerable savings over the four separate releases, which I bought separately, I might add with a note of bitterness, a fact which I shall demonstrate below.

Amazon has it priced at $165.97 (a discount from the list price of $206.98). If you order it from Testament's own website, you can get it for £98.91, which is equivalent to roughly (depending on how hard the dollar is getting shellacked on a given day) $194.35. Amazon currently lists the four records separately at, for Das Rheingold, $27.97; for Die Walküre, $59.97; for Siegfried, $59.97; and for Götterdämmerung, $91.98. This comes to a grand total, if you bought the four together right now, $239.89 plus shipping and handling which, naturally varies. If you did the same thing at Testament's own website, you could get it for £153.86, or roughly $302.32. That's a lot of numbers, but - hey - I'm a math minor (pure math, though, so financial stuff boggles my mind at times, too).

I have two comments. First, Decca made a serious tactical error licensing this set to Testament. Don't get me wrong, I really like Testament, which has - consistently - some of the most interesting, engaging, and high-quality historical recording releases on the market. The Keilberth Ring is, obviously, the flagship release, but they have others (Claudio Arrau's Beethoven concertos with Otto Klemperer, Flagstad's premiere of Strauss' Vier letzte Lieder with Furtwängler, and some interesting - if not great - Mahler recordings of Barbirolli with the Berliner Philharmoniker come immediately to mind) of similar quality for various reasons. It is probably a fact that Testament has one of the best Ring cycles on the market in their catalog at the moment. Still, it sat in Decca's vaults for fifty-one years, and that company showed no real interest in releasing it. Culshaw had it shelved back in 1955 so he could do his cycle with Solti, and - for better or worse, more of the former than the latter, though - Solti's cycle is still the benchmark. I have argued before, and I still believe that Solti's cycle wouldn't have happened at all if Keilberth's had been available.

Decca could have had it both ways, though. They could have let Solti seize the market, as he did, and - in the last decade or so - brought out the Keilberth set. Critics, both professional writers and serious listeners, for whom I have a lot of respect, have praised the earlier cycle to high Heaven. It seems that, fifty-some years after he led the performances and now forty years after his death, Keilberth has entered the special Walhall for Wagner conductors. In other words, Decca could have had two landmark Ring cycles in its lineup. Solti's set is great indeed, but Keilberth's set captures Bayreuth in the Golden Age in great sound. I might have a slight preference for Hans Knappertsbusch's 1956 Ring (on Orfeo), but the sound is mono - and, at that, not as good as Keilberth's, speaking relatively.

This misadventure on Decca's part (i.e., coming off as a company dominated by internal politics and slightly slow-witted in missing this particular boat, plus missing the credit and the profit) shows me, at the very least, that the real innovation and important recordings in the classical record industry usually happens at the smaller labels. Deutsche Grammophon has yet to have a consistently good Ring. Von Karajan is, in places, too weird, and has only Rheingold as what I would call a successful record. Philips has Böhm and Boulez, but neither set is to everyone's taste - the latter, twenty-three years after the fact, still being pretty contentious. Telarc (now Warner Classics and even more-now Rhino) had Barenboim, but that set never really achieved the same currency and circulation as Decca's Solti box. Maybe that's it, Decca already has a great Ring, but the new gold standard for live sets and the most innovative studio recording - perhaps of all to-date - is a hard-to-beat combination.

My other comment is this: Why not drop the complete Ring and the four separate installments at the same time? Save some of us some money, while offering a choice of purchases, that is. It's pretty simple: I, and a lot of others, I suspect, would have bought the complete Keilberth Ring at the outset, instead of fooling around for two years - more or less - collecting each record as it dropped (I'll admit, it took me darned near a year to get Götterdämmerung, though I had what I will call a substantial and complete long-term audition). A boutique label like Testament likely has similar concerns to the major companies, and would prefer to sell four pretty consarned expensive records, as opposed to one moderately expensive one. Let's be realistic, though, most serious music listeners will only have one Ring in their collection (likely either Solti or Böhm). Most listeners with a more-serious interest in Wagner will only have three or four (expanding to Levine, Barenboim, Furtwängler, Knappertsbusch, Krauss and the like). Wagnerian fanatics might have ten or twelve copies (some maybe more), but we're not talking about a big audience here. That is to say, Testament's choice is directed at a small segment of the serious music listener community, and likely has more latitude than - say - Deutsche Grammophon with yet-another-Beethoven 9th recording to consider how to price the product intelligently.

What do I know, though? As I like to say.

Harnoncourt's Figaro from Salzburg

2008-02-02T08:00:00.000-05:00

I finally got around to buying Nikolaus Harnoncourt's Le nozze di Figaro (recorded at the 2006 Salzburger Festspiele). At the outset, one can see that Deutsche Grammophon cares little for the contributions of Herr Harnoncourt and the Wiener Philharmoniker. This set, like the DVD that preceded it, is all about Anna Netrebko and, to a lesser extent, Ildebrando D'Arcangelo. I understand: the Russian-born soprano is very attractive, and her voice doesn't make me pray for acute tinnitus. Of course, comparing her to Kirsten Flagstad, Birgit Nilsson, Astrid Varnay, or - of the modern crowd - Christine Brewer would serve only to make me look like a jerk whose standards are far too high.

