Orchestra confuses Madison audience...

If you're like me and you've attended more than a handful of concerts in the past several years, you'll have noticed a trend toward the standing ovation for each and every piece performed. To me this is mostly a ridiculous fad that smacks of the audience congratulating themselves on attending a classical music concert. However, despite my cynicism, it's hard to begrudge an audience wanting to fully impart their joy and appreciation to the musicians on stage.

Although, never before have I heard the music accused of denying an audience their god-given right to the standing ovation.

figure ovation: The proper way to appreciate an orchestra performance. And what's wrong with those people in bottom left? Fucking commies, not standing.

Madison Symphony Features Cellist

Wow, snappy title.

Madison audiences are known for the generosity of their standing ovations...

...I know this is probably just me, but this is so condescending -- towards who I'm not exactly sure...

-- but, sometimes, it's hard to know when to stand.

I know. It really bites doesn't it? I mean, audiences already have so much to keep track of with respect to their applause.

How many movements? Are those movements performed without breaks? Is there a soloist? It's really enough to drive one to a fit of coughing or loudly crumpling their program in nervous anticipation.

Friday, for example,...

Excellent, an example.

...the Madison Symphony Orchestra featured cellist Ralph Kirshbaum, who played a haunting 22-minute piece, "Schelomo Hebraic Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra" by Ernest Bloch, which ends in a long lamentation, one so somber that even the composer said "this work alone ends with complete negation, but the subject demands it."

Oooo...that is a tough call. The standing O for the somber lamentation? Man, how dare that orchestra put that kind of pressure on an audience while their community-wide sonic, choreographed love sits bursting at the seams.

A work of music that ends with "complete negation" is not the kind of thing that brings an audience to its feet, not matter how brilliantly the artist plays.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

So, when Kirshbaum finished, about half the audience at Overture Hall rose for the customary ovation and the other half seemed to wonder what to do.

So maybe music that ends with "complete negation" is the kind of thing that brings 50% of people to their feet. Learn something new everyday.

I mean, they only get one chance to show their appreciation. It's not like he's playing another piece.

His next work was Antonin Dvorak's "Silent Woods for Cello and Orchestra," which got off to a little bit of an awkward start as Kirshbaum and MSO Music Director John DeMain walked back onto the stage,...

Oh, wait. He's coming back for more? The audience must be so confused.

...walked back onto the stage, only to have DeMain peel off and go back to the wings before admitting he didn't have the music. It was one of those great non-musical moments you share only if you attend the live performances.

Great. Story.

But, what of the whole standing ovation fiasco? How was the situation resolved? Without violence I hope.

None of this is to detract from Kirshbaum, who played brilliantly. It's just that the music sometimes gets in the way of tradition.

Fucking music. Seriously, where does it get off?

When he finished the first half of the program, the audience had no problem at all rising as one to applaud him through several bows.

Whew. It's nice when things work themselves out, and everyone is able to just forget the unpleasantness that followed the Bloch.

--------

By the way, the second half the concert "featured" Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony with many "familiar tunes" and an excellent time was had by all. A standing ovation followed the performance.

Titles for Sale

And without further ado, here’s the title in question found atop a recent piece by David Patrick Stearns:

Itzhak Perlman a winner at Resorts

Figure 1. Foreshadowing the premise that the house always has the advantage

There are several things we should keep in mind as we go along which will be helpful in order to assess the efficacy of today’s title:

1) The Resorts is a casino-hotel in Atlantic City (A classical casino concert?)
2) Itzhak Perlman wins something (What did he win?)
3) He wins it at Resorts (Presumably, as opposed to somewhere else)

Fantastic! Now we can look at the review, which is pretty okay, not that there aren’t issues.

Musically, he played a medium-weight program - Leclair, Beethoven, Stravinsky - little different from what you'd hear at the Kimmel Center.

No kidding! I took it upon myself to check out the program for the next Philadelphia Orchestra concert and, well, there’s certainly some similarity: Brahms D minor Piano Concerto; Franck D minor Symphony; and Claude Vivier Orion. I don’t know what this says about the integrity of the orchestra’s programming, since casinos are essentially scams. But, hell, someone is doing it right.

Preconcert Muzak was Brahms' Symphony No. 1.

Muzaked Brahms? Wonderful beyond description. Ugh.

The big leap for Atlantic City, however, wasn't pop vs. classical, but singer vs. instrumentalist. Headliners are almost always singers (even if the voice happens to belong to Joan Jett). Nobody could recall a purely instrumental artist headlining recently in Atlantic City.

Why bring Joan Jett into question? This seems more like an unnecessary value judgment, to me. Is she less of a singer somehow?

More pressing, however, what is the Resorts up to? Why bring in someone who doesn’t fit the previous model for success?

So who was there? As I learned from chatting up those around me, many were from the immediate area: a local music teacher who has loved Perlman for years...

Also known as: someone who has never stepped inside a casino before. (Just a guess, but local music teachers probably don’t have a large amount of disposable income).

...a small-business owner who had caught [Perlman] on PBS...

PBS watchers aren’t generally attracted to bright lights and shiny things, or are they?

...and people who applauded between movements, suggesting a crossover/fringe crowd, but one that was ultimately more attentive than your typical concert audience.

Newbies, diversity, and attention: Hooray! It’s a veritable melting pot of fresh money!

The idea, according to casino officials, was to attract a different clientele, and what arrived was people who probably would have been just as happy to hear Perlman at, say, the Glassboro Center for the Performing Arts.

How’d the Resorts lure them in, then?

The difference is that this fringe audience probably wouldn't have known about the Atlantic City event without Resorts' marketing - and all its billboards.

Okay. It’s not like our symphonies don’t spend a bigillion on advertising, right? This is the norm. However, the catch was:

The net had to be cast wide to fill a theater with listeners willing to pay up to $125 for any violinist, and indeed, I talked to those who had driven in from Montgomery County.

That’s an expensive meatball.

And rather than traveling through suburban byways, you simply had to navigate the dense thickets of King Kong Cash slot machines between the parking garage and the theater.

Figure 2. “Twas Beast that bankrupted your future”

What David forgets to mention is that on byways you aren’t tempted to risk your kid’s college fund. He also doesn’t mention that the distance from the garage to the theater is roughly one-quarter of a mile—and the dense thickets of slot machines, which are designed to funnel you past places the casino wants you to pass, is akin to McDonald’s saying, “Yeah, the hamburgers are bad for you, but that’s why we have salads.”

So with the right marketing, most any fine classical artist,

Whoa there, partner: “most any fine classical artist”? Not terrible, just yuck.

So with the right marketing, most any fine classical artist, in theory, could work here. But I wonder if anyone else (perhaps cellist Yo-Yo Ma?) could truly fill the place.

I think that’s a good question, delving into issues about the relationship between marketing and the perceived quality of the product. But I thought this was a review?

Perlman's public identification level is unique among non-operatic classical figures. Though his visibility is nothing close to what it was, the name still has marketing power.

The violinist has long had a particular magnetism that makes audiences meet him more than halfway. Whether he's having a good night or a bad one - he's 64, an age when violinists are well into the winding-down phase - audiences listen to him more closely than they do other violinists, and thus take in more of the music at hand.

He’s still a moneymaker: check. He’s past his prime: check. He played a concert and I wrote a review about it: blank.

And Perlman had a very good night.

He...

He won a good night?! Though past his prime, he had a good night?! No senior moments? No medical scares? Please clear this up, David.

His playing has been through some bad patches in recent years, but technically speaking, he was secure and fluent.

Technically speaking, sure. But interpretive?

The first half pleasantly consisted of Leclair's Violin Sonata in D major and Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 7 (Op. 30 No. 2), and though Perlman's cultivated musical responses didn't feel so fresh, the ever-engaged pianist Rohan De Silva kept your ears constantly pricked.

...but the pianist played well.

Later, Perlman recalled his own glory days in Stravinsky's Suite Italienne (from the composer's quasi-baroque ballet Pulcinella); his gleaming tone with the light sandpaper-ish tang was back in full during Stravinsky's most lyrical sections. His most inspired moments involved expressive fingerslides, usually the province of violinists from the old, old days. Good for him! Fine with me.

Meh. I don’t have any problems with the concert assessment, even though it received a disproportionate amount of space. But it’s the disproportionate amount of space that raises questions.

To me, this reads like a plain-faced plug (see Comedy of Errata), but worse. Recall the title: “Perlman a winner at Resorts.” Really? Was he a winner? Did the past-his-prime, old, old school violinist really emerge as triumphant winner from this endeavor?

Perlman left with his integrity intact.

He also left with a nice paycheck. But it’s not exactly glowing, is it? If anything, he won the right to leave with his integrity. That’s all. It’s printed right there in the review.

The audience left the near-full 1,300-seat Superstar Theater seemingly thrilled [...]

So, maybe the audience won, then?

Or did the Resorts come out the victor? They filled a large venue, probably made a nice little profit. But more than that, they got 1,300 local people into the casino, people who otherwise might not have been tempted to go, filtered them through the slots and other entertainments, and said, “Go!”.

