Complementary work deserves compliments

Review: Harrell finds many subtleties in Dvorak
Bruce R. Miller, Sioux City Journal, September 23, 2011

In great contrast to me, I suppose.

Antonin Dvorak wasn't interested in writing any works for cellos -- ...

He wasn't?

... he didn't think they were good solo instruments.

He didn't?

Thankfully, wiser heads convinced him otherwise and he produced the Cello Concerto in B Minor -- ...

Ah yes, the masterful op. 104. The first and only piece for solo cello that Dvorak ever wrote, not counting the first Cello Concerto in A major, B. 10, his Cello Sonata in F minor, the Polonaise in A major for cello and piano, the Rondo in G minor (which he later orchestrated), the arrangements he made of his Slavonic Dances for cello and piano, or the transcription of Silent Woods for cello and piano, and later for cello and orchestra.

Wiser heads truly did prevail.

...a piece that Lynn Harrell owned Saturday night performing with the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra.

Don't you mean pwned?

Bopping along...

Bopping along? ...in his little red wagon?

...with the orchestra's parts, he practically made the music seem as if it was one of classical music's Top 10.

Which, of course, it's not. Pssh.

To even suggest that this piece belongs in the same esteem as Eine kleine nachtmusik or the William Tell Overture (just the Lone Ranger part, not the rest, of course) is blasphemy. Classical music's Top 10 is a sacred, unalterable law of nature. I mean, would you really have Time Life Recordings remake all those cds?

He got his cello to sing, too, mimicking Lori Benton's superior flute work and justifying the brass section's noble fanfares.

The cello sang, copying the flute and justifying the brass? Sure, that sounds like orchestration 101 to me.

The piece -- part of a Dvorak night -- wasn't one you'd go home humming, but it did have plenty of work for everyone to do.

So, the Dvorak was more like Bill Lumbergh?

figure superfluous Office Space reference, loosely tied to Dvorak: "Hello Peter, whats happening? Ummm, I'm gonna need you to go ahead come in tomorrow. So if you could be here around 9 that would be great, mmmk... oh oh! and I almost forgot ahh, I'm also gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday too, kay. We ahh lost some people this week and ah, we sorta need to play catch up."

Harrell, in fact, gave his fingers such a deft workout you frequently wanted a camera on them to see just how he was able to zip from the melodramatic to the sublime.

Precisely, a giant scoreboard with closeups, replays, and the 'kiss cam' in between pieces. Whatever I can do not to listen to the music.

Harrell played well with all sections of the orchestra (even those that had some timing snags) but he was particularly chummy with the woodwinds.

figure chummy: Lynn and the woodwinds reenacting the battle of Antietam. As I assume most woodwind sections do.

The adagio showed they were willing to step up to their guest's level and compete. The horns did nicely, too.

I'm sure the horns will appreciate the shout-out.

And that chilling fanfare in the end? It may have been Dvorak's way of putting a button on a request,...

A button?

...but it certainly gave Harrell the rest he needed before launching into a more familar [sic] encore.

Just as Dvorak intended. Subtly, of course.

The rest of the program was filled with other Dvorak works...

As all-Dvorak programs tend to do, from time to time.

... -- the rather passive "In Nature's Realm," the more familiar Symphony No. 7 in D minor.

"Passive", "familiar"...sounds like a Dvorak concert to me.

Still, it was the Lynn and Lori show that impressed.

I love that show.

figure Lynn and Lori: Thank you, pop culture.

While the rest of the orchestra got a chance to shine in the third number, it was Benton's complementary work that deserved the compliments.

Are we still talking about the concerto?

Harrell may not have the flash of friends Itzhak Perman and Pinchas Zukerman, but he more than has the skills.

Itzhak Perman?! I realy ove that guy. Seriousy.

Saturday night, he was willing to share them with the Siouxland musicians.

Wait. Itzhak Perman and Pinchas Zukerman were there?

And the result? The result was good, very good.

Gabby Hayes good?

Even better?

Even better than Gabby Hayes, the cello concerto that almost wasn't, and the unrestrained irreverence of the Lynn and Lori Smile-Time Variety Hour!?