Of course, Netrebko looks far better in a little black dress than any of those women. They might have the tone and the power, but - times being what they are - if you can't be smeared all over some cheap advertising booklets, then you're at a disadvantage. Lest her legion fans tear me asunder, much like the Great Old One would, given half a chance, I'll say this: she isn't bad. Taken on her own. In context, I think we need to get serious. She's very good, but I doubt she'll enter vocal Walhall.

In any event, there are plenty of places to discuss Ms. Netrebko, and this isn't one. What I would like to discuss is Harnoncourt's interpretation, which was not well-received. I understand many reviewers' problems with the orchestral contribution. This is a slow Figaro, the slowest - in fact - of my versions. The only other recording I have that comes close is James Levine's (underrated, in my book) 1991 outing on Deutsche Grammophon. It lacks a certain lightness and verve that a recording like René Jacobs' has, or even Erich Kleiber's Decca set from 1955. This is a heavy and dense Figaro.

I'll be the first to admit it, Nikolaus Harnoncourt is a maddening conductor. Some of his recordings are indisputably good, like his Dvořák 9th or Mozart Requiem (his Bruckner, too, is a consistently high quality), and others are indisputably weird - I'm thinking of his Messiah, which still seems, for all the world, to me to be a last-minute Christmas cash-in for BMG. He is variable, and he doesn't seem to have a consistent interpretative stance. From all I gather, it seems that he tries to approach each work on its own terms and in its own style. As I recall from the notes to Messiah, he consulted with musicologists and graphologists, trying to get to Handel's intent when writing the score.

His Figaro is as maddening, no doubt, for folks accustomed to Jacobs', Kleiber's, and any of the other, lighter sets out there. I don't agree with their assertions. It's taken me a while to get to that point, but I just cannot accept their abuse of Harnoncourt's set. René Jacobs is a rare exception to my general view of hardcore HIP recordings. John Eliot Gardiner might be hip, but he is miles away from the one-voice-per-part, play-it-exactly-as-first-performed school of interpretation. Indeed, Jacobs' interpretations are so singularly wonderful as to say that, assuming he could pull it off, he could perform the works on kazoos and still retain some of the artistic merit. He is, then, a pathological case in the best possible sense.

As to Harnoncourt, though, I believe that he has - in a sense - rescued Figaro from the "faster, leaner, and lighter" school of thought. Now, he achieves great clarity and precision, but never once did I get the sense that his Figaro was anemic. I have already registered my objections to period performance taken too far from what were pretty good ideas. Harnoncourt's recording seems to meet my specifications: intelligent adoption of period ideas, but respecting the music and the intervening performance tradition enough to allow for some amalgam of the two. The Wiener Philharmoniker, drawn from Wiener Staatsoper players and at Salzburg every year, has Figaro in their veins. They know this music forward and backward, and, as performers familiar with the material, they respond well to various interpretations. Indeed, I imagine rehearsals were spent working out the orchestral concept to the piece, rather than polishing their sound or performance.

That orchestral concept is the weird part. Apparently, Harnoncourt and the director Claus Guth approached Figaro as a sort of psychodrama. That's an approach, but not likely what Mozart had in mind. I could see it with Don Giovanni, which is, after all, a dramma giocoso. A jocose drama, whatever that means, is not how I would describe Le nozze di Figaro. Indeed, I would say that - while Figaro is dramatic - one has to appreciate Da Ponte's and Mozart's use of irony and subtlety. It's a comedy and it doesn't start off with blasting diminished sevenths (I think, which makes the Commendatore's entrance music so interesting since it repeats the overture, more or less: We find out that, as Eliot might have said, "In Giovanni's beginning is his end."). That might be a leading indicator that it's a pretty standard comedy. As best as I can tell, Guth decided to play Figaro 'straight,' which made for interesting outcomes. The slowness seems to complement the staging, so if psychodrama it is supposed to be, then psychodrama it is.

I don't buy Guth's Konzept, for what it's worth. It's an interesting take, but any attempt to suck the joy out of Figaro goes against, well, everything ever about this comedy. The plot has its ups and downs, but everything ends more or less on the level and happily. Harnoncourt might have been following the staging in his interpretation, but he achieved something ultimately more interesting with his reading of the score. What he did was let the score breathe. He seems to say that it's OK to let a score of the Classical period expand and fill space. He doesn't take Wagnerian liberties with scoring and scope, but neither does he confine Mozart's genius to a period-specific box. To me, that is the sort of interpretation Mozart needs. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a great composer on a lot of levels in most genres, and he deserves neither to be fettered with the conventions of his time nor to be expanded upon using language that wasn't his own. Harnoncourt comes close to that ideal, though he might miss the mark at times (the full pauses for tintinnabulation strike me as unnecessary, for example).

In other words, I like this recording, if only because it lets Mozart do the legwork. Harnoncourt gives him the room to do so.

Barbirolli's Mahler

2008-01-15T23:14:00.000-05:00

Pliable, who has been drawing attention to some of my favorite records, most notably that Mahler 9th with Bruno Maderna on BBC Legends, has done it one more time. John Barbirolli's Mahler 9th on EMI is an excellent recording of that piece.

There is more to Barbirolli's Mahler output than that incandescent 9th. A few important and very interesting such records are a 1960 7th with the Hallé Orchestra and a couple of Mahler 2nds, one from 1965 in Berlin and another from Stuttgart in 1970.

