Extreme Merdle and Haggard

Merdle: You know, it’s been a long time since we’ve been to a new music concert. I’m feeling a little guilty for not supporting the arts. Plus, I have a hankering for something not associated with Toy Story 3.

Haggard: Me too. I could go for something that doesn’t pander to the lowest common denominator.

Want some coffee?

M: Sure. Thanks.

H: [pours coffee] We should check the listings—see if we can find something worthwhile.

M: Mmm. Did you grab the paper?

H: Yeah. It’s on the counter, behind you.

M: Oh. I didn't see it there. It’s early--not quite awake yet.

H: That’s what coffee is for.

M: You said it. [sips] Hmm. [fumbles through paper] Arts section...NY/ Region…Ah! Here’s something. Ooh! It’s about the Caramoor Music Festival.

H: We haven’t been to Caramoor in years. What are they up to?

M: Well… “CHAMBER music has been a key part of the Caramoor International Music Festival in Katonah for most of its 64 years. But rarely has the festival presented as wide a spectrum of chamber offerings as it will in its 65th season, which opens this month.”

H: I didn’t know they’ve been around that long! Good for them.

Would you like your eggs scrambled or sunny-side up?

M: Sunny-side up, please.

H: So, a rare, wide spectrum of chamber music? [goes to refrigerator, grabs butter, eggs, bacon, and jelly] Sounds good. What else does it say?

M: “Along with established and emerging artists serving up standard chamber fare, an audacious group of new-music exponents will be on hand — bending the chamber format and…”

H: How does one bend the chamber format?

M: Maybe it’ll be played in a large arena.

H: Or maybe there’ll be just enough players so that you can’t quite call it chamber, but few enough that you can’t quite call it an orchestra.

M: Meh. “’We’re still pushing the envelope, for Caramoor, and trying to reach a broader part of the community,’ said Michael Barrett, the chief executive and general director of the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts.”

H: The qualification of “pushing the envelope” doesn’t instill much chamber-format-bending confidence.

M: That and "trying to reach a broader community" kinda smells funny, don't you think? I mean, it sounds like a good thing, but for whom?

H: Not gonna tell you. It's just so good.

M: Mmm-hmm. “The new-music aesthetic being presented this year departs somewhat from that of academically oriented composers like Roger Sessions and Elliott Carter.”

H: Again with the qualifiers! I’m not sure what to make of these messages: first there was "wide spectrum"; then "format bending"; followed by pushing the envelope “for Caramoor”…

M: Don't forget departing “somewhat.” Yeah. They’re toeing a line, for sure. But the bigger issue is the seeming way almost all new music is being marketed.

H: Do you mean how they want to distance themselves from thinking and academia?

M: Totally. What’s wrong with thinking?

H: You got me. Not for nothing, I seem to think we've been through this whole "we want an art that appeals more to the senses than to reason" thing before.

Anyway, want to think about how you want your bacon to appeal to you?

M: Charred, baby.

H: That’s why I love you.

M: “While Caramoor’s performers maintain a uniformly high level of musicianship, they embrace elements of popular culture…”

H: Doesn't "while," as a conjunction here, connote a contrast? What's that supposed to mean?!

M: Hold on. “…producing what the festival’s marketers call extreme chamber music.”

I guess it means that nobody knows how to market that which is unmarketable.

H: But they know how to market popular culture! It’s like calling a sports drink extreme, because it actually contains water, instead of processed, liquid-like crap.

M: Do you ever get the feeling that arts advertising is, like, ten years behind current doublespeak practice?

H: Ha! You said sunny-side up, right?

M: Yep. “Reflecting their training at Oberlin and Juilliard, the members of 2 Foot Yard, a violin-cello-guitar trio that will appear on July 2, bring a certain phrasing and detail of tone to their interpretations, said Carla Kihlstedt, the group’s violinist.”

H: [cracks an egg]

M: “Yet, she said, the group works in forms that have more in common with folk or pop music than with traditional classical composition.”