If it isn't a complete and utter non-sequitur, and extremely patriotic, I'm not sure it could be any better.

The orchestra started the season with a rousing version of the Star Spangled Banner. While this was probably a given decades ago, it was nice to see it back -- a good way to start what could be a great season.

I know, I was totally in danger forgetting that piece.


Wait...what did you say about subtleties?

Thanksgiving, Detritus Style

Nearing the end of our third year bringing you the finest meta-music journalism the profession has ever seen and having some spare time from the rigors of academic life, I’d like to take this opportunity to talk about something a little different. I’d like to take you on a tour, a very magical and perhaps mysterious tour—a brief look into the world of The Detritus Review.

For some time, the board of directors had entertained the possibility of leading guided tours through the halls and offices of the Detritus Tower, where all the (now classic) musical shenanigans sprout from the ether and bud into bulbous bundles of blogosphere brilliance. However, even The Detritus Review is not immune to the collective ill fortunes of capitalist speculation and, thus, that plan was scrapped.

But, in its conception, it was glorious. There were to be two guided tours each workday, lead by none other than the magnificent Gustav himself. He would have taken the tour groups, first, through the Great Hall, which currently serves as the main library and contains some of the most rare and curious volumes of forgotten cultural lore. This was to be followed by a brief stop to my cubicle or to Sator Arepo’s corner office to witness the feeding of his caged gorilla named Bernard. Also, there would have been a stop to the luxurious conference room, which we lovingly call “The Con,” after Star Trek. Here, the tour group would have been invited to watch a brief video history of the DR and be treated to an endless supply of Jolt and Doritos. And if that wasn’t enough, the tour would end with a stop by the newly added gift store, where you would have had the opportunity to purchase one of our signature line of poker visors! (My personal favorite: “I’m a Detritus Fish”)

Alas, any prospect that a tour of such grandeur takes place is now dead. Yet, I hope to fill some of your voyeuristic needs by inviting you to follow along with my thought process, step by step, beginning to end, while I search for and deconstruct an odorous pile of words, the end result of which will eventually find its way onto the front page.

How’s that sound? Great! Glad to have you on board. Let’s get cracking!

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There are obviously many facets to the production of our posts, all with a degree of purpose and, hopefully, integrity. But before anything can be done, there are certain ground rules to which we must adhere.

Here is a brief description of just one of the criteria and how we come to negotiate it. For the most part, the articles we chose are found online. (I like to think we save trees from further embarrassment) This brings up several questions. First, does the source maintain journalistic standards or, at least, does it say it tries to? And, second, is the source aiming for profit? If yes to both, we feel we have the obligation to criticize it; this obviously means that newspapers will be our main sources. But if the answer to one or more of those questions is negative, I will consult the I-Ching chances are we won’t touch it with a ten-foot Polish person. Blogs, in the traditional sense, i.e. those not attached to newspapers, are generally off-limits. So ACD, consider yourself mostly-lucky.

There are certainly other things we think about before we deconstruct a music review, but I won’t bore you too much longer. Just one more thing: unfortunately, many of these ground rules were discovered after initial dissemination. We have since eliminated these faults, but would like to emphasize that apples are also vegetables, depending on how you look at them.

Okay, so you have a taste for where we begin. Now, let’s find an article and rip it apart. I have many of the major newspapers bookmarked, but my favorite way to go about finding an article is to take a random walk through a forest of armpit hair. The critics who write for major newspapers usually do a good enough job, so a little grunt work is often needed. I usually start by hopping over to onlinenewspapers.com, which is simply a directory of online newspapers, big and small, especially the small ones. And so I click on a random newspaper, like the Arkansas Times, where I found this:

Arkansas Symphony Orchestra’s ‘New World’
By Edward Wooten

Scanning…scanning…

Ah, the symphony has a new director. “How ‘bout that?,” I think to myself.

It was apparent even before the concert began that a new era was at hand.

Okay. Yeah. But I can’t really work with it, unless…

A more energetic setting of the National Anthem also signaled the arrival of a new era.