That 7th is very interesting indeed, and probably worth your time. Barbirolli's interpretations tend more toward, say, the Jascha Horenstein side of things than the Pierre Boulez side. Still, it is interesting and engaging to hear what he was making bands that weren't super-familiar with Mahler do in the 1960s. This isn't flawless playing, well, the live records aren't, but it's worth a listen.

Then pull out Gary Bertini and hear Mahler that is both expressive and precise.

One-minute review

2008-01-15T15:17:00.000-05:00

Alex Ross updates us on his book. If he doesn't win the National Book Critics Award, then it will be highway robbery on the grandest scale.

My review, which I have sort of dodged, of The Rest is Noise is simply this: If you have not read this book yet, then you are an idiot. Not because failure to read his book evinces some sort of lack of erudition and intellectual curiosity (a case could be made); rather, because you are depriving yourself of one of the best books of the last five or six years.

This is, of course, just my opinion. I am not, though, even remotely wrong.

The limits of period performance

2008-01-08T20:39:00.001-05:00

I don't go on about it, but I really do love Beethoven's fifth piano concerto, which has earned the sobriquet, "Emperor." Of all my recordings, I tend to return to the 1957 collaboration between Otto Klemperer and Claudio Arrau. There is a power and majesty in that performance that, while others come close, none equal. The sound, despite being from 1957, is none of the best, and it is a demerit to Walter Legge that he didn't record the collaborations - which were, more or less, his brainchild. I also like the Fritz Reiner/Van Cliburn record, which was recently re-released on RCA (i.e., Sony) Living Stereo SACD. There are differences in the recordings, but that's another post.

It is one particular recording, the Robert Levin/John Eliot Gardiner period-instrument performance on Archiv, which I want to discuss. Levin plays the fortepiano on this record. Now, generally, I find Gardiner one of the most tolerable period-instrument conductors. His non-period recordings are pretty good, too. His Beethoven symphony cycle (again, on Archiv) is actually very good (if on the fast side). My problem with this recording isn't the musicianship, the sound quality, or even the interpretative stance. It's the damn' fortepiano. Listen to Furtwängler/Fischer, Klemperer/Arrau, and Knappertsbusch/Curzon. Then listen to the tinkling, jangling fortepiano. It doesn't gel. Beethoven's tutti are too powerful in the presence of such an instrument. They'll give a concert grand a run for its money today, even compared to something like the Hammerklavier sonata or the wilder runs in the Waldstein. Gardiner manages to be faithful to a contemporary (i.e., of the composer) concept of the orchestral parts, but things don't work out as well with the soloist.

Now, the argument could be made that the difference between a fortepiano and a full-bore, hell-bent-for-leather Bösendorfer or Steinway shows the cleverness of Beethoven's balance between soloist and tutti. That could be true, I wouldn't dispute it. I would, though, call it an enormous cop-out. Part of the difficulty in bringing concertos off well is constructing and maintaining that balance. Pierre Boulez, in his 1971 account of the 5th piano concerto with Sir Clifford Curzon, which is a very strong second to the Klemperer/Arrau account in my book, managed to create and maintain that balance. He did it by, shock and horror, following Beethoven's score and working to create a seamless whole. In other words, he let Beethoven do the work.

It might seem like I am ragging on one particular recording, and maybe I am. I really like the 5th concerto, and I really think that modern instruments - informed by period practice - are the best vectors for the music. My objections, though, go beyond being annoyed at one performance. Listen to Peter Serkin's rendition of the Hammerklavier sonata. It doesn't, to my ears, have the same sheer power and majesty of a performance by a competent musician (and the Hammerklavier redefines competence, especially in the massive fugue). Indeed, it hardly sounds like the Hammerklavier. Before HIP aficionados get up in arms, let me say that I am very fond of some HIP recordings, like Jordi Savall's hard-to-find Beethoven 3rd or Gardiner's Matthäus-Passion (when I don't listen to Klemperer's), but I think that there are limits to the genre.

I'll be blunt. Do I really care how an 1805 audience heard the Eroica? No. Music, either compositionally or performance-wise, did not stop in 1805. Other, equally valid, performance traditions sprang up between a given work's premiere and 2008. That's the thing, when you choose McCreesh's Matthäus-Passion over Klemperer's or Gardiner's 5th piano concerto over Knappertsbusch's with Curzon, you are essentially discarding another performance tradition in favor of a newer-older one. There are limits, indeed, to period-performance, and they start when a work has a performance tradition of its own, and they go so far as to include a performance of a work that sounds "off" or less-true to its intentions on period instruments.

A rant, true. A rant, though, that has been a long time coming.

More of Kubelík's Wagner

2008-01-01T17:38:00.001-05:00

I have a lot of regard for Rafael Kubelík, and his wonderful 1980 Parsifal, which has had a long and complicated history on record. In some ways, I prefer it to Knappertsbusch's 1962 recording on Philips, though I am less sure about the 1964 set (most recently officially on Orfeo) with Jon Vickers. Thanks to the DG Web Shop, I downloaded Kubelík's 1971 SOBR Lohengrin, which has had a reasonably successful history on record. Before this, my standard recording had been the Lovro von Matačić set on Orfeo from the 1959 Bayreuther Festspiele. It doesn't have the best sound quality on the market, but Von Matačić had an excellent understanding of the score and a cast headed up by the fantastic Sándor Kónya one year after his debut on the Green Hill. Kubelík might have just knocked the venerable Bayreuth set off my pedestal.

