Ho Hum

Another Bernard Holland article. Ho hum.

Schoenberg and his school do not make us smile,

(yawn) Ho hum.

but then, they rarely try.

Ho (yawn) hum.

Ho. Hum. Yawn.
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I'm Really Tired of This Dreck

Here’s another Bernard Holland train wreck, which doesn’t justify my time, nor anyone else’s time. So, I’ll just give you a link and a parting faux pas.

The link.

The faux pas:

And “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” almost a part of popular culture by now, was swift, clean and gimmick-free.

My italics. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. And another Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Enjoy, you Detritus masochists.

911. Is this an emergency?

I’m not sure.

What is the nature of your problem?

There’s this couple at Weill Recital Hall. They’re fighting, again. The man seems to be instigating the fight.

I’ll send the police, sir. Can you stay on the line?

Yeah, sure.

Can you describe what the man is doing?

It’s difficult to describe. I’ve seen them do this before. The woman has a temper, but she usually keeps it in check. But this guy, he just seems to have "brought out the worst in her." And what’s more, she takes it out on everyone there.

How do you mean, sir?

Well. She’s a pianist.

Excuse me, sir. Did you say pianist?

Yes. Hold on! (ducks from hard-flung tritone, followed by a minor second)

Can you describe what the pianist is doing?

She’s playing.

Playing what, sir?

Elliott Carter’s Piano Sonata from 1946.

Can you describe the pianist, sir?

Uh, If this pianist has a principal trait, it is a big, hearty and sometimes brutal relationship with her instrument.

Can you describe her relationship with the instrument, sir?

It’s like she seemed to play the piece with fluency and enjoyment. I mean, she just snapped.

Can you please describe the man?

He’s not actually here.

Can you repeat that for me, sir?

He’s not actually here. His name is Elliott Carter, though. He's a composer. I’ve seen him before. He’s "pugnacious" and "invites the performer's aggression."

Can you describe what he looks like?

He has white hair. He’s a little slow. Oh! And he’s 99.

99 what, sir?

Years old.

(911 operator hangs up. End of recording/transcription)

Give Em a Shot Across the Bow

When you say shit like this,

So much nontonal music contradicts itself by grafting a new language onto old sentence structure, creating Brahms with wrong notes.

...you had better be prepared to back it up, because I’ll come after you like stink on a cadaver.

So, my little scholar, back it up!

Not so Webern, whose musical grammar is as innovative as its vocabulary. The Variations here took on the shape of spoken conversation: question and answer, proposition and response, and the silences in between.

No. Bad. (rolls up the newspaper, swats) No.

Don’t think that I’ll let you evade responsibility, even if you praise Webern. Defend your stupid statement!

You might call him the Janacek of outer space.

As humorous as this may be, you don’t get a free pass. Give me examples, proof, anything that might convince me, the reader, that nontonal music contradicts anything; that Brahms is inherently complex; that the metaphor of music as language is apt; that wrong notes are bad!

Critics, you can’t just say shit and not be held responsible. If this was on the front page, Bernard Holland would be fired! As a reader, I have no sympathy for word counts or deadlines. No excuses, this is plain awful.
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Shame on Allan Kozinn!

Like Steve Smith in an earlier post, I caught NY Times columnist Allan Kozinn with his hand in the prefabricated, stock sentence jar.

__________ was at his best, bringing crisp articulation and an irresistible zest to the outer movements and giving the Largo an understated but pleasing lilt.

Shame on you, Allan! Go to your room, too! And no TV for a... what!? Don’t you talk back to me! Don’t you get that tone with Alfred Schnittke!

Tone rows melt into stretches of arching Romanticism, which coalesce into modernist acidity.

Don’t ever, ever talk about composers like that! Shame on you! You are so grounded. Just wait ‘til your father gets home.

Seriously, this is FUBAR. Kozinn has apparently taken Holland’s place on top of the modernist-hating pedestal, with an even more spiteful and backhanded tone. In one lousy sentence, he makes his opinion heard, loud and clear. This is, honestly, the worst piece of hateful music writing I have ever encountered.