Hmm. Can I twist this to make fun of the National Anthem? Can I make fun of Arkansas-ionians? Is that even a word? Can I use that as an in? Ooh! I wonder if I can make fun of National Anthem connoisseurship?

Maybe I should wait a bit longer to make fun of this. Let’s read a little more, first.

([The director’s] predecessor had used the hymn-like arrangement first used at the Greek Olympics.)

Yeah! See, this can be funny stuff. I don’t know if he means that the ancient Greeks used the national anthem or if it was performed at the recent Olympics in Greece. Plus, hymn-like tunes are so yesterday, right? I mean, he’s insinuating that more energy is required to reinforce, or maybe reinvigorate, patriotism, or that the National Anthem is boring.

See, these are things that go through my mind as I read what may turn out to be a decent article. However, I usually require more substance than that, which was simply some awkward wording. Let’s see if there’s anything else.

The Bernstein was vigorously performed[…]

Well, maybe this whole “vigor’ thing can serve as a thread for this post? I mean, if you think about it, what our reviewer is responding to is the smoke and mirrors of fast and loud. Let’s keep this in mind, shall we?

The highlight of the program, however, was the Dvorak [“The New World”].

Okay. The meat and apples of the concert. This part usually contains some good DR fodder.

The significant themes and motifs in every section stood out.

Heh. That’s a limp thing to say. I guess it could be worth mentioning as an aside. What else can we use for our meta-review?

[The director] conducted the familiar second movement up-tempo just enough to eliminate the dirge-like performance it often gets[…]

Well, there we go! For some reason our author just likes fast. Maybe we can do a NASCAR joke or two (probably at the beginning). I’m sure this material would make a fine DR meta-review. Don’t you think?

The orchestra played throughout with the raw vigor that the piece demands.

More cushion for the pushin’! I think we’ve stumbled across the right article.

Sometimes it happens this quickly, sometimes it doesn’t. I don’t want to give you the impression that we here at the Detritus Review don’t do any work or research; but sometimes fate intervenes and hands us a pile of words that begs for the royal treatment.

(It is a "ninth symphony," after all.)

Oh, this is just a long, fantastic purple cherry on top! How lucky are we?! How could we even hope to get through a review of a symphony concert without the slightest reference to Beethoven even though Beethoven wasn’t on the program? Beautiful. Simply beautiful; and, yet, stereotypical of clunky music journalism.

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Alright, guys. We have an article, a thread, and even some material. So, now it’s my job to put all this into some sort of coherent narrative and to flesh out the jokes with a bit more precision. Once that is done, we can be a little creative and spice it up with some links and silly pictures, which may or may not have anything to do with the review.

I like to start this phase by coming up with a title that…
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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.

Goldilocks

Just in case you forgot the nursery story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, the moral is, “Don’t fuck with other people’s belongings or they’ll kill you.” In a more modern version, Grandpa Joe and Charlie sully Willy Wonka’s sterile Fizzy Lifting Drink room, causing, presumably, a halt in production and research. Thus, Charlie forfeits any forthcoming prizes and looks like an asshole in the process.

Well, similarly, critical language is far from perfect (i.e., hot/cold porridge), so don’t mess with the cinnamon (spices) right away, or the Detritus Review will kill you, or lambaste you, or make you take a bath, or refuse to have Oompa-Loompas sing you a parting song—I forget which.

Well, it was a very hot night — the hottest this summer — so maybe that's why I felt like...

a) a melting popsicle.
b) a plump portabella on the grill.
c) a temperature-sensitive Goldilocks tasting her three bowls of porridge.

Weeeee!

The first try, Vitezslav Novák's Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano in D minor, was too hot.

Is hot inherently bad? I know some very astute Riftia pachyptila who would argue the opposite.

Novák piles on the Eastern European folk-angst, much in the manner of his compatriots Dvorák (who was far better at it)...

That’s hard thing to substantiate: Novák’s folk-angst is lesser than Dvorák’s. Though, I’m still not sure that constitutes a “hot” piece.