I won't belabor the point, so I'll be succinct (necessarily). Kubelík, along with his frequent timing-mate, Hans Knappertsbusch, knew how to judge his tempi in such a manner that "real" time and "music-world" time became the same thing. His Parsifal is on the long side, up there with Knappertsbusch (both 1962 and 1964), but you wouldn't know it from listening to it. His service to the score, both in the letter and spirit, in my experience, provided an excellent example of how a conductor should approach a Wagner score. To my ears, it does not seem as though he is trying to engage Wagner in a conversation; he is translating Wagner's language to the audience. I sincerely doubt that Richard Wagner would care what any conductor thought about his decisions; it seems to me that he was interested in engaging the audience. His music is not seductive as some sort of self-congratulatory exercise. He's trying to grasp the audience in his hand and tell his story. Kubelík apparently understood this (as Furtwängler and Knappertsbusch did before him), and he was content to let Wagner do the work.

Give Kubelík's Wagner records a try if you can find them.

Re-considering The Final Cut

2007-12-26T14:53:00.001-05:00

Is it for this that Daddy died?
Was it you?
Was it me?
Did I watch too much TV?
Is that a hint of accusation in your eyes? - "The Post War Dream," The Final Cut

"Roger Waters and David Gilmour might never resolve their spat, but you can revisit their halcyon days with the staggering 14-CD Pink Floyd box set Oh By the Way (Capitol/EMI), which includes all of their studio albums. And no, you can't order it without The Final Cut." (Spin, January 2008, p. 32)

I know that I generally don't cover pop matters, but that doesn't mean that I don't sit and think about pop records. Indeed, if you ask - and no one has to date - I can go on ad nauseam about my opinions concerning pop music, past, present, and future.

I am moved, though, to mount a defense of Pink Floyd's last Roger Waters-directed album (more on that anon), The Final Cut. This record, more than even Animals, is generally considered the nadir of Floyd's Waters-era artistic pretensions and dearth of quality. That is, to my mind, the single dumbest judgment on a record ever. Indeed, while Slominsky's Lexicon of Musical Invective, might have worse judgments on better music, there aren't too many similar modern judgments. Except for the (un)conscious fanboyism that has more or less made Blonde on Blonde Dylan's popularly-considered best record (when Planet Waves, Blood on the Tracks, and Highway 61 Revisited are all better by half). Here is a passage from Chris Ott's generally right review of the 2004 reissue (despite its hosting at the more-than-usually risible Pitchfork Media),

I can think of few pop songwriters who've delivered their diaries with enough conviction to transcend the medieval, lifeless nature of oral tradition, and I can think of only one other rock critic as touched by The Final Cut as I've been over the years. Kurt Loder awarded The Final Cut Rolling Stone's sacrosanct five star rating in issue 393, comparing Waters' gripping linear narrative to its only conceivable peer, master storyteller Bob Dylan. An unflinching, out of control spiral toward the center of paternal identity, Britain's stiff upper lip, and the idiocy of war, The Final Cut fulfills the promise of The Wall's most poignant moments, gutting sons, soldiers, and the unknowing inheritors of their sacrifices eight ways from Sunday.

In some regard, The Final Cut was the first Roger Waters solo-album, but only insofar as everything after and including Wish You Were Here is a Waters solo disc. The progression from The Dark Side of the Moon through Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall, and - finally - to The Final Cut is a single-minded one. At the risk of being too overblown and metaphysical, Waters' big four cover alienation, societally and personally. Everything in that arc tends toward The Final Cut. Instead of a bloated, arrogant rock-opera about the alienation and creeping insanity of some fictional artist, Waters' final Floyd record explores the causes of that alienation.

The Final Cut is, at its heart, a withering social critique of Margaret "Maggie" Thatcher's England. Mary Whitehouse merited a similarly unpleasant commentary in Animals' "Pigs (Three Different Ones)," but she did not permeate the record the way Thatcher seems to in The Final Cut. Waters is performing a balancing act in the record: between the feeling of hope, loss, and distress created at the end of the Second World War and the bleak reality, as he saw it, of 1970s and 1980s England. "The Gunner's Dream" is the most piercing pronouncement of the ideals of the War and what it meant to the participants,

Somewhere old heroes shuffle safely down the street
Where you can speak out loud
About your doubts and fears
And what's more no-one ever disappears
You never hear their standard issue kicking in your door.
You can relax on both sides of the tracks
And maniacs don't blow holes in bandsmen by remote control
And everyone has recourse to the law
And no-one kills the children anymore.
And no one kills the children anymore.

But, with a sharp twist, after the Gunner narrates his hopes and aspirations for society after the war, the proper narrator of the song bursts in, agonized,

Night after night
Going round and round my brain
His dream is driving me insane.
In the corner of some foreign field
The gunner sleeps tonight.
What's done is done.
We cannot just write off his final scene.
Take heed of the dream.
Take heed.