H: …Because phrasing and details can't exist in folk and pop forms, don't you know? What?!

M: Maybe there’s something to this whole anti-academic distancing. Schools are obviously not doing their jobs well.

H: You’re just saying that to get under my skin, aren’t you? Besides, you mean conservatories; they're hardly schools.

M: But you’re cute, when you’re mad. [sips coffee]

H: Seriously, just read. Meanwhile I’ll cook your breakfast, without help…all by myself.

M: “None of its tunes run more than six minutes.”

H: Selling point for short attention spans, no doubt.

M: No doubt. Or broader audiences. Heh. “In pieces like ‘On Waking,’ which it may play at Caramoor, the band employs extensive harmonics and extended improvisations punctuated only by a recurring four-note vocal line — Ms. Kihlstedt and the cellist double on vocals.”

H: I’m glad they may decide to use more than just sine tones. Grisey would be happy. [removes several strips of bacon from the skillet] Also, don't you think it's kinda a stretch to call a six-minute improvisation "extended"? A happening might be extended, but not a six-minute improv.

M: Or, it's like...

H: I know. Sex joke.

M: Mmm. “This, she said…”

H: What does “this” refer to?

M: Dunno. The "four-note vocal line"?

H: Dah-dah-dah dum!

M: “This, she said, results in a kind of abstraction that owes as much to the ethos of alternative rock as to the culture of the academy.

‘I find that audiences are getting much better at connecting the dots between different kinds of music,’ she said.”

H: Wait. Are we or aren’t we going to this festival?

M: Connect the dots.

H: Would you like toast, my abstract cryptographer?

M: Two pieces, please.

I dunno. I've liked Caramoor events in the past. Maybe the wonky description is coloring my preferences; but I think I'd still like to go.

H: We have nothing better to do, I suppose.

M: Either way, let’s find out what else is said about the state of arts advertising.

H: Good call.

M: “Connecting with audiences is a primary goal of Ethel, a quartet with two violins, a viola and a cello…”

H: Wait. Who wrote this, again?

M: Phillip Lutz, with two Ps, two Is, three Ls, an H, a U, a T, and a Z.

H: I suppose he has two eyes, four limbs, a torso, and a head, too.

M: You're funny. Not!

H: Nice. Nobody's used that reference since 1990!

M: Actually, 1992, chef-slave. Or 1993, if you want to count the sequel; but I don't know anyone who thinks that should count. [sips coffee]

“…the group adopts a ‘pedal to the metal’ attitude that plays down ‘the pursuit of perfection in classical performance,’ said Mary Rowell, one of the group’s violinists and a Juilliard graduate.”

H: That’s an odd thing to say.

M: You mean invoking a “pedal to the metal” attitude in order to downplay something?

H: Yeah, that. The idea is provocative, though.

M: ...if not logically problematic. “While the group’s playing hardly lacks precision […] the precision is never achieved at the expense of passion, Ms. Rowell said.

‘If we’re going to alienate audiences, it’s just not going to work,’ she said.”

H: More coffee?

M: Please. [ponders, sips] Do you think she’s implying that pursuing perfection alienates audiences? Or pursuing an antiquated ideal alienates them? Or is perfection unattainable? Or...

H: I think you’d be better off by asking what she means by “work.”

M: True. Or maybe I'll just send a letter of complaint to Julliard's office of academic standards.

H: Ha! [plates the last of the food, carries it over to table]

Alright, hun. Time to cry uncle. Breakfast is ready. Plus, this ham-fisted puffery is ruining my morning.

M: But you’ll miss my favorite part.

H: Yeah? What’s that? [sits at table beside Merdle]

M: Get this: “And the clarinetist Anthony McGill, who said that the pivotal works of his Caramoor debut would be by Debussy and Stravinsky…”

...

...

Wait for it.

...

H: Come on. My eggs are getting cold.

M: “...Debussy and Stravinsky — arguably new-music practitioners of their day…”

H: Did I read somewhere that Heidegger once argued this proposition and lost?

