Snotty and Insufferable?

Disclaimer: Clearly, this is a humorous column, or at least an attempt at one. I am, I hope, not without a sense of humor. However, I do not take kindly to ignorance and stereotyping. So after much thought, I’ve decided to…

How to be a classic snob

Um. Thanks for interrupting, Joel Stein of the LA Times. And I think you mean “classical snob,” unless that’s some sort of attempt at a pun.

Learning the tricks behind having a snotty attitude about orchestral music

Snotty? Nice. It says over here in your biography that you’re starved for attention. Is that true?

A few years ago, I began working toward my retirement goal of being an intolerable old man.

I must say, that’s an admirable goal.

I'm way ahead of schedule on knowing enough about wine to bore anyone,

Hey, me too! Because, you know, I’ve studied and stuff.

but classical music has proved much more difficult, largely because no matter how much you listen, it does not get you drunk.

No, because you haven’t studied it. You think it’s okay to be “snotty” about wine because you know a lot about wine, but you want the shortcut to being “snotty” about classic [sic] music? Boo, sir. Boo.

But because my cultural 401(k)

Okay, that’s funny.

depends on being able to cite conductors, orchestras and recording years,

“Recording years” is pretty awkward. Simplify, man! I’d go with “dates”.

I called David Moore, a bassist for the L.A. Philharmonic, and asked him to get me on the road to insufferability.

You’re already on that road, my friend.

Moore met me at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and said that, like me, he got into classical music late -- in his case at USC, where he started out majoring in jazz, which he discovered by getting into guitar solos in Rush and Iron Maiden songs.

He discovered jazz by…listening to Iron Maiden?

New York is the center of high culture because its orchestra members keep these kinds of things secret.

Zing! Also, because people take the time to educate themselves, unlike (apparently) in LA, where any shortcut to cultural currency is welcome. Those stupid East coast idiots, learning about stuff!

His first tip was to tell me not to bother buying a lot of CDs because, unlike with rock bands, the live experience is far more important. "The Varese piece had 16 percussion instruments, and you can't capture that in two ear buds," he explained. I'm not exactly sure what his point was, but I longed to say things like, "The Varese piece had 16 percussion instruments."

Wow. Look it up, Einstein. And it’s “Varèse.” Plus, I don’t have to “long to say” facts that I already know, because I know them.

When I accused him of just saying this to get me to buy concert tickets, he told me that he never listens to classical recordings at home unless it's for work. Again, the New York guys would keep that quiet.

Zing!

Moore kept giving me advice on appreciating music, but I didn't care about that. I wanted to know how to express snobbishness about it.

Great. That’s great.

"Knowing Sibelius is Finnish and influenced by natural surroundings can deepen the experience, but you don't need to know it's cold and dark in Finland to appreciate it," he said. Yes, I do. This was great advice. A quick Wikipedia read is always the first step to intolerability.

Oh, right, I took my eyes off your prize. Intolerable, insufferable. Without working. I get it.

Sensing my excitement, Moore started to get what I was looking for. "If you can refer to recordings or conductors, then you can be elitist and mock me for not knowing that stuff," he said. Check. "Also, pronounce composers in their language of origin." Got it. BAY-toe-fen.

Jesus.

And if people applaud between movements during a concert, I should stare, loudly shush and shake my head in disapproval.

Um. What? Everyone knows that, because…

The musicians don't mind the clapping,

What? I’m pretty sure they do. Ever get stared down by the conductor? Oh, wait…obviously not.

but snotty audience members love to assert their knowledge of classical music etiquette.

Yes. “Snotty.” Etiquette is so snotty. Hey, Mr. Stein? Would you like a ham and cheese sandwich?

When I'm old enough to have really gotten the hang of this, I'm sure I'll be able to use my phone to excoriate the clappers on an online social network inhabited only by the snotty, old and self-obsessed. It would still be called Facebook.

Hey! America? It’s common to not clap between movements of a work at a “classical” concert. Clear? Clear. Not too hard, right? Full of tiny, intricate, inviolable rules? No? No. See?

After banging out some classical licks on a piano that did seem pretty memorable, Moore invited me to the orchestra's performance of Mahler's Sixth, with guest conductor Christoph Eschenbach. Not only was this supposed to be a great performance, but more important, I could tell people, "I saw Eschenbach do Mahler's Sixth." Moore was starting to understand my needs.

I think your needs are clear.

But before I went, Moore suggested -- against his earlier advice -- that I actually get the disc and listen to it once or twice. This could help with my most serious hurdle to remembering any piece I hear live: staying awake.

Good Lord.

"The familiarity of a piece is like a return drive," he said. "It doesn't feel as long because you recognize the landmarks along the way." Also, during the performance, I could focus on a particular section -- say, the bassists -- to give me something to do with my eyes besides close them. That's when I got the awesome idea for Solid Gold Philharmonic Dancers.

That is totally an awesome idea, brah! How about "Orchestral Babes Gone Wild!"?

When I got home, I downloaded Leonard Bernstein's version of Mahler's Sixth and read the Wikipedia entry about the symphony. This turned out to be really smart because I found out the symphony not only requires a triangle, a glockenspiel and, awesomely, cowbells,

Cowbells are, admittedly, awesome.

but, according to Mahler, a hammer that was to be pounded "breif and mighty, but dull in resonance and with a nonmetallic character (like the fall of an axe)." Somewhere, a child-prodigy percussionist is being yelled at for not pounding a wooden hammer dully enough.

I’ll give you that one.

That night, I did a lot of staring at the hammer guy, who, to my delight, was also the triangle and cowbell guy. And his hammer was this gigantic, Wile E. Coyote-sized mallet that he slammed maybe five times onto this enormous wood chopping block on wheels. I couldn't decide if I was more delighted by the notion of Eschenbach, who conducts this symphony all over the world, trying to persuade airport security to let him board with his carry-on giant hammer, or the idea that the Philharmonic keeps a giant hammer and table in storage just for Mahler's Sixth. Or that, for the rest of my life, I can talk about the sublime dullness of the hammer, which gets lost on recordings, as soon as Mahler's Sixth comes up in conversation. Which it will. Because I will bring it up.