This is strong stuff, considering the early-1980s pop milieu into which this track was dropped. Mr. MacMillan (uttering the line in 1957) was premature when he uttered, "Most of our people have never had it so good." The music of the 1980s seemed to take this to heart, churning out synth-heavy pop with a relentlessly cheery message, but then roared Roger Waters, singing a "requiem for the post-war dream." This was jarring, but - then again - most good art is. Waters seemed to have created Brechtian alienation for his listeners. By talking about the War and the betrayal and loss of its values, Waters made an obvious breach with listeners either too young or too unconcerned to bother with the matter.

This record is Waters' most consistent and emotionally harrowing work, and it deserves to be. It demands that the listener explore, in a deep and meaningful way, the issues that it presents. "Maggie, what have we done?" is a question to be answered by the listener. As much as The Wall was self-indulgent muttering by a rock-star bothered about being a rock-star, The Final Cut is a spare, emotionally raw exploration of why that rock-star is so bothered. Indeed, our record in question seems to be the organic outgrowth of The Wall's stretch from "Mother," to "Comfortably Numb," and had the Final Cut tracks been interpolated appropriate with those songs, there would be a work of almost staggering artistic power. What's done, though, as the man said, is done.

The best analog for The Final Cut is Springsteen's Nebraska. Both are song-driven, spare, and emotionally powerful records. They also approach the same issues from different sides. Tell me that songs like "Two Suns in the Sunset" don't have echoes and counterpoints in songs like "Reason to Believe." Springsteen, through a loose retelling of the Starkweather killings, comments on a situation that Waters explores from a causal basis. Combined, Nebraska and The Final Cut make a potent blend of cause-and-effect for 1970s isolation, desolation, and the strangeness that affected the decade. Springsteen looks at the everyday influences on the self, so to speak, while Waters looks at the broader historical and philosophical contexts that shape and drive the same lyrical entity.

Forget the hangover from 1968 and 1969.

This one goes back to D-Day, and even earlier to 1939 and 1941.

The Final Cut and Nebraska, too, have a similar standing in the artists' oeuvres. Listeners don't know quite what to make of them. That, though, does not diminish the deeply personal and artistic statements by the men driving those records.

So, you might not want The Final Cut in the poorly titled Floyd box, but it's there and if you skip it, you're missing the point.

Considering Stockhausen

2007-12-24T22:46:00.000-05:00

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
Our nation turns it's lonely eyes to you.
What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson?
Jolting Joe has left and gone away.

Matthew Guerrieri, who, as some of my more constant readers might recall, took me to task over my comments about Hugo Chávez, eulogized the late Karlheinz Stockhausen at Slate. In the course of his obituary,* Mr. Guerrieri had this to say,

Canadian pianist Glenn Gould included among his stable of satirical characters one Karlheinz Klopweisser: donning a long wig, brandishing an enormous electric wand, ruminating about the resonance of organic silence. It wasn't much of an exaggeration. The perception was that, as the summers of love faded, Stockhausen had lost his way, that the leading avant-garde composer of the 1950s and '60s—who gave electronic music a soul and made the arid calculations of serialism dazzlingly, confrontationally vivid—had gone off the psychedelic deep end. Once, prefacing some typically esoteric statement, Stockhausen himself inadvertently summed up critical opinion. "At this point, my argument is about to become metaphysical," he warned. "Most people have no intention of following me to this level."

Whenever someone like Stockhausen dies, it is usually time to ponder "legacies" and "influence." I would say, if pressed, that Karlheinz Stockhausen, despite Glenn Gould's withering parody, was the one avant-garde composer who didn't lose his way.

In the common understanding of classical music, which is "Bach and Beethoven because it's great study music," (as opposed to music deserving great study) Stockhausen is a non-entity. No "The Greatest Classical Music in the World" CD will include him, nor will there ever be a Chill with Stockhausen disc released to the masses. Even for the cognoscenti, who might know his name and be able to remember that Stimmung and Gruppen were his 'big ones,' he is elusive. His music is not performed all that much, for various reasons, and the Stockhausen-Verlag, the best source for his music, doesn't have a wide distribution. He is known for being 'an important composer,' but his compositions aren't that well-known. There are not, like it or not, outside of schools of music and the hyper-musically-literate classical cognoscenti, that many people who even think about Karlheinz Stockhausen. This might be contradicted by others, so I'll shut the criticism down now: Being on Sgt. Pepper's is, to the youth of today, like being on the Moon. Yeah, it's probably a big deal, but we have other priorities.

Still, I don't know that Stockhausen ever lost his way.

Look at Pierre Boulez, the holy terror of the musical world almost as soon as he appeared on the scene. He hasn't composed in the last twenty-five or thirty years so much as he has revised works composed in the 1970s. That's not fair: he has written stuff since 1979, but, for a moment, consider his salad days from 1950 (or so) until 1980. You have Le marteau sans maître, Pli selon pli, the third piano sonata, Eclat/Multiples, Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna, ...explosante-fixe... and the like. Even then, the third sonata is unfinished (and has been for fifty years), Eclat is fragmentary, and ...explosante-fixe... underwent a couple of major revisions. His career has since been one of contention for the title of The World's Greatest Living Conductor, The World's Most Important Composer, and the general dominance over the musical scene. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it is an example of the decline of the avant-garde.

