Friday Quickie: Comparison wasn't not apt

Making an analogy, or even a direct comparison, can be an illuminating device when talking about abstract concepts. Of course, some people use them in place of an actual point, but Richard Nilsen has a point...just not a good comparison.

Symphony review: Singer Addis punks out on Mahler songs
Richard Nilsen, Arizona Republic, Apr. 22, 2011

“Punks out”?

…

Okay, how did Addis punk out on Mahler?

Phillip Addis wasn't no Sinatra.

Wait. Phillip Addis was not no Sinatra?

So… Phillip Addis is Sinatra?

The baritone sang Gustav Mahler's "Songs of a Wayfarer" with the Phoenix Symphony this week…

Wait…the singer who's not no Sinatra sang Mahler?

How’d he do?

…and the performance was a major letdown.

Well, Sinatra wasn’t known for his Mahler performances.

Sometimes you wait a whole season for a particular concert, because the music scheduled isn't merely beautiful or entertaining, but promises emotional transport.

I wish I had something clever to say here, but really, this is something unique that a symphony orchestra has the power to do but so rarely does. And this seems especially true since they rely so consistently upon the same pieces that have already emotionally transported me many times before.

After all, that is why we who love classical music persist in a love for a dying art form: It can take us out of ourselves and leave us feeling the radiance of the universe.

The art form isn’t dying, it’s just that people always insist on performing pieces that people already know they love.

The classical music universe is definitely not expanding the way most orchestras program.

It is almost a drug and we crave it.

Exactly. But we digress.

So, I’m assuming you love the Mahler “Songs of a Wayfarer” and you wished Sinatra were singing them? …

And when something like the Mahler sits there on the calendar all year, beckoning us to wait for its April date, we hope once again for that emotional and spiritual fix.

Oh, come on, Mahler’s on the calendar every year. But, I guess I know what you mean.

Well, perhaps you can expect too much.

If you expected Sinatra to sing your Mahler, perhaps you did expect too much.

It wasn't that Addis sang badly.

Oh. Was his diction good?

Certainly his diction was good.

Good. Music is all about diction.

As if music were about diction.

Wait? Music’s not about diction?

But the Sinatra comparison is dead on:…

Are you sure, because I can’t even begin to imagine why you’d compare this singer to Sinatra.

…When you heard Frank Sinatra sing, you knew - or felt you knew - that he had lived every word of the song he sang.

And there’s never been a classical singer who you felt this about before? Perhaps even someone who has sang the Mahler before?

The emotional intelligence he brought to lyrics meant that even as his voice declined, his ability to put across a song never wavered.

Exactly. Like when he sang:
Come fly with me, let's float down to Peru
In llama land there's a one-man band
And he'll toot his flute for you

I totally feel like he’s been to Peru, in a way no other artist could.

And the emotional content in lyrics like:
She'll have no crap games with sharpies and frauds
And she won't go to Harlem in Lincolns or Fords
And she won't dish the dirt with the rest of the broads
That's why the lady is a tramp

When he sang that, I could feel that this woman really eschewed the cultured, high-society conventions of her day...like not driving domestic automobiles.

It was what was missing from Addis' performance: He never convinced us - never even tried to convince us - that the words actually mean anything.

This seems fair. But did you really need Sinatra to make this point?

The styles of singing (and the songs themselves) really don't have a lot in common.

He sang as if he had memorized the words, not internalized them. It is at such times that you realize that mere musicality isn't enough: Great art isn't about pretty.

Couldn’t agree with this more… Wait, are you saying Sinatra wasn’t a good singer?

[snip]

But you're making what I would a consider a valid and important observation about the performance...are you sure there isn't a more apt comparison you could provide to help us understand your argument?

If you have ever heard Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau sing these songs, you know how far we have fallen.

Thank you.

See, I don’t know that recording, but this seems like a much better comparison. You've now created a workable reference point for people who know the Mahler songs. Plus, I’m actually likely to seek out this recording to understand better your frame of reference.

Maybe it's just me, but I find this far more illustrative.

How Many Paragraphs Can We Manage before Contradicting Ourselves?

And, really: not just merely contradicting a point, but completely contradicting the lede and topic sentence.

Figure 1: Which falsely implies that the answer is three.

Let's see!

[Aside: What the hell is with the random hyperlinking in online newspaper articles? It seems to have neither rhyme nor reason.]

Symphony dives into season with a 'blockbuster splash'

That is, perhaps, the worst title ever. That title just got beat by the 2008 Detroit Lions.

Why qualify 'blockbuster' with 'splash'? 'Blockbuster' is already a stupid, overused word.

Figure 2: I mean, it did pretty well and all, but I'd hardly call it a 'blockbuster.'

The answer: it comes from a quote used in the article. Well, fair enough, I guess; but that neither explains nor excuses the emendation of 'dives into' to match 'splash' in the headline.

Ha ha! It's like the orchestra concert season is a pool!

Wait, what?

The Phoenix Symphony opens this season with Beethoven's monumental paean to universal brotherhood, his Ninth Symphony -

Wait, which one?