Yes, yes you will. Because you saw it, and bothered to learn something about it.

See how that works? Just like wine. In the end, did you learn this? No?

Sigh. Again, I know it’s a humor column. Touting ignorance, snotty-ness, and ridiculing things you know nothing about is hilarious. I almost didn’t do this post. And it is, after all, funny. However, the point (easy cultural legitimacy) is undermined by the fact that the author actually did some research, listened to the piece, and went to the concert.

So what was the point again?

I swear, use that expression one more time...

I don’t feel the need to @#$g@$ about this. But, here’s a little commentary, anyway.

The June In Buffalo Festival is always a showcase for music that doesn’t get heard very often in non-academic settings.

That’s funny, because the concert took place IN an academic setting. What a perfect venue to play this...this (nose upturned)...meeooosick: SUNY, Buffalo.

It is a nearly weeklong extravaganza of works that seek to broach boundaries, looking over the edge, as it were, and peering into the abyss.

New music is not, you hear me?, NOT abyss-mal. Here’s my trusty OAD, yet once again, if you don’t believe me:

abyss (noun)—a deep or seemingly bottomless cavern: a rope led down into the dark abyss/ figurative I was stagnating in an abyss of boredom; figurative the regions of hell conceived of as a bottomless pit: Satan’s dark abyss; (the abyss) figurative a catastrophic situation seen as likely to occur: teetering on the edge of the abyss of a total political wipeout. Origin late Middle English (in the sense [infernal pit]): via late Latin from Greek abussos ‘bottomless,’ from a-‘without’ + bussos “depth.’

Need I say more? Wrong word choice. No. Wrong anti-new, anti-anti-melodic, anti-change sentiment, Garaud!

If you want to be challenged, then you can start here, although there are no guarantees that you will always be challenged or that you will always stay awake.

Such is the case with new music, nay, ALL music with which you are unfamiliar. Ask Mr. Cent (Curtis Jackson), he’ll tell you.

My favorite word today? Peon. Do you want me to take out the OAD again? No? Okay.

The basic theme for this week’s performances is “Music and Computers,” an interesting concept rife with possibilities for new sounds and ways of thinking.

Well said (begrudgingly).

Both works [by Morton Subotnik and Charles Dodge] had their moments of unconventional beauty...

(skeptically) But...?

...but it would be hard to imagine them being created anywhere else but in an ivory tower where the vox populi is not catered to.

What the #(*^%$asd@&a^$(dd@&^k)@kgs!!!!!!????!

#$*(&%asd^@a#*&%asdf!

$#($*(*$pedantic Latin sayings#*&^$%#!

Jhds&^%kcrapd!!!!!!!!!!!

#&^$Gh739Beethov78&&^h&^%2 your cliché 3&^%^#&!!

F-*#&DHkwf37&((*&@%7!!!!!!!!!?!!!

But, #(*&$^%)8anti-76*&^,*&87469: *&*&@gahg&&@^!!!!!!

!!!!!!&^h!!!!!!!

&$*(%&9&@Y@)*&SDO*&#$^Fgno new music?faos8y8!!!?

#*&^#*$Gshj*&#h!!!!!!

AAaarrrgggghhhhhh!!!!!! *&^@#%!!!!!

And that’s why I’m trying to earn my doctorate in music composition! And yes, from an ivory tower, thank you very much.
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Cucumber Trumpet Reprise

That's more like it!

Cucumber Trumpet

Take a look at the picture below. Now, I’m all for creative content, but what on Earth could be going through the mind(s) of the STLtoday.com webmaster(s)? Seriously? Say hola to the new Mexican restaurant in Kirkwood? Classical music? Where’s our dear Sarah Bryan Miller? Hello? Anyone there? Music? Classical music? Hello?¿Hola!?

















Oh! Silly me. My bad. Half of these are merely the equivalent of a typo, a webmaster typo, if you will. Instead, they were supposed to be filed under “Blender.” Irises are edible. Right?
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Tmolus of a Different Color

When I came across the first sentence of the Denver Post’s Fine Arts Critic Kyle McMillan’s puff piece about composer Osvaldo Golijov, I had a deviant, critically fanciful thought: what would happen if I did a little research about this commercialized cliché and, subsequently, its use as metaphor?

Osvaldo Golijov is the King Midas of classical music.

To explain: King Midas (from Greek mythology), as we all know, had the “Midas touch,” turning whatever he touched into gold, the possession of the power known in alchemy as chrysopoeia, or the Philosopher’s Stone.

Simple, right? Kyle’s just saying that Golijov is very successful. Well, these meta-critical eyes read into it a little more than that, perhaps too much. I tried to find out what’s beneath this reference to see if we can really say whether it’s an appropriate metaphor in this context, because, often times, metaphors can go astray in unusual ways.

Now, what follows is not a critique of Kyle. Nor am I putting words into his mouth. It’s a more discursive critique, a critique in general, because we all understood Kyle’s initial reference—it was successful. But!

When we dig in, however, we find some disturbing things. And if I were Osvaldo Golijov, I might have strong reason to believe that the “Midas touch” was, indeed, inappropriate, because there is much more to the story of King Midas.

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The Abridged Story of King Midas with Observations of Note

Silenus, Dionysus’ teacher, got drunk, wandered away and passed out. King Midas took him in and entertained him for ten days. Midas returned Silenus to Dionysus on the eleventh day. Grateful, Dionysus offered Midas a reward. King Midas asked for a “golden touch,” which he received. He loved it at first, but grew to despise it—everything he touched, including his food, turned to gold. He begged Dionysus to take it back. Dionysus consented, telling King Midas to wash it off in the river, which he did.

1) King Midas was greedy
2) King Midas eventually saw his “golden touch” as a curse.
3) King Midas was cleansed/baptized in the river.