M: Shut up, chef-slave, and pass the Tabasco.
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Merdle and Haggard Do Science

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

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

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Then, there’s this:

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

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

Figure 1. Product placement (free of charge)

For one experiment, there were a lot of variables.

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

Anyway, let’s follow this hypothetical experiment.

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Variable 1:

Was it the earlier start?

Nope. You disproved that one, remember?

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

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

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Variable 2:

The informal dress of the players?

Hmmm. See above Merdle and Haggard sarcasm.

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Variable 3:

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

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

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

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

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

Figure 3. Suggesting where this is all going

Variable 4:

The short [...] program?

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

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

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The control group:

The [...] all-Beethoven program?

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

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

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

Haggard: These things sound like a broken Glass record.
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Merdle and Haggard

Scene I

(Merdle at the breakfast table; enter Haggard)

Merdle: Good morning sleepy face! How’d sleep last night?

Haggard: (yawn, wipes crusties from eyes) Fantastic. I love sleeping in on Saturdays.

M: What can I getcha for breakfast? Some coffee?

H: Sounds good. Can I have some eggs, too?

M: How’d you like ‘em?

H: Sunny-side up, please. Thanks sweetheart. Oh! And I see you already got the paper.

M: Yeah. I was thinking we could do something this afternoon.

H: Yeah, what? (yawn)

M: We haven’t been to the movies in a while.

H: Oh! You know what else we haven’t done in a while? Go see the symphony.

M: Perfect. That sounds cool. We haven’t seen them in almost a year. See if there are any good concerts today; I haven’t gotten that far in the entertainment section. Would you like sausage with your eggs?

H: Do we have bacon?

M: I think so. Yes. We do.

H: I’d like the bacon, please. Ooh. Here’s a concert: “Both the Dallas and Fort Worth symphony orchestras are in show and play mode this weekend. The DSO is performing Debussy’s La Mer with projected J.W.M. Turner paintings and watercolors.” That sounds neat.

M: Totally. That’s one of my favorites. I tried to play a Debussy disc the other day at work, but it annoyed the guy in the cubicle next to me, so I put on some Kenny Chesney for him, instead. What a dork. He’s sort of religious about Chesney—he’s been to like all his concerts and stuff. Here’s your coffee.

H: Thanks.

W: What else?

H: Umm... “The FWSO is projecting Peruvian images with two works connected to music director Miguel Harth-Bedoya’s homeland.”

W: Oh, weird. So the review is about two concerts?

H: I guess so. Let’s see. “Inspired by cellist Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project, presenting contemporary music from the old Asian trading route...” Well that’s a weird thing to say. Contemporary music from an old trading route.

W: That doesn’t make any sense. Is the salt over by you?

H: No. “Mr. Harth-Bedoya has his own Caminos del Inca (Inca trail) project. This week’s offerings include Mr. Harth-Bedoya’s arrangements of three 18th-century Peruvian dances and a recent work by the FWSO’s composer-in-residence Gabriela Lena Frank (American-born, but of mixed Peruvian, Chinese and Lithuanian heritage).”

W: Who wrote this article? I bet it’s Cantrell. He, for some odd reason, always highlights someone’s race, like it’s a big deal for him.

H: Yup. That’s weird.

W: Thought so.

H: Do you have any clue what Peruvian dances sound like?

W: That’s a strange question, too. Do you mind if I make my breakfast first? Just thought I’d give you a warm plate, while mine cools off.

H: That’s thoughtful, honey. Thanks. Where was I? Oh. “Sparingly scored for chamber orchestra, with toe-tapping drummings and rattlings, the dances were drawn from a collection by an 18th-century Peruvian bishop, Baltazar Martínez y Compañón.”

W: Does that answer your question? Toe-tapping drummings and rattlings.

H: No. It says here that “Accompanying images were the bishop’s own illustrations of attires, from European to fantastic native, and activities of his day.”

W: European attire is surely not Peruvian attire. What was the name of the conductor’s project?

H: Inca Trail.