Figure 3. Sure it pays out 35:1, but you have a 2.63% of hitting it, or 38:1 chance of making your money back

Shitty Review Redux

Following up on an earlier post where a reviewer offered up a very negative (and, if put positively, somewhat uninformed) critique of Chen Qigang’s “Iris dévoilée”, as performed by the Shanghai Symphony.

Well, for a bit of symmetry let me post part of another review of the same program (different performance) by a critic who doesn't suck.

Josef Woodward, of the Los Angeles Times, has the review.

Look on in amazement as his review demonstrates an understanding of cultural and musical backgrounds. He educates his reader while simultaneously offering opinion. It's really quite a marvel what a review can be when, say, the critic knows something about the subject matter.

After dealing fluently with Mussorgsky and Rachmaninoff..., the orchestra delved into the definitively East-meets-West score of notable Chinese composer (living in Paris) Qigang Chen’s “Iris dévoilée (Iris unveiled)” and gave it a measured, captivating and discernibly “home turf” reading. For a change, the musical forces themselves, from a full, taut orchestra to Chinese instrumental soloists, came from the eastern end of the East-West spectrum. ...

Take note, Shitty Reviewer, of the subtle touches of the English translation of the title for the Franco-challenged readers. And further providing an answer to the logical question of why a Chinese composer would give their piece a French title. Facts are awesome.

Divided into nine varied fragments, Qigang’s 2001 piece works the theme of the feminine spirit...,

Okay, so the shitty review contains this same information, but let's look at how differently the two reviews handle the followup to these introductory remarks:

First, let me remind you of Shitty Reviewer's shitty review:

Then came eminent composer Chen Qigang’s “Iris dévoilée”. This piece, if described positively, is a portrayal of the universal female archetype in nine movements;....

Okay, now each review has covered the same ground, so, what next?

Shitty Reviewer:

....or, if spoken of negatively, intervals of piquant female screams separated by much-needed silences specially designed for disgruntled audience members to flee the scene (many of whom did preciously that).

Shit. The piece was so terrible people fled the scene. That's the shitty approach.

Now, Mr. Woodward:

Divided into nine varied fragments, Qigang’s 2001 piece works the theme of the feminine spirit, inspired by the Iris of Greek mythology fame, the goddess of the rainbow.

Wow. Didn't take but 13 words, but that's already way more information.

Shitty Reviewer, do you see how this is better? Information over biased, unsubstantiated innuendo?

But wait! There's more!

A rainbow motif, in fact, suits Qigang’s multi-colored approach well, as the music veers from distinctly Chinese sonorities to Western classical elements, often with a clear French accent, from Impressionism to echoes of the composer’s former teacher, Olivier Messiaen. In the main, the musical language(s) are seductive to the ears, occasionally punched up with more dissonant and abstract colors.

Granted, Mr. Woodward seems to have enjoyed this work and Shitty Reviewer seemed to have not. And that's fine. But there's a valuable lesson here -- see how Woodward gives us informed musical analysis, that then supports his position as an authority. Saying how you wish you had fled the building, well, that just makes you...a Shitty Reviewer. In math circles, we call this showing your work.

So what next for our two reviews. Shitty Reviewer went the route of anecdotal evidence to round out her review:

A catharsis of sorts, as shown by the old lady who sat two seats away from me, who began to laugh hysterically midway through the piece. Other than this interesting fact though, “Iris dévoilée” was quite poorly received tonight.

My god that's shitty.

And Mr. Woodward:

For traditional Chinese instruments (some of which Western classical audiences have become familiar with through other Chinese composers’ showcasing efforts), the composer includes the pipa (Jia Li), erhu (Nan Wang), and the proto-koto guzheng (Xin Sun). Less familiar is the distinctive dual presence of a rich Western-style female voice (Xiaoduo Chen) and the sharper-toned sound of Peking Opera tradition (Meng Meng). Qigang traverses various worlds and musical resources with his ambitious piece and does so with persuasive, culture-blending aplomb.

So much excellent information. Instrument names, composer and performer backgrounds, explanations of the the Western elements as distinct from the Chinese features. For those who may have enjoyed the concert, or perhaps have an interest in the heritage of Chinese music, these are some excellent starting spots. See Shitty Reviewer, just because you didn't like a performance, doesn't mean you have to be a douche. Facts are indeed awesome.

A Comedy of Errata (Thinly Disguised as Arts Reporting)

(The following (it turns out) is as much about the annual glut of identical holiday music offerings as about the shortcomings of this particular article.)

At first I didn't know what to make of ArtVoice. A glance around the front page seemed to be Buffalo-centric; indeed, the magazine seems to serve Buffalo and greater Western New York state. Its radically space-between-words-eschewing title and accompanying tagline ("We've got issues") evokes a sort of serious-if-commercial approach to arts-focused news and reviews in a design-school, independent newspaper-ish style.

I was a little perturbed when I couldn't find an "About" link or anything of the kind. Eventually, I settled on the "Media Kit" (which I found under the "Contact" tab) to find out what kind of publication I was reading. The first thing I learned--the first thing--was that

Artvoice has a broad readership that includes the young and hip, the highly educated and professionals, elected officials and business people. Audit reports show that our readers have substantial disposable incomes and enjoy extremely active lifestyles.

Huh. The Media Kit tagline eschews the "We've got issues" angle, instead opting for "The Best of Buffalo/News Enternainment Opinion Arts."

Furthermore:

IF ARTVOICE WERE RADIO WE’D BE THE LARGEST STATION IN TOWN

Double huh! And extra-classy!

Granted, the Media Kit was less of an informational package and more of [read: preciscely] information for prospective advertisers. Perusing the content, however, furthered my perception that ArtVoice is more of a Targeted Advertising Venture for self-described hip 18-34 year-olds with disposable income than an Arty Weekly Indie Newspaper.

"But," you're asking, "what's the classical music coverage like?"

Ah, many thanks, gentle reader. I'm glad you asked!

A Classical Christmas

Awesome. It's good that, once a year, the disenfranchised and marginalized devotees of the Sky God Cult 2.0 have a little time in the spotlight.

One of the greatest pleasures of the holiday season is the opportunity to see and hear a wide variety of Christmas music performed by favorite artists.

Yeah, that's way better than the rest of the year, during which one of the greatest pleasures is the distinct lack of fucking Christmas music.

But, shit: let's play along. So: I'm 18-34, "hip", nominally Christian, and have disposable income above and beyond the extra money that the holidays exact from me to begin with (making me a valuable member of the target audience of ArtVoice).

Figure 1: Target Audience

Oh, and I like me some nostalgia--preferably irony-free nostalgia, thanks very much. What's in store for me, unchallenging-music-wise, this season in Buffalo? Is it...is it the Nutcracker? Oh fuck, I hope someone is doing the Nutcracker!

The following round up highlights some of the most popular events.

Time out. If "round up" were capitalized, it'd probably refer to the weed killer, which might be apt but isn't intended. However, the space cleverly missing from "ArtVoice" seems here to have migrated to the middle of "roundup," which would make sense if it weren't there. But it is, unfortunately. Good editing, ad-savvy fake-hipster marketers!

(In the spirit of the "round up," however, I'll only hit the highlights. If you really want the details of which University of Buffalo faculty member designed the costumes, you'll have to wade through the whole thing yourself.)

A Pair of Nutcrackers and Three Irish Tenors

...walk into a bar?

Seriously, though: is two Nutcrakers even enough? We should play that shit year round.

On Saturday, November 28 at 7pm and Sunday, November 29 at 2pm, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra joins the Neglia Ballet Artists at Shea’s Performing Arts Center in presenting Tchaikovsky’s classic holiday ballet The Nutcracker. This traditional production of the work was conceived and choreographed by Sergio Neglia, artistic director of Neglia Ballet Artists, along with executive director Heidi Halt Neglia.

Blah blah blah, sure, sure. Everyone's doing that. What makes this production special?

What helps to make this production special is that it will feature live musical accompaniment by the BPO.

Um. Do what now?

On Saturday, November 28 at 7pm and Sunday, November 29 at 2pm, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra joins the Neglia Ballet Artists...

What helps to make this production special is that it will feature live musical accompaniment by the BPO.

So...the thing that makes the Buffalo Philharmonic's Nutcracker special is that it...features the Buffalo Philharmonic?

Really? Wow. That is some trippy, fractal shit right there.

Figure 2: Recursion (Explained by Sluggo)

Along with the corps de ballet, soloists, and principal professional ballet dancers, the children’s roles will be filled by students of the Neglia Conservatory of Ballet and other local dancers.

Huh. You'd think all of those professionals would let the children have all of the children's roles. Oh, wait! It's just a really crappy sentence. Never mind.

...

The Mainstage Theatre of the UB Center for the Arts will once again present the American Academy of Ballet’s version of The Nutcracker on Saturday, December &c...This version of the holiday classic, which is performed to a recorded soundtrack, is narrated by the grandfather at the Christmas Eve celebration at Clara’s home, with special flying effects and a hot air balloon as the prince and Clara visit exotic countries and a Victorian circus.

What? Hot air balloon? Circus? Frame story or something? What?

A favorite of audiences is their visit “Under the Sea,” where lobsters, turtles, mermaids, and sea urchins charm and delight.

That's almost delightfully surreal enough to be intriguing.

