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.