The Listening Sessions

... Lyric's 2009-2010 Season ...

2009-02-07T00:24:00.000-06:00

So far this season, the Lyric has pretty much aced everything it's touched... I totally dug both The Pearl Fishers and Manon, found Lulu engaging and exciting if not fully convincing, and enjoyed Madame Butterfly about ten times more than I thought I would (Patricia Racette? flawless). I'm still kicking myself for missing Porgy (but sometimes life gets in the way of things). From the crazy (Lulu) to the standard (Madame), they've really gotten it right and deepened at least this still-novice opera-goer's troubling addiction... (And then there's Tristan, I'm braving you in just a few weeks...)

With that in mind, Lyric's announcement of the 2009-2010 season kind of whets the appetite. Packed with a lot of standard repertoire - Tosca, Marriage of Figaro, Faust, The Elixir of Love - it also throws in a few twists. Berlioz's Damnation of Faust hits the stage with Susan Graham in the role of Marguerite (and Paul Groves as Faust). Doesn't look like it's the Lapage production that the Met put on this season, which by some accounts may be a good thing... regardless, I'll take Susan Graham in just about anything.

Perhaps most exciting is Janacek's Katya Kabanova with the one and only Karita Mattila. The Lyric staged The Cunning Little Vixen a few years ago, when I was just sinking my teeth into opera, and I freaking missed it. Janacek's been on the top of my "composers I can't wait to hear live" list... looks like Katya will break me in.

And I'm definitely not mad at Ernani... I don't know that I can ever be mad at Verdi. Just the name gives me goosebumps...

So there may not be a Lulu, Tristan or Porgy, but considering the economic apocalypse and the cuts other companies have made, we here in Chicago can consider ourselves lucky... still a full season, with just a few performances cut.

CSO hasn't made much as far as a 2009-2010 announcement goes, but a postcard promises five weeks of Haitink at the end of the season (!!!) and Muti conducting Brahms' German Requiem... I'm already anticipating the organ (and some of the most beautiful music for chorus I can think of). It also promises some programming for Boulez's 85th birthday... if that means we get some Boulez compositions out of the deal, that's a definite win.

Still a lot to look forward to in the now, though... but it's never a bad thing to be able to look forward to the that-which-is-to-be... oh, and here's Mattila doing Sibelius' "The Tryst," which is just fantastic.

... i'm going driftless ...

2009-01-25T20:32:00.004-06:00

I had the honor and privilege of attending the funeral of a young man this weekend, a death that, at this point in time, seems to rest on the furthest outskirts of reason and fairness.

I did what I often do in the situations that seem most baffling: I read, I thought, I listened.

In his book The Imperative, Alphonso Lingis writes:
Suffering is a premonition of dying, and prolongs itself into dying. It takes time to die. Suffering and dying extend a duration in which there is nothing to do, but suffer. The suffering one is reduced to himself or herself, disconnected from any future he or she could project or take hold of. The suffering one is disconnected too from the force and momentum of his or her past. Nothing one has experienced and assimilated prepares one for this. Death comes, of itself. Until it strikes, it remains absolutely out of reach, uncomprehendable, unnegatable, unconfrontable, unpostponable. What is impending is the unknown, not even apprehendable as impossibility or nothingness. ("The Summons of Death," p. 153)

And he continues:
Under the lurking shadow of death, we sense that there are out there harbors full of possibilities singularly destined for us. We sense that there are forest clearings illuminated just for our eyes, there are enigmas in the environment about us or in outer space for which our brain alone is wired... The approach of death, which darkens the field of time and cuts from us the array of possibilities that are for others, summons us to our own powers. It summons us to discharge our forces into the possibilities laid out singularly before us. (p. 154)

And further:
And do we not feel the summons of death in the attraction come to us from all corruption, all defilement, all decomposition? Do we not feel it in the swooning in voluptuous abandon? The sacred, that separated force which intoxicates us, is felt in all the outer regions where the things and the order of the world enter into decomposition. And do we not also feel a vertiginous peace beckoning to us in all evacuations, all disappearances? (p. 155)

In the next chapter, Lingis turns his eye away from the death alone, the summons of death, and gazes into the world of those who stand near the dying:
To have a friend is to be brought into the sweep of the laughter and weeping, blessings and cursings of that friend. It is to be led by the strength of her hands down paths lit up by the light of her eyes and the torments and courage of her heart. It is to answer for her wants and failings, to bring to her ventures and adventures our insights, our resources, our blessing. It is to shoulder her burdens and support her initiatives when she is stumbling and to heal her suffering with the resources of our health. What greater misery can we know than not to have been there when that friend, having been hit on her motorcycle, lay dying on the highway, when that friend lay dying of a stroke in his home unable to reach the telephone? We would have been there to help, to get help. We would have been there when there was nothing to be done. We would have had to be there. ("The Death of Strangers")

And finally:
In the assent then to die there is not only the resignation of hopelessness and the longing for nothingness as deliverance from suffering; there is also a surreptitious friendship with the death that comes which is a friendship with all that lives and dies.

Home from the funeral, I've listened to Greg Brown's "Driftless" several times through. I'm not really big on uploading mp3s, but I guess I'm sort of offering this one up as a sort of memorial.

Have I done enough father?
Can I rest now?
Have I learned enough mother
Can we talk now?
Will you visit me
in my place of peace?
I'm going driftless...

Well let's cry all our tears,
Cry 'em all out now.
Let 'em fly down and clean
all the rivers.
And the evening sky
Is the reason why
I'm going driftless.

Have I worn enough clothes
to go naked
Have I told enough lies
to see some truth
Round hill, round thigh
round breast, round sky
I'm going driftless.

Have I done enough father?
Can I rest now?
Have I learned enough mother?
Can we talk now?
And will you visit me
in my place of peace?
I'm going driftless.

... the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy pop musics ...

2009-01-19T21:33:00.004-06:00

Sometimes fellow music addicts recommend music to me, and I ignore their advice...

Okay, not really ignore. I hear their advice, I know they're probably right (for any number of reasons), but I don't run out and pick up the record right away. The next time they see me, they ask if I've checked out __________ yet. "No, but it's at the top of my list," I reply, and that's usually a sincere response. The list is just too long, and the memory is just too flawed. When I finally make the purchase and beat the record into submission with the bluntness of the 'repeat' button, I usually kick myself for waiting so long. My calves bruise up - it's hard to kick yourself anywhere else - and I wonder when I'll learn.

Such was the experience with the record ruling my stereo right now, last year's self-titled lp from Fleet Foxes. I finally grabbed it a few weeks ago and have been unable to let it escape from my listening list. It's been commented on enough - it made a crazy number of "Best of 2008" lists - but I thought I'd share a few thoughts anyway.

It's an exceptionally lush record, a record that I can only call stunningly balanced. It's balanced in its instrumentation, ranging from sparse sections that seem as much guided by silence as by sound, to larger arrangements that, though rarely complex, seem perfectly weighted and considered. Balanced, too, are the thick layers of harmonies that often part to make way for undeniably well-crafted vocal lines, vocal lines that are often a bit longer than you'd expect to find in your average pop record. The production has something soft about it - I mean soft here in the way you might talk of a soft-focus lens on a camera - but also a ghostliness... what sounds like a flute solo in the middle of "Your Protector" sounds like it's coming from across a big, open plain, as do its muffled chorus vocals ("You run with the devil").

Like a lot of excellent records, its best traits are often the biggest threat to the quality of its execution; the juxtaposition of masses of voices and stark solo lines, for instance, could easily come off as too obvious a manipulation of dynamics, or the haunting, vaguely muffled production might be accused of being overly conscious of itself, too intrusive and intentional. But the record never falls into such traps; as I like to say, everything sounds in its right place.

Finally, the record tip-toes on the edges of a sound one is tempted to call Americana while calling for a number of comparisons to other artists such as CSN(Y) or The Band (the latter especially heard in the harmonies of the opening track, "Sun It Rises"). But imitation it is not... influences and genre serve as guiding forces here, not as models or even as foundations. At the end of it all, I find it completely original and absolutely enchanting. I'm half-expecting my coworkers to barge in and tell me to stop playing it over and over... either that, or they'll barge in and start singing along. We need more office singing, anyway...