On Friday, December 11 at 8pm, the Mainstage Theatre of the UB Center for the Arts will be the location for a performance by the Irish Tenors. The three Irish Tenors—Finbar Wright, Anthony Kearns, and Karl Scully....

Figure 3: These guys thought of this way before the (so-called "famous") Three Tenors and weren't piggybacking on the popular success of the latter in any way.

...are all classically trained vocalists who have been a favorite of Buffalo audiences for the past decade.

Awesome. I'll wear my sweater. But if you have to mention that they're classically trained, doesn't that imply that, without that informaion, there'd be some question?

...

BPO Holiday Concerts

The BPO Classical Christmas program will be presented in Kleinhans Music Hall on Friday, December 11 at 10:30am, and on Saturday, December 12 at 8pm. Matthew Kraemer, now in his first season as associate conductor of the BPO, will lead the orchestra in a program of orchestral favorites traditionally associated with the holiday season.

Ah. It's not the music that's Christmas-y, it's the associations. That actually makes a lot of sense.

...

BPO music director JoAnn Falletta will be on the podium of Kleinhans Music Hall to lead a program billed as “Deck the Halls,” this year’s version of the ever popular Holiday Pops concerts...

Really? "Deck the Halls"? Man, that is some outside-the-box, adventurous PR right there.

"What should we call the holiday concert?"

Silence. Then:

"I know!"

Figure 4: [Title of Figure 4 Pending from Detritus Review Marketing Dept.]

...

The Messiah with The Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus

For many classical music lovers, Christmas is not Christmas without a performance of Handel’s Messiah, one of the all-time most popular choral works...

...or a family suicide, or at least Uncle Johnny's Annual Trip to Rehab.

... On Monday, November 23 at 7:30pm, pre-registered audience members can sing along with the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus...

You have to pre-register? Is there a background check?

...Bring a copy of the Messiah, if you intend to sing, or reserve a copy for $10.

Really? Really? Ah, the spirit of Christmas, down to the last available fucking dollar.

...

The Friends of Vienna Herald the Sounds of the Season

On Sunday, December 6 at 3:30pm, The Friends of Vienna present the Niagara Frontier Brass Quintet in a program entitled “The Sounds of the Season”...

Huh, I wonder what they'll play?

...The program of carols and songs will range from music by J.S. Bach’s “My Spirit Be Joyful”...

Dude, seriously? J.S. Bach’s “My Spirit Be Joyful” is totally my favorite composer.

...

The Freudig Singers Serve a Slice of Christmas Pie

This will be the 10th anniversary for a genuinely unique Buffalo tradition created by the Freudig Singers.

Okay?

During every holiday season, the Freudig Singers have offered a pair of concerts in area churches, featuring some of the most rarely performed gems in the vast, Christmas music repertory.

It's good that the writer recognizes that the repertory is both vast and Christmas. Omission of that crucial comma could cause comprehension.

Figure 5: Happy Magical Carpenter Zombie Day Present
To: ArtVoice
From: The Detritus Review

Tonight at the Symphony -- Greatest Hits of TV Commericals

Rather than dissect the entire article, let me just point to two major fails.
----------
First, the hallmark of almost every awful review, the bad introduction:

What happens when the family comes home for the holidays?

I don't know about your family, but in my family we drink and make fun of the Irish (Notre Dame, that is).

You laugh, you smile, you fight, you reminisce.

Same difference.

So it was Saturday night when the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra had its aptly named "Homecoming" concert.

Ugh. Terrible.
-------------
But, the number one rule of writing classical music reviews is, don't do this:

Conductor Ryan Haskins opened the door for Baron's welcome return by first giving the audience the Polovtsian Dances -- a piece that's instantly familiar. In addition to its inclusion on late night TV commercials ("You know it better as 'Stranger in Paradise'"), it also figured heavily in the musical "Kismet." That instant recognition got the party started and gave oboist Heidi Venaas one more stellar solo this season.

And don't forget when it was used in that great Simpsons' episode where Bart has a fantasy about life in Utah.

Ugh. Terrible. Just terrible.

New Music ruins yet another concert...

I love reading reviews of open-mindedness and personal discovery. Where the world of art and music grows just a little bit bigger, and everyone learns an important lesson. Thus was the case for Dorothy Chen in the Columbia Daily Spectator.

Never before have I seen the struggle for acceptance of new music so perfectly capsulized.

Review: Closing Concert of Carnegie’s China Festival

Vivid title.

Something very odd happened at Carnegie Hall tonight. Of the two pieces performed by the Shanghai Symphony, the first received a standing ovation, the second a couple of forced hand claps.

This is odd. In my recent experience, no matter how terrible the orchestra plays, the crowd erupts into standing ovations.

I wonder what piece got the shaft? I hope it's something by Édouard Lalo...I hate that guy.

The night began with Lang Lang’s performance of the time-honored Piano Concerto No.2 in C Minor by Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Nothing like "time" as the ultimate judge of the value of a piece of music.

Despite it being one of my favorite piano pieces, I was immediately disappointed by the opening of tonight’s performance. It literally felt like a jumbled mass. It was as if the musicians are coming in cold and need some time to warm up, to become comfortable with each other’s sound.

Literally felt like a jumbled mass.

Literally? I guess if it was literal, it begs the question what a jumbled mass is exactly.

Let's ask Google images.

figure jumbled mass: Is this about right?

But after getting through a more-or-less rough start, the scattered sounds began to co-exist harmoniously.

What a powerful message about love and peace, man.

figure harmony: Rachmaninoff at the end of the moderato.

This transition came about at the end of moderato, as if the musicians have suddenly found their sparks.

As a composer myself, that's always where I hide my sparks as well.

Henceforth, the performance became much more enjoyable. In the end, Rachmaninoff’s coda in C was what saved tonight’s performance from mediocrity. It completely eased any discomfort I had about the beginning. Judging from how the quality of this concerto has evolved in the mere 33 minutes of its performance, I for one believe a standing ovation to be well-deserved.

Wow...lots of extraneous words in that paragraph. But more importantly, the plot thickens. We know that one piece "received a standing ovation", and the other "a couple of forced hand claps."

At first I was worried that the time-honored Rachmaninoff would only get a few forced claps. Whew. It'll have to the next piece.

...I wonder what it could be? I hope it's by Michael Haydn...I hate that guy.

Intermission.

Ahh, good...a smoke break

figure intermission: Let's all go the lobby.

...15 wasted minutes later...

Okay, we're back. So what composer's pile of puke awaits only a couple of forced hand claps? I hope it's by H. Owen Reed...I hate that guy.

Then came eminent composer Chen Qigang’s “Iris dévoilée”.

Eminent composer Chen Qigang? Damn. I only like my composers to be pre-eminent. Surely this can't be the piece that will suck ass....it's not by Louis Spohr. (I hate that guy.)

This piece, if described positively,...

well, don't go out of your way or anything...

...is a portrayal of the universal female archetype in nine movements;...

...just like Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, if I read my Susan McClary correctly...

or, if spoken of negatively,...

If you speak positively of something, it seems only fair to speak negatively of it as well...

...intervals of piquant female screams separated by much-needed silences specially designed for disgruntled audience members to flee the scene (many of whom did preciously that).

I've never heard this piece before, but this sounds fair and balanced to me.

Chen Qigang, having studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in China, moved to France at the age of 33 to study with Olivier Messiaen, a composer of contemporary music. Hence, much of Chen Qigang’s repertoire could be placed under the category of new music,...

"new music"...? What's that? Let's ask Google images!

figure new music fun: Yeah! New music looks awesome!

But could it be...

figure miley: On second thought...that sounds awful.

I guess I would have thought that it was music that was actually recently composed. But I guess it's more complicated than that. What did studying with Messiaen do to her music?

...as they sometimes evoke emotional extremes.

Her music was bi-polar? That does sound dreadful. All that damned emotion in her piece. When will composers learn that people just hate it when their compositions have emotional content and meaning? Jeez.

But that's still a bit lacking in terms of a definition. I think an anecdote would help straighten us out.

A catharsis of sorts, as shown by the old lady who sat two seats away from me, who began to laugh hysterically midway through the piece. Other than this interesting fact...

Wait...what interesting fact? That one old lady laughed? Yeah, I guess you're right...that is interesting. Can't wait to call Sator.

...though, “Iris dévoilée” was quite poorly received tonight.

No?! Really?

Facing these two vastly different receptions, it becomes difficult to comment on the concert as a whole.

Come on. Give it a try.

But I will say this: If the aim of this closing event was to act out the name of the China festival “Ancient Paths, Modern Voices”, then the programming did a wonderful job juxtaposing the traditional with the new.

Exactly, by juxtaposing a great work of music with this piece of shit, they did a wonderful job of putting traditional and new together.

However, if Chen Qigang’s piece was included as a representation of the Chinese music scene, then the audience was misled.

I didn't realize that you were an expert on the Chinese music scene. As someone who isn't, who would be an appropriate representation?

For such a depiction would be the equivalent of taking John Cage to be a prime example of “American music”, if such a thing even exists.

Yeah! Fuck John Cage! (I hate that guy sooooo much.)

-----------------------------------------

Great. Article.

Extra! Extra! Glass opera doesn't suck!