Right off the bat, he belittles “tone rows”—which we all know by now are associated with Schoenberg—by comparing them to Romanticism. Tone rows, a humble little compositional technique, are compared to a rather hefty, stereotypically aggrandized period of sentimental thought. Why not replace “Romanticism” with a technique of the composers from that period, say functional harmony? You know, to be fair about this whole thing. Or instead of “tone rows,” why not name the period of thought associated with tone rows, say modernism? Right? Equal weight, no emphasis on either one. Of course, this is not what Kozinn does.

He also qualifies “Romanticism” with “arching.” Why? To what end? In the same spirit of fairness, as before, why not qualify “tone rows” with something similar, like “shapely?”

Notice how Kozinn cleverly capitalizes “Romanticism” but does not give “modernist” the same respect? Subtle, isn’t it? Not that it’s poor usage, but, for aesthetic reasons, it diminishes, or taints, the importance of modernism.

And when you mix modernism and romanticism, you get “modernist acidity.” Again, anything modernism touches turns into something nasty and “acidic.” This is just a flagrant and gratuitous stereotype. Shame on Kozinn.

To top it off, I’m not quite comfortable placing Alfred Schnittke in the modernist camp; one could easily argue that his eclectic musical personality is more indicative of post-modernism. Either way, this just intensifies Kozinn’s anything-new-is-to-be-lumped-together stereotype. And it reinforces his lack of knowledge, or research, about music, especially Schnittke.

Allan?! I’m not going to tell you twice! Apologize to Mr. Schnittke!

Yet it’s not quite a free-for-all.

Allan!? That’s not an apology!

To be fair, though, let me explain. I jumped into the middle of his description of Schnittke’s Concerto for Piano and Strings. He said this earlier:

This is Schnittke in his quirky, wry mode.

Schnittke is quirky.

The work’s single movement quotes, with distortions, Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata and Russian Orthodox chants and alludes to Renaissance choral writing and Stravinsky.

This is why Schnittke can be quirky: he is eclectic (that’s also why I think he’s a post-modernist). This is all fair and good. However, after the penultimate shit-slinging sentence, he says:

Yet it’s not quite a free-for-all.

So, given the Beethoven, the Russian Orthdox chants, the Renaissance writing, Stravinsky, tone rows and arching Romanticism, I can see how he might think that it’s a free-for-all, of styles. No problem, there. The problem is that he begins with “yet,” suggesting that the “modernist acidity” is a direct result of Schnittke’s eclecticism. Kozinn even tempers this with “quite,” acknowledging that it is a free-for-all, but that there’s something else that might make this acidic mess go away.

The wispy, tentative piano figure that opens the work resurfaces in different guises, giving the piece a measure of unity.

A measure of unity? That’s it?

Translation: the piece is a bunch of nonsensical modernist poo, but the piano repeats some wispy things, which gives it a “measure of unity.”

That is most definitely NOT an apology! Shame on you, Kozinn!

Empiricus: Mr. Schnittke, I must apologize for my little Allan’s actions. But then again, he doesn’t know any better, which is why he writes for the leading daily in the country. Also, if you’ve read the rest of the article, please give my apologies to Ms. Higdon as well. The inner movements of her piece were good, too. Oh, and while you’re at it, could you apologize to the horn players. They play a particularly difficult instrument and a mistake now and then is okay, in fact, it’s normal.
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Our Immortal Beloved

I feel particularly bad, today. On a day when there are all kinds of post-worthy articles to rip, I felt drawn to this guy, again. Not simply because he hates new things—and he hates new things in this, as well. But he has this intangible knack for putting his foot in his mouth on a regular basis. The majority of his comments are often tainted with backhanded compliments and, I’m not sure what to call it so I’ll call it: elder-generation-isms.

Women in high office are becoming such a nonissue that listeners could visit Xian Zhang conducting the Orchestra of St. Luke’s on Sunday afternoon and just listen.

While this almost sounds like a good thing, i.e., women no longer seem out of place in leadership roles, our beloved author makes it sound like he’s just discovered equality. He’s like, “you don’t have to ogle her like a freak show; you, the audience--and take it from me--should just accept this and listen to the music.” Why does he need to state this? What possible reason does he have to draw attention to such an antiquated non-debate?

Being female and Chinese in the classical music business are helpful in getting yourself noticed...