Afterwards, he hated wealth. He came to worship Pan, the God of shepherds, hunting and rustic music. Pan is thought to have studied music with Orpheus. On one occasion, though, Pan challenged Apollo, the God of the Lyre, to a musical competition, with Tmolus, the mountain God, as the judge. Apollo handily won. Among the spectators, the only dissenting opinion was made by King Midas. Ticked off at his awful ears for music, Apollo turned them into donkey’s ears. Ashamed, King Midas hid them by wearing a turban.

4) King Midas no longer troubled himself with wealth, favoring a simple life, as exemplified in his God of choice, Pan.
5) King Midas had terrible ears for music.

That's King Midas on the left, with donkey ears.
(painting by Jacopo, il giovane Palma, 1548-1628)




So, you see, there is a lot to the story. And since it’s a metaphor, after all, we have to substitute Osvaldo Golijov for King Midas, greatly changing Kyle’s initial meaning.

1) Osvaldo Golijov was greedy
2) Osvaldo Golijov eventually saw his “golden touch” as a curse.
3) Osvaldo Golijov was cleansed/baptized in the river.
4) Osvaldo Golijov no longer troubled himself with wealth, favoring a simple life.
5) Osvaldo Golijov had terrible ears for music.

Or further...

6) Osvaldo Golijov was Dionysian (of chaos and ecstasy), as opposed to Apollonian (of order and harmony).
7) Osvaldo Golijov worshipped a musically inferior God.
8) Osvaldo Golijov wears a turban.

Given a tiny bit of knowledge about Greek mythology, Kyle’s first sentence is deeply troubled, that is, if taken out of context. Of course, this isn’t what he’s pointing at, but still. It’s the equivalent of saying, “Osvaldo Golijov is the next Jacko,” or “Osvaldo Golijov is the next Britney Spears.” Is that a good thing? Maybe. Maybe not.

Is this metaphor apt, then? Sure, if it’s qualified. However, Kyle’s sentence didn’t mention the “Midas touch,” it referred to King Midas, the person-myth--a much broader topic than just the "Midas touch.".

I know I’m belaboring a super-super-super-small point, but it also gave me the perfect springboard to ask another question. Can anyone tell me why Allan Kozinn called Messiaen’s colors, colors for Britney’s sake, harsh?

In the more expansively dense sections Ms. Archer played [the organ] with an unflagging power and assertiveness. Those are necessary qualities here: the best way to deal with this score as a listener is to stop wondering why Messiaen painted God in such harsh colors and let the music envelop you. When it does, Messiaen’s vision becomes clear.

Perhaps, he’s taking the super-super-super stupid, clichéd, stereotypical, facile route: dissonance is objectively bad. I guess, to Kozinn, dissonance doesn't jive with the whole "good" God thing. Oh well. I suppose it takes a donkey's ear to know a synesthete.
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The Perfect Allegory

You need to go over to The Rambler. That's all I'm going to say. Enjoy!
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Why?

Last week, Steve Smith of the NY Times wrote a nice article about a Boston new music ensemble called Xanthos. It’s called:

Modernism, Rapid-Fire or Dreamy

But don’t go and read it yet. Hold on a sec.

…Xanthos Ensemble of Boston, which came to Roulette in SoHo on Saturday night with a program featuring works by three uncompromising modernists: Pierre Boulez, Mario Davidovsky and Charles Wuorinen. And in the hands of musicians so copiously skilled and confident, this undeniably challenging music had genuine appeal.

Yes! Challenging, appealing music! Hooray!

That Mr. Boulez is modern music’s foremost voluptuary is no secret. Much of his ensemble music seems as much descended from the gauzy Impressionism of Debussy and the instrumental brilliance of Ravel as from any modernist vein. “Dérive I,” a brief work scored for the now-standard “Pierrot”-plus configuration — flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano and percussion — was a brief, intoxicating cloud of trills and flutters.

I’m not entirely sure what “modern music’s foremost volupturary” means (and my Google search for that phrase returned zero results), so I’m not sure that it’s no secret. The sentiment, though, is welcome, and tracing Boulez to Debussy is something all-too-infrequently done.

I also like the image of a “brief, intoxicating cloud”. Sounds like we’re smokin’!

Equally mysterious if less outright sensual was Mr. Davidovsky’s “Flashbacks,” in which sharp eruptions and skittering figures repeatedly rupture a placid rumination. The percussion part makes daunting demands of its player with its rapid-fire alternations of timbre and technique. George Nickson handled the role with ease and flair.

I am a sucker for alliteration.

Most appealing of all was Mr. Wuorinen’s “New York Notes,” in which six players mix and match in a cheerfully choreographed bustle. The opening movement is filled with jazzy rhythms and snatches of nostalgic melody. A throaty cello monologue in the second movement is followed by a passage in which flute and violin curl seductively around a lonely clarinet. In the final movement, a wild barrage of impressions, you can’t help but be swept away by Mr. Wuorinen’s giddy thrill in writing for virtuoso players.

Wuorinen: serialist holdout. You know, for those people who claim that “nobody writes 12-tone music” at all ever anymore, and why would they, blah blah blah.

Among four newer pieces, only Derek Charke’s “What Do the Birds Think?” could be said to extend the modernist tradition. The work’s animated outer movements call for a catalog of unorthodox expressive techniques. In between, an onstage trio (alto flute with muted violin and cello) is juxtaposed with an offstage duo (bass clarinet and percussion). While physical separation was impossible here, the layered sounds still proved fascinating.

Sounds great! What else?

In Daniel Knaggs's "Three Nature Songs," a premiere, the soprano Jennifer Ashe sang sweet, airy melodies accompanied by instrumental impressions of chirping birds and croaking frogs. "Aria IV," bu Pozzi Escot, had Ms. Ashe ritualistically intoning vowels over a droning flute and tinkle of finger cymbals. Donald Hagar's playful "I Am Not a Clock" alternated between bustling, mechanical rhythms and slow, dreamy interludes.

Actually, Escot’s piece sounds like it “extend[s] the modernist tradition”, too. But, whatever.

Why am I writing about this? It was a great review. It treated the pieces fairly, and on their own merits. It was well-written with lots of style.