David Stabler, of the Oregonian, has written many reviews that I've enjoyed. He's a good writer and has some interesting things to say on occasion. But, where in the world did this come from...?

Portland Opera takes us to hell and back

If you think all Philip Glass music sounds the same – rush-hour traffic for the ear – Portland Opera would like you to meet "Orphée," a French twist on the Orpheus myth.

Okay, a common criticism of Glass...I'd usually let this slide.

Glass' operatic riff opened at the Keller Auditorium on Friday in a stylish production that will almost make you take back those awful things you said about him.

I don't care how good his opera is, I'll never apologize until he apologizes for The Hours! (there's 2 hours I'm never getting back again)

Oh...you mean 'you', as in all of us reading your review. Does Glass' dog crap in all of their yards too?

And really, why bring this up here...? Is common knowledge that everyone dislikes Glass and finds his music awful? Is there some club that I should know about? A support group for those damaged by the music of Philip Glass?

Where are you going with this?

Surprise, surprise, "Orphée" isn't horrible.

That is a...surprise?

It's not wretched or dreary. It's not Novocain. The evening took a while to heat up, but when the visual, musical and dramatic elements came together, it carried an emotional and dramatic charge.

Jebus...tell us what you really think.

The pensive score, shot through with honky tonk bits and seesaw harmonies, kept the ear engaged.

The rest of the article reads fine. So why this, "surprise, surprise, something by Glass doesn't suck" routine?

This attack seems so unprepared and without cause, that I'm really left a bit speechless. Am I missing something, or has the music-loving world just agreed that Glass writes crappy, uninteresting music?

Any thoughts?

Hey, I asked for ketchup! I'm eatin' salad here!

Once upon a time there was this concert review I read in the Times Record News. The Wichita Falls Symphony had wowed the crowd. When they played, she raved. When they paused, she wondered why. Every single thing that they happened to play, in some way, was the greatest thing that had ever been played. That day Lana Sweeten-Shults regaled us of a time when resplendent was an understatement, and undertones both lurked and were pensive. It was a review full of passion and truth and wisdom. It was the kind of review that could only come from the heart.

Wichita Falls Symphony Orchestra wows the crowd

The Wichita Falls Symphony Orchestra conjured magical moment after magical moment Saturday evening at Memorial Auditorium with a perfectly delivered program of American music.

I love American music...being American and all.

(reflectively thinking to himself, somewhat patriotically) In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women!

To say the Candler Schaffer-led orchestra was resplendent in its presentation of “American Treasure: A Tribute to Leonard Bernstein” is an understatement.

Okay, so resplendent doesn't go far enough? What would you say the Candler-Schaffer led orchestra was then? Brilliant? Effulgent? Majestic and monumental? ...are these really more than "resplendent"?

hmmm.... What's greater than resplendent?...

I know. Splendiferous!

From the opening passages of Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9...

Nothing says American (and "A Tribute to Leonard Bernstein") quite like bearded Czech composers from the 19th century...

figure not-American-composer: Musical Facial Hair of the Week

...to the Symphonic Suite from Bernstein’s “On the Waterfront” and selections from “Candide,” the orchestra mesmerized.

The WFSO had one of many shining moments with Dvorak’s gilded dream of the American frontier, his 40-minute, four-movement Ninth Symphony — hands down my favorite symphony after the orchestra’s passionate, rousing delivery of the work.

Now, I know what we're all thinking, "the 'New World' Symphony has four movements?!" It is amazing what a trained journalist can uncover. I guess it's true that you learn something new everyday.

But, this is "hands down" your favorite symphony after this performance? Just wondering out loud here, but have you ever heard a symphony before? Just asking.

While the first movement started off a little slowly,...

...well, to be fair, it is marked Adagio and pianissimo...

...it ended with a big bang, courtesy of insistent violins.

Violins bang?

But it was the work’s famous second movement, the Largo, based on the spiritual “Goin’ Home,” in which the orchestra brought on all its magic in spades. A majesty of strings, with undertones of pensiveness and sadness, lulled the audience with its splendid melody. The symphony handled this movement, often thought to convey nostalgia for home, adeptly and beautifully. The only downside was the long pauses between the first and second movements and again toward the end of the Largo.

er...um..."long pauses"?

Have you ever been to an orchestra concert before?

Just a note about the third and fourth movements. John Williams must have been inspired by this Dvorak work, some of whose passages sound like the battle scenes in “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” and “Jaws,” even.

...And with that, amidst the noise and haste of the offices in Detritus Towers, an incredible calm suddenly surrounds him. Everything went quiet. All the irrepressible sounds of the bustling news room seemed to fade into the distance. Time slows to a crawl as he sits there motionless, pausing mid-thought for what must of felt like an eternity. Bewilderment creeps across his face, and a small pool of saliva forms in the corner of his mouth. Struggling to form cohesive thoughts, he wonders, is this a joke? A cleverly perpetrated hoax by a fan of the Detritus to test our fortitude?

And yet, the hours pass. Day into evening. Evening into night. The staff have all gone home to their blissfully oblivious families, and yet, there sits your humble detrital servant at his desk, mouth agape, eyes unblinking, and a completely blank look across his face. But as he sat there, he realized a few things about himself...about life.

...Growing up happens in a heartbeat. One day you're listening to Mostly Mozart, the next day you're injecting Brian Ferneyhough straight into your eyeballs. But the innocence of childhood stay with you for the long haul, or until you wake up drunk in a motel bed next to Augusta Read Thomas. I remember a symphony, a movement, a phrase like a lot of other phrases, a motive like a lot of other motives, by a composer like a lot of other composers. And the thing is, after all these years, I still look back, with wonder. Does the Jaws theme really sound like the Dvorak 9, 4th movement opening? Yes...I think it does.

We never really talked about it afterward, but I think about the events of that day again and again, and somehow I’m sure that she does too. Whenever some blowhard starts talking about the complexity of contemporary music, or the coldness of modernism. Because we know that Dvorak wrote a symphony that sounds like film music, sometimes, kind of, and that in spite of each of those soulless pieces of new music, with its thorny atonality, and its melody-less textures programed dissonantly before the Mozart piano concerto, there is the "New World" Symphony that sounds like a shark. And as we grow and hear more symphonies and newer music, there will be moments, like that one, of sorrow and wonder.

SLAP!

Sator Arepo: Hey, Butthead. Wake up, kid!

Gus: Ba...

Empiricus: Have you been here all night? You look like shit.

Gus: Snee...

SA: Still working on the Sweeten-Shults piece, eh? Don't forget the staff meeting at 11. Remember, it's your turn to bring the Everclear and disposable enemas.

Details, people. Details.

Question: What do music critics value above all else?

I'm going to guess...the music.

No, no, journalistic integrity.

Perhaps, the service they provide to the community and their readers. ...

figure answer: "The...all....ighty....ollar...... Hahahah..I get it!"

-----------------------------------------------

Nat Bauer, of the Rockford Register Star, reviews the Cypress String Quartet, but more importantly has reminded me of a valuable lesson -- look deeper, and ask yourself what's missing.

Before we get to the review in question, let's start with some practice.

What's Missing?

How'd you do?

Great. Your skills have been honed and now, onto the review.

Quartet embraces classic, contemporary works

I'm glad to hear this, because those classic works are just too infrequently played and unfairly maligned. If musicians would just program these works, and give audiences the chance to get to know this music, the gifts of Georg Christoph Wagenseil and Josef Mysliveček wouldn't be lost on this generation.

So, what old, forgotten works in need of a good hug were on the concert?

Kleotzel [the cellist] introduced the first work, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s “Siring [sic] Quartet in A Minor, Op. 13,” also known as the “Ist es Wahr?” (“Is it True?”)

"also known as"...really? Not subtitled or inscribed...but, aka? ...I just hate when our vocabulary gives out on us.

But really, all of those would have been wrong. The piece is not subtitled "Ist es Wahr?", but instead borrows a three-note motive from a song of the same name that the composer had written a few months earlier. Small details, I know, but if you're going to mention them, accuracy helps.

And if you're into fun facts, why fail to mention that this three-note motive is eerily similar to one used in a Beethoven string quartet. String Quartet No. ...? Ooh, which one? I know I'll think of it, if you just give me a minute.

Oh well, I'm sure it'll come to me. Let's move on. What else is on the concert?

Ward [one of the violinists] introduced the next work, “Lento Assai,” which was commissioned for the quartet by Kevin Puts and premiered in February at the Library of Congress in Washington.

Details would help here too. Kevin Puts is the composer, not the commissioner. It helps when sentences make sense.

Anyways, moving on...

Borrowing some ideas from Beethoven,...

Really, like what?

...the work very slowly emerges with a pianissimo D-flat major chord,...

Oh, well, why even point out something this obvious. I mean a D-flat major chord, that just screams Beethoven. It's just like his famous D-flat major symphony, and all those D-flat major string quartets and piano sonatas.

...slowly builds to a haunting melody by first violin, expands into a more contemporary melody and harmony, then returns to conclude with the soft, subtle and almost seductive texture that began the work.

I've always enjoyed music that builds before it expands so much more than when it expands first and then builds.

Which, reminds me...what was that Beethoven quartet again?