But he just said that women in “high office” are a nonissue. Why, then, would anyone pay particular attention to the fact that she is a woman? Unless, he’s saying that being a Chinese woman is an issue—one that gets you noticed, like women in the workplace did for our author back when Eisenhower was in office. The tone is strangely derisive. Either that or our author has a fever.

... but careers are built [...] on substance.

I think can I agree with that—that being female and Chinese doesn’t ensure success. I just hope, for her sake, Xian Zhang has substance.

Ms. Zhang has it.

Oh good. That was painful. All he said, or needed to say was this: Ms. Zhang has substance. Instead, our Mr. beloved gives us this weird spiel about women, and especially Chinese women, because Xian Zhang is a Chinese woman.

That’s how our immortal beloved begins his article. He also says something weird about German tourists.

Mr. Holland's Wooden Shoes

Get yourself a drink, or two, and settle in.

We’ve all been privy to those awkward moments when our elders regale about the old days of yore. Like when your grandfather, in a gruff voice, said something like, “I remember the day when people had to sharpen pencils in order to write things. You even had to write it by hand. Not like these new-fangled interwebs and their automatic typers. Then you’d have to lick a sticky paper stamp and fix it to an envelope, which was like taping a coin to the outside. I remember coins, you could buy a whole three-course meal, with a cherry pie at the end, with just one halfpenny, which took a week to earn on my paper route. Where was I? Pies. I remember pies, especially Mrs. Wilson’s pie. Her pie was delicious. Then you’d have to take that envelope to the local negro and have him go to the United States Post Office and send it off. Four months later, you might get a reply.”

Similarly awkward, Mr. Holland is still trying to tell us about the virtue of his wooden shoes, as opposed to those unfamiliar, difficult, soulless, unpopular new Converse High-tops. Or, if you prefer, substitute “wooden shoes” with “stuff he likes,” and substitute “Converse High-tops” with “Elliott Cater.”

Prototypically American, Atypically Challenging

I bet Mr. Holland doesn’t like America.

Mr. Carter, approaching his 100th birthday and subject of the Focus! 2008 weeklong series of concerts at the Julliard School, could not be mistaken for a soulful Russian, a singing Italian or a Central European bearing the weight of the centuries.

So Americans are not soulful, like Russians; they aren’t songbirds, like Italians; they aren’t Jesuses, like Central Europeans. And neither is Elliott Carter. But what could his music be mistaken to be?

In his music there is no patina [the green film of oxidation on bronze after many years], only fresh paint.

Okay... his music is not old; it’s new. Yep. That’s exactly what his music could be mistaken to be, new! Well, not quite the answer I was looking for. I mean Russians are soulful! What are Americans? New!??

And what about Holland’s metaphor, paint? I don’t know if he really thought this one through, because paint, as I understand it, is something attached to a surface. Is Holland saying that Carter’s music lack depth? Or is it just new? Keep that one in mind as we go along. It might resurface.

The edges are not worn smooth but sharp to the touch.

Okay, it’s new. I got it. Everyone else got it. (keep in mind: “new,” and “sharp”)

James Levine conducted the Julliard Orchestra in the “Symphonia: sum fluxae pretieum spei” and the Cello Concerto, a very large mouthful of Mr. Carter’s art and one that assuredly left these splendid musicians and a packed Saturday night house...both satisfied and exhausted.

Keep in mind: “very large mouthful.” I omit “satisfied” and “exhausted,” for now, because this is not Holland’s opinion. I don’t think he has ever been satisfied with new music.

The cellist Dane Johansen was brave and virtuosic and needed to be both.

This, however, is Mr. Holland’s opinion. He thinks that the cellist needed to be brave. Why? To do what he has been training for his entire life, to play the cello? Or was Elliott’s music just that intimidating and the cellist had to be brave in order to face it, like an American Gladiator? I think that Holland thinks that Elliott Carter is a monster. What do you think?

The idea of Mr. Carter as American-made makes sense.

Oh yeah. How?

There are the reserves of psychic energy: the impulsiveness and aggression, the hard work achieved through high sophistication, the absence of neurosis.

Mr. Wooden Shoes calls Carter: impulsive, aggressive, highly sophisticated, and cold, cool and unexpressive. Gee-willickers, Wally. Is Holland saying that Americans are these things, too?