Here's the video for their lead single, "Winter White Hymnal." When was the last time we heard nearly thirty seconds of a capella harmonies in a lead single, from a band that played Saturday Night Live? From a band that, according to Wikipedia, describes their sound as "baroque harmonic pop jams," no less. Kudos, kudos, kudos.

They played Letterman, too, performing "Blue Ridge Mountains," and pulled it off pretty nicely, too.

And here's an example of their penchant for longer-than-normal melodic lines via a live performance of their "He Doesn't Know Why":

... Fight One: Dudamel's Hair vs. Brahms' Beard ...

2009-01-12T19:41:00.008-06:00

It's hard to get through the hype.

With classical music, it's harder to understand the hype. Not because the hype is always unjustified or overblown, but rather because there are so many excellent musicians, composers and conductors that determining why X gets the bees a-buzzin' and the tickets a-sellin' seems daunting, if not impossible. When you're a relatively new listener, you either buy the hype or steal the skepticism...

And the hype can be so insulated. If you overhear someone on the street say, "Did you hear Christian Bale is in town for a movie shoot?" you know who they're talking about. Your head starts a-fluttering because you loved him in Batman, and you wonder if you'll run into him while you're buying your groceries this week at Whole Foods.

But if you say "Dudamel's at the CSO" on a random street corner, the folks around you will not think, "Dude, Dudamel!!! I wonder if I'll run into him while I'm buying my groceries this week at Whole Foods." "Dude-a-who?" That's the more likely response. I don't know that classical is any more insulated than other niches - I remember sitting at the bar at the Empty Bottle, waiting for a show to begin, listening to two young guys have a five minute conversation about electronic artists whose names I didn't recognize. I thought they were talking in code; "Maybe they're terrorists," I thought, and I pulled out my phone and thought about calling Homeland Security. I'm sure every circle has its fair share of insulation. It's part of what separates, for better or worse, the casual fan from the rabid devotee (with most of us falling somewhere in between, really).

So I was a bit skeptical walking into Symphony Hall, the bees all a-buzzin', half expecting to sit down in my chair and find my foot stuck in hype honey. I was really there for two reasons: Brahms' Second, and it was my birthday. Well, okay, four reasons: Brahms' Second, it was my birthday, and Stephen Hough, although I wasn't particularly excited about Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21. I was curious to hear Barber's Adagio for Strings, but figured I'd be a bit bored by it. (That's all terrible, it makes it sound like I was walking in with teeth clenched... I was excited, really, just, um, unsure...)

When the lights did their thing, there was an awkward pause while waiting for Robert Chen to walk out, one of the longer waits between lights dimming and Concertmaster appearing that I can recall. Then another long, awkward pause between orchestra tuning and Dudamel appearing. I'm pretty sure I saw some of the violas snickering.

Dudamel took the podium, paused again, and then started at the Barber. He's got a good rapport with his barber, no doubt, as his hair was perfect, almost threatening to take my focus away from the music. As he moved, it moved. As he bounced, it bounced. When he jumped during the Brahms, I half-expected his hair to take flight and start dancing, suspended mid-air in the Hall, only to fall back perfectly in place as Dudamel wrapped up the piece. Very impressive. If I were a producer of 60 Minutes, I might have recommended a two-part special: one on Dudamel, and one on his hair.

Jokes aside, the Barber was very impressive as well. As a fellow concert-goer noted, the sound felt a bit thin in the beginning, but as the orchestra chewed up that long, massive swell building to that fantastic long-held high note, my ears went "Oooooooooh...." and my heart sighed, "Catharsis!" John von Rhein called Dudamel's tempo "glacial"... compared to recordings I've heard, I'd say it was a bit slow, but it never left any cracks open for overt sappiness or lapsed into melodrama. And if they sounded thin at the beginning, they sounded perfect as they pulled off of the swell, everything - sound, volume, tempo - balancing just beautifully. It's such a gorgeous and moving piece, something that's easy to forget... we've heard it in Platoon and, as Andrew Patner pointed out, in 9/11 (and other) memorial montages on the evening news. But hearing it live, played well, it renews itself. I don't know that I'll pass up an opportunity to hear it again. (As I wrote this, I listened to a Munch recording on lala.com; if conductors have a tendency to take the piece slow and milk the emotion a bit too hard, Munch took it at remarkably fast pace... I'm not sure which I prefer, the Adagio you can do the harlem shake to, or its alternative...)

A bit of a reset, and then Dudamel returned with Stephen Hough in tow. I was excited about Hough; I was charmed by my first exposure to him last year when I picked up his Mozart disc, reasonably titled A Mozart Album. He certainly didn't disappoint. I was struck by the lightness with which he approached the piece, an attribute that made some of the more virtuoso runs and left-hand/right-hand stunts all the more impressive. I think Mozart, along with Chopin, pretty much put the kabash on my personal piano studies, and the first movement of this concerto is a good example of why. Hough's lightness found a good match in Dudamel, who kept the tempo moving along pretty well, even during the famous second movement (another famous piece that would be hard to resist over-milking for emotion).

Intermission, and then the Brahms. After I read Swafford's bio on Brahms - or rather, as I read it - I started tearing through Brahms' music in something of a frenzy. More, more! I said, as I devoured the first piano concerto, the violin concerto and the first symphony. More! I cried, after relishing the Cello and Piano Sonatas. And then I hit my first wall: the Second Symphony. So much of the pathos and drama and tension that I admired in my Brahms explorations up to that point seemed missing from the Second. But when I unlocked it - which didn't take very long at all - it quickly became a favorite of mine, maybe even more than some of the earlier pieces that I'd played to death.

While I didn't leave the hall completely convinced by the Brahms, I did gawk-in-a-good-way at a number of things I'd never noticed before... particularly some of the ridiculous counterpoint in the third and fourth movements. The program notes referenced the use of material from the Violin Concerto (its second movement), another thing I'd never noticed before (but came out crystal clear after reading... as I left, I was humming the VC's second movement rather than the Second's second movement)... and the third movement of the symphony, which I'd kind of tossed aside as a bit forgettable, was actually pretty delightful. The fourth movement was kind of a mother-of-god rollercoaster. It was the movement that got Dudamel literally airborne, and it's not hard to understand why... the pace of it was super-quick... kind of made me want to get up and jump around.

All in all, I'd say the Mozart took the cake in terms of sheer performance, but the Barber and Brahms probably got me a bit more in the emotional, gutsy particulars. As a listener that still considers himself "new," trying to peg down or "grade" a conductor is tricky. It seems that all you can really rely on is how moved you are by the music and performance... in this respect, Dudamel "won."

But really, though, his hair...

---

Some nice writeups out there on Dudamel's return to Chicago. Andrew Patner shares his thoughts here, John von Rhein here. Thanks to DecSimp for pointing the way to this really unique post at a blog called Printers Row Poet (who saw the same performance I did, Thursday night's, and also noted Dudamel's impressive hair). Another blog that's new to me, The Highly Suggestible Type, offers another perspective on Hype. And some rather nice descriptive prose at yet another blog that's new to me, Farrago. Dudamel brings out the blogs!

Finally, Mr. Patner shares his interview with Dudamel tonight, which you can stream online at over at the WFMT site. Nice!

... and the worrisome years ...

2009-01-10T20:19:00.003-06:00

The things we number in our lives, the events that we count off as we go about our business, may actually be a bit telling. We don't, for instance, count the number of hot dogs we've eaten or the number of newspapers we've thrown away still folded and unread. Some of us count the number of cavities we've had (don't ask, don't tell) or the number of pounds we've lost (or gained). Don Giovanni tallied his amorous conquests with great detail. Kinsey tracked his gall wasps. The things we number are often significant to us, but some of them are mundane. While attending a dinner party once, the bustling conversation was abruptly silenced by the sound of breaking glass. The host emerged from the kitchen: "I've broken a total of eight wine glasses in my life," she quipped, not even taking the time to count them off on her fingers.

I remember seeing the musical Cats in the fourth grade. It was a really big deal, my first large-scale, professional production of a musical. After the event, I kept a count of the number of days that had passed since I'd seen Cats, and then the weeks. In middle school, when I began buying records on my own, I kept a mental tally of how many I owned. Yet I never felt the urge to count the number of books I owned or had read, or the number of times I'd been on a plane. Why albums but not books? What makes one desire to number this, yet not that?