The final work of the evening was Beethoven’s “String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135,”...

Ahh! Damn it! You beat me to it. But, that's the one.

So, this is excellent. Both pieces on the same concert -- explain to us, Mr. Bauer, how the Beethoven utilizes three-note motives and then was likely a source of inspiration for the Mendelssohn....

...which was written shortly before his death. Filner [the violist] explained that it poses two thoughts in musical motif format: “Muss es seine?” (“Must it be?”) and “Es muss seine!” (“It Must Be!”)

Okay. Yes, but what of the connection to the Mendelssohn? You hinted at it...now finish us off by explaining the similarity of the motives, and how they use similar rhythms which were derived from three word, existential questions.

To this day, 184 years later, the reason for and answer remains a mystery.

Umm...what? First, grammatically speaking, you need an object in that sentence. I assume you're referencing the quotes, so you could write, "...the reason for the quotes and their answer..." and so forth. Although, it still suffers from a lack of clarity.

Also, remains implies a singular object....
i.e. It remains...
They remain...
...so in this case we have two objects being referenced (the reason and the answer). Therefore, the sentence should read, "the reason for and answer remain a mystery."

Okay, now I'm getting sidetracked...let's try this again.

To this day, 184 years later, the reason for and answer remains a mystery. The music surrounding them, however, is classic Beethoven and has gained upper status in classical repertoire.

Mr. Bauer...praising the music is all well and good, although, I'm not sure what "upper status" means exactly, but you're missing the obvious. You're so close...you could have just made the connection between the Mendelssohn and the Beethoven and tied the whole concert (and review) together into nice, neat little package. But sadly, no.

First of all, not to be picky or anything, but the Beethoven was written in October 1826, making it pretty much exactly 183 years old. You're within a reasonable margin of error, but two seconds of research or editing would have prevented that mistake.

And, "the reason for and answer remains a mystery". Well, the quotes may have unknown origins (I'm not a German scholar, but I'd probably guess some literary source, while others have suggested they were inspired by an exchange between Beethoven and a friend regarding the payment of money), but this isn't like trying to unify relativity and quantum theory. These quotes do have some explanation -- musically speaking, Beethoven utilizes the implied rhythm of those two phrases (as though set for voice) to create his two rhythmic motives.

"Must it be?" = long, short, long
and
"It must be!" = short, long, long

...also, (and I hate to write so lengthily on this) why not mention that these motives are for the fourth movement, also known as "Der schwer gefaßte Entschluß" (or The Difficult Resolution), and not the entire work? It's kind of confusing, because it seems like you're implying that these motives are present in the first movement, and that's just wrong.

Remember, details help. Details are our friend.

The opening begins grave and poses the “Muss es seine?” motif, quickly followed by the playful and energetic allegretto. The scherzo has brilliance and a unique 50-measure robust repetitive rhythmic figure in the lower voices with first violin playing a melody like a country fiddler.

Do you see how this is confusing? You wrote about the fourth movement first (but I think you think it's the first movement), and then the second movement, which you fail to introduce as such.

Remember: Details, good. Confusion, bad. If confusing prose were an ice cream flavor, it'd be pralines and dick.

And, again with the clarity issues, "a unique 50-measure robust repetitive rhythmic figure," makes it sound like the figure that was repeated was 50 measures long. Frankly, I can think of several different ways to interpret that phrase. Your thought could so much more easily expressed if you had written something like:

...a unique 50-measure passage in the lower voices prominently featuring a robust rhythmic figure.

Or any variation of that, yes?

The third movement was very soft with a simple chorale like melody in four variations, the final movement culminating with a very definitive musical “It must be!”

figure shirt: Your article being the cognitive culmination of "It must be user error."

Okay, so you're not so much deliberately misleading us, as much as I think you're a bit confused. The first movement doesn't feature those motives. It's just in the final movement. So, the final movement is also the very definitive musical "Must it be?" as well.

figure confusing article:

"Must it be?"

"It must be!"

-----------------------------------------
Amongst all the confusing sentences, really the most confounding issue is why you failed to understand the connection between the Mendelssohn and Beethoven string quartets. You linked the Puts to Beethoven (which you hadn't even introduced as having being on the concert yet) and fail to give tangible evidence of the association, but not the Mendelssohn, which actually has a credible, if not direct connect to Beethoven himself, and specifically the Beethoven string quartet being performed on the concert?

Seriously...I had to do way too much research just to understand all of the misleading statements in your article. I know you're a busy guy...so, I wonder if the perhaps the newspaper could hire someone to help review the factual parts...but who?

A Brief Call to Arms!

I know we’ve always suspected those “college” “professors” who “write” “intellectual” “music” of being evil imperialists, spewing “learning” all over the place like dinosaur bones in Eden. Well, it’s time to do something about it! Speak up and let the masses be heard! Together we shall overcome their brutal stranglehold on our pure music!

Tell it like it is, brother patriot!

An uninteresting, academic-composer-worthy chromatic theme pervades throughout the faster second movement.

That's right! We will only stand for uninteresting, non-academic-composer-worthy chromatic tunes! Gather up all the unsavory perpetrators and put them in “institutions,” where we can “keep an eye” on them! Fight to keep our mastermusic free from their taint!
-

A (Modest) Swordfish Proposal

Oftentimes, while watching, say, some playoff baseball broadcast featuring the sadly non-self-parody that is Tim McCarver, or listening to Troy Aikman's often insightful but linguistically nightmarish analysis of a football game, it occurs to me (incredulously) that:

These people get paid to talk for a living.

Figure 1: McCarver (R) with Broadcast Partner and Serial Enabler Joe Buck. "Pitching is such a vital part of the game, as far as winning is concerned." --Tim McCarver, 2006

Now, I'm a reasonable guy. I don't expect every ex-jock that goes into color commentary to have the rhetorical skills of Churchill, or even William F. Buckley, Jr.

Figure 2: Not William F. Buckley, Jr.

But is it too much to ask that people who (again) are paid to talk for a living have some modicum of facility stringing together words that form comprehensible sentences?

...

On an unrelated note, I was reading a concert review the other day.

Felix Mendelssohn didn't leave the world a lot to discover this 200th birthday year, at least in terms of hard notes.

He what what what?

I don't know what that sentence means.

Felix Mendelssohn didn't leave the world a lot to discover this 200th birthday year, at least in terms of hard notes.

"...hard notes?" His music is...easy? Too easy? Man.

"...a lot to discover..." He didn't write much music? Yeah, I guess. I mean, only about 300 works survive today. Fuck you, Webern!

"...in terms of hard notes."

I have no clue what's being suggested here.

Fastidious in his composing habits, refined in the extreme, he created a series of masterworks or close to it whose single-dimension emotionalism assures that new meaning probably won't be uncovered - particularly when the music is confined to a concert's first half and not expected to leave audiences sated.

What the hell? How many sentences died to make that "paragraph"?

Fastidious in his composing habits, refined in the extreme, he..

Just a little background, I guess? Okay...

...he created a series of masterworks or close to it...

I don't know what that means. I don't know if that means anything.

For what is the pronoun "it" standing in? "Masterworks"? No, "it" would have to be plural. "A series of masterworks..."? I...I guess so? I mean, that doesn't really make much sense.

I've been thinking.

It seems like there should be a position filled by an ancillary person who oversees and re-reads articles for content. You know, it's easy to get too close to your prose to see what you wrote sometimes; perhaps a person whose job is to "edit" (if you will) your work so that it's clean and fit for publication.

I'm going to name this imaginary person--the one who does the "editing" (to coin a word)--the "swordfish."

...he created a series of masterworks or close to it whose single-dimension emotionalism...

Um. Aren't nouns usually modified by adjectives? Maybe we should ask a swordfish. Even if the implication is that Mendelssohn--even in his "close to it" masterworks [sic]--is emotionally flat, wouldn't it be better to use "single-dimensional"?

Yes. Yes, it would. But hey: I'm not the swordfish, here.

...masterworks or close to it whose single-dimension emotionalism assures that new meaning probably won't be uncovered...

The research of musicologists into the cultural context of music is stupid; once it's determined that music is "single-dimension emotional...", new meaning is assured to probably not be uncovered.

It's wonderful, too, how the determinism of "assured" is totally hedged and qualified by "probably." This inconsistency both a) sets up the reader for the big payoff [sic] coming up, and b) should have probably been corrected by a swordfish.

"...new meaning probably won't be uncovered - particularly when the music is confined to a concert's first half and not expected to leave audiences sated."

Because nobody ever found anything new about a work programmed in the first half of a concert. I mean, how fucking gauche would that be?

Figure 3: Le main gauche

Yet in an unusual role reversal, the Emerson String Quartet ended its Kimmel Center concert Monday with Mendelssohn's String Quartet Op. 80, written when some scholars say the composer was in creative decline.

How is that a "role reversal"? Is it statistically evident that Mendelssohn is so seldom programmed at the end of a concert that it constitutes an anomaly?

In a performance that bested the Emerson's 2005 recording of the piece, such received wisdom was defied so handily as to leave a burning question about what was different.

The performance was so good...that it might have some meaning?!

Often, 21st century Americans seem cramped by Mendelssohn's tidy, Biedermeier world.