Please note, though, his use of “highly sophisticated.” It has been my experience that Holland uses this term ad libitum, for anything new that he doesn’t understand, or like (it’s placation—it sounds nicer). I’m sure, if he ever looked at, or heard, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” with any understanding of music whatsoever, that he’d find it a very sophisticated tune. It might not be as sophisticated as his Puccini, but it’s certainly complex and worthy of the moniker: “highly sophisticated.”

It’s one of the most egregious and backhanded compliments hands down. And remember, this is what he’s also saying about Americans, too.

The concerto greets us with the musical equivalent of gunshots.

Gunshots greet me with a sensation of fright and pain (my ears hurt). Thus, in Holland’s veiled words, Carter greets us with pants-wetting, ear pain. Nice. Carter is an American.

The contrasting lyrical writing sings gracefully; it shines but without a hint of sweetness.

And although Americans sing gracefully, they are not sweet, like Italians, who sing.

The “Symphonia” gathers three movements composed separately that together constitute an evening of listening all in themselves. Mr. Carter makes no pretense of simplicity. He has that American knack for making complex constructions work.

Americans work hard and Carter’s complex constructions work. But damn, it’s dense. That reminds me of a story my grandpa once told me about the war.

“Those damn mortar shells got my buddy, Danny. He had a girl back in Chattanooga, who always made him cookies. He’d go over to her place and put the bunny in the hole. Then she’d make him some cookies. Chocolate Chip, I think. Anyways, when we made it to Burgandy, I found a little doll on the side of a bombed-out road. It was covered in mud. Which was the name of my favorite beer, back in Toledo. I’d go to the bar there, and because I looked older than my age, they’d serve me up some Mud. But those chocolate chip cookies were hard as rock, Danny told me. He said they were so dense that you couldn’t swallow a bite without chugging a gallon of milk, which we used to have to get ourselves from the cow. But, oh, he said it was torture watching her make them. She used every dish in the house. I had myself a few dishes. Somehow, after all of the rigmarole, you could eat her cookies.”

People on Saturday... struggled to find their seats, so concentrated and intense was this sophisticated gathering.

Of course, you didn’t think you were going to get away from a Bernard Converse-Hater article without mention of those elite fucks who go to these damn complex concerts, about which Holland writes and gets paid, did you? Americans who, like Carter, were sophisticated went to the concert, and seemed to be intrigued by it, or according to Holland, were so exhausted that they couldn’t muster the strength to find their own seats.

Yet in the larger world of classical-music audiences—those who find comfort in Mozart, inspiration in Beethoven and exotic fantasies fulfilled in Ravel or the young Stravinsky—Mr. Carter has virtually no audience at all.

In other words, most classically-minded audiences (who mostly live in Europe, by the way) don’t listen to Carter’s music for comfort, inspiration or to fulfill exotic fantasies. In other, other words, Elliott Cater sucks! I hate new music! I hate New American Music! I especially hate new American music that reminds me of Schoenberg!

Laughable running tally—

Carter IS NOT: oxidized, soulful, singing, a Jesus, smooth, simple, sweet, comforting, inspiring. Nor will he fulfill your exotic fantasies.

Carter IS: like paint, new, sharp, a monster, impulsive, aggressive, highly sophisticated, cold, unfeeling, frightening, complex.

I hope, after all this Carter bashing (By the way, he’s fucking 100 years-old! This just further exemplifies Holland’s intellectual cowardice, I believe), Holland will finally tell us what Americans are like. Please, Mr. Shoe? Pretty please? Pretty please with fulfilled exotic fantasies on top?

Like America as seen by some nations [Holland?], he is famous, admired and not particularly liked.

BINGO! In his own words, “America is famous, admired and not particularly liked.” And so is Carter.

I love how Holland draws a parallel between the dislike of America with Elliott Carter. Mr. Elliot writes music. You may not like it. But he just writes music. And to draw this baggage-laden parallel is childish, and sort of, in a way, racist. It’s as if Holland just started writing, like my grandfather rambling, typed enter, and Presto! His work was done.

But go on Mr. Tulip-Levees, I want to know why Carter is not liked, like Americans are not liked.