Why?

Because I omitted the beginning of the first paragraph, reproduced below:

The word has been out for decades now: The bug-eyed monster of musical modernism is vanquished. Try telling that to the young, accomplished members of the Xanthos Ensemble…

Why? Why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why?

Why begin a wonderful review of young, scrappy, new music-advocating players playing new music you liked and reviewed well by reiterating old-hack adages about the death of dumb old “bug-eyed monster” modernism?

Why?

Aargh! “Everyone knows modernism sucks/sucked, but here’s my review of some modern music that was actually good!”?

Besides reinforcing damnable and clichéd stereotypes, it undermines the article before it even begins.

Why?

Ovo, Hold Your Applause

I don’t know how I missed this silly little piece. It’s from way back on May 11, by Christopher Hyde of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Telegram.

Curious Phenomenon, the standing ovation

If this were a piece of music on a concert and it had just finished, I would be sitting, staring at the performers in bewilderment, frozen, no thoughts of clapping, let alone standing and clapping, or standing and clapping and shouting, “Bravo!”

To give you a better idea of what I mean, I’ll you give my Cliff’s Notes on the article:

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Empiricus’s Cliff’s Notes to Curious Phenomenon by Christopher Hyde

A regular concert-goer wrote to [Christopher] the other day inquiring about the increasing frequency of "standing ovations" at Portland Symphony Orchestra concerts. They do seem to be more prevalent nowadays and often have nothing to do with the merits of the music.

Conjecture. Conjecture. Pseudo-fact. Conjecture.

Maybe the orchestra is getting better all the time. (True.)

Conjecture. Something about sold-out concerts and the parking situation. Back to the “regular concert-goer.” A definition of “claque.” Then...

I was hoping that the Latin root of the word ovation might be the same as that for egg (ova), hence the theatrical phrase "laid an egg," but it was not to be. "Ovation" comes from the Latin verb [Empiricus: it’s ovo, in case anyone was wondering] meaning "to triumph."

Conjecture about the nature of standing ovations. The last rose of summer. Conjecture. Pseudo-fact. Rotten oranges. We’re too nice. Pseudo-fact. Pseudo-fact. Conjecture.

And yes, it’s okay to applaud religious music, even in church.

Rhetorical question.

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There you go—my Cliff’s Notes. Before I go, however, I’ll leave you with my favorite thread.

I don't know what's behind the increase in jumping to one's feet like King George II at the "Hallelujah Chorus."

And later...

I wonder if King George clapped after the "Hallelujah Chorus?"

My guess is that he just jumped to his feet. Everyone else sat silent, staring at their beloved leader enduring another “episode.”
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Correction, Kosman!

In your lovely review of Simone Dinnerstein’s inventive interpretation of Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations, one thing needs to be corrected. (By the way, I don’t really like to correct columns on papers’ websites—it just feels dirtier than if we did it here, in a more niche environment.) Anyway, you said that:

[Her rendering] was most memorable in the opening Aria, the spare, richly ornamented melody that forms the basis of the entire 90-minute work.

...when everyone knows that the melody isn’t the basis, but rather its bass line, harmonic progression and rhythmic structure.

Though there are numerous similar and more in-depth analyses, the earliest account of this (that I could find, anyway) was made by Wanda Landowska, Landowska on Music (New York: Stein & Day, 1964), p. 215.

Just saying.
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Parting Shots: Not so "so long," after all

Dear Detritusites, I need to ask you a big favor, well, two favors: One, please be patient, this is a long ‘un. But most importantly, two, would you please hold your anger-filled comments and death-threats until the end? This might sting a bit, but, if you can accept for a moment that I may not be entirely crazy, then this will be easier on all of us. Besides, if, by the end, you still feel the need to tear me a new one and shove a fistful of wadded-up Lachenmann scores in the open wound, by all means, go ahead. It’s your right, and I’ll take it with a grin on my face. Now, you could be asking yourselves, what could be so bad that Empiricus felt he needed to issue a disclaimer? Well, people, I’m going to throw-down with Alan Rich.

As you may or may not know, Alan’s post as classical music critic at the L.A.Weekly has been terminated. And this is his last entry at that post (though he’ll remain there, albeit in a limited role).

Parting Shots

I must say, at the onset, that we have not gone after his work, until now, because it is utterly stupendous. Aside from his keen knowledge and ear, his prose is gorgeous. Here, he puts his brilliant knack for imagery and insinuation into motion right away.

Helmut Lachenmann cuts a solitary figure in today’s musical world. At a time when much of the talk centers on accessibility, on a generation of composer-heroes — Adams, Adès, Reich, Saariaho, Salonen, just for starters — who have found ways to reach out to audiences with serious and imaginative creativity, that old notion of the composer on his private Olympus, proudly and defiantly cloaked in his mantle of inscrutability, rests almost solely with this tall, gaunt yet smiling German gent whose music ground its way through Zipper Concert Hall last Monday.

That’s ridiculously clever, maybe even poetic. However, what lies beneath this elegant prose—which, by the way, sets up the rest of the review perfectly—is almost pure anti-modernist venom, couched in populist (?) idealism. To get a better sense of what I mean, let’s take a closer look.

At a time when much of the talk centers on accessibility, on a generation of composer-heroes — Adams, Adès, Reich, Saariaho, Salonen, just for starters — who have found ways to reach out to audiences with serious and imaginative creativity...

He’s just setting up and defining the contrary, yet popular, point of view by naming Lachenmann’s aesthetic adversaries and their accomplishments. In fact, he’s hailing their accomplishments, while making clear that their work represents the present: “at a time when,” “composer-heroes.” This places Lachenmann, where?

...that old notion of the composer on his private Olympus, proudly and defiantly cloaked in his mantle of inscrutability, rests almost solely with this tall, gaunt yet smiling German gent...

Lachenmann is placed on Lonely Mountain, as it were. Or, as we’ve seen so many times before, in his own selfish, ivory tower. But he’s placed there as a relic (“old notion,” “gaunt”), happy to swim upstream. He’s seen as the last of a dying breed (“old notion...rests almost solely”).

