Friday Quickie: Tired Cliches and Rants Edition

The best way to get your point across and grab the attention of the reader to make a connection right away. So, many critics find a point of agreement as their topic sentence. But that's where so many critics run into trouble -- the generalization.

I know, I know. It's just an innocent comment, but really...does it serve any purpose at all, other than to reinforce the idea that contemporary music is generally awful? Anne Midgette is an excellent critic, and I expect better from her on the fundamental issues like this one.

I mean, I understand. But sometimes...you know...[sigh].

Take it away, Anne.

If you want to scare off an audience,...

Wait for it...

If you want to scare off an audience, offer contemporary music.

Nailed it. Couldn't agree more. Yep, contemporary music is awful. And now that I think about it, classical music is boring, also. Which begs the question why anyone would ever program that new music garbage?

Oh, wait. Could it be that's a gross generalization that reflects antiquated thinking? The casting of an audience as a single, like-minded organism is so very lazy. I think it's safe to say that not all of us regular symphony patrons like the same music. Some of us want nothing more than to hear contemporary music often (very often) at the symphony, and to never hear the Bruch Violin Concerto ever again (for example).

I know -- we don't count. There's only so much information that can be included in your standard stereotype, so it's easier to ignore the minority and make all arguments as though we don't exist. But we do exist. And the problem is, at least as is my experience, some of us will purposefully avoid your average symphonic tripe on a regular basis, nearly assuring that we'll never feel connected to these institutions.

But the strange part (and the most reassuring part as well) is that while critics like Ms. Midgette (and actually I read Ms. Midgette quite often, so I know she's much better than this) dwell in the delusion about the awfulness of contemporary music, orchestras are smarter. It no longer makes sense to generalize about the attitudes of audiences, especially as the new garde of conductors -- Marin Alsop in Baltimore, Gustavo Dudamel in LA, David Robertson in St. Louis, Robert Spano in Atlanta -- all make programming contemporary music part of their missions. How is it that these people, who need to schmooze the blue hairs on a nearly daily basis as part of their very livelihood, are further ahead of the curve on this issue than music critics? Seriously. It's time for a new cliche.

figure scary music: Sounds like ants eating my face.

Oh, but I cut you off. Contemporary music scares audiences, but...

If you want to soothe it, offer George Gershwin.

Well, I would have said Beethoven, but 20th century American music is a good call too.

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Read the full article here:
Concert review: Post-Classical Ensemble's 'Gershwin Project' at Clarice Smith Center
Anne Midgette, The Washington Post, September 23, 2010

At Least the Title Was Apt

Orchestra Review
Judith White, The Saratogian, 8/12/2010

There was a degree of irony in the programming for Wednesday’s Philadelphia Orchestra concert at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

Mm-hm. Irony, you say? In the programming? Do tell.

The all-Gershwin program of American music began with the orchestra playing the well-known “An American in Paris,” and then moved on to feature French-born Jean-Yves Thibaudet as piano soloist with the orchestra for other Gershwin works, including the Piano Concerto in F and a set of variations to “I Got Rhythm,” all conducted by a Swiss-born, Montreal resident conductor.

I see. I don't know about the construction "Montreal resident conductor," but that's neither here nor there [in Montreal, apparently].

And the ironic part was...?

I’m certainly not complaining: just commenting on how things can work out with really good music — which transcends geography and culture.

Um. Let's back up, because, apparently, the ironic bit was in that last large paragraph.

The all-Gershwin program of American music began with the orchestra playing the well-known “An American in Paris,” and then moved on to feature French-born Jean-Yves Thibaudet as piano soloist with the orchestra for other Gershwin works, including the Piano Concerto in F and a set of variations to “I Got Rhythm,”...

Okay. An American orchestra was playing a Gershwin program, which, after "An American in Paris," featured a French pianist playing the Concerto in F. So...it's like there was a Parisian in America! Oh, except he's from Lyon. But still, he did go to the Paris Conservatoire!

So a Frenchman (who's been to Paris) in America! Playing "An American in Paris!" Er, well, no...actually playing the piece after that one on the program...which is sort of...a coincidence? But not irony.

...all conducted by a Swiss-born, Montreal resident conductor.