I celebrated a birthday on Thursday, and the more I thought about the idea of a birthday, the more strange and fuzzy the whole thing got. The counting off of years is something we do very readily, almost without thinking about it. The birthday passes, and we don't think twice about swapping a digit (or two, on some of the biggies)... it poses little difficulty for any of us to shift our verbal gearstick and to start saying "I'm twenty-six" instead of "I'm twenty-five." The transition may be easy numerically, but we still choose to pop off the event with great fanfare and, as the years pass, more and more existential and social hand-wringing. Beethoven's age delusion isn't that difficult to understand, really, considering the number of everyday expressions that infer a something beyond literal age: we say that he's young at heart, she's mature for her age, and when we get fed up in an argument we'll shove off with a hearty Oh, grow up!

Birthdays for the first twenty-one years are full of a lot of excitement as we edge our way closer to freedom; we're given permission to stay up later, and order off the larger menu at restaurants (even if we really just want the grilled cheese sandwich). We're soon able to drive, first with a parent, then on our own; teenage depression may very well stem from the fact that you're old enough to make plans, but dependent on parents - those people who fed and clothed you yet you've suddenly developed a rabid distaste for - to get you there. The mark of independence continues to come with the passing of birthdays as we no longer need a parental guardian to get into the movies we really want to see, and the advantages of age bring the ability to legally poison your lungs at 18 and legally kill your liver at 21.

The years between twenty-one and twenty-nine are relatively uneventful birthdays, almost not worth mentioning. We don't get any really exciting privileges during those years... society's fresh out of things to offer that we might really look forward to. Instead, you turn twenty-five and you can rent a car without any hassle and your auto insurance rates go down, but somehow that lacks the luster of a sweet sixteen or a bar mitzvah bash. The Birthday Administration definitely needs to come up with an idea or two for this stretch, maybe forbid us from eating lobster until age twenty-eight. The big 28 would arrive and we'd get all spritzed up, head downtown and proudly walk into that seafood restaurant that's been taunting us for so many years: Yes, I'll have the lobster, please...

But after twenty-nine we hit thirty, and a new sense of dread creeps in to associate itself with each passing year. When Maggie O'Connell turned thirty she noted that this meant all the good men were snatched up, and she didn't stand a chance at finding a husband until the first round of divorces started pushing through.

It's a bit redundant to note that every year seems to go by faster than the last, but we say it again, and again (and again), usually around the time that the party starts to die down and the guests start to leave. And those guests leave earlier at forty, fifty, sixty, we schedule the parties to end earlier, each party now commemorated with "over the hill" mugs and gag gifts filled with novelty first aid kits and packages of Depends, the obligatory joke about the flaming cake being a fire hazard or visible from space. We talk less of what we're doing these days, and more about what we did back then, as well as the things we didn't do but wish we had.

We mark off the years and things begin to reverse themselves: our car insurance rates go back up, our doctors tell us that we really need to stop doing the things we were given permission to do at ages eighteen and twenty-one, and we give up the riveting gore and sex of an R-rated movie for quieter movies, movies like How Green Was My Valley, movies that feature tender narrations that remember a better time and a better place, all the better if they're conveyed in the honey tones of a light brogue. In the same way that we were constantly reminded you were too young to do anything fun as a child - taunted by grown-up activities and "You Must Be This Tall To Ride" signs - we're reminded that now we're too old, reminded by the volumes of life insurance and estate planning advertisements that arrive in the mail, mail that sings "O Danny Boy" as you open the seal, like a really bad musical greeting card.

We know all of this ahead of time. It'd be terribly depressing if we didn't. Yet we also know that that's just half the story... numbers are useful in their own way, but numbering our age does little to note the good stuff, the stuff that happens between the cracks. Once we've earned all of our privileges in those first twenty-one years, we spend the rest learning that birthdays are less about a marking of age and more about everything that's gone into that age, that's made that age, its building blocks of desires and loves and whispered sweet-nothings and deep, dark heartbreak. We can measure the time we've known someone in years and numbers, but it's impossible to measure the stuff of those relationships and all of the good and the bad that went into and came out of them. Ages are useful for listing things that might have happened that year but the soul of those happenings, the cuts and bruises and take-no-prisoners passions, is tucked behind and under the number, barely hinted at by the frosting-painted digits and the societal signposts that mark another year's passing.

So we mark off the years and we cut the cake and try to get the piece with the frosting flower, and we accept the flood of birthday wishes from co-workers and friends. Digital birthday cards from distant companions remind us that we don't talk to those we care about nearly as often as we should, and we vow to do better. Every year we go through the same twenty-four hour cycle of elation and anxiety, we wonder what the coming years will bring and where the passing years have gone. The number of our age goes upward... and that's a good thing, it's good for them to keep going. It means that all those things that can't be numbered - memories, regrets, euphorias and sorrows - are still being accumulated, still being added to. It means that the things that can't be easily connected to a numbered birthday, that rough and wild undercurrent of a life being lived, is still pushing forward, pulling us under and lifting us up.

---

So what did my birthday bring? One trip to the CSO to see Dudamel run through Barber, Mozart and Brahms. One trip to the Lyric to see Madame Butterfly. Four cab rides. Two bars. Too many drinks (mostly for others). One deep-dish pizza consumed at too late an hour. One lost purse, segued into one found purse. One lost coat (status undetermined). Countless "happy birthdays," and one video wish from a *too cute* three year old.

And, finally, one exhausted, older and wiser thebigfunk, listening to a whole lotta Greg Brown:

... Three Initial Thoughts (c/o Charles Ives) ...

2009-01-07T22:44:00.002-06:00

I'm planning to do one or two "in-depth" posts specific pieces later, but here are three initial (incomplete) thoughts on Ives, from my recent baptism in his murky waters. I've thrown in a few "don't throw tomatoes at me" moments, too, if only for entertainment purposes...

1) The Mahler and Stravinsky Connections
One of my favorite aspects of some of Stravinsky's stuff is the sheer audacity in his rhythmic and melodic layers... the opening movement of Petrouchka is a great example of what I'm talking about, one line's rhythms or melody spilling over and into the next, bits and motifs thrown right on top of each other, bumping heads and then making up with each other later down the line. Jan Swafford uses the word "bedlam" to describe some of Ives' more crazy soundwalls; while I don't think Stravinsky ever went as far as Ives, "bedlam" certainly comes to mind at times.

A good part of my admiration and appreciation of Mahler stems from his use of a similar method... take the first movement of Mahler's third, which I've been listening to a lot lately. There are a good number of melodic and rhythmic motifs throughout the movement - too many to count for this little anecdote - which Mahler introduces and then develops alongside and on top of each other. Where Mahler really gets me hooked, however, is the way he manages to use all of this as a way to gradually build a movement, all of these disparate elements coming together in one loooong emotional arc, a sort of metaphrase. I don't get the same emotional satisfaction from Stravinsky... please, don't throw any tomatoes, but Stravinsky and prog rock have a lot in common. Both are full of really crazy cool bits of music that make me lose my musical mind, but neither offers me much catharsis.

Ives has me hooked if only because he combines the gradual build of Mahler with the really nifty, ear-boggling stunts of Stravinsky, and he pushes both of those elements to absolute extremes. Take the first movement of Ives' Third Symphony... now, forget the fact that "O For A Thousand Tongues" is a favorite hymn of mine (probably due in part to Tori Amos' dissonant variation introducing her "Icicle"). Rhythmically, it's not one of Ives' extreme moments (compared with what I've heard so far)... but he's certainly effective here at layering the melodic and rhythmic motifs he plucks out of the tune over each other, up against each other, and he does it all in such a way as to build quite beautifully and dramatically to a very satisfying, stately, almost-straight-through reading.

A more extreme example would be the last movement of the Second Orchestral Set. I honestly can't get over the whole piece, I think it's strikingly beautiful and extremely moving to me, but the third movement... right from the opening, the murky combination of the brass, strings and voices each doing their own thing... and that murkiness receding and returning, with new phrases leaking in. By the time you've recognized "Sweet By and By" - first by a lone brass instrument (trumpet?), then by the strings, then in its glorious campfire retreat form - the movement is slipping away, rhythm still toppling over rhythm...

2) Sampling, Interpolating, Quoting...
While the increase of sampling in its many guises throughout music as a whole has, perhaps, helped to soften the idea(s) that sampling is lazy, elementary or stealing, I think the public at large still thinks of sampling as Puff Daddy/P Diddy/Diddy/Sean Combs stealing a whole chorus and changing the words. And I think there's still a general and vague sentiment that sampling is somehow, well, lazy, elementary or stealing.