...and Smetana, whose Trio in G minor was performed to a standing ovation the Wednesday night prior.

Now, the Smetana, on the other hand, definitely sounds “hot.” Right? Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t “hot,” when used to describe a piece or performance, usually a positive thing?

What a weird construction, so far. Not receiving a standing ovation and having less folk-angst means “hot.”

In fact, Novák's Trio sounds like a lesser version of Smetana's — a resemblance that was further underscored by two of the players being the same, violinist Scott Yoo and pianist Andrew Armstrong.

See? Talking about music is already a difficult thing. Why mess it up with a lame simile?

“The players being the same?” That could just about mean anything. Or nothing. Nothing sounds cold to me. It also sounds like a lack of vocabulary. But whatever.

The second try, Beethoven's Quintet in C Major, was too cold — at least for the first half.

This ought to be good.

Violinists Erin Keefe and Joseph Lin, violists Che-Yen Chen and Richard O'Neill, and cellist Amit Peled seemed to be keeping the music at arm's length during the first and second movements, being careful but never really coalescing in spirit. Fortunately, Beethoven's intellectualizing falls away in the rollicking third movement, and the players began to have more fun.

I have heard, roundabout, that intellectualism is cold. So, in some strange intuitive world, one where reason has been long abandoned in favor of feelings that have no descriptors, the “cold” simile is apt.

What I find untenable, is that Beethoven’s Quintet was described as “too cold,” when the thrid movement was, according to the normal usage of “hot,” hot. Combine the three movements and you get what? That’s right! Tepid!

Tepid is not cold, nor hot.

...after [the opening of the finale], all the players seemed to come alive, joyfully weaving in and out of each other in kaleidoscopic patterns.

Here’s three pictures of kaleidoscopic patterns. I’ll leave it to you to imagine them weaving in and out of each other joyfully.















































That must mean, OMG, that the last piece was juuuust riiiiight. Right?

The piece that was just right — Brahms' Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano in B Major — is such a ravishingly gorgeous work that it seems impossible to play badly.

Reflexive translation: Goldilocks borrows someone else’s porridge without asking.
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The Boy Who Cried Wolf

Aside from the rather threadbare simile between the concert and Goldilocks, Sumi Hahn wrote a nice review. Only, the language Sumi used was lazily appropriated from almost every review ever. It was over-inflated to the point where it lost its effectiveness.

Case in point:

Brahms' Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano in B Major [...] is such a ravishingly gorgeous work that it seems impossible to play badly.

Any lawyers out there? It’s my guess that this statement would not hold up in a court of law. It’s pure exaggeration. Hyperbole. It says nothing about the piece. It just inflates it like a balloon.

From the languid opening caress of the piano and cello...

Barf.

...the hushed cathedral majesty of the Adagio...

Barf.

...and the anxiously attractive finale, this piece swells with the very best kind of Romantic fervor.

Instead of wasting time with the Goldilocks simile, it might have been in Sumi’s best interest to explain what the best kind of romanticism might look like, then prove it without the gaudy descriptors. That would be interesting, to me. And informative. Also, if done well, it could have been just as colorful.

The point being, poetry got in the way of the tasks at hand: reviewing, appraising and describing. Not that there isn’t room for style; it can be done. Just check out the handful of critics we don’t review here.

[...] the music bloomed rapturously on that hot night.

The review ballooned rapturously, too. Is this a concert or an orgasm?

That memory might be enough to keep me going until next summer's festival.

Obviously, I’m not going to take this literally. But, since Sumi isn’t talking about the number of calories in fast food, I don’t believe it. Not in the least. Look. If you, someone who loves music, can go an entire year without listening to another piece, going to another concert or simply humming a tune other than what you heard at this particular festival’s concert and still be musically satisfied, then damn, it must have been that good. Unfortunately, no, you can’t. And no, it wasn’t.

So I’ll just call it gross exaggeration.

I mean, I can understand the “whole being greater than the sum of its parts” sort of Gestalt, but I’ve never understood the “whole being three-hundred and sixty-five times greater than one of its parts, which happened to be the only part that I really liked, because I went through an entire Goldilocks simile to arrive at this conclusion” type of unnecessarily grandiose overstatement. Barf.

Look. Based on the review, this is what I could expect if I were to go to a repeat performance of this concert:

1) A concert “studded with star turns.”
2) Lots of “luster.”
3) “A ravishingly gorgeous work that [...] seems impossible to play badly.
4) A “languid opening caress of the piano and cello.”
5) Some “hushed cathedral majesty.”
6) An “anxiously attractive finale.”
7) “The very best kind of Romantic fervor.”
8) “Music [blooming] rapturously.
9) And a memory that “might be enough to keep me going until next summer's festival.”

Really. If these concerts are all so goddamned, unbelievably good—better than multiple orgasms while feasting on chocolate-dipped fried chicken with an I.V. of fifteen year-old Laphroaig—then why haven’t more people caught on by now? Because they’re only concerts, for crying out loud! And if they’re only concerts, then why must the language always, always suggest so much luxuriant and rich other-worldly experiences?

Won’t it always be a disappointment for the reader who then goes to see and hear these pieces/concerts/performers?

Here’s some food for thought:

A shepherd-boy, who watched a flock of sheep near a village, brought out the villagers three or four times by crying out, "Wolf! Wolf!" and when his neighbors came to help him, laughed at them for their pains.

The Wolf, however, did truly come at last. The Shepherd-boy, now really alarmed, shouted in an agony of terror: "Pray, do come and help me; the Wolf is killing the sheep"; but no one paid any heed to his cries, nor rendered any assistance. The Wolf, having no cause of fear, at his leisure lacerated or destroyed the whole flock.

There is no believing a liar, even when he speaks the truth.

Call me skeptical, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the whole “elitist” or “anti-elitist” problem (or call it whatever you want—our culture’s negative perception of classical music) stems from this kind of disproportionate language that’s been floating around for ages. In a time that arguably has been breaking-down hierarchies of all kinds, our description of classical music is dependent upon these very cries of “Wolf!” because that’s all we know. But still, they’re only concerts and it’s only music, after all.
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Fun with Commodification!

It disturbs me that "art" music has become so marginalized that it is frequently characterized as the cultural equivalent of other snobbish luxury goods. Really, many "classical" concerts, whether of music old or new, are more affordable than pop music concerts or sporting events. Honestly, art music has never been more accessible to anyone who is interested.

Still, the myth of the blue-haired widower climbing out of her troika to see the symphony persists. She is a relic; she probably likes fancy food and wine that only she can afford. Only true, rich connoisseurs could appreciate the pairing of food and wine! Or music and wine! Or music and food! (And, perhaps, wine? Only rich fucking nerds like wine. And classical music.)

Yet more disturbing, here, is the wholesale assimilation of "low" culture (read: the Midwest) in the service of said commodification of music. Squeee! Whoever thought this up...I...I have no words. Oh, wait...yes I do!

Dvorak BBQ Sauce

I can already tell this is going to be awesome.

Although we can’t be absolutely sure,

Conjecture. Spectacular. Conjecture is a splendid reason for doing what you're about to do.

it’s likely that during his three-year stay in the United States (1892-95) — and especially during the summer months he spent in the rural community of Spillville, Iowa

So, so rural. Wow. Those hayseeds! Okay, in fairness, it is pretty rural. But the sentence above stinks of derision...

— Czech composer Antonín Dvorák experienced the irresistible smells and flavors of a real American barbeque.

...the tangy derision of barbeque!

And as you listen, for instance, to his “American” quartet,

I think you mean his String Quartet No. 12 in F, Op. 96 (1893), sometimes referred to as "America" or "American." Nice faux-scholarship.

sketched out on one of those visits to the American heartland, can’t you just imagine

Guh. This is going to be good, right?...

that some of those pungent/sweet/spicy/rich-flavored musical sounds may have been inspired by the multi-layered, sensuous experience of perfectly seasoned beef grilled over hot, smoky coals?

...or: worse than I imagined! My favorite musical sounds are totally pungent/sweet/spicy, and also, rich-flavored! Certainly not richly flavored. Adverbs are so rural.

Well, whether you can or not,

I totally can. Once I was writing a piece for class, and I smelled some barbeque, and I totally changed an F to an F#. Spicy! Rich-flavored!

this recipe is a natural compliment to Dvorak's universally appealing music

First: what? Second: This dude is some sort of musical/culinary synaesthete. Third, in re: the clause "universally appealing"...you may want to ask around.

— and the inclusion of Czech beer is no accident! —

This is so clever I threw up on myself.

inspired by the desire for a quick, uniquely-flavored but not overpowering sauce

Not overpowering--like Dvorak?

for grilled beef (although it will happily serve to enhance other kinds of meat as well).

I chose not to reproduce the recipe. If you are really curious you can follow the link. Suffice to say that, in Texas, they shoot you if your sauce has ketchup in it.
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Guess! That! Piece!

Studio Announcer: From the Detritus Review, here in beautiful Burbank, California, this is (audience shouting) Guess! That! Piece!

Empiricus: This is how to play. I will give you the name of a composer and three phrases that describe one of his/her works. All you have to do is (audience) Guess! That! Piece!

There will be three rounds with one clue each. The faster you guess that piece, the better the prize.

Are you ready?

Contestant: Oh I'm ready, Empiricus. I've studied music all my life.

Empiricus: Then get the clock ready. Here we go!

The composer is Dvorak. Dvorak.

This piece is said to be "ever-ingratiating" and "sun dappled."

Contestant: ... (tick, tock, tick, tock)

Empiricus: Moving on. If this piece's first three notes are stretched out to delicious effect, this piece has "a hint of wistful nostalgia."

Contestant: ... (tick, tock, tick)

Empiricus: Okay, final clue. Ready?

Contestant: Mmm, hmm.

Empiricus: This piece's lyrical moments may have a "lovely shine," a "lovely shine."

Contestant: You know Empiricus, I don't think I know. So, I'll just start listing pieces I know Dvorak wrote... in chronological order.

Empiricus: Better hurry. Time's running out.

Contestant: Okay, um... Polka Pomnenka? Mass in Bb major? Polka in E major? Harfenice? Polka? Galop? String Quintet in a minor? String Quartet in A major? Symphony Number 1? Cello Concerto Number 1? Cyprise? Symphony Number 2? Dve pisne pro baryton? Clarinet Quintet in Bb minor? Meziaktni skladby? Serenade? Alfred? Tragic Overture? String Quartet Number 2? String Quartet Number 3? Strin...

Empiricus: Five...

Contestant: String Quartet Number 4? Cello So...

Empiricus: Four...

Contestant: nata? Kral a uhlir?

Empiricus: Three...

Contestant: (sweating) Overture in F major? Piano Quint...

Empiricus: Two...

Contestant: ...et, Symphony Number 3?

Empiricus: One...

Contestant: String Quartet Number Five?

(BZZZT!)

Empiricus: Time's up! Sorry contestant. You were not able to Guess! That! Piece! Let's find out the answer, shall we? What is ever-ingratiating, sun dappled with a hint of wistful nostalgia and lovely shine? ...(sign flips over, lights up) Dvorak's Eighth Symphony (whanh, whanh, whanh sound)...the eighth symphony.

Unfortunately, we have to take a look at what you could have won. (doors open) A week-long vacation to Tuscany! (audience: awwwwww). A forty-inch plasma screen TV! (awww) A degree from the Devry School of Journalism! (applause) That's too bad. I'm sure you would've enjoyed the Italian countryside.

Well, you'll be happy to know, since you almost got last week's piece, you'll be able to come back for the tournament of champions next March. Good luck, contestant. See you then.

Well, that's all the time we have for now at (audience) Guess! That! Piece!From all of us here at The Detritus Review, good night. See you next time! (exit music)

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Viewer turns to Wife: Honey, let's go see Dvorak's Eighth. I like to be sun dappled and I like wistful nostalgia.

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[Edit: Empiricus] It seems that the link to the original source has been lost. Sorry.