W: That’s odd. Either way, it sounds like an eyesore, unless the bishop was like Rembrandt or something.

H: Ha! No kidding. Oh man! “Both music and illustrations were delightful.” Thanks Cantrell! If the music was as delightful as the pictures he described, I think the orchestra is doomed.

W: Yeah. He sure doesn’t paint a clear picture. Does He? Here. I forgot the milk for your coffee.

H: That’s okay, honey. It’s fine without it. Thanks, though. Oh here’s a bit about the composer-in-residence’s piece. “Dr. Frank’s Illapa is a 12-minute tone poem inspired by the eponymous, flute playing weather god of Andean mythology.”

W: What’s “eponymous” mean?

H: I don’t know.

W: That’s kind of pedantic, don’t you think?

H: Well, maybe we’re the idiots. It's certainly better than "orchidaceous," anyway.

W: No. I mean the “Dr.” part. Calling yourself a doctor can be misleading if you’re not a medical doctor. Besides, it’s like showing off, or something. I especially hate it when artists do that. What do you think?

H: I think I’m getting hungry.

W: Okay. Okay. I just finished making my eggs. I’m getting to yours now.

H: Just kidding, sweety. Take your time. “Soloist Jessica Warren played two more or less modern orchestral flutes...” How can flutes be more or less modern? This kind of writing is starting to bug me.

W: Well if you ever got your head out of the comics, you’d be used to it by now.

H: Touché. Where... oh. She “played two more or less modern orchestral flutes in the piece and two traditional Peruvian examples, one with a seductively hollow and husky sound.” Sounds like Cantrell has a thing for the larger ladies.

W: Ha!

H: “An introductory soliloquy flows, jerks and oozes, with occasional overblowings.”

W: Sheesh.

H: “Clacks of claves are echoed by string pluckings. Slithering violin tremolos...”

W: I think he means “violin repeaties.”

H: See? This what I thought you meant by “pedantic.” He uses words like “eponymous,” then, for us lowly travel agents and software engineers, he switches to... what was it? ...drummings and rattlings, and pluckings and overblowings.

W: I see your point. Though, "overblowings" isn't too bad. Would you like Tabasco for your eggs?

H: Cholula if we got it. Well how about "clacks," then? That's no better. (reads on) Blah, blah, blah. “Arresting and engaging, the piece got a wholly persuasive performance. For an encore, Ms. Warren and the orchestra played the third movement of Alberto Ginastera’s Impressiones de la Pluna.”

W: Enh.

H: "Making Rimsky-Korsakov’s Schehezade sound fresh is no small challenge. But Mr. Harth-Bedoya and his charges did just that, in a performance of considerable flair. Wind solos might have had a little more personality, but concertmaster Michael Shih spun out the violin ruminations in threads of aural gold.”

W: Christ! That’s a metaphor and a half. Here’s your eggs and bacon.

H: Thanks, babe. Here’s the paper. (eats)

W: “The orchestra’s violins played with silken unanimity, and, from loud to soft, the brasses made glorious sounds.” That’s the end.

H: Oh really? I thought it continued to go on about the Dallas Symphony on the next page. That’s it? I guess the review was only about the Fort Worth Symphony. Well that sucks. That’s like an hour-long drive from Dallas.

W: More like an hour and a half.

H: Oh well, we'd never make it in time, anyways. Wait a minute. Why was this article in the Dallas Morning Star when the concert is in Fort Worth? I mean, you really have to want to go, in order to make it to a 2PM concert one and a half hours away after sleeping in till 10:30. Either that or you have to have a teleporter.

W: Funny man. See what you miss when you only read the sports and comics? Scott Cantrell. You know he was the President of the Music Critics Association of North America for a number of years?

H: Wow. (eats more) Well, Cantrell didn’t make it sound too interesting anyway.

W: I know. I would still like to see the Debussy, though.

H: That’s in Dallas, right?

W: Yeah.

H: Okay then. (eats) Mmm. There’s no comparison between Tabasco and Cholula.
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