Look at some other luminaries: Bruno Maderna died young. Berio and Nono are both dead, and made their biggest contributions forty or so years ago. Hans Werner Henze just premiered an opera (Phaedra), but the days of Versuch über Schweine, Das Floß der Medusa, Kammermusik, and In memoriam: Die weisse Rose are long gone, too. It is no secret that, as dawn goes down to day, so has the 1950s/60s avant-garde gone down to the annals of musical history (Sine ira et studio, perhaps - perhaps not). Boulez, ever the most power-obsessed, managed to stay important and relevant, even as people forgot why they originally considered him important or relevant. That's the thing: the vanguard fell back and became company commanders, then brigade commanders, then division commanders, and - finally - irrelevant statesmen. That, or they dropped the colors on the field, changed uniforms, and started fighting a different battle.

Not, though, Stockhausen. He maintained some degree of relevance by doing whatever it was he did. He didn't lose his way because he was never on the map.

Now, frankly, I found his blather about Sirius and the stupid cosmology thrust forth aus Licht, so to speak, just that - stupid. His music, too, is not always my cup of tea. Still, I cannot assert that Stockhausen was picked up and blown about by the winds of style. For whatever reason, he stuck to his metaphorical guns. That deserves some credit. Indeed, Stockhausen remained solidly a member of the avant-garde, only because he was off the map to begin with. To be entirely fair, I don't know if it could be said that he was at the forefront of the field. That sort of implies that he was moving in the same direction. I don't think he was.

When considering legacies, there is the most objective one: will a composer have an influence on the field, beyond his life? For Herr Stockhausen, I don't think so. How does one take up a mantle like his? Music has moved beyond even what he studied and developed at the beginning of his career - minimalism, post-minimalism, and other musical grammars have replaced post-Webernian serialism. He was sufficiently out of the mainstream to have too many disciples and heirs-apparent.

No, Stockhausen's legacy - unlike the chameleon-like one of Pierre Boulez - is one of a man who did his own thing. He clearly didn't care that it wouldn't have been popular. It clearly wasn't. When the 1950s/60s serialist vanguard was collapsing, he chose to make music that he wanted to make - some of it was good, some downright awful, but it was always his.

That's enough for me, regardless of my subjective judgment.

*I also recommend the obituary of Ike Turner by Donald Fagen (of Steely Dan fame).

Schiff's Beethoven (vol. 5)

2007-12-21T00:07:00.000-05:00

I have not followed András Schiff's recent Beethoven cycle very closely. For various reasons, I made my choice to watch Mitsuko Uchida's back-to-front (and slower) cycle. Of Schiff, though, I have his opp. 26, 27, 28, 31, and 53 sonatas (i.e., nos. 12-18 and 21). It wasn't until today, listening to his Waldstein (op. 53), that I really began to like what he has done. His engaging and intelligent lecture on that sonata - available at the Guardian online source as a download well worth your time - might color my impression, though.

Schiff is solidly middle-of-the-road with his tempi. I'll use the Waldstein for an example. Wilhelm Backhaus' 1958 recording for Decca, his stereo integrale being my reference set, blazes through the first movement, shaving a minute off the standard timing (about 10 minutes). Indeed, Backhaus flies through the piece as a whole, being the fastest in the first two movements of my five or so versions, with Schnabel and Paul Komen (on fortepiano) catching up in the last one. Schiff's closest timing is also his contemporary, Paul Lewis on Harmonia Mundi. Both have very reasonable timings and neither of them feel like they are dragging or rushing the music to make some sort of statement.

I guess the reason why Schiff's Waldstein (as well as the op. 31 sonatas) is so endearing to me is because it seems well-judged in every regard. Schiff, though less so now than 25 or so years back, can seem a little mannered at times, but I prefer that to a wild stereotypically Romantic performance. This is an inapt metaphor, but it will have to do: think of solo music - especially violin or piano literature - as a novel. The performer is, then, a translator of sorts. Schiff eschews a deeply personalized translation, preferring to get as close as possible to the author's original language. That's not to say that it isn't personal, listening to his lecture on the Waldstein, in particular, will show as much, but it isn't an idiosyncratic or quirky performance. Schiff, as far as I can tell, places himself at the service of Ludwig van Beethoven, as opposed to taking Beethoven's score as an opportunity for showy virtuosity. Schiff's sparkling wit (though, it can tend toward the dry) shows through from time to time, but never to the detriment of Beethoven's work. It is for the best that Schiff is as experienced, mature, and talented as he is. Paul Lewis, who has another great cycle, has his positive factors, but Schiff seems to have edged him out in the works which I have heard.

Also, ECM's packaging deserves note. When issues and reissues are becoming showy, gaudy mini-shrines to the favored artist (Lang Lang's recent Beethoven concerto disc being particularly egregious - to the point of gag-inducing), the simplicity and tastefulness of the ECM release is much welcomed. A simple, minimalist cover with an abstract painting; intelligent and informative liner notes (a 'conversation' with Schiff), and plain CDs. I don't know if this was the intent, but it certainly seems as though the set is really all about the music. That, I can appreciate.

A set well worth the effort to acquire, and - if found - a splendid Christmas gift.

Still impressed with the DG Web Shop

2007-12-15T17:45:00.000-05:00

I've now bought some more things from the DG Web Shop. I am going to call the match-up between the newcomer and the well-established iTunes Music Store in favor of the former right now.