Also like many Americans in the postwar era, he was born into comfort, has lived in prosperity and functioned with a confidence bordering on impunity.

He just writes music. Why do I care if he is wealthy? Oh wait. Stop, stop, stop. I get it. Holland is saying that Elliott Cater is a social elite. And his bread and butter is to buy more oil companies and step on the little man. Right?

Most of us...

You know, us working-class, blue-collared folk going to Elliott Carter Concerts in New York.

...want everybody to love us, but Mr. Carter seems comfortable with the admiration of the chosen.

Don’t include me Holland Dyke! Speak for yourself. Apparently, Mr. Carter, who is 100 fucking years-old, only cares about himself and other elitist snobs who have money. This is fucking bat-shit crazy bullshit. He's comparing Carter to Eisner, which is like comparing apples to fulfilled erotic fantasies.

“I remember the Great Depression. I was going on fifty, or was it twenty? We lived in a Hooverville just outside of Stockton. My dad picked almonds and my mother picked tomatoes. I picked artichokes twenty hours a day for three pennies, which could buy a new house in those days, but they fired you before you could collect. The girls in the ‘ville would let you collect. The farmers said you didn’t work the whole day, so they couldn’t pay you. We were always trying to get the money, but the jobs weren’t coming. I remember once taking a job writing about the local symphony concerts. But I hated it. The money was good, but I couldn’t stand the clothes you had to wear. A tie and clean long pants. I remember having a pair of shoes that I got back in Modesto. Those were the good old days. I wrote columns about the concerts and the stupid people going to them. I don’t think anyone ever read my reviews, probably reading the more expensive paper across town. There was a good sandwich shop across town; we got the ham. Then...”


....


.... zzzzzz


“.... the Germans! (snort) Oh where was I? Oh. Then we’d get a soda from the street vendor. He used to go to those concerts. But he wasn’t rich. For some strange reason he just liked them because...”


....


.... zzzzzz


....


.... zzzzzz

Check out this comparison article by Allan Kozinn.

Back in my day,

I had to walk to school only one sun-filled block, downhill. I get the impression that it was very different for Mr. Holland. Here's his homework, which is seemingly about an all-Brahms program given by the Emerson String Quartet, on what must’ve been a tough day for Mr. Holland to get excited.

You greet a cold, hard, wintry Sunday afternoon with either avoidance or embrace.

In other words, you commit suicide or you live. Okay, so that’s probably not exactly what he’s intending to convey. I’ll try that again. On a typically lazy Sunday, either you avoid going outside so to stay all fuzzy and warm, pessimistic about the yucky conditions, or you go outside, optimistic about the day’s potential. I’ll buy that.

Stay home and dream about the beach at Waikiki, or go hear the Emerson String Quartet play Brahms chamber music in three different minor keys.

One can avoid the day by staying home and dreaming of Waikiki, or one can embrace the day by going out to listen to Brahms. Sounds great to me. I love Brahms’ music. I’ll go out on a cold, hard, wintry day for some good Brahms. But, wait. Three minor keys? Aren’t minor keys usually associated with sadness and, or, cold, hard, wintry days? Maybe I won’t go outside if all I hope to get is a cold, hard, wintry day. That does not sound pleasant. Sorry, Brahms.

For all their sophistication and invention, Brahms’ string quartet’s are tough love, and hearing consecutively both ends of his Opus 51—one piece in C minor, the other in A minor—is an awful lot of genial determination at one sitting.

Here, I believe that “genial determination” refers to the Emerson Quartet. Their concert plagued by a nasty winter’s day, with sophisticated and inventive music in three different minor keys, making for tough love. You gotta really, really want it. I wonder what Mr. Holland wanted?

To ensure any hint of a smile off its collective face, there was the F minor Quintet for Piano and Strings after intermission...

Good. Something to make the six-mile, uphill trek on a snowy day worth it.

The quintet may be the most welcoming of the three items, but it is also classical music’s prototype for stubbornness.

Well, so much for that. I should’ve stayed home, had some hot cocoa, curled up with my absurdicon thesaurus and listened to the radio play convivial flute music, all the while dreaming of Hawaii and its long-overdue statehood.

First Brahms wrote it for five string players and didn’t like it. Then he wrote it for two pianists and didn’t like that either. Clara Schumann told him that the final version sounded like orchestra music...