Figure 4: A Tidy Biedermeier World (or: The Fictional, Nostalgic, Lost America That Never Existed but Is Somehow Being Thwarted by Barack Obama)

Figure 5: The Cramps (somewhat circuitously Biedermeier-induced)

This quartet, however, was written following the death of the composer's sister, Fanny. Thus, even the most typical Mendelssohnisms can be credibly charged with greater-than-usual meaning.

Ah. I think I understand now.

So:

Mendelssohn's music, although "single-dimensional emotional" [sic] and despite being "masterworks or close to it" [wtf] actually can have some (heretofore undiscovered) meaning if we do the tiniest, most obvious bit of musicological research?

Projecting that can often be a matter of surface inflection, though on Monday the Emersons created a sound better blended than usual - unusually warm under the surface but pulsating with something hotter underneath.

Warm, hotter. Surface...surface. Ususal--unusually?

Okay, I give up. Talk to the swordfish.

Figure 6: Modern Copy Editor (presumed extinct)

Generalizations are...Wait! Hey! Stop!

You there! Hey! Can you help me out with something? Judging by your looks, I bet you know what makes carrots orange, right?

Figure 1. Despite making his living on carrot-themed jocularity, this guy might not know the answer.

The point being, a generalization about an attribute of identity can be very dangerous, backfiring when you least expect it.

I just wish that Jane Norris, from the Charlottesville Daily Progress, had learned this lesson before writing her puff piece.

-

Amit Peled started his year with a little bit of soul and plans to wind it up with a celebration.

As opening lines go, this one kinda works--you'll see. But that’s hardly why we’re here.

The Israeli cellist, who’ll team up with pianist Eli Kalman for the next Tuesday Evening Concert Series event in Cabell Hall Auditorium, has released “The Jewish Soul,” a CD that dives into complex works by Ernest Bloch, Joachim Stutschewsky, Max Bruch and other composers.

Fine. Good. And all that.

Ready? Here it is:

Having grown up in Israel, surrounded by the culture and the music, he can bring an authentic tone to his interpretations of the pieces [...].

Ah! So he understands the Jewish soul; he was born into it; he lives it; he breathes it. And you can hear that soul manifest itself in the music.

Now, I’m not going to pretend I know the makeup of the Israeli soul. Heck, I don’t even have a pituitary gland! [Yes, that was a Descartes joke] So I'll just take the author's word for it.

One question, though. What happens when...?

On Tuesday, Peled and Kalman will perform an “Homage to Russia” program that includes Sergei Prokofiev’s “Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 119,” Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 40” and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Sonata for Cello and Piano” [...].

Let's see. If we try to use our logic bones, it would follow that our cellist is good at playing music by Jewish composers, because he has an Israeli soul. However, since he’s not Russian he must be bad at playing Russian music, right? ‘Cause he doesn’t have a Russian soul. That’s why he’s good at playing Jewish music. ‘Cause he has an Israeli soul. He's not a Russian. He's Israeli. So he's good at playing Israeli (read: Jewish) music. And bad at Russian (read: not Israeli [read: not Jewish]) music, because he's not Russian, which means he doesn't have a Russian soul. Right? Right?!

Hmm. Is our author suggesting that one must be, say, Catholic to conduct Beethoven with authenticity? [And yes, that's a Wagner/Mahler joke]

Figure 2. Obviously not colored by a cat

Canonics are the Sudoku puzzles of performance

I just love when critics are kind enough to explain the mechanics of how music is written. Just such an example can be found here, in an review by Harriet Howard Heithaus (love the alliterative quality of this name) of the Naples Daily News.

The concert Sunday was to introduce the reconfigured and redesigned Daniels Pavilion at the Philharmonic Center for the Arts. But music and the musicians kept stealing the show.

I hate when they do that.

First it was Glenn Basham, Naples Philharmonic Orchestra concertmaster, and Eric Berg, its associate principal second violinist, playing a Telemann canonic sonata movement from each side of the hall’s midpoint.

Good information. A canonic movement, with the musicians opportunely placed at opposite sides of the hall.

Wait. Is that what you wrote? Playing a Telemann canonic sonata movement from each side of the hall's midpoint.

Do midpoints have sides?

figure escher: Which way again to the midpoint?

Then Principal Flute Suzanne Kirton musically somersaulted in, answering Basham measure for measure in a second Telemann canonic sonata.

Musical somersault?

Also, what are these canonic sonatas?

Canonics are the Sudoku puzzles of performance.

Oh. ... Huh?

Canonics? Is that even a word?

Perhaps you should ellaborate.

These tightly assembled pieces require a second musician to start one to two measures after the first, but playing the exact same score. Each performer must be extremely confident in his or her music because the two never meet until the last notes. Their timing also has to be in perfect sync to keep that carefully constructed musical chase from turning discordant. Kirton, Basham and Berg were great ambassadors for the device, forging tight sequences without ever sacrificing the melodies they were playing.

What piece of Baroque music doesn't need to "be in perfect sync to keep...from turning discordant"?

And, "ambassadors for the device"? Are canonics suffering from bad press?

figure bad decisions: Canonics' probably should just lay off the sauce...at least until they score that next big symphony.

She sure does make this sound like brain surgery. And my favorite part of this lengthy explanation is that at no point does Ms. Heithaus ever use the root form of the word -- you know, canon.

Seriously, Someone Got Paid for This

We’ve seen some doozey lead-ins in our time, ranging from outlandish to outlandisher. In general, they’re uninformative, putrid, zing-slinging shit bombs, like, “Oh my gosh! This concert was the most bestest, transcendentest, awesomest musical ejaculation ever heard, ever! The audience almost died it was so much more gooder than the goodest performance in the history of the universe.” But this one is a little different. It’s a little more subtle.

It was something of a family affair at Friday night’s concert by the Kansas City Symphony at the Lyric Theatre.

Alright. A family affair. Seems reasonable, if a little lackluster. A family affair. That's the thread to be expounded upon. Great. There's one question left to ask, then: How will the opening line play out this time?

Well, my friends, as the Chinese proverb says, the journey is the reward...er...or something. So, sit back and take it all in, in fill-in-the-blank form.

Concertmistress _______ took center stage as soloist in an exciting performance of _______.

_______ employed a sumptuous tone in the work’s famous opening theme. As the movement progressed, _______ also displayed impressive musicality and driving energy.

Music Director _______ conducted a well balanced [sic] performance, keeping the orchestra’s dynamic levels soft enough to let the solo lines dominate. In addition, _______ stretched the phrases beautifully in the movement’s slower central section.

In the second movement, _______ utilized a marvelous blend of lyrical line and rich tonal color. The exciting finale brought the audience to its feet.

-

So far, this vapid assessment—which, by the way, is precisely for what the author received payment—makes one wonder whether or not he actually attended this performance. It has all the characteristics of a prefabricated review:

1. All the descriptors could equally apply to nearly any performer or performance (“exciting performance”, “sumptuous tone”, “impressive musicality”, “well-balanced performance”, etc., etc.).

2. All the music’s formal markers are generic (“soloist”, “famous opening theme”, “movement”, “phrases”, “finale”). Can you describe another piece using these terms? I can.

3. The lead-in thread is entirely absent, suggesting that it was added on later, as an afterthought.

Of course, I’m not suggesting this indeed is what happened. But, for fuck’s sake, a quadriplegic monkey could pound out better assessments.

-

The _______ Symphony Chorus, directed by _______, joined the orchestra and four vocal soloists for _______’s thrilling and dramatic ______.

From the outset the chorus sounded strong and impressive, and balance with the orchestra was quite good, with the exception of the organ, which stuck out like a sore thumb.

The vocal quartet was better on the inner parts, mezzo-soprano and tenor rather than soprano and baritone. From the opening _______, soprano _______ sounded harsh, especially at the top of her range. Baritone _______ sang with beauty and resonance in his upper and middle range, but didn’t have the chops for the ungodly lowest notes in the _______.

Mezzo-soprano _______ was magnificent in the _______ and tenor _______ sang with lyrical beauty throughout the work.

While the performance was quite good overall, the violins never seemed to be together on the ornamental phrases at the beginning of the _______. The chorus suffered a few cases of a single tenor entering early and a few fuzzy-toned soprano entrances.

-

Slightly better, but still, the observations could’ve been made by a dead parrot or a shrubbery.

But enough of that, let's return to the lead-in. Remember that the concert was “something of a family affair”? What could that have meant? How did it play out?

Even the opening work, Bach’s “Brandenburg Concerto No. 3,”conveyed a familial air:

Even? I didn’t smell a whiff of familial air in the above text. Did you?

...Bach’s “Brandenburg Concerto No. 3,”conveyed [sic] a familial air: [Michael] Stern conducted an intimate group of 10 strings and harpsichord.

Small, intimate group = family lead-in

Wow. That’s fucking weak. In fact, this whole review is fucking weak. First, we get a promising lead-in; second, we get nondescript, prefabricated statements about several pieces and performers (really, who cares what or who they were?); then, the lead-in returns to reveal a wafer-thin connection. In all, poor form, poor prose, poor critique, poor observations, poor everything. Calling this mediocre would be an overstatement.

Instead, I’ll offer this: embarrassingly lazy.