A Swiss-Canadian in Saratoga is sort of like an American in Paris, insofar as the sentences have parallel construction...which is ironic?

No. No, it's not.

The most ironic thing going on here is that something that's not really in any way ironic is being described as such.

We don’t require American interpreters of Gershwin’s compositions, no more than we require German interpreters of Brahms.

True, I suppose. We don't wear gigantic purple hats either, but it's not relevant, so we don't write sentences about it.

We got what we wanted...

Speak for yourself. I was led to believe there'd be irony.

— a brilliant pianist with a sensibility for Gershwin’s talent for rolling classical sensibility into the music of his time, and a conductor who literally threw himself into directing the music.

I guess I was really willing to be nice about this, but, sadly, no.

Because...look:

"Literally" does not mean "figuratively" or "metaphorically." Quite literally, "literally" literally means "literally."

Figure 1: Better.

F That

Sometimes dilettantes scare me...

Messiaen cared little for form...

F that, Stabler.

Although he was born 100 years ago next month, he's really a Romantic: Content is everything. And what he pursued with an obsessive's heart was the ecstatic, the cataclysmic, the terrifying, the unreal. He had a pictorial concept of religion, and he dramatized it with an organist's ear for color and registration.

What!? Content is nothing (or less than everything) to post romantic era composers? Please, then, define content. Stabler.

And oh, ever hear of synaesthesia, you know, the organists' province?

A chromatic descent into delirium turned into jazz -- I swear I heard Gershwin fighting to get out -- while a swing band swirled by. It was the only place in the music that made me smile.

F. That!

F.

That.

...it made you smile...Gershwin coming out.

If we are to get anything from his music, we have to give up our expectations that something will happen.

Like John Cage said...

No. Like I said...

F that like prop 8!
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Merdle and Haggard: A Quicky Dialogue

Merdle: Hey, Haggard. Did you hear about the all-Gershwin concert in Nashville?

Haggard: Yeah. I heard the Cuban Overture “entertained with its rumba-flavored, percussion-fueled beat.”

Merdle: Sure was appropriate, wasn’t it?

Haggard: How’s that?

Merdle: It was appropriate because the conductor used to play percussion.

Haggard: Oh.

Merdle: They also played the F Major Piano Concerto, with one of the best Gershwin pianists in America today.

Haggard: Ooh, fun. You know, “fine pianists, like good actors and other successful artists, allow us to find their transitions of mood and moment believable while not allowing us to notice them making those transitions.”

Merdle: Wake and bake?

Haggard: Yeah. Why?

Merdle: No reason.
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Music City Mayhem

Maybe all of this starts with the musicians, unable to properly describe themselves in words. After all, they specialize in music, right? Maybe, because of their “authority by successful practice,” their language seeps into the critic’s lexicon. Maybe.

Consider Giancarlo Guerrero, formerly of the Eugene Symphony and most recent appointee to the helm of Music City’s Nashville Symphony Orchestra:

The decision to kick off the symphony's 2008-2009 season with a program consisting entirely of the work of George Gershwin, a composer trained not in a conservatory but on Broadway, Guerrero said, was an easy one.

Now, I’m a fan of Gershwin, sometimes. It’s just that, praise advertising, I associate his music with commercial schlock. Tom Hanks and FedEx, anyone? That I can’t have. And that’s my problem.

However, here’s my question: why was it, exactly, that an all-“composer not trained in a conservatory but on Broadway” program was an easy decision?

"I knew that I wanted something American to open the season because that's kind of the personality of the orchestra," he said of the symphony, which has long been known for its affinity with the music of composers from the United States.

Gershwin was certainly American. I give him that.

"Gershwin hadn't been done here in a while...

Fair enough.

“...and I'd had the privilege, for the last couple of years, of working with (pianist) Kevin Cole, who in my opinion is one of the greatest Gershwin interpreters around.

Go on.

“Plus, I said to myself, 'If you want to sell the house, this will do it.' "

You need to pay the rent. I get it.

Not only that, he said, but orchestras love to play Gershwin.

They also love to play other things. But, good enough for me. This all seems reasonable.

"He was the first composer to truly combine jazz and American music and turn it into classical music.”

Oh no. Let’s just ruminate on this for a while.

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No. Take out “first” and “truly,” then we might have something.