Put all of it together we come up with something like this, which sounds a lot like someone else we’ve dealt with before: Lachenmann is an old-school, aloof, who-gives-a-shit-about-comprehensibility kind of composer-God, who doesn’t care about pleasing his audience, unlike “Adams, Adès, Reich, Saariaho, Salonen, just for starters,” who, by the way, are heroes. Salonen, really?

And also, apparently, good riddance, Lachenmann! (I read ahead)

Okay so far?

Well, no. I’m not okay. BEGIN STUPID RANT STOP Accessibility in music means popularity. If that was, indeed, the penultimate goal, then every composer would be imitating this guy. And the only things you get by imitating that guy, besides money and paparazzi, is awards. I mean, where are these composers now? Where is their music being performed? Are these popular Pultizer Prize winners in the canon?: Douglas Stuart Moore, Gail Kubic, John la Montaine, Robert Ward, Leslie Bassett, Richard Wernick, Stephen Albert (Seriously, Google them. YouTube them. Did you find anything? Any music?) What did popularity ever do for them? END STUPID RANT HERE STOP

Okay so far?

Yes, I suppose I’m a little better. Thanks. I needed to get that off my chest. Anyway... you know what? No. Come to think of it, no, I’m not better, because this tripe continues.

“He is the world’s greatest composer,” proclaim a few holdouts in the new-music community who dote on inscrutability.

Unpopular Lachenmann fan = doter on inscrutability. Great. Thanks, Alan. Thanks for nothing. Way to avert the unfamiliar! Way to close your mind! Way to conform. Baaaaah!

At them in response, I fling my favorite James Thurber line: “ ‘He’s God!’ screamed a Plymouth Rock hen.”

For those of you not familiar with “The Owl Who Was God,” here you go. Note the “moral” of the story, near the bottom. (I love unintentionally ironic references)

Now, in defense of poor Helmut, I’ll lob over a favorite Morton Feldman quote: “The only fanatics I have ever met were conservative musicians.” Take that, conformists!

Yet the concert drew a large crowd, and there were many who stood and cheered at the end.

That’s an ordinary, reasonable response; people go to concerts they might enjoy. This, however, isn’t a reasonable response:

I would love to know what they heard.

And why is that? Take it away, Alan!

Prior to this concert, I knew Lachenmann mostly from the ECM recording of his setting — “opera” in the broadest sense — of the Hans Christian Andersen story “The Little Match Girl,” onto which he has hung the whole paraphernalia of his “fractured aesthetic” (Alex Ross’ term), culminating in a horrendous musical mishmash in which the ghosts of every composer in Lachenmann’s own scrapbook, Mahler, Berg, Stockhausen, Boulez, pass by simultaneously as if in some horrendous wet dream.

A game: Find the Epistrophe!

(Jeopardy theme music)

Find it? The answer is: "horrendous." By repeating horrendous twice with regards to one subject, he’s strongly emphasizing how Lachenmann’s opera is (list of possible synonyms) dreadful, awful, terrible, shocking, appalling, horrifying, horrific, horrid, hideous, grisly, ghastly, gruesome, gory, harrowing, heinous, vile, unspeakable, (takes breath), nightmarish, macabre, spine-chilling, blood-curdling, loathsome, monstrous, abhorrent, hateful, hellish, execrable, abominable, atrocious, sickening, foul, nasty, disagreeable—you get the idea.

But, why wasn’t that a reasonable response? Well, “just for starters,” if a newspaper is going to assign a critic to review a concert, it might be nice if they sent someone who has a general interest in the music to be played. It might also be nice to have a critic open to new possibilities, instead of one who can’t fathom alternate definitions of “opera,” in quotation marks (in quotation marks: in "quotation marks"). Also, also it might be nice if the reviewer was familiar with the music, you know, say the reviewer knew more than one piece by the composer. Just an idea. But who am I to question these things?

Does that lovely, sad Andersen story deserve that?

I didn’t know stories deserve things.

Do we?

To be fair, I don’t know that we deserve “horrendous wet dreams,” either.

Did we on Monday?

Hell no! Everyone is aware that we only deserve “horrendous wet dreams” on Tuesdays, and sometimes Fridays depending on the tide. Mondays are simply out of the question, what with the morning rush-hour commute and all!

But I digress, too. Go on, Alan. Spew more Lachenmann derision.

I had never before endured pain at a Monday Evening Concert; this time I did: pain and anger.

You can’t blame Lachenmann for the burritos you ate at lunch! Lachenmann + burritos = the runs.

The music by [...] Helmut Lachenmann reflected the nastiness dear to so many German and Austrian creative hearts these days.

Whoa! Where’d you come from? Who are you? Get out of here! Go. Get!

[...] Mr. Lachenmann's ''Movement (Before Paralysis)'' seemed almost to jeer at the easygoing spirit and borderline sentimentality of the [preceding] American pieces [...].

Shoo, I said! I mean it!

“Movement (Before Paralysis)” seems proud of its complications. Hard, angular, percussion-ridden, highly uneven in movement, this is the art of unease. Mr. Lachenmann produces wheezes, whines, shudders and whooshes that are sophistication itself.

Go on! Get out of here! And stay out! That's better.

“Played,” by the way, often consisted of blowing through only the mouthpiece of a wind instrument, banging on the case of a piano, delivering frenzied blasts through a brass instrument and otherwise violating the customary sound possibilities of various instruments.

But that’s not new. However, saying that Lachenmann rapes the instruments is new; that’s a new one on me, anyway.

Such procedures are not new,

See.

and they have a certain joke value the first time around.

Odd, but not necessarily new, procedures = a joke, the first time around. Just like sul ponticello, right?

The Lachenmann works were long enough to allow these things to happen several times, and you all know what happens to a joke when you tell it more than once.

It gets old. I got it. You were clear about tha...