Figure 1. Sketch artist’s rendering of this review

A final hackneyed description:

Although the opening movement suffered from a handful of intonation slips in the violins, the performance was nicely shaped and musically satisfying.

Stupendous.
-

No, boys. There's two "O"s in Goose.

Now, I am as forgiving of typos as the next guy -- I guess it's just my liberal leanings. Plus, spelling words correctly (or even spelling them out at all) is apparently quite last century. With all the problems newspapers are currently facing, who has time to get bothered over a their/there incident.

However...

Fear No Music opens season provocatively

...

Nancy Ives, great-granddaughter of a cousin of the composer,...

...also his father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate...

...then performed Elliot Carter's...

Um, Mr. McQuillen -- I believe that Mr. Carter spells his first name with two "t"s. It's okay...a common mistake I'm sure. Really, that extra "t" is silent anyways. Let's not let that ruin a perfectly good review.

Just don't let it happen again. Okay?

...short homage to Charles for solo cello, "Figment No. 2: Remembering Mr. Ives." The famously abstruse Carter generally makes Ives sound as experimental as Stephen Foster by comparison, and the "Figment" was no exception, with bits of "Hallowe'en" and Ives' "Concord Sonata" deconstructed, their fragments heading in uncertain directions. But as the title suggests, Carter's piece was imaginative, as sparkling in its cerebral way as the Ives.

"The famously abstruse Carter generally makes Ives sound as experimental as Stephen Foster by comparison."

Ugh. See, my problem is that the only thing this person judges as "experimental" is a piece's relative atonality, and that's just stupid. Carter does indeed write atonal, very complex music, BUT, that doesn't make his music experimental.

And while Ives wrote plenty of music that was quite tonal, borrowing from popular music and commonplace classical forms of the 19th century, his music was rarely not experimental. It has everything to do with knowing what the words atonal, experimental and avant-garde actually mean with regards to the classical music tradition.

Moving on...

Things turned toward the wild side in the final works. Voglar and Griffin ripped through Stephen Hartke's "Oh Them Rats is Mean in My Kitchen,"...

Now, time for Detrital editorial advocacy, because this is just an awesome piece. Absolutely kick-ass.

You can listen to it here. I insist.

...a crackling, note-bending tribute to early blues inspired by Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Maltese Cat Blues," and the quartet closed with Michael Dougherty's "Paul Robeson Told Me," in which the quartet accompanies...

Wait, a minute. Back that up for second. Michael Who-erty? Mr. McQuillen, I mean, come on.

Misspelling two composer's names is really pretty unacceptable. Seriously.

...Because "Baroque" Sounds Like "Broke," Get It? GET IT?

I swear to Cthulhu there must be a way to write catchy or clever titles for articles without using the stupidest, most obvious jokes possible. Somewhere there is a nascent academic field waiting to be born.

You see, up in Battle Creek, Michigan, a local man (or, at least, grandson of a local woman) was on a space shuttle mission to help repair the Hubble Telescope. Great! I am in favor of such endeavors. I'm not even opposed to programming a symphony concert around [loosely!] space-themed music to celebrate the occasion--on the condition that it's not full of stupid.

I am, however, opposed to tongue-scrapingly idiotic titles. For instance:

Symphony season blasts off with cosmic concert

[Lori Holcomb, Battle Creek Enquirer, October 22, 2009]

Really?

(Hey, did you hear the one about why Bach didn't have any money?)

Also, although clearly classical audiences are changing and need to get bigger, is "theme night at the symphony" really the cleverest idea available? That's like "casual Friday" or "dress-like-a-hobo day" in it's conceptual and innovative brilliance.

Figure 1: Jeans...and buttons! At work!? Hilarious. Paradigms...breaking down...

So often, oh, so often I've bemoaned that symphony concerts aren't frequently enough organized with as much conceptual aplomb as a frat party.

In celebration of the space industry and the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, the Battle Creek Symphony Orchestra will feature photos taken by the Hubble Telescope and cosmos-inspired music at its season opener Saturday.

See? That seems fair enough. Surely they're not going with Holst, though. That'd be way too obvious. I mean...

Titled "Planet Thunder," the concert will feature popular works such as Holst's "The Planets,"

Well, I mean...I guess you kind of have to. Sigh, fair enough. What else?

Strauss' theme from the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey"...

What. There are so many things wrong with that. It's hard to know where to begin.

Figure 2: Battle Creek Cultural Ambassador and Assistant Director for Clever Programming for the Battle Creek Symphony Orchestra

Later in the article, previewing [portending?] things to come:

For lovers of classical music, "Fallen Heroes" on March 27 will pay tribute to those who have died in battle.

For everyone else, it'll just be a bunch of notes and shit.

To wit:

From extraterrestrial images to fiery Celtic concertos, [music director Anne] Harrigan said the 2009-2010 season is designed to attract new audience members while hopefully pleasing loyal attendees.

Yeah. A careful reading of that sentence reveals that the goal is "to attract new audience members" while "hopefully" keeping the old ones, yes?

Figure 3: Fail Salad

Merdle and Haggard Do Science

Merdle: Hey honey! I heard the Cleveland Orchestra won't be wearing tuxedos, but solid-colored shirts instead. No ties!

Haggard: Ooh! That makes them more appealing. Maybe we should go.

-

Then, there’s this:

It’s hard to pinpoint what about the Cleveland Orchestra’s concert Friday caused it to sell out, given that almost everything about it was different.

I suppose I should have italicized “almost everything,” but why italicize when you can give a picture in its place?

Figure 1. Product placement (free of charge)

For one experiment, there were a lot of variables.

Which means: there was another experiment without any variables. In other words, there was a control, i.e., a solid base of knowledge with which to compare and contrast the effect of the variables. Though, you’d want to limit them to, oh I don’t know, one variable, in order to isolate the results. But, hey, that’s good science and we don’t want that in our music, do we?

Anyway, let’s follow this hypothetical experiment.

-

Variable 1:

Was it the earlier start?

Nope. You disproved that one, remember?

Many [...] lingered, purchasing drinks and mingling at club-like tables and lounges around the dimly-lit foyer.

Sounds like they had plenty of time on their hands. That couldn’t be it.

-

Variable 2:

The informal dress of the players?

Hmmm. See above Merdle and Haggard sarcasm.

-

Variable 3:

[Was] it the prospect of a post-concert reception and appearance by world percussion ensemble Beat the Donkey?

Figure 2. Hard to imagine a better reason to go to the symphony than Beat the Donkey

But, as our author later showed, this was indeed a legitimate possibility.

At first, the post-concert party looked ready to backfire. Most of Severance Hall came flooding into the Grand Foyer, forcing patrons to jockey for limited space.

I’ll definitely keep that one in mind when trying to decipher our experimental data. I should have italicized “experimental.”

Figure 3. Suggesting where this is all going

Variable 4:

The short [...] program?

People clamoring for the donkey beaters, drinking themselves into stupors, uncomfortably standing in a dimly-lit foyer...

Yeah. A short program could attract patrons. Though, their priorities don’t seem to be in line with the act of attending an orchestra concert—listening to music. How ‘bout that, then? What about the music?

-

The control group:

The [...] all-Beethoven program?

So, to ask the question again: what packed the house that evening? Oh yeah, the one thing that symphonies resort to when they need to pack a house.

-

Haggard: I also heard they were going to play nothing but Beethoven.

Merdle: I heard that too. Last week, in fact. And the week before that. And the week before that.

Haggard: These things sound like a broken Glass record.
-

Where have all the editors gone?

"That's like asking the square root of a million. No one will ever know."*

But more to the point...Elaine Schmidt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel needs a thesaurus.

MSO plus Beethoven equals grandeur

"How many pounds in a gallon?"

Two of the three "Bs" of classical music, Beethoven and Brahms, dominated Friday evening's Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra program.

Felix Blumenfeld being the third "B", of course.

figure felix: Facial hair of the week?

Music director Edo de Waart and the players of the MSO used Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 to fill the program's second half with grandeur and gravitas.

...and glory, grandiosity, gravity and greatness...

First performed in 1813, the piece was hailed as "joyous" and "celebratory" by some writers of the day and said to depict a revolution or the plot of a Goethe novel.

I would have said it was resplendent, or perhaps, effervescent. Maybe even a bit mirthful?

Nearly two centuries later, the piece remains a pillar of the orchestral repertoire, deriving its compelling forward motion in great part from Beethoven's brilliant use of rhythm.

It is nice, that forward motion stuff.

De Waart and the MSO gave the piece a vivid reading that used the piece's insistent rhythms to long, gradual crescendos to musical heights and to give poignant depth to its solemn second movement. [italics mine]

Vivid reading. Check. Sounds exciting.

Preparing to fast forward...

...(and never mind the awful construction of the sentence above, which seems to read, "the vivid reading used the rhythm to long crescendos")...all the editors are dead and such...

De Waart and the orchestra took their own turns in the spotlight during the Brahms.

They gave a well-crafted reading of its lush orchestral writing, some of which was intended for the fifth symphony, which Brahms never completed.

A well-crafted reading? O-kay.

and...what else did the orchestra read...?

The evening opened with a precise, colorful reading...