Yet we know that countless composers "interpolated" other composers' or folk melodies into their music, perhaps none moreso than Charles Ives. Ives may be the most like a hip hop producer yet, however, in his use of very small portions of melodies or portions of music. This is probably due, in part, to his use of what Swafford calls "cumulative form"; instead of introducing themes in full at the start and developing them, as one might do in general sonata form for instance, Ives picks bits of a melody and slowly pieces it together, playing it in full toward the end. You can hear that in the above mentioned use of "Sweet By and By," or in the way "Just As I Am" is slowly and thoughtfully rebuilt over the course of the last movement in his Third Symphony.

This, combined with the second movement of Shostakovich's dj like methods over the course of his Trio No. 2, convinces me that many composers and hip hop producers have more in common than meets the immediate ear. (On Shosty's Trio No. 2: that's another post) Doubters need only return to Tribe's Midnight Marauders or perhaps a Public Enemy album to prove to their ears that I'm right.

But really... no matter what you call it, and regardless of the method - traditional notation or electronic/digital modification - it's kind of the same thing, no?

3) When the bedlam clears...
There's something transcendental about Ives' bedlam, no doubt, but there's also something to be said for what exists when Ives clears that wall of sound away. I'm thinking in particular of the striking third movement of the "Concord" Sonata, "The Alcotts." It unfolds so naturally, so easily, even in some of its more peculiar sounding passages it sounds just right. The first portion moves with the grace of a hymn, the second with the, um, grace of an easy popular song. I've not quite hit Swafford's rundown of its composition, but I don't care what its inspiration is: the third movement is and probably always will be a love song to my ears. (Sidenote: is that 'popular song' melody a quote? It's so direct and quieting... just gorgeous)

That's all for now.

... Give 2008 Something to Remember Me By ...

2008-12-31T21:13:00.001-06:00

As much as we say we don't like resolutions, we make them anyway. I think we all do. The urge to reflect at the start of a new calendar year seems completely appropriate to me, and such reflection naturally sits with and leads into an act of resolution, whether explicit or implicit. Some of us resolve through hoping, looking forward at the future and praying for the best that is yet to come. Some of us go a step further and predict, we look into our own personal crystal ball and tell of our own futures, tell of the future of our worlds. Full resolving - "I will quit stubbing my toe on the same piece of furniture every week" - seems to me to be a combination of hope and prediction with a third ingredient, a promise of action, thrown in.

But there's another emotion, another sentiment, another half-action that seems understandable at the onset of a new year: fear. I wonder if we emphasize the hoping and the wishing and the resolving in an effort to push our fears aside, if only for a moment, to suppress them and displace them. No one wants to admit that peace in the Israeli and Palestinian conflict seems a long way off, but most of us fear that that is the case. And underneath all of those personal resolutions runs the fear that, by 2010, we will still be stuck in the same dead-end job, or we will still be living paycheck to paycheck. We fear that we'll still drink too much and too often alone, we fear that we will still be smoking, maybe even smoking more (when we already smoke too much).

We fear that all the parts of ourselves we deem lesser and imperfect are etched too deeply, and that time's ability to eat away at and erode isn't enough to take away our habits, our anxieties, our flaws. We fear that our willpower is not willful enough and our strength not strong enough. We fear that 2010, 2011, 2021, 2061, that all of the rest of these years we have are already largely written, our lesser selves riding a current too heavy to turn back by force alone.

But resolutions have the best chance of manifesting themselves and seeing themselves through if we know what lies underneath them, if we're unafraid to see the ugly driver in the car closing in on us. Somewhere in our fears, as a bit of their substance and their presence, sits the very possibility of their overthrow. So if I'm making a resolution on this New Year's Eve, it's really a resolution to be unafraid to be afraid, and to be unafraid to look into that fear and see what it's all about.

Yeah, because that's just what I need, to become more self-critical, to increase the amount of self-inflicted analysis I put on myself...

Happy New Year everyone!!!

... it's oh so quiet ...

2008-12-29T17:22:00.002-06:00

The holidays are over (save New Years, the holiday that allows you to drink away any stress or anxiety built up over the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas stretch). The gifts are unwrapped. The decorations are coming down. 2009's rules are being made to be broken. And this hermit of a blogger is staggering out from his brief hibernation.

It may have been quiet for me on the blog but it's been raucous in the house the last few days, and we have Charles Ives to thank for that. My parents gave me a copy of Jan Swafford's Charles Ives biography; about a third of the way in and I'm loving every page of it.

Aside from a few pieces here and there, listened to casually, I've really not been exposed to Ives. That's partially been by choice. Ives has been on the list of composers to seriously check out... the little bit I knew of his music, and the little bit I knew of his life, told me he'd be someone I'd do well to spend a good amount of time on. Like all times, that time has come.

I'm currently armed with the Naxos recording of the two string quartets (Blair String Quartet), the Decca recording of the four symphonies and orchestral sets no. 1 and 2, and Pierre-Laurent Aimard's performance of the Concord Sonata (from the disc with Susan Graham, thanks lala!). If you've got piece recommendations, or, even better, recording recommendations, shout them out here. I figure I'll pick up a few more discs over the course of January.

Oh, the Concord Sonata! I turned it on at work and was stopped dead in my tracks, closed the door, turned it up and listened through the whole way. The second and third movements, in particular, took me to the edge of my chair and the edge of my sanity (both in the best of ways). I think I've listened to it at least five or six times all the way through now and am just floored...

That being said... I hope to start the new year off right by attempting a bit of unabashed journaling here on the blog while I listen through some of this Ives stuff. The thoughts will be a bit rough, essentially unedited... we'll see how that actually goes...

Tomorrow: a bit of a recap of some of my fav (non-classical) recordings from 2008, and a shortlist of resolutions for 2009. Is it okay if I open this champagne a bit early???

... lala lala la, lala lala la, lala lala la la la lalaaaa ...

2008-12-21T15:09:00.003-06:00

*doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doooo.... aaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwhhhh....*

(Well, you try phonetically spelling out that bit from Minnie Ripperton's "Lovin' You")

I've linked to it, I've mentioned it, but I don't think I've formally declared my evergrowing love for lala.

I started playing with it back in October. I found it was a nice way to check out new stuff while at work; no more lugging cds to the job and back, or loading up my USB flashstick and checking it out at work only to find nothing that fits the mood.

My love affair grew a bit more obsessive when I started using it as a way to check out music mentioned on blogs, by friends, etc. I often use Google Notebook to clip pages that mention stuff I'm interested in hearing, labeling it "Music To Check Out." Now when I'm in a dry spell and want something different, I pop open the notebook, bring up the label and start a-searchin'. Similarly, when a friend mentioned Jimmy Scott in response to an inquiry about male jazz singers (as I've tended to focus on the ladies of jazz), I was able to listen to a ridiculous amount of material, for free, via lala (concluding the listening with, "How don't I know about this guy???!?!?"). The scope of lala's music selection is really rather impressive, even in terms of classical (although tagging problems make navigating some of the classical releases a bit difficult).

Then I downloaded the site's Music Mover program, which basically matches or uploads your entire library of music. It's not without its flaws; I've wound up with some bizarre stuff that was probably mismatched, and some of what the program claims to have uploaded isn't right (different track). But it's basically functional, and I now have access to pretty much anything I've taken the time to rip to my computer, some 11000 songs or something like that, from basically anywhere. Not bad at all.

And now the final stage, discovering some of the cooler aspects of its social networking features. You can check out other folks' recent listens, any playlists they've made, and so on. You can see who they're paying attention to - or "following" (cue "Every Breath You Take" creepiness here) - and then choose to follow people yourself. Anyone looking for ways to kill significant amounts of time will certainly find a friend in lala. Right now I'm listening to the last few tracks that the owner of the fine aworks blog has listened to (which you should be reading, if you aren't already); Buxtehude currently, which seems appropriate in the midst of the wintry havoc still doing its thing outside. (edit: Buxtehude backed with Neil Young... a man after my own heart, I see...)

As for how many albums I've bought from lala, the total isn't much. I've added quite a few websongs, and bought one or two mp3 albums. I still purchase those crazy plastic discs, even if I'm not sure why. But I do like the websong feature, particularly for stuff I can't ever imagine myself wanting to own-own, in a physical way. I'm still not fully sold on the fully digital/MP3 experience, even if I do roughly 75% of my listening through my computer.