Hold it. (sniffs the air for a cheesy taint)

Mr. Rich, sir. Are you saying that...(thinks... “grmphblhpt”)...I don’t know what you’re saying. See, if you’re saying that novel sounds are a joke, but lose their comic luster (?) when repeated, then... I mean, if you’re saying that odd instrumentations, which may not be new, are funny, except when they’re reiterated, which makes them bad things, then...

I’m confused. Let’s go backwards.

These things I can grasp and accept: Lachenmann is not popular. You don’t like his music. Presumably, you do like Adams, Reich, etc. (Salonen, hmmm). They are (more) popular/accessible.

But, therefore...? Lachenmann is a joke? Because he’s not accessible? Because he utilizes odd sounds? Because he’s a modernist? Because his music causes the runs?

There’s a “parting shot,” indeed. (super-slow fade to black)

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If this had been an actual meta-critique, this is how it might have gone. But, fortunately for Alan and a number of you, this is where your patience will be rewarded, because it was not a critique, per se—even though a lot of points stand—because, Alan, like I said at the beginning, is a fine, fine critic, a critic we’ve never before tried to tear apart. Then why go through all this rigmarole, Empiricus? Why parody yourself? So I could make obvious that there is almost no difference between Alan’s opinions and those of other critics, opinions that generally warrant a long, scathing Detritus-like whipping.

What’s the difference, then? Simple. First-person.

Listen, I don’t agree with anything, anything in this review (except maybe the part about Lachenmann being one of the last modernists). Let me just make that clear. Alan and I have polar opposite opinions. I don’t think that if we ran into one another at a concert, that we’d become BFFs.

But, because he uses the pronoun I to express himself, I can’t fault him. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. And he’s calling it as he sees it. No disembodied, third-person generalizations vomited as objective truth. Just him, and his opinions.

I can’t fault Alan, but I can fault the newspaper higher-ups and whoever gave Alan that particular assignment. I think its pretty clear that Alan can’t stand Lachenmann’s music nor “ivory towerites.” Then why send him to review a Lachenmann/modernist concert? That makes no sense. “Let’s send ol’ Mel Gibson over to cover the bat mitzvah.” That doesn’t make any sense either. So why do it?
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I'm Lovin' It!

Whew! This stuff is addictive like greasy fries: Sarah Bryan Miller puts on her Official Detritus Meta-goggles.

It’s CAR-mi-na, not car-MEE-na!

Well played. Well played, indeed.
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Composer of the Day!

Today’s Composer of the Day is Melinda Wagner.

(b. 1957)

I must admit, I hadn’t heard much about Melinda Wagner, which is why I decided to try to find out more. What I managed to dig up was intriguing, however, it isn’t all that substantial.

Born in Philadelphia, she studied with a couple of familiar faces, including George Crumb and Shulamit Ran. She has been performed quite a bit, won her share of awards, including the 1999 Pulitzer Prize, taught and lectured here and there, and then, well...I’m not so sure. At the bottom of her Theodore Presser biography, it says that she currently lives with her husband and children in New Jersey. There’s not much else on the inter-wide-web-surfing-place.

Although, last year Anne Midgette glowingly reviewed the premiere of her trombone concerto:

[...] Ms. Wagner’s piece practically leapt off the stage, so vital and fresh did it sound, compared with what had gone before it. And this concerto certainly belongs on a program of unusual instruments. It is thickly sown with interesting sounds — not sound effects, but a range of timbres and textures, partly supplied by a large and varied battery of four percussionists, woven into the fabric of the music. To balance the mellow trombone — played with a beautiful, burnished richness by Joseph Alessi, for whom the piece was written — the composer pitched her work dark: lots of viola, cello, bass and other trombones anchored the music.

Ms. Wagner writes strikingly well for orchestra; this piece used the whole spectrum of colors available to her without ever becoming dense or cloying. The thickest textures came in the second movement, “Elemental Things,” and even here, where movement slowed to the measured pace of a large beast waking up, long-held notes were brought into focus by details: the whisper of a brushed cymbal, the punctuation of piano.

This smart, complex score retained an organic quality throughout, a kind of clear emotion running through its rich variety; [...]

Her Concerto for Flute, Strings and Percussion is what put her name on the map, winning the 1999 Pulitzer Prize. Here’s a recording at Art of the States (you’ll need realPlayer to listen). The same recording was given quite a friendly review by Detritus favorite David Hurwitz.

The sheer sound of this piece is utterly beguiling. Cast in the traditional three movements, Wagner's idiom in this concerto is fundamentally atonal, though with motives and tunes that are clearly recognizable and often quite beautiful. The extraordinary slow movement reveals the composer's gift for sustaining interest over a lengthy span of intensely quiet music [...]

That’s quite a compliment!

You should listen to her music!
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The Long Road through Spain to Russia

“Houston Symphony takes the long road through Spain”

Ah, yes. The long road through Spain. That sounds delightful. The sentiment is full of lazy, siesta-filled Mediterranian spirit. Surely there are tapas and tempranillos and a sense generally of unhurriedness.

The Houston Symphony's management may have survived paying overtime to its musicians by a whisker, but I sure felt the audience deserved some overtime compensation after the long slog through Thursday's Spanish-themed program in Jones Hall.

Or…not so much with the unhurried Spanish-ness. Fine. Surely the audience should be compensated for getting extra music to hear for the same price.

(Also: Fuck you Houston Symphony, for not paying your musicians for overtime.)

Somehow, an idea for a light, cheery season-ending program turned into a methodical no-stone-unturned traipse through a formula.

A traipse…through a formula?

It didn't help that guitarist Eliot Fisk was allowed to append his pre-intermission performance of Joaquin Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez with two encores and blowsy gabbing. By the time the performance reached 10 p.m. there was still had a full work to go.

Read that again. …[T]here was still had a full work to go. The…what? Grammar…melting…

The first culprit was the full orchestral version of Manuel de Falla's ballet El Amor Brujo (Love, The Magician). Like many ballet scores, it has strong and weak moments.

As opposed to most music, or works of art, or anything, which do not have strong and weak moments.

As an opener it set a drowsy pace despite music director Hans Graf's sharply crafted and lovingly conducted performance (the essential character of his and the orchestra's work all evening). It was also difficult to hear the soloist, mezzo-soprano Katherine Ciesidecornski in the Grand Tier. She sang with style but not carrying power.

That seems fair…

Two sides of Spanish orchestral/solo music followed.

What?

Concierto de Aranjuez clearly placed the guitar at the center with the orchestra skirting around the instrument and helping to deliver the timeless yet ever popular melody of the second movement. Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain used the piano as decor, always adding ambience even when it clearly had the lead.

Are…are the “two sides” using the…guitar at the center…and the piano…as décor? Huh. Clearly, two well-known sides of Spanish orchestral/solo music.

Fisk was in take-charge mood and performed forcefully yet gracefully.

Take-charge mood? Definite article?

Shai Wosner, the pianist in Nights in the Gardens of Spain, was a little too dutiful. Decoration that needed the flexibility of chant was too metrical.

“Too dutiful to the score” is what I think is intended. Which is fine, unless you think musicians should be dutiful to the score. I’ll let our composer-readers chime in on that.

Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol was an abrupt change-of-pace as the ending work.

Change of pace, I think, should only be hyphenated when used as a compound adjective, and not when used as the noun, as in this sentence. But whatever.

It may have looked nice on paper, but it was out of place.

The piece looked nice on paper? Or the program, with a Russian finale to a Spanish concert?

The brazenly Russian music, which essentially was a miniature version of the composer's Scheherezade with plenty of percussion, didn't relate to much of anything that preceded it.

Why might it have looked nice on paper? Also: "brazenly Russian"? That seems odd, because the composer's name was Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

The performance of Capriccio Espagnol did earn lots of bravos and applause. They made me wonder, as I headed to the exit, whether the performance would sneak under the wire of contractual obligations. I think it did.

I really don’t know what this means. The “bravos and applause” made Mr. Ward wonder if the performance snuck under the “wire of contractual obligations”?

At least he thinks it did? What?

To conclude: the long road through Spain was too long, which traipsed through a formula, and ended in Russia, which looked nice on paper, but eventually snuck under the wire of contractual obligations, therefore the audience should have been paid overtime, but not the musicians.

Did I get that right?

Unrequited Italics

Italics mine.

Some people will tell you that music, especially orchestral music, is an objective thing: It doesn't exist beyond the notes, which simply are to be played as the composer instructed.

Everything else [according to “some people”] - the emotions, the supposed story line of a given piece - is your own projection onto the music.

Well, yes. Unless the writing is on the wall, it’s your interpretation, your projection. It’s difficult to work your way around it. Structural signposts or other cultural tropes may contain associations, but, then again, linking those associations is, in my opinion, hard to do, let alone justifying a correct interpretation of concrete meanings, intents, purposes, narratives. Therefore, without help, you’re doomed to project yourself onto the music.

Besides, that’s silly. It’s also about context. “Music” is a pretty broad topic. I’d like to know who said that so I can show “some people” how that statement doesn’t really say anything, especially in a vacuum. I mean it can be true and, on the other hand, it can be false depending on the context in which it is said. So, I’ll leave it to Richard Scheinin to provide us with some context.

Well, if you actually believed that while going into Davies Symphony Hall on Thursday, you probably would have abandoned the theory by the time you left. Because soloist Yefim Bronfman's soul-stirring account of Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor was one in which he stepped into the shoes of the composer, young Brahms, grappling with his impossible love for a woman, and played that role for about 50 monumental minutes, an actor on the stage, with the San Francisco Symphony, led by Michael Tilson Thomas, as his consoling Greek chorus. [*]

At least that's how I heard it. [Italics still mine]

I just hope that the whole beginning was an attempt at humor. Otherwise, I’d have to stop laughing and strap on my Empiricus Hard-helmet™.

If we’re going to contradict ourselves by acknowledging that the performance was, at best, your interpretation (“that’s how I heard it”), you might as well give up and call it a day, go outside, sit down in the hot sun, and think, nay meditate, about your transgression of logic. Be sure to wear some sun screen and drink plenty of fluids. If, however, you can manage to better articulate your argument and show us why your interpretation was justified (by “justified” I mean: not your projection onto the music), please, go ahead. Bets, anyone?

In those years, Brahms drew close to Robert Schumann, the composer, and his wife Clara Schumann, the pianist and composer, adopting them as mentors and surrogate parents, but also wildly falling for Clara, 15 years his senior, fighting his passions for her (as she did for him), even while grieving for Robert, who descended through madness and institutionalization to his death.

That's the story line, [...]

(securely fastens the strap on the Empiricus Hard-helmet™)

Oh boy. That is not the “story line” of Brahms’ piano concerto. There’s no way. What proof is there? Am I crazy?

Just to show that I’m not entirely off my rocker, I will acknowledge a few things. There is some truth to the story. Brahms probably loved Clara; though no one knows whether or not the relationship was ever physically consummated. Also, the slow, middle movement of the concerto may even be a musical portrait of Clara (where I found this tidbit of information is now lost; and Wikipedia is no help nor is it exactly reliable).

So there may be an element of truth to Richard’s impressions. However, to quote a famous thinker:

I think it clearly indicates the composer's deep seed estrangement from [his] 1st cousin (once removed) on [his] mother's (older) sister's side, most-likely over a dispute during a game of pinochle in which [Brahms] originally claimed a trick with [his] Trump Marriage, but then decided to replay [his] cards as part of a double run. Calamity ensued. Anybody who knows anything about music would know that...it's made perfectly clear in the manner in which the crotales double the clarinet obligato (which can only occur after the presentation of invertible counterpoint in the upper strings, otherwise it would suggest the game of Chutes and Ladders) and resolve using a Landini cadence in augmentation while foreshadowing a crab canon. And the high B in the piccolo...how could you hear anything but [Brahms’] cousin telling [him] that her mother makes terrible oatmeal raisin cookies and the whole family has been lying to protect her feelings. I think it's pretty easy to make that out. -Gustav

Unless there is proof, i.e., if Brahms had, in Mahlerian fashion, scribbled clues in the margins of the score (or the title), written program notes, letters, email or text-messaged the story to us, informing us that the concerto’s “story line” was, in fact, definitely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, concrete—unless there is that kind of proof, the sounds that reach your ear, from the performers’ instruments, played by performers with brains, led by black dots on a page and a conductor to help keep everyone together, written by a composer who was, “experimenting and feeling [his] way,” then those sounds must be, must be interpreted by the listener.

Do you now see how it’s your fanciful story projecting itself onto the music? Yes? Good.

Also, this is why we often butt heads with critics. When they say things that are only vaguely true, or simply false, we can’t help but think of the poor layman reading this stuff, what effect it might have on their musical perceptions, their tastes, their knowledge. And, as a composer, I worry a lot about having to explain my work to the audience in these terms, terms that may not apply or dumb down the conversation. “Uh...the narrative of my piece is...uh, butterflies.” I mean, the audience is intelligent, but the information they receive is often...well, backwards, at best.

And this is why we exist, to repeat myself for the billion-googleth time, to help close the gaps in our dialog.

Speaking of dialog, here’s a delicious writing assignment: Yummy Fun!

And the Brahms Piano Concerto in D minor, Op. 15, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5

*Winner of the coveted “Most prepositional phrases in a sentence fragment” prize.
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Palate Cleansing Joke

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

Funny.

Seriously. Funny? Okay. Funny who?

No, silly. It's pronounced Ferney-hoe.













(painting by Takashi Murakami)

Serious stuff to follow.
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Roach Motel

Like I’ve said numerous times before, ClassicsToday is a fantastic idea—it reviews all sorts of recordings that most newspapers pass up; it’s convenient; it’s relatively navigable; that’s about it. But somewhere, deep in their basement lies a dank, moldy, cracked wall in desperate need of repair. Even when it’s only gently inspected, it crumbles open and, in stereotypical Hollywood fashion, it spews out cockroaches by the thousands, ravenous, mindless, and uneducated in the ways of the tritone.

Chicago-based composer Shulamit Ran offers two large-scale works in a familiar modern style--consistently dissonant and chromatic, and nearly always atonal.

My new favorite catch-phrase: “nearly always atonal.”

It's no secret that a composer who chooses to forgo use of tonality must substitute some other factor to generate expressive variety and momentum.

Detritusites, welcome to the DeVry School of Music! Your online course to criticism success!

She mostly achieves the same kind of ambiguous emotional fog as we hear in hundreds of forgettable atonal works by other forgettable composers.

Okay class! Take your online seats.















Let’s begin by reviewing the music, even though we’re not supposed to review the music.

Blecht!
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Help the Detritus, Save the Queen

Give this CD review a gander:

Paul Lewis’ Beethoven piano sonatas lovely, but a bit too British

Today’s question for the Detritusites: what is it exactly that Cantrell says about British comportment?

First, Lewis is described as able, thoughtful, eager, lovely and elegant. Then, somehow, his inner-Brit gets in the way. Cantrell wants more wit, more danger and more ecstasy, just like he received from Schiff’s recording.

And Mr. Lewis misses the songlike qualities of the variation themes in Op. 109 and 111; the former is too foursquare, the latter too slow.

Foursquare: unless Cantrell is referring to a church, waterproof jackets, rum, an American architectural style, an archaic definition or a video production company in San Diego, he’s saying that the performance of Op. 109 was childish or simplistic, like the game. Sure, he could’ve meant “square,” as in "conventional or boring." But "foursquare" is an archaic English definition of the geometric figure; it's not related to the informal shortened form.

Now, dear Detritusites, I'll ask again: what about the British demeanor that makes for an unsatisfactory Beethoven performance?
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Puffy Pandering's Plateau

Seriously, who cares?

HOW DO you add sparkle to a fatigued operatic war horse? Bring out the jewelry and let it shine under the spotlight.

(blank stare)

But not just any old jewelry. For its latest revival of "Tosca," opening Saturday, Los Angeles Opera has obtained a rare stage artifact -- the jewelry worn by Maria Callas in 1956 for her Metropolitan Opera debut as Giacomo Puccini's tragic heroine.

Made of nearly 200 tear-shaped Swarovski crystals, the jewelry was created specifically for Callas by the Atelier Marangoni in Milan, Italy.

The three-piece set, which consists of a tiara, earrings and a fanned-out necklace, is worth approximately $85,000, according to Swarovski, the current owner.

"To wear this talisman -- I have to pinch myself," says soprano Adrianne Pieczonka, who shares the role of Tosca in this revival with Georgina Lukacs. "People were taken aback by how bright they were during rehearsals. It doesn't bother me, but I hope it won't be a distraction for the audience."

Pieczonka will wear the Callas jewelry in Act 2 of "Tosca," which is the most vocally and physically demanding section of the opera.

You know, I heard through the grapevine that the Berlin Philharmonic will be touring North America under the direction of a secret, but famous, conductor to be announced later. He/She will be wearing Karajan’s underwear. The very underwear the maestro was sporting during a random performance of Strauss’s sweaty, super-physically demanding “warhorse,” Ein Heldenleben. And in case you're wondering, the Maestro's extra-special change depository hasn't been washed for nearly thirty years.

I mean, really, who cares? That's as deep as this analysis is going. Take it or leave it. Don't like it? Whatever, I do what I want.
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On the Times Co.

Hey! Times Co.! I thought about it long and hard and have come to a decision.



















Stop being stupid. In fact, all newspapers should stop being stupid. And that's all I have to say about that.

(Unfortunately, this painting is already sold)
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And the Nominee for Best Faux Aphorism Is...

Sam Richards of the Oakland Tribune for his stylish

If you’ve got something good, you might as well use it.

It sure is a mind-bogglingly clever take on, “if you got it, flaunt it.” Also, one of the best openings to begin an article, ever! Congrats to Sam for a job well done. More nominees to be announced later.
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