D'oh!

...of "Wu xing (The Five Elements)," a piece by Qigang Chen that is constructed of five brief movements: Shui (Water), Mu (Wood), Huo (Fire), Tu (Earth) and Jin (Metal).

I shouldn't have to point this out, but orchestras don't just read music. They can also play, perform, and present music. They can display, exhibit, and produce...or put on, render, represent, or realize said musical composition. One might also say that the orchestra may offer a piece, or execute the musical score. They mount, engineer, and even direct the show. They emote the music, do justice to the score, or bring about, bring off or carry through a performance. They might stage an event, or pull off a production, or simply take care of business.

And when one plays music, they also conceive, cultivate and propagate. And that performance may engender, effectuate, beget and blossom, not to mention beguile, regale and captivate the audience. And may I suggest that you continue to search for, hunt, scan, discover, track down, and seek out new words until your thesaurus is effete, barren, infertile and right out of synonyms.

---------------------------------------------------
* For you aspiring mathemagicians out there, I'd like to point out that there are actually two answers to this question. Both 1000 and -1000 when squared will equal a million.

A friday quickie -- cutting out of work early

Part of the job of every music critic is advocate on behalf of his art. Some are more shameless than others, while some use their column to take swipes at the local music organizations. It's all good. But sometimes it can be difficult to distinguish the review from a press release.

And then there are strange and overly enthusiastic reviews like this one, written by Richard Scheinin of the San Jose Mercury News.

Virtuoso Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez and German soprano Diana Damrau wowed audience at S.F. Opera

I'm not sure that'd quite fit on the marquee.

So many people think opera is, you know,...

I know?

...ultra-challenging, elitist, weirdly out of the mainstream, anything but popular entertainment.

Oh, I do know. This is the setup, that you can then knock down with your stellar pitch.

So what opera being performed is not weirdly out of the mainstream and sure to strike a chord with the hip, popular types?

A new opera by Philip Glass? Or some lamentable opera, rock crossover by the Moody Blues, or Roy Orbison? Is Transformers an opera yet?

These people now have an assignment: March to War Memorial Opera House, where San Francisco Opera's "La Fille du Régiment" ("The Daughter of the Regiment") by Donizetti...

Donizetti?!? Doni-fucking-zetti!

Donizetti is to today's popular entertainment what the surrey is to modern transportation.

..."La Fille du Régiment" ("The Daughter of the Regiment") by Donizetti is unleashing a blast of smart farce that's flat-out fun and resplendent with singing guaranteed to leave folks scratching their heads in tingly amazement.

figure shampoo: Guaranteed to not leave folks scratching their heads in tingly amazement.

Among the thousands who attended Tuesday's opening were many who anticipated one event:

What could it be? Axl Rose sings in the lead role, after bringing democracy to China?

a feat of virtuoso derring-do by 36-year-old Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez.

"a feat of virtuoso derring-do"?! I'm very excited now. Don't keep me in suspense. Does he eat dynamite and drink nitroglycerin?

figure daffy: Greatest showman ever.

In the role of Tonio, the Tyrolean hayseed lover, he has wowed audiences around the world in "La Fille," even generating front-page headlines in the New York Times last year, by singing a famous aria titled "Ah, mes amis," in which he is required to pop nine high C's — something Pavarotti used to do and which most tenors simply can't pull off.

Sing nine high C's? Well, that's cool too. I guess.

But I'm still not convinced I want to march to this concert yet. I don't know much about opera and don't understand your "high C" reference. Can you give an analogy a hip, popular, non-elitist, simpleton like me could relate to?

Flórez pulled it off, this act of macho virtuosity. He didn't do a solo encore, nailing all nine a second time, as he did in New York. Still, it was plenty good — like watching baseball's Prince Fielder, launching one blast after another in the home-run derby contest at the All-Star Game. Oh, come on. He can't really be doing that!

Like hitting homeruns! Why, that's the best part of baseball! I can relate to that.

Wow! Sounds exciting. Maybe I'll go see the Blue Angels afterward.

figure planes: "Air show? Buzz-cut Alabamians spewing colored smoke from their whiz jets to the strains of "Rock You Like A Hurricane?" What kind of countrified rube is still impressed by that?"

Count me in!

Thanks, Richie.

---------------------------------

Actually it sounds like it was a great show...other than it's a Donizetti opera. But do read the rest of what is a pretty fun review. I kid Richard Scheinin.

Scherzo...which means joke

Mark Kanny, of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, offered up this short review of the Orion String Quartet.

Orion quartet shines in chamber opener

Vitality sang...

Curious personification...

Vitality sang with many accents...

I'm not sure that's really a compliment, since we typically associate singing with lyricism and not so much with "many accents"...but, whatever...

Vitality sang with many accents Monday night when the Orion String Quartet opened the season of the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society at Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland.

Puzzling personification aside, good opening sentence. There's a who, what, where, when, all packed into a short, concise sentence. I hope you'll expound on that vitality comment, though.

In addition to classical and romantic repertoire, the program featured the world premiere of "A Tribute for Two" by Pittsburgh native Eugene Phillips, which proved to be a rewarding composition.

Nice little aside -- because, at first, I was quite worried about being taxed when you first mentioned a world premiere.

Graph 1: We just don't tax vices like we use to.

The premiere had a sweet charm because the violinists of the quartet, Daniel and Todd Phillips, are the sons of the 90-year-old composer.

That is sweet. I'm kind of surprised we didn't get some hackneyed "family affair" cliché crammed into the headline for this review. Oh well...

An exquisite performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's String Quartet in G major, K. 387, opened the concert with great allure.

Good thing the performance was alluring...I was just about to get up and leave, but I was allured--enticed even--to stay.

Plus, isn't adding "great allure" a bit redundant? The exquisite performance was alluring? Seems rather obvious, no? Yes, exquisite and allure mean different things, but why compliment the performance twice...once at the start of the sentence and once again at the end. I just don't like that construction. Don't worry about it, though, I'm sure it's just me.

But...we had started so well. Short and concise. Good information, and now this unfortunate wordiness...

The quartet, led by Todd Phillips, gave a performance of Mozartean refinement and songfulness.

Wait...the Mozart was Mozartean?

figure insekt: The nightmarish narrative in the Metamorphosis sure is Kafkaesque.

Also...songfulness? I know that dictionary.com says it's a word, but admit it...that sounds made up.

Soft passages were genuinely soft, and while there was ample dynamic range, the music never shouted.

Ah...there you go. Back to your concise, unadorned critique. Well said.

Phillips' "A Tribute for Two," written eight decades after his first composition, was a three-movement response to the passing of two friends. The first movement was shrewdly drawn, full of muscularity in an uneasy context.

Now, I haven't heard the piece, but what is "an uneasy context"? Did you have to listen to the piece while discussing the "birds and the bees" with a curious 6 year old, or did you perhaps accidentally run over the composer's cat? Or perhaps it was like eating at Taco Bell?

The heart of the piece is the slow movement, which didn't dawdle at the "Andante con moto" tempo.

"Didn't dawdle"? I actually think that's what the "con moto" means.

Nor did it wallow in grief.

Once again, I direct you to the meaning of "con moto"...and actually, I think you misunderstand "andante" as well.

It was a beautiful evocation of two personalities, with inspired music for transitions.

Whoa...I do love a good tempo analysis, but this seems like the meat and potatoes of the piece. What does it mean "two personalities"? How were they evoked? What were the emotions of each? Did they seem representative of the deceased?

And "inspired music for transitions"? Transitions between the two personalities?

...such a short sentence and so many questions.

The finale, called Scherzo, which means joke, was lively, witty and brief.

Okay, it shouldn't bother me, but..."called Scherzo". It just seems so 5th grade book report. Might I suggest: entitled, or titled, named, designated...hell, even christened, dubbed, or consecrated would have been more interesting.

Also, more to the point, while scherzo does originate from an Italian word meaning "joke", you should know that in this context the word scherzo has more connotations as a formal movement than as an evocative title. It's a lively movement (traditionally speaking) that was used to replace the obligatory, and often boring minuet movement. It's more of a perfunctory title....m'kay?

Phillips' new piece was so interesting, I wished it were longer.

Bassist Timothy Cobb, who was a fully integrated member of the ensemble in the Phillips,...

And here I was, like an idiot, thinking the Phillips was a string quartet.

Thanks for leaving me hanging, Mr. Kanny.

....[Cobb] also joined the quartet after intermission for Antonin Dvorak's String Quintet in G, Op. 77. It was performed in five movements, with the "Intermezzo: Notturno" that is often omitted and also is played separately sometimes.

lol! (as the kiddies would say). Nice sentence construction. /sarcasm

Daniel Phillips took the first chair for the Dvorak. He is a player of exceptional depth...

I guess unlike his brother...?

...who led a performance fully in touch with Dvorak's emotional world. The "Notturno" was so beautiful, one wondered how it could ever be omitted, while the "Poco Andante" fourth movement was heavenly.

hmmm...interesting idea juxtaposing the beauty of the omitted movement with one performed...

Nor did the performance slight the physical exuberance of Dvorak's personality.

The end.

figure 3: Kind of short on examples today, but I found this photo while searching Kafka. It is very fun to look at.