Anyhoo, if you haven't signed up for lala yet, do so. If nothing else, it's one more way to find something new. Once you're there, look me up (thebigfunk) and stalk me like I'm Paula Abdul.

... the hero's fatal flaw ...

2008-12-20T22:55:00.003-06:00

My catalog of personal flaws is large, long and often embarrassing, but my ability to rationalize those flaws is, when taken on its own terms, flawless. Some of those flaws I wear on my sleeve - or rather, on my face - such as my outstanding resistance to a regular shaving schedule, a resistance that will sometimes keep up the fight for a few weeks or more. My rationalization in this area usually includes a nod to the great bearded men who have gone before me... after all, Brahms struggled several times to grow a beard, and I figure that if I'm able to, I owe it to 1/3 of the "B" triumvirate to do so. I stop short in this explanation, though, knowing that if I push too hard someone will pull out any of these sayings and throw the proverbial book at me (and the author, too). I also stop short because I know that Brahms tried to grow a beard, he grew with intention, whereas my growing is an outgrowth of my laziness. The responsibilities of having an honest beard are too great, just as the commitment to keep my face clean is too intrusive.

But the repercussions of such a superficial flaw are minimal, the greatest of which might be the risk of being lumped in with a hipster or hippie set, and I've long felt a bit sorry for each of those subcultures, each misunderstood and terribly categorized in its own special way. I can deal with that, and even play the part when the occasion calls for it.

The serious personal flaws, the ones that get to me, are those that tend to occur behind the four meager walls of my humble abode. One of those flaws is a routine I go through, a habit. I wake up and find myself in possession of an enormous burst of ambition, and I am soon launching a project of massive proportions that gets off to a smashing start and then drip, drip, drips away. I will read a poem a day, I say, and I will memorize one a week... and I do, I start off strong, I read and feel good, and I memorize and feel great. I recite them to my mirror while I'm fighting the threat of the razor, and I recite them on the train while I'm looking at my reflection in the window, one mental eye caught up in the tangle of my unkempt facial hair. I keep this up for a week or two, maybe three if I'm lucky, and then I feel really good and decide to tackle something longer, something greater, and I turn to Yeats' The Tower and work at it, conquer it and celebrate.

And then something happens, and I start to read one every few days, and then one a week, and the memorization slips by the wayside and before long I've lapsed into Calvin and Hobbes strips... poetry in their own right, sure, but not what I had in mind.

I've been thinking a lot about past failures recently, an act of remembrance spurred by the latest of my great projects, some vague shell of a reading and personal study program. I labored for days over its initial lineup, identifying my intellectual goals and interests and noting the possible ways to move through them. I consulted the oracle at Delphi, echoed Homer's cry for the muses' song, and I turned to Q-Tip's personal renaissance made manifest in The Renaissance for inspiration. My plans laid out, I took up the first of the many books chosen and took flight.

So far, so good (and so pleased). Yet I know that there's a moment lurking just around the corner, a moment when my defenses will be weak. It's snowing here in Chicago, and it's so easy to gaze out the window and lose oneself in the falling white. I can envision myself soon putting aside the history texts, putting down the Plato and turning on The Magnificent Seven, rationalizing it by way of some connection between Yul Brynner and the Homeric Hero (a long shot, I fear), thus linking up with my current journey through the history of the ancient Mediterranean. In the past such distractions have even arrived disguised as an alternative productivity, such as housecleaning, another regular chore my natural aptitudes generally fight against. Suddenly I'm in the mood to scrub, and as I dip my hands into a sink full of dishes, the book I've chosen to read sits closed at my desk, the poem I've chosen to memorize rests without even a glance to give it comfort. It worries about me, the poem, it wonders where I've gone, why I've been gone so long, when I'll be coming back. It fears the worst.

The smart and fully conscious person would recognize his own limitations. Pick a subject - psychoanalysis! - and then pick a book - Freud's Civilization and its Discontents! - and read it and be done with it. But instead we - and I do mean we, as I know this isn't just a thebigfunk trait - reach for the stars, we plot out an entire trajectory through all of the seminal works of Freud, Adler, Jung and Lacan, and we bookend those selections with a history of psychology on one end and a few examples of the postmodern co-opting of psychoanalysis by philosopher-theorists on the other. We spend so much time deciding what the project should entail that by the time we get to the project itself we've exhausted most of our energies, so we pick up a Quizno's sub and devour it, and then we fall asleep on the couch.

Our minds are smarter than we are. They know that if they ravish us seductively right at the start, we'll get our rocks off and then roll over and fall asleep, allowing them to get up and do their own thing elsewhere sooner, quicker; they know if they cling to us we'll only let them down, so they put it all at the front in order to get it all over with. Our minds aren't even sure why they've stuck this thing out, really, it's clear to them that the relationship isn't working and they're ready to get on with legal proceedings.

He can't make up his mind, my mind says to the arbitrator. One day it's history and the next it's religion, and while he's trying to decide between the two he's completely forgotten that two years ago he committed himself to becoming a better cook. The arbitrator turns to me and asks why I'm so flighty, so scattered and so easily distracted, why, like Sly Stone, I want to have it all, and it asks if I can understand my mind's frustration.

My defense, my only defense, might read something like this:

Well, Mind - and Your Honorable Arbitrator - I wouldn't embark on such projects if I didn't enjoy the task, if I didn't think I was really going somewhere with them, and I certainly find some reward in the process, I find there's something to be gained out of all of it. I don't look back on any of these failed endeavors and think, "Ugh, what a terrible idea, how boring, how dreadful, who'd want do that?" My regret comes from the knowledge that I never saw them through. I tack those failed projects on to an ongoing list of projects to come. Several years from now it is likely that I will revisit my poetry project; it is likely that I will memorize, again, The Tower, and hopefully a few lines will feel familiar and all of these ambitions and campaigns won't seem completely lost. After all, Brahms, late in his life, finally grew his beard. Mind, and Your Honorable Arbitrator... know that this flaw, like any other flaw, eats me up inside, it holds my innards hostage and threatens a massacre if they move. But if I worry too much about this flaw - if I try too desperately to conquer it instead of trying to work with it - I worry I'll be taking a few steps back, and despite the failures of my monumental projects, they've never set me back. That's never been a direction I've ever shown much interest in.

I'd like to think that the arbitrator will have some sympathy, maybe it's seen The Magnificent Seven and sees a bit of Chico in me. Maybe even my mind will make up its mind and decide to give me a bit of support in the process. In the meantime, all I can do is see the flaw, acknowledge it's presence, hand it a beer and hope it won't get feisty and tear the place to shreds. And tomorrow, I promise, I'll stop smoking, I'll shave, I'll make my way through this Plato, I'll memorize The Tower and I'll learn a foreign language. Tomorrow.

No really, I promise.

... sorting out the out-of-sorts ...

2008-12-11T22:52:00.003-06:00

I am a person who most certainly lives in his head a bit more than outside of it, a fact one might affirm by way of my gratuitous and completely improper use of ellipses, parentheses, hyphens and tiny fonts to extend thoughts or punctuate jokes that probably only make sense in my own shriveled, isolated brain (it's like Proust without the grace). I have a number of regularly occurring thought experiments or daydreams, one of which I call the Akashic Daydream: If the whole of our lives, including a 1:1 capture of our individual mental activity, was captured by some phenomenon, and some race of creatures a gazillion years ahead of our time happened upon that recording and replayed it, what the funk would they think of it all?

I've had one of those weeks, that sort of week being the sort of week that finds you leaving a freshly-purchased quart of milk in your satchel, only to remember its existence (and current, inappropriate whereabouts) several hours after it should have been placed in the fridge. The sort of week in which one can wake up to find an e-mail with a bit of wonderful information - Ted Leo, at the AV Aerie, tonight!!! - and then promptly forget about it until it's 11 pm and Mr. Leo is presumably well into his night of merry musicmaking and politicking. The type of week that finds you forgetting your insomniac tendencies and heading to bed at 9:30 pm (with intent, mind you, intent!). Just a few of the oddities that have graced my already-clumsy habits.