Gershwin might not always be given his due in classical circles,

All together now: “But...?”

...but Guerrero likens his genius to that of Mozart.

Holy shit. Who said musicians aren’t creative? Fanciful, even? Ridiculously fanciful? Hyperbolistically ridiculously fanciful? Super-hyperbolistically ridiculously fanciful? Super-duper times a million-billion hyperbolistically ridiculously fanciful? Number one super-duper times a billion-billion...you get my point.

"It just came to him," he said of Gershwin's compositions.

That’s it? He had ideas, that... “came to him?” That’s why he’s like Mozart? Hmmm...

"He had the sounds in his head and he knew how he had to write.

If I remember correctly, I have heard stories of how his lack of “conservatory training” hurt his orchestration. What did he do, in some cases? He outsourced the work. "Truly" American, indeed.

I don’t give Wikipedia entries complete credence when it comes to music, but I thought this was appropriate:

The Concerto in F shows considerable development in Gershwin's compositional technique namely because he orchestrated the entire work himself, unlike the Rhapsody in Blue which was done by Ferde Grofé, the orchestrator for Paul Whiteman's orchestra.

All by himself, sometimes. Ha!

“He was so ahead of his time.

If you’re comparing him to the American auto industry.

“ 'An American in Paris' uses saxophones, which at the time were unusual.

Such is the case for all instruments that were once relatively new (Adolph Sax patented the saxophone in 1846). I mean, just because Mozart and Beethoven and C.P.E. Bach wrote music for Ol’ Ben Franklin’s “armonica,” or glass harmonica, doesn’t exactly mean that they were forward-looking, now does it? Composers tend to make use of new instruments as they become available. (In a scholarly voice) Thus! Let’s just drop this line of logic, shall we?

'Rhapsody in Blue' uses banjo. In the Cuban Overture you have that array of Latin instruments, which, again, were unknown at the time in classical circles."

No dropping of that line of logic? Okay. Then let me say this again: Maybe, because of musicians’ “authority by successful practice,” their problematic language seeps into the critic’s lexicon. Maybe.
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With More Americana

Ever heard of John Antes?

He’s an early American composer—very early. Born in 1740, he was a composer, a watchmaker, inventor, instrument maker, missionary, officer of the Moravian Church and all-around good guy. Believed to be the first native-born composer of chamber music, he was also a world traveler, spending most of his life abroad. He found himself in Egypt, Greece and Germany, before settling in England. It is believed that Franz Joseph Haydn was one of his pals, on the island. He also had a cool nom de plume, “Giovanni A-T-S Dilletante Americano.”

But here’s the thing: John Antes never wrote music in America, always abroad. In fact, he wrote his first chamber music in Egypt. So, the more you know...

Anyway, today I caught Victor Carr Jr., another one of the boys over at ClassicsToday.com, reviewing a disc with one of John Antes’ String Trios—the disc is called: American Voices.

On it you’ll find:

John Antes – Trio in D minor (1780)
George Gershwin – Lullaby (1919)
Samuel Barber – Quartet for Strings (1936)
Ruth Crawford Seeger – String Quartet (1931)
Leonard Bernstein – Clarinet Sonata (1939)
Joan Tower – A Gift (2007)

Here’s what he has to say about the Antes:

Antes was trained in Germany, so his music not surprisingly is in the style of Haydn and Mozart (don't expect any "Yankee Doodle" here), and this trio is a well crafted, tuneful, and satisfying piece.

Okay. That’s pretty positive. The Gershwin:

The program leapfrogs over the 19th century [...] to land at Gershwin's haunting Lullaby for String Quartet, played here with an affecting tenderness.

Trite, but positive. Barber?

Here the power and passion of the music comes through even in its original four-strings version.

And Ruth:

The concert shifts abruptly toward modernism with Ruth Crawford Seeger's String Quartet, a prickly and complex work that lies stylistically at the midpoint between Bartók and Elliott Carter.

Hilarious! “Mozart lies stylistically at the midpoint between Bach and Beethoven.” M’kay. I'm not sure what he's trying to say, there.

Either way, “prickly and complex” are both rather neutral descriptors, neither good nor bad, tempered even.

So how about Lenny?

Seeing Bernstein's name could give the impression of impending tuneful relief from Seeger's gnarly atonality...

I take that back. He’s happy that he might get some relief from the Ruth. His impression of Ruth is, thus, not positive. (that’s fine; it’s an opinion)

...but actually the Sonata for Clarinet and Piano catches Bernstein in his "serious music" mode, and you'd be hard pressed to recognize the composer of West Side Story and Chichester Psalms in this angular but very well constructed music.

Weird, but positive. It seems that precisely what he didn’t like about the Ruth, he was able to ignore in the Lenny.

Whatever. How ‘bout Joan?

Finally, we arrive at the 21st century with Joan Tower's A Gift, for piano, flute, clarinet, bassoon, and horn, written in the composer's usual darkly dramatic style. The brooding of Memories leads to the agitation of A Song, followed by the mournful With Feeling. Though there's nothing remotely toe-tapping about the concluding To Dance With, it does end the work with a stimulating display of nervous energy.

A very positive, two thumbs up. Sounds great.

So what's my problem, today?

Overall, this is a very interesting program, but one that could have been made more lively, and certainly more representative of America, by including one of the many pieces for string quartet by, say, William Grant Still.

Exactly! One would be hard-pressed to call Antes’ music American, since he wrote all of it in the old world. Right? Wrong.

There's a certain trendiness in the selection of the more modern pieces that perhaps shows a lack of imagination.

Huh? It’s trendy to program newer music? As I see it, only one of the pieces was written in the past 70 years, and it got a glowing review. What’s wrong with that? If we’re talking, however, about newer pieces on this disc that didn’t receive a positive review, we can cross-out Lenny, Sam and Georgie.

That leaves us with Ruth, the only negative on the disc. Translation: Ruth Crawford is not representative of America.

Saying that takes some big, fucking balls.
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Picking Nits?

Sigh. Maybe I’m being nit-picky. And I understand hyperbole as a rhetorical device. Also, this was a fine article. But the opening salvo raised my proverbial hackles. Tim Smith of the Baltimore Sun wrote it.

Genius of Gershwin

It begins:

If American music had to be defined in only two words, these would do nicely: George Gershwin.

Really? (Also: passive voice?)

As the composer of Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris and a trove of inimitable popular songs from his scores to musical plays and films -- with lyrics by his brother Ira -- Gershwin defined the Jazz Age.

It seems to me that’s exactly what he did. Not define American music. Define the Jazz Age. See? You…that’s contradictory. But more true.

But he also transcended his time.

Fine, sure. I like Gershwin just fine. His music is still, and often, played today. It’s popular, tuneful, and prominently featured by United Airlines (ever been to the Denver airport?).

However, the story of American music begins in or about the 16^th century with the Shakers. And continued for 500ish years. Classicism. Romanticism. Modernism. Jazz. Folk. Pop. What have you. LOTS of stuff. Not the Jazz Age, which was nice, but...only one thing, among many.

If I had only two words to define American music, I’d pick:

“Stunningly Diverse”.

I’m just sayin’ is all. Too nit-picky?

Exciting Economic Report

Before I get going, I need to apologize for two things. One, I try to make it a policy to only go after music critics who write reviews (or, as in the previous post, critics who make “liberal” use of the word review)—those who write for major daily newspapers. Unfortunately, I stumbled across this clunker, which is from an opinion blog associated with the L.A. Times. However, its author, Tim Cavanaugh, is widely respected for his political blog and opinions; so I don’t feel that bad. And this time, he says some strange things about music. Second, I don’t like going after the blogs of bloggers. But, I can’t resist. So I’m forgoing ethics, just this once, hopefully. Sorry.

I’m sure that it goes without saying that music, especially “classical” music, is not terribly profitable, which forces or, more likely, directs composers to seek financial stability in academia. Tim Cavanaugh has a problem with this, as I do. But not for the same reasons.

Sound of money: free-market economies and long-hair music

Longhair does not need to be hyphenated. But I don’t care about that, this time. What’s important is that we’re going to discuss the free-market. Is it good for “classical” music? Is it bad? Something along those lines, anyway.

KUSC ran a richest-classical-composer feature a few days ago, which drew its top-10 list from a 2005 survey by a U.K. radio station.

There’s a link to this in Tim’s blog. In it, the survey adjusts composers’ salaries and commissions for inflation. Its purpose, to simply compare financial success among composers across different eras. And to Tim’s surprise some names were absent.

It's unlikely the numbers — which were apparently calculated in adjusted currencies — have changed much since then, so here's the list:

1. George Gershwin
2. Johann Strauss II
3. Giuseppe Verdi
4. Gioachino Rossini
5. George Frideric Handel
6. Joseph Haydn
7. Sergei Rachmaninoff
8. Giacomo Puccini
9. Niccolò Paganini
10. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Why is this interesting (to me at any rate)? Because longhair music is pretty much universally recognized as an art form that can't compete in an open market and must be supported through royal or (these days) public patronage. Yet this list is remarkable for the lack of patronage its members enjoyed.

A thesis! Financially successful composers were antithetical to general economic knowledge.

All but two of the composers on the list date to the industrial revolution or afterward, and the two who came earlier than that — Haydn and Handel — did plenty of lucrative for-profit work in Britain, which boasted the most liberal economy in Europe. Verdi, Rossini and Puccini were all piece-work producers who were less interested in pleasing the royal ear than in filling up the house with paying customers. Paganini and "Waltz King" Strauss were expert self-promoters and brand builders, Rachmaninoff made much of his fortune on recordings and performances, and Gershwin made it to the top of the list strictly by producing music for a large popular audience. I'm not sure he ever got a dime of public support.

For the most part, I agree with the above analysis. Those composers were, and still are, financially successful. These guys filled seats; in some cases, to do so, they pandered.

By comparison, Richard Wagner, another 19th-century rock star with a long list of patrons and supporters including a king who built the composer his own mansion and theme-park/mini-city, didn't make the list. That's a special irony given how massively popular Wagner was and still is, not just in opera houses but throughout the popular culture.

He is still popular, to a degree. What are we supposed to learn from this?

You could counter that money earned is no indication of musical achievement,

Yes. I could counter with that. But, then again, we weren’t talking about musical achievement. We were talking about how financially successful composers did not require patronage, thus bucking common knowledge off its horse.

and that wastrels like Wolfgang Mozart and Franz Schubert, or humble workers like J.S. Bach, would top a list of actual composing value.

They would. (I think “wastrel” is a little archaic. Don’t you?) So give some counterpoint, buddy boy.

True enough, but hardship and poverty are the default positions of human existence.

Like Jeb and his comatose brother.

It's success that's the unusual thing,

“Financial” success, not success, which we already knew, and agreed upon.

and the numbers here indicate [financial] success becomes a little more likely in a profit-centered environment.

In other words, in order to make a lot of money, i.e. be “financially” successful, you should focus on making a profit. Those words of wisdom would moisten Benjamin Graham’s eyes.

Interestingly, Gershwin and Rachmaninoff, who both died before the middle of the 20th century, are the most recent names on the list. Audience indifference has since encouraged classical composers to avoid the uncertainty of the marketplace;

There have always been only a few composers who wee able to make a living solely by composing—the lucky ones, like John Adams. Hell, even Beethoven taught piano lessons.

but maybe all those composers with academic sits would have been better off trying to make a bigger buck.

Again, his point: if you want to make a bigger buck, try to make a bigger buck. Foolproof! How come no one ever thought of this before?

What I find funny, though, is that many of the composers on the list wouldn’t necessarily be financially successful today, much less “in the canon,” without the exploitation of their music in commercials, television shows or movies.

So, I’d like to try an experiment. Guess the piece that I have linked with the composer. Are you correct? Have you it heard before? If so, where?

1. George Gershwin
2. Johann Strauss II
3. Guiseppe Verdi
4. Gioachino Rossini
5. George Frideric Handel
6. Joseph Haydn
7. Sergei Rachmaninoff
8. Giacomo Puccini
9. Niccolò Paganini
10. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Were you right? Okay, I admit that the Haydn is tough, and I could have found a better Rachmaninoff (but Shine crossed your mind, didn’t it?). Either way, can you think of a second melody by these guys? In some cases, I’m very hard pressed to do so. Now how about Beethoven, the financially crippled piano teacher? Of course you can.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm saying, except that the free-market influences the canon. And one hit wonders like Rachmaninoff, Leoncavallo and Pachabell benefit.
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