The back catalog available from DG is just too impressive. You can get two of the Herbert von Karajan Wiener Staatsoper releases (1963's Tannhäuser and 1964's Die Frau ohne Schatten), for example, which were never really available here in the States. The iTMS has a good back-catalog selection (provided, in part, by ArkivMusic), but nothing like DG's. There are some recordings, like Sinopoli's Bruckner 8th, that I would like to see, but that's a minor quibble over a very specialized recording.

The prices, too, are reasonable - as I mentioned. They are within three or four dollars of iTMS at the outside. That is not nearly enough of a difference to be a deal-breaker one way or the other. Price some of this stuff online, if you like, and you'll see that you're getting a deal either way.

Of course, the sound-quality and subsequent downloading once you've bought your music are great benefits to the DG shop. The Apple store is too variable (even stuff in the same series on the same label vacillates between 128 kbps and 256 kbps) and once you've got it, that's it, as far as Apple is concerned. DG's store is friendlier to the consumer in both regards: 320 kbps and more than one download. I assume that there is a limit to the latter, but I don't know.

If you want to do online music, and you should at this point, even if the files are lossy (and I should explain why at some point in the future), DG is the way of the future and the way to go. I can only hope that Universal opens similar stores for Decca, Philips, and the rest of the Universal Classics properties. EMI has its deal with Apple, so I imagine the only way to get high-bitrate, legal EMI downloads is to go through iTMS, but if DGG, Philips, and Decca hit the US market - game over for classical.

There's just too much good stuff in the Universal stables to deal with Apple's weird proprietary concerns and inconsistent bitrate. Universal doesn't stand to lose anything by throwing a bunch of data on the mighty interweb. I assume that most of those recordings have already more than paid for themselves in hard-media form, or will soon, so its likely pure profit. Everybody, in that case, wins.

I like the DGWS, probably more now than I did before, if you hadn't noticed.

...I'll clean it up myself, I guess

2007-12-03T13:19:00.000-05:00

Matthew Guerrieri, responding to my post responding to his post responding, in part, to another post of mine, had this to say,

My suspicion is that the modern iteration of the unwashable stain is a hangover from the rise of Nazi Germany. Many decent people chose to take a charitable view of Hitler for too long, with disastrous results—as a result, our reflex is to believe the worst of any even mildly evil figure, and morally quarantine ourselves.

I recommend the whole post, since it seems to be a respite from the stridency and sort of frantic rhetoric that taints pretty much every side of this debate. Myself included.

I've been uptight and made a mess...

2007-12-02T18:16:00.000-05:00

Another voice joins the chorus of those bothered by my (among others) criticism of Gustavo Dudamel, his Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, and the media fervor over the same (in addition to the Chávez government).

Darcy James Argue once had this to say, in the comments section of Mr. Guerrieri's post, which I dealt with below, beforehand, I should note, he called this "intemperate," (no kidding)

Thanks for this. It has been, frankly, depressing to see so many in Classical Blogdonia make transparently... (I'm afraid there is no other word) retarded arguments, holding Dudamel and the SBYO to standards of conduct not observed by any other artist in the history of mankind.

So fine -- while we're at it, let's ream out Duke Ellington for not publicly denouncing American apartheid while touring on the State Department's dime. Because Duke was a big fucking hypocrite for acting as the cultural ambassador for a nation that systematically surpressed the rights of hs people... is that how we're rolling now?

And are the people criticizing Dudamel and the SBYO really so stupid that they cannot wrap their minds around the idea of being proud of your country while being perhaps somewhat ambivilent about your government? I don't think so. Instead, I think those people are making the kind of self-evidently moronic bad-faith arguments that would make Fox News producers blush.

Fair enough. I do trust that Mr. Argue, though, is aware that Wilhelm Furtwängler was subjected to and made to account to similarly high standards of conduct, standards that pretty well train-wrecked his career (more so in the United States than in Europe) from 1945 to his death in 1954. Would I compare a tin-pot Latin American strongman and his grasping ambitions to an organization on the shortlist for "most evil of all time," though such senseless measuring ignores the inconceivable human toll of such an organization (Viz. Günter Grass' Im Krebsgang)? Probably not. But to say that no one has been held to similar standards is, and I am sorry to be so blunt, just not entirely accurate. No one who stays, so to speak, can live up to the standards. Why? Because staying is the problem. Leaving is the only choice for people confronted by such situations, regardless of what they leave behind when they leave. If Furtwängler's argument that he stayed to save culture for those who needed it most didn't hold cultural water, even if the denazification tribunal found it acceptable, then why should any similar argument hold?

In direct response to Mr. Argue's comment, though, I have this to say: So what? I certainly don't see much ambivalence coming out of the SBYO. The only argument is that they could be wearing their national colors in the same spirit as the protesters who wave the Venezuelan flag. You can be ambivalent about your government and still love your country, God knows I'm walking proof of that much, but you first have to be ambivalent about your government. That means doing something about it. Simple, I know, and I wouldn't have thought such a statement necessary before becoming a bit-player in this blogoconflict.