- also known as the "Choral Symphony,"

Um. Is that the one with...

...with the "Ode to Joy."

Oh, that Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Welp, I reckon if you're gonna start with a self-proclaimed blockbuster, that's one of your choices right there.

Unlike most orchestras

, which use the grand choral piece as the final gala of the season, in Phoenix, the symphony has a habit of starting the season with the big bang.

A habit? A practice? Tradition? 'The' big bang'? "A" big bang?

But, okay. We're clearly building up to something (unlike the Phoenix Symphony season, which is, apparently, carefully constructed to be one long denouement), so lay it on me.

"Last season, we had Jane Eaglen and the Wagner spectacular," music director

Michael Christie says, "and before that, we brought in James Galway and his flute."

Galway's a nice guy and all from what I hear, but his concerts are much, much better when he brings his flute.

Figure 3: A picture of Sir James Galway that is Fun to Look at, with Unidentified Friend (date unknown).

Last season also jumped immediately into the World Music Festival.

This...what? Is that supporting evidence for the 'blockbusters first' argument? Wagner + 'world music' = blockbuster opening? Mmkay...

"It's frankly that, in Arizona, it's tricky to start the season in September, when we don't have the whole core of our audience back from where they go in summer," Christie says.

What is "it"? If an orchestra programs a blockbuster splash extravaganza happening event and no one's there to hear it, does it make a sound [at the ticket office]?

"So we try to put some blockbuster splash at the beginning of the season. Beethoven's Ninth is a good way to do that."

Is it? Isn't that sort of like starting the 2009 summer movie season with "The Wizard of Oz"?

It helps that it's such a known quantity and won't require weeks of extra rehearsal for chorus and orchestra.

Known quantity! Kerpow! SPLASH! In your face!

It also underlines the thought that goes into programming a season, which doesn't happen at random.

I love love love this sentence.

The thought...that goes into programming a season...does not happen at random.

Awesome.

And Beethoven's Ninth underlines it.

And it's widely acknowledged that one of Christie's strengths is his programming.

Clearly.

"We're always keeping an eye on music not played recently, so we don't overdo it with the big warhorses,"Christie says.

Wow.

Really?

Wow.

Man, that's speeding even in rural Arizona: Blockbuster splash smash opening to not overdoing the 'big warhorses' in under nine paragraphs* flat

*Some of the paragraphs are very, very short, so judge accordingly.

The rest of the article is available via the link above.

Figure 4: I have no idea. I merely Googled "war horse".

Things Are Products of Their Environments; Also, Objective Truth

The Phoenix Symphony is expanding its musical horizons. They're going to program a bunch of world music this season. Cool! Hooray! Let's have Richard Nilsen of the Phoenix Sun (online) tell us about it.

(Caveat: much of this has to do with his interviewee.)

Symphony Mixes Pop, Tradition

Suddenly all world music is pop music?

There is a tendency to think about classical music as somehow different from other musics in the world, something separate and distinct.

1) Passive voice much?

2) By whom? Westerners? Phoenixites? (?-ed) Critics? Everyone? The Japanese?

But that's not the way it really is: Every major composer has been influenced by the popular music of his time and by the music of the rest of the world.

The...general sense of this is clear, but false. Machaut was, I'm sure, not aware of Japanese music (let alone Japan) in the 14th century. No? Sure, he was influenced by the troubadors and trouveres, but...the rest of the world?

Also: define "major composer" please.

Which is one reason the Phoenix Symphony is starting its season with a "World Music Festival" (Sept. 11-21). It will include performances by many groups and soloists not normally associated with white-tie and tails.

Um. Scare quotes unnecessary. "White-tie" is not modifying anything, so doesn't need a hyphen, I think. Just saying. Really the scare quotes bother me more.

"Composers were of the world they lived in," says Maryellen Gleason, Phoenix Symphony director.

Paging Captian Obvious, come in Captain Obvious. Sheesh. Director? Wow.

Also: are there no longer composers?

Mozart lived in Vienna, she says,

Get the fuck out. No way!

and included not only Austrian and German folk music in his work, but the other influences of the time, such as the Turkish janissary band music that was so popular. Hence his "Turkish Rondo,

Um. Rondo a la Turka? From the Sonata for Piano in A Major, K.331? Yes.

or later, Beethoven's "Turkish March" from The Ruins of Athens. Even Beethoven's sublime Ninth Symphony has a Turkish military march in the middle of the finale.

Fair point about the Beethoven.

The list is long and invigorating: Bach wrote in French, Italian and English styles, in addition to his own German; Haydn loved to sneak an Alsatian folk tune into a symphony or two; Beethoven borrowed Russian folk tunes for his Rasumovsky quartets; Brahms and Liszt loved Gypsy tunes; Debussy imported Javanese gamelan music into his piano scores; and Bartok and Kodaly built their 20th century Modernism on Hungarian and Romanian folk melodies they collected in the countryside.

See? The point is fair, but...Hungarians like Hungarian music? Seriously? Yes, seriously.

Anyway. The rest of the article details the programming for the """World Music Festival""". It sounds like a great idea. Read about it here.