Brahms: too stubborn to “stay the course.” Flip-flopper. I wouldn’t vote for him. Nor would I walk twelve miles uphill in a fierce snowstorm to listen to his music.

...indeed the piece is an awful lot of energy crammed into one relatively small piece.

It’s welcoming; it’s stubborn; it’s dense. The quartets are tough love. They’re all in minor keys. Hmmm. I’m on the fence. But, before I think about putting on my galoshes, Mr. Holland, entice me a little more for my troubles.

Brahms evidently did not wait for inspiration to compose, the result often being intense rectitude born of enormous craftsmanship.

Uninspired? Righteous craftiness? I just lit the fire, put the water on the stove, slipped into my brand new Fun Sleepwear Mario Brothers Red Mushroom Slippers, and got out the thesaurus. All that’s left is to turn on the radio and find some conviv...

In this quintet some light is allowed to enter. Measures of lyrical beauty and even jauntiness help mitigate—for both players and listeners—the virtuoso fierceness that makes the first and last movements sound so...

Halt! How could I have been so rash? There is something in the quintet that will make all of the snow trapped in my long johns melt! Let’s get dressed! We’re going out! But first, let’s finish Holland’s thought. Now, what about the first and last movements sounding so... what?

...warlike.

Fuck.

I don't know what to do.

I know. I'll make a list. Brahms and his music has been described thusly: sophisticated, inventive, stubborn, dense, uninspired, righteously crafty, warlike—and, to top it off, all behind this imposing backdrop of a cold, hard, wintry day.

Doesn’t it sound eerily like something we’ve heard before? Wait! Oh no. You can’t be serious. Could it be? Really?

It is easy to understand why Schoenberg so attached himself to the music of Brahms...

Fuck. It is.

Another backhanded insult to Schoenberg, or at least whatever Mr. Holland decides he associates with Schoenberg.

...[Schoenberg] would go on to raise the idea of high density to another level.

Dense = bad?

I don’t think I ever came across the “idea of high density,” sir. If by “high density” you mean that Brahms’ music was dense (stated above) and Schoenberg liked (“attached” himself to) dense things, thus Schoenberg liked Brahms, then I am forced to call you a sack-of-mostly-Hudson-River-water. Brahms was dense compared to Beethoven. Beethoven was dense compared to Handel. (continue ad infinitum) Hell, Bach’s music is still dense. Whatever.

I thoroughly sympathize with your Sunday afternoon walk in the five-foot high snow up the Himalayas to get to hear some good music by a good composer only to get paid to write about it. I don’t, however, sympathize with your ideological chauvinism towards certain music. If you don’t like Schoenberg, that’s fine. No one is forcing you. Nevertheless, as a member of the press, reporting on concerts and giving your opinions, it is your duty to understand the music to a higher degree than your readership, and then write about it in an intelligent and fair manner. If you can’t, or won’t, understand, or learn about, organicism, “developing variation,” or the f-ing definition of density, not to mention the history and development of ideas within a specific musical community (about which you opine often), then you are 1) doing your readership a disservice by insulting their intelligence, 2) proliferating absurd and generally negative myths about musicians and their music, 3) effectively stifling the new music culture’s ability to gain an already dwindling audience, self-perpetuating classical music’s extinction, in general. To put it another way, learn your shit or we’ll keep writing things like this.

Sorry, again, about the white-out conditions when you tried to scale that cliff on your way to see the Emerson String Quartet. I’ll have some cocoa ready for you when you get home.
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You're Crazy, Man!

Radu Lupu recently performed Schumann’s Piano Concerto with the NY Philharmonic. And Mr. Holland got to tell us about it.

Emphases mine

Unusual was the way the piano part was made to mingle with the orchestra rather than stand out against it. When higher-register melodic lines shifted from the keyboard’s treble keys to the violin sections, Mr. Lupu changed from soloist to accompanist. Lower voices rose out of the bottom and the middle of the piano and became principle players. Again and again one heard a leading man happy to give way to his supporting cast. If Mr. Lupu had been a singer, he would certainly have been a tenor or bass.

I agree. A tenor or a bass.

Besides, those castrati were all primo uomos.
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