Now, I further suppose that I am just making more "self-evidently moronic bad-faith arguments that would make Fox News producers blush" by answering Mr. Argue's latest post, but I am apparently self-evidently a moron, so I don't feel too bad about that. How could I? In the course of his critique, he had this to say,

Have any of the critics and bloggers writing about the Kirov Orchestra's current tour mentioned how they are troubled by Gergiev's "direct line" to Putin? (Especially given the farce of a Russian election currently underway?) Has anyone asserted: "Supporting [Gergiev], his [Kirov] orchestra, and other [Russian] cultural products is akin to saying that we love the produce of a nascent dictatorship"?

Anyone? Anyone?

I do not like to play the "if you are outraged about this, why aren't you outraged about that" game. But in this case, the parallel is too clear and the double standard too glaring to let pass without comment.

I do so assert as of this moment, since Mr. Argue is quoting me. I am personally more worried about Putin resurrecting the Soviet empire and saying nice things about Stalin than anything a puffed-up, self-important potentate (who wouldn't be at square one if not for his oil money) being just as undemocratic. Indeed, Putin's decision to seek the premiership after his presidency ends is likely the first tolling of the death knell of Russian democracy. In this weekend's Wall Street Journal, the centerpiece article "Gorby's Choice" wonders in the subhead, "He brought democracy to Russia. So why is he backing Putin, the man undoing his legacy?"

I could answer this in a broader context of Russian nationalism, which - in the modern era - was institutionalized by Stalin, despite being a Georgian and surrounded by Georgian retainers, who allowed Mikhail "Papa" Kalinin to serve as president of the Soviet Union, since it was necessary to appease the nationalist tendencies of Russia, despite the cosmopolitan trends of Marxism-Leninism. What's more, Stalin's Russian nationalism became stronger and more virulent (Doctors' Plot, anyone? The Anti-Semitic Purges ring a bell?) after 1945. Putin seems to have focused on and tapped into that nationalism, which inclines most rank-and-file Russians to support him, even as he tank-parades back to the glory days of Leonid Brezhnev and Mikhail Suslov.

I digress.

Mr. Argue is bothered by a double standard. I don't see a double standard at work here. No one is hauling the Kirov around, which makes a strongly pro-Soviet (and not just run-of-the-mill Soviet: hardcore, brutally repressive, and genocidal Stalinist) statement with its name, by the way, and touting it as a good thing. No one is arguing that the Kirov is somehow a force for social good and proof that musical education works. No one, no matter how benighted, holds the Kirov up as evidence that Russia is doing something right. Where's the problem? There is a problem with Moscow, Gergiev's relationship with Putin, and what's happening in Russia today, but it's a different problem on one level than Dudamel and the SBYO.

Arguing that Chávez and his regime, of which Dudamel and his band are unquestionably part and for which they are cultural representatives, is not as bad as Putin is specious. It's a big "So what?" Any assertions about Putin and Gergiev have no bearing on any assertions about Dudamel and Chávez. They might be the same assertions, but that does not imply that the boundaries are not closed. Conflating the two questions is part of a bigger argument that no one seems to want to have, but to which many seem to want to allude: What is the moral duty of an artist in a repressive regime? I've made my answer, and I apply it equally.

I see the defenses of Dudamel et al. as being based on the emotional aspect of El Sistema: Chávez is bad, true, but children are getting a chance, so how bad is he? The other option is that folks aren't all that bothered by what's happening in Venezuela, which option is so egregious that I wouldn't dream of imputing it to anyone. I'll just assume that the first option is the rationale at work. My logic, below, still holds. You cannot assert that Chávez is bad, but part of his regime (no matter when it was founded) is good, without contradicting yourself and implying that Chávez is good. It's just that simple. You can't do it with Putin, either, but I don't see that argument made.

Your move, Apple

2007-12-01T01:30:00.000-05:00

After seeing the DG Web Shop go online, I couldn't resist. I bought Cheryl Studer's Strauss Vier letzte Lieder, coupled with Wagner's Wesendonck-Lieder and the usual Tristan combo. I picked it up for $10.99, and considering it goes for $38.99 at a major web retailer (plus S&H), I was happy for the bargain.

Apple is in trouble.

You buy the music. You pay for it. You download the ZIP file (or the individual tracks, using the download manager if you're so inclined. I like ZIP files for music). You add the decompressed 320 kbps MP3 files to your music software of choice (iTunes for me). You enjoy.

The sound is good. A.C. Douglas isn't kidding when he says it's CD-quality. I like to think I know good sound and have reasonable equipment for its reproduction. Really, once you get over 192/256 kbps, you start getting excellent playback. In my book, on my headphones, 320 kbps is pretty darned good. I would rather see FLAC downloads (which, of course, can be compressed into any bitrate you want), and Apple start supporting FLAC natively on Mac iTunes, but that's another day.

DG/Universal has squared the circle. DRM-free, high-bitrate, easily downloaded albums, many of which are either out-of-print or hard-to-find? Playable on any platform? Any portable player? Add to this competitive price, especially with the low US dollar at the moment, and you have the perfect storm. I would hope that Universal moves to put more and more of its various holdings' catalogs online in such a brilliant fashion.

Ladies and gentlemen, if this picks up and catches on, I daresay we're seeing a paradigm shift in (1) how online music downloads are treated, and (2) how major labels approach a major profit sector. As to the latter, think about it. No costs other than putting 1s and 0s on the interweb. This model makes sense.

DRM-laden, low-bitrate, and super-proprietary downloading is in danger. Apple should thank its stars for the iPhone.