It can be awfully hard to think of anything interesting to post about, or even conversate about with friends on the telephone, during such a week. The things one would normally find profound - an article you've read, a piece of music you've listened to - seem either ineffable or mundane. Meanwhile, the most obvious and uninteresting thoughts take on a strange, personal significance: Have you ever really thought about the fact that cheese comes from milk? Old milk? ... I say, you're right... that is rather fascinating, isn't it... cheese... milk... age... and so on, and so forth.

Yesterday Mike Huckabee was on The Daily Show, and as I watched him talk about an ideal society, my brain was linking what he was saying to Plato's The Republic, comparing, contrasting, and drawing up analogues and conclusions no doubt fascinating and possibly even world-altering in a this-could-save-humanity sort of way. World-altering, that is, if I remembered them enough to get them down on digital paper and share them with you. Just think, I might have won the Nobel Peace Prize and had a fantastic concert performed in my honor featuring Seun Kuti. Alas, such a day is now relegated to solipsistic fantasy. Oh shoot, I just blogged about it, didn't I... scratch the solipsistic, then...

S.A.D., of course, is now a typical explanation for the emotional analogue of such confusion. For those unaware of the mechanics of Seasonal Affective Disorder, the basic idea is the onset of winter's cold nearly freezes the hormone soup coarsing through our bodies, thus slowing down the pheremones, seretonin and epinephrine, wreaking havoc on lusts, narcoleptic tendencies, and our list of daily stresses (among other things).

My guess is that along with Seasonal Affective Disorder one might speak of Seasonal Aptitude Disorder (or SApD), when the onset of winter's cold nearly freezes the brain juice coarsing through our brains, dulling the electric spark of our neurons and synapses and causing something of an electric traffic jam amidst the brain's axons, the driver in each bit of electric charge essentially signalling to another, "No, by all means, you go first, I'll sit here and read a bit before I merge." The two get out of their electric vehicles - they're environmentally conscious, don't you know - and come to friendly terms about who should proceed first. By the time it's all sorted out, you've remembered that you've left the milk in your satchel and that you really wanted to see Ted Leo tonight at the AV Aerie.

If anyone actually gets the above explanation of S.A.D. posted on Wikipedia, I will love you forever and buy you an intoxicant of your choosing. And if anyone actually creates a page for SApD, I'll write you in as a beneficiary on my life insurance.

If it's reassuring to note that most of these bumps and burps are temporary, it's equally worrying to think of all the funked-up things that Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia records and recounts for our amusement (things we may add to our running list of things-we-hope-don't-happen-to-us). If humanity dethroned God and replaced him with some semblance of reason, it's important to remember that the brain, the supposed cradle and base of our ability to reason, works in mysterious ways (previously God's occupation). 351 days out of the year, I'm thankful that our previous ideas of natural law and the Right have been largely supplanted by... well... by something. But during those two weeks out of the year when the brain gets weird and I continually manage to trip over my own tongue and toes, I wonder if we've made a grave mistake and underestimated the fallibility of our humanness and its corresponding capabilities. I just bought milk + milk belongs in the fridge = I get home and put the milk in the fridge. Hard to mess that up, eh?

I hope that any creatures from the future gazing at us through a record of our memories and emotions have a bit of mercy and understanding. I'm actually a pretty together and capable person, I swear. I have some really great points in my life I could direct you to as evidence, genuine moments of triumph and capability. (In sum, I hope during these weeks, like Vance Gilbert, that we're alone down here.)

... the cold, long nights of winter ...

2008-12-11T22:48:00.002-06:00

I recently made a mix for some friends. Below is the note that I attached with the mix, which explains a bit of its birth, and the tracklist. It's nothing special, but it's the first mix in a while that I've actually enjoyed listening to several times through. Consider yourself warned: it's a downer, and while listening I feel the urge to break out the bourbon, providing more fodder for the myth that I'm actually a kooky old man and not that dashing 26-year-old I profess to be.

The mix is available here, at zshare, as long as it's still up. If somebody sues me for copyright infringment, I'm claiming that aliens did it.

Here is the tracklist, followed a brief note I enclosed:

The Cold, Long Nights of Winter

1. "Country Mile" - Camera Obscura
2. "Still Think About You" - Martin Sexton
3. "Shelter" - Ray Lamontagne
4. "Acid Tongue" - Jenny Lewis
5. "Next Best Western" - Richard Shindell
6. "Downtown" - Greg Brown (live)
7. "Other Side of the Pillow" - Prince
8. "Doctors" - Hayward Williams
9. "Leaving For Paris no. 2" - Rufus Wainwright
10. "Louange a l'Eternite de Jesus" from Quatour pour la fin du temps - composer: Olivier Messiaen
11. "Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl" - Broken Social Scene
12. "The Toro and the Toreador" - Ted Leo
13. "Your Cloud" - Tori Amos
14. "Every Time It Rains" - Randy Newman
15. "God Only Knows" - Joe Henry
16. "Driftless" - Greg Brown
17. ............
18. "Never Shine Sun" - Greg Brown (live)

The night before Thanksgiving I found myself driving downa rural highway in Indiana, a stretch of would-be highway that might not see a town for miles.

I had forgotten how dark such roads can be, a deep dark that seems so deeply unforgiving. The lights in the distance - from buildings, from cars, from radio towers and billboards - no longer act as lights, they don't shine like they're supposed to. They're only brighter spots of darkness dotting the thin border between the nothing of the sky and the close-to-nothingness ahead.

I had no radio. My car stereo got stolen a few months after moving to Chicago and I never bothered to replace it; I never drive anywhere, I thought, so why should I bother?

I sang a few songs at the top of my lungs - "Next Best Western" was one of them - and I noted the few buildings that I passed. There was a Bourbon Bible Church which did not look nearly as exciting as the name might indicate, and a Suburban Bethlehem Lutheran School which, considering we're edging our way toward Christmas, sparked humorous mental revisions of the traditional nativity scene.

But I finally quieted down and sort of eased into that interminable darkness. Instead of singing out loud, I started to just let the songs play through in my head. Several of the songs in this mix were songs I thought through or sang through in their entirety. I've probably even put one or two of them on prior mixes, because a few of them are absolute favorites at this point.

So this is unquestionably moody, mostly quiet and probably depressing. If you don't listen to this alone, curled up on the couch with one or two vices - cigarettes and liquor, which you stop pouring after a while and just drink straight from the bottle - you're doing it wrong. There aren't any surprises here, but I feel like it's the first decent mix I've made in a while, so I hope you enjoy one or two of its tunes. If you've received a mix from me in the last three years, there may even be a repeat track or two... but context is everything, right?

I haven't figured out a good way to configure mixes yet, so you'll have to order these in your WMP or Itunes or whatever. But the titles reflect the correct order, and the tracklist is above.

Merry (early) Christmas/holiday/present-time/Hundalasillah! :)

... the nominations are in ...

2008-12-07T08:48:00.002-06:00

The Grammy nominations are in and... hey, ho, stop the press...

The CSO brought in two nominations for Best Orchestral Performance, one for Shostakovich's Fourth and the other for Prokofiev's Scythian Suite (from the "Traditions and Transformations: Songs of Silk Road" record). Another track from the latter record earned them a nomination under the Best Instrumental Soloist (with Orchestra), and that same record got a nomination for Best Engineered Album (classical). That's a pretty full hand.

The Pacifica Quartet's recording of Elliott Carter's String Quartets Nos. 1 & 5 got a nod for Best Chamber Music Performance and are listed as one of five recordings that helped earn Judith Sherman a Producer of the Year nomination.

Being a relative newbie in this classical game, I don't tend to buy too many recordings right when they're released, so I'm certainly in no place to judge this stuff. That being said, if you don't already own the Pacifica Quartet's Carter recording, you most certainly should.

The full list of nominations can be found at the Grammy site.

... Kanye digitally tunes up the street lights ...

2008-12-04T23:49:00.002-06:00

The new Kanye record is surprising for a lot of reasons.

The main one being that it's actually pretty tolerable despite its auto-tune fetish.

Perhaps the most surprising thing to come out of 808s and Heartbreaks is "Street Lights" ... it sounds like an obvious closing track for a winter indie romantic comedy flick, which should make me want to distance myself from it.

But I honestly can't get enough of it. The track is simple enough until these beautiful vocals swoop in in a backup role while Mr. West continues to sing through the tune's repetitive (and strangely hypnotic) melody (that seems to have no more than seven notes, but I didn't count...)

It's 3'10" long. I think I could listen to it on a loop for hours. It feels so lonely and emotionally barren. The rest of the record is ho-hum (a few keepers, mostly forgettable), but "Street Lights" made it worth the purchase.

... suckers for the spectacle ...

2008-12-03T22:16:00.002-06:00

My little post about the man who booed proved something I've long suspected, namely that being in the right place at the right time will either lead to you getting mugged or to your humble blog getting some (likely unwarranted) attention.

I jest, of course.

I was flattered at a nice mention by Mr. Geelhoed over at his own blog, Deceptively Simple, and a number equally nice notes I received as a result of the resulting boost in traffic.

And then along comes Mr. Rambler, actually attempting to inject a serious thought, an actual thought, a contemplative thought into the mix. He couldn't just nod at me, recognize my existence, laugh at my bad jokes, no, he had to offer an observation and ask a question. If I wanted discussion, sir, I would not be blogging... (I kid again!)

Lucky for Mr. Rambler, the question's a very good one, a question that ought to be asked: "But what of the music?"

Tim Rutherford-Johnson's point, and it is a good one, is that I - and/or the people around me - didn't comment on the music. The comments that I included all seemed focused on the number of players, the cool sounds, the spectacle. The worry is that such reductionism can't be healthy for contemporary music, and is perhaps symptomatic of a wider attitude toward (or perhaps even in the very presentation of) new work.

That's a pretty big knot to untie, and I don't think I'll get very far, but I'll try to at least loosen it a little:

The Comments

To give some context, I went to the performance alone. To the right of me were three young women, probably early-to-mid twenties; I chatted with one of them briefly, and she insinuated that she wasn't a regular attendee, there with the CSO or elsewhere... I think it's safe to assume that neither of her companions were regulars, either. To the left of me sat three other women who I didn't speak with at all; I think they were speaking a language other than English (a bit of a barrier for me there). I got the impression, however, that they were perhaps more initiated than the other set of women. There was a hodgepodge of folks behind me... I think there was a family, and there seemed to be some specifically musical interest from at least one of the sons present.

So the comments were sort of an immediate remix of those around me and those passing by in the aisle, as well as things I overheard once the concert had ended and everyone was leaving. And they do, in fact, pretty much sum up what I heard. That doesn't mean there weren't other comments (that's a pretty limited sample of audience response, obviously). But I don't think there were too many people discussing the piece in a deep and penetrating way, or even discussing their emotional response to the piece beyond a sense of confusion.

"I'd really like to listen to that at home."

I think a lot of audience members, both new and experienced, find it hard to talk about new music right after that first listen. In this case, I'm not referring only to new new music, as in contemporary music. I also mean music that I just heard for the first time... it could be new, as in recent, but it could just as easily be an established piece I'm simply not familiar with. Move into contemporary territory, where the general sound is unlike a lot of what we readily come in contact with on a day-to-day basis, and I think it gets even trickier.

My exposure to contemporary music is admittedly limited, but the pieces that have more deeply impacted me have all done so on a gradual basis, with repeated listens. That doesn't mean that the first listen doesn't have an immediate impact... far from it. In fact, I left the hall a bit smitten with the Lutoslawski piece... the quiet, mysterious opening with its frail clarinet and winds sort of shattered by the entrance of the trumpet... that same quiet returning toward the end after a large brass climax, the solo violin working through what I think is a motive found throughout the piece, but doing so in an especially broken and unsure way, as though its testing the waters, haunting... and again an interruption, this time not just by the trumpet, but by the whole of the brass. The piece feels like it's trying and trying, trying and trying...

But I couldn't have articulated any of that, or at least not very well, right when the piece ended (boo or not!). If I had been with someone, I probably would have referred clumsily to the dynamics and the tension of the piece, but not in any specific way. It wasn't until I returned home and listened through the piece again that I found something more to say.

Discussion in itself is kind of a strange thing. Why do we talk about things the way we talk about them? I used to date a girl that, after seeing a movie, wouldn't talk about it at all... all I wanted was an opinion, an acknowledgment that we'd just watched something, anything... when I asked her why she never discussed films that we saw, she'd respond: "I don't know that I have anything to say." I kind of understand that. And I think that sometimes, to fill the void, we talk about the surface. We talk about the pyrotechnics, the shock and the awe. And when we get to the nut of it - music is a very emotional experience, an intimate experience - it becomes even more understandable that we retreat from honest discussion to the cool shade of the Tree of Spectacle.

Layers and Listening, Layers of Listening

I can only speak to my own experience of what happens when I listen to music. I listen in layers. My response to a first listen is usually a combination of immediate emotional response - Sad, happy, hopeful, strong, tired, strangling-Billy-Bob-Thornton, etc. - and slight musical analysis (focusing on things like dynamics, voices, melodic or rhythmic refrains). Thrown in there somewhere is, I think understandably, an immediate response to the very happening of it - what we might call the spectacle - where I might be caught off-guard by an unexpected sound. I've very rarely associate images in my head with music being heard... I don't know if that's a blessing or a curse.

Talking about any of that when coming out of a performance is difficult for me. It takes me time to collect my thoughts. When I do, they're still usually haphazard.

A good portion of the fun of listening, for me, comes in the second, third, fourth, gazillionth go around. That's where my (humble) musical analysis is confirmed or denied and expanded upon, where further emotional response is cultivated and, yes, where I continue to find new mini-spectacles within the spectacle to gawk and aurally stare at. The listening comes in layers as it works through the layers.

One final note on The Listening (and I don't mean the wonderful Little Brother album): I rarely form an opinion after a first listen. When I'm confronted by something that I feel I don't understand, it's more of a challenge than an affront to my taste. Rather than shut it off, I usually listen again and again.

A Non-Conclusion

I'm not sure how (or even if) this ties to The Rambler's post. I guess my vague point is that listening is a pretty dynamic experience, and I can't really blame an audience, when confronted by something as layered, thick and even unpredictable as Luto's Symphony No. 4 for the first time, for focusing their casual discussion on orchestral pyrotechnics. When we get into questions of marketing, it's a different story. But in terms of audience response, I was glad they were responding, and that they apparently weren't writing off the piece as a bunch of random orchestral burbs, blurps and bleeps.

I've now listened to the piece a number of times. I really, really like it. I'm eager to hear more, a lot more. And every listen has been much like I've written above (isn't there an Akhmatova poem about onions?)... revealing, concealing, revealing, concealing. A little Heideggerian dance for the ears.

---

And now that that's all done... Mr. Rambler, please don't take any of what I said in the beginning seriously. I have a terrible, life-threatening inclination toward dry and poorly executed sarcasm. Thanks for sparking off some discussion!

... Introducing Elliott Carter ...

2008-12-03T19:08:00.005-06:00

On December 11 Elliott Carter will turn 100.

Carter newbies (like myself) may be interested in Steve Hicken's list of ten - whoops! - I mean eleven pieces being revealed one-by-one, day-by-day as the clock ticks toward Carter's centennial. You'll have to hunt down the pieces themselves, however, if you want a listen... oh, okay, I'll help you out... lala.com has the first piece, Carter's Sonata for Cello and Piano, available to stream, Night Fantasies can be heard performed by Ursula Oppens via youtube (unfortunately in two parts, 1 and 2). Duo for Violin and Piano, on the other hand, seems to be MIA, but I'll keep looking.

Chicagoans have the option of checking out Carter's Symphony No. 1 tomorrow night (12/4), performed by the Northwestern University Chamber Orchestra, at Pick-Staiger Concert Hall. Also, brave new musickers Dal Niente will perform Carter's Tempo e Tempi at The Green Mill on the 14th (I definitely plan to attend...).

Looking a bit forward to late February, Boulez and the CSO will bring Carter's Reflexions to life (along with works by Ives and Varese), followed immediately by a one-night-only performance of Carter's A Mirror On Which To Dwell.

Finally, those crazy folks at Nonesuch Records just announced a Carter Retrospective to be released in February. You can get more Carter info at carter100.com.

And if any of you thought I was going to get through this post without referencing Lil Wayne and Jay-Z's "Mr Carter...." (flyer than Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice...)

... dal niente ensemble at the CCC/Shawn Jaeger's "Poor and Wretched" ...

2008-11-30T22:14:00.003-06:00

Local ensemble Dal Niente took over Preston Bradley Hall this afternoon as part of the CCC's Sunday Salon Series. Bryant Manning wrote a nice profile of the group for Time Out magazine.

The concert featured a lineup of American composers. Lee Hyla's Amnesia Redux (2002) led first, followed by Chicago-transplant Shawn Jaeger's Poor and Wretched (2008), the ever-difficult Morton Feldman's Instruments No. 2 (1975), and a premiere of Christopher Fisher-Lochhead's Suicide Squeeze. Hyla, Jaeger and Fisher-Lochhead were all present for the performance.

No matter what you think of the material, it's pretty brave to present a program of almost entirely new music in any venue, but it's particularly bold for a free performance. Despite the nasty weather, a good number of people made it out.

I won't review everything. It was all quality... what I really want to talk about is the Shawn Jaeger piece.

Poor and Wretched was inspired by the "lining out" tradition... which bears some connection to shape note singing and/or Sacred Harp singing (I get a bit fuzzy on the three terms and their boundaries; lining out entails a leader that begins the singing solo in a sort of call-and-response, Sacred Harp singing involves a director that leads but does not necessarily go solo to start the group off, as well as a particular arrangement of the singers... the end sound is rather similar... both are forms of shape note singing, although I'm not sure that lining out has to be shape note). You can read the program notes on Shawn Jaeger's site here.

When I sat down and read the notes I got pretty geeked. Gospel traditions of any sort always get me going, and just yesterday I'd read a discussion board post recommending Awake, My Soul, a documentary on the Sacred Harp tradition. The doc looks pretty great, and shape note singing has long been something that I've wanted to know more about.

(Okay, a bit of background here: my father was a pastor for most of my youth. Church music of every kind - from traditional hymns to white southern gospel to contemporary praise/worship - was a staple in my musical upbringing. This is, presumably, one of the reasons I've long enjoyed a huge interest in a lot of folk music, old roots music and various hymn traditions. It's also undoubtedly the reason that theology, religion and philosophy are all such a big deal for me. Ultimately, my being a PK has a lot to do with my terrible geekiness... thanks Dad! (no really, if you're reading, thanks Dad!))

So after reading the program notes, I was excited. I probably didn't pay as much attention to the Lee Hyla piece as I should've, because I was anticipating Poor and Wretched. And how did it turn out?

Sweet jesus, it's great. I haven't heard a lot of shape note singing, but there are a few defining features that will hit the attentive listener. For one thing, it's loud; even in the soft sections, the group tends to sing louder than a standard group might. Next, the group is rough. Notes aren't polished into exact lengths and tones by the singers. It's not a chorus; it's a group of people gathered to sing. The goal isn't to sound clean and pretty, it's to put it out there, to get it out into the open. I imagine, like the more charismatic congregational singing I can recall, it's more about catharsis and experience.

What Jaeger does - and this really is very cool to me - is mimic that sound with the orchestra, and he does a terrific job with it. Pitches waver, durations of the same note vary between instruments. The melody sounds like a deep gospel melody - although Jaeger writes that he did not directly quote any material - and is set pretty clearly at the outset.

What's so fascinating about the piece, however, is once he's worked through the theme he shifts into another mode and begins to explore and develop the raw material. It has a definite arc, shifting between quieter (but not too quiet!) passages with just a voice or two, and top-of-your-lungs passages with the whole orchestra playing. It exits on a whisper.

The result is that it's not mere imitation. Jaeger seems to have genuinely taken inspiration from the music and then shaped it to his own ends (while managing to pay tribute to the inspiring source material in the process).

The very, very good news is that you can download an mp3 of the piece from Shawn Jaeger's website here, along with a few other pieces.

Now we just need to wait for more good news by way of future performances...

... to the man who couldn't wait to boo ...

2008-11-30T10:52:00.003-06:00

Dear Sir,

Last night at the CSO the audience listened patiently while Haitink expertly guided the orchestra through Lutoslawski's Symphony No. 4. I heard listeners chuckle and saw a few screw their faces. I also saw listeners captivated and clearly actively listening.

As the piece came to an end and a brief moment of silence sat waiting for applause (the audience wanting to make sure it finished), you apparently couldn't wait any longer: "boo!" you cried. "Boo!"

As Eddie Izzard would say, We did that in school.

For a quick moment you got exactly what I suspect you were hoping for: a flurry of gasps and attention.

None of us are completely sure what happened next. Were you trying to blame the man next to you? Those of us sitting with you in the gallery are pretty certain it was you. It didn't help your case when another "boo" rang out and it sounded exactly like your voice, the voice you were using while you were trying to blame the man next to you.

"Boo."

I don't know what all was going on down there. But by your timing - you snuck it in just before the applause broke out, barely waiting for the piece to fully end - you were waiting, anticipating. I'm not entirely sure why, but my mind flashed to the Vatican scene in Zelig.

Perhaps you came just to boo? I mean, I can't hate on the planning that would take. Purchasing a ticket, perhaps even listening over and over again to the last minute of a piece you absolutely despise so you could exact the moment in which your boo would be most effective, practicing your "boo" in a closed hall somewhere to get the best sonority and echo possible. That's some passion and commitment, albeit a bit commitment perhaps misplaced.

Here's the funny thing, though. When the excitement over the "boo" subsided and attendees started talking about the piece, reactions were, from what I could hear, largely positive. Sure, they thought it was weird, they didn't really know what they'd just heard. But they loved some of the freaky instrument effects (those harps!) and the sheer size of the thing in terms of the number of players required and the amount of sound put out. A heard a lot of comments about how difficult that must have been to perform, and to do it with such effectiveness.

Personally, I couldn't ask for a better response from the audience. They were man enough to admit that they didn't really "get" it - which is no crime, I certainly sat a bit confused - but also mature enough to not write off the piece wholesale just because it didn't immediately hit them. I heard an audience member say, "I'd really like to listen to that at home... there was a lot going on."

A lot going on that you missed, dear sir, because you were too busy waiting for the right moment to boo. Perhaps I have this all wrong. Perhaps there was some sort of mischief going on between you and the man next to you, the man you tried to blame. It's hard to say.

What I can say is that the CSO crowd won out; they clapped louder and harder just to make sure the orchestra knew that one man's boo was certainly not the opinion of the masses. I hope the orchestra got the message. I hope Haitink programs an all-Lutoslawski program next season. And I hope the venue sells out and the whole hall gives a world-record ovation, and walks out humming fragments of Lutoslawski.

Just to piss you off.

Sincerely Yours,
thebigfunk

... What A Week (Mahler, ICE, and a stolen cellphone) ...

2008-11-29T10:25:00.003-06:00

... What A Week (Mahler, ICE, and a stolen cellphone) ...

So yeah, I'm turning in my Mahler review a bit late. But I don't have to answer to an editor, so no major repercussions... and yeah, I'm combining it with other stuff. You'll get over it. It's Thanksgiving week! So much going on, so little time to get everything done (it seems)...

1) Mahler's Second
Chicagoans pretty much went gaga over Haitink's approach to Mahler's Second. Tonic Blotter posted a very positive and thoughtful review. Andrew Patner gave the equivalent of two huge, huge thumbs up. I bet Chantal would have dug it, but she had the unfortunate intrusion of smooching from young smoochers to deal with (but were they kissing in rhythm???).

I got to check it out on Saturday night, thus breaking my "seeing Mahler performed live" virginity. Mahler's Second was my personal introduction to Mahler. My appreciation for the piece, however, goes further than that... not only did it only throw me into Mahler's music with little hope of escape (but who wants to escape?), it also gave me the final shove to begin listening to classical music with far more regularity. I actually remember the week that I purchased a recording of it very well. I sat down to listen and sat there just floored. I had a lot of driving that week - from Rochester, Michigan up to the Traverse City area and back again - and picked up Mahler's first and third to accompany me on the trip. It was an all Mahler, all the time roadtrip. There was no looking back after that.

I think that, in spite of its length, the Second may actually be Mahler's most accessible symphony. The first three movements are so motif-driven that even a casual listener runs little risk of getting lost, and the symphony's intensity is absolutely immediate, almost relentless. The fourth movement once brought a friend of mine, a non-classical listener, to tears. And though the fifth movement is sprawling - even I lose a bit of focus there - it brings back several bits and pieces of prior movements, bringing a nice sense of continuity to the whole, building to that final grand chorus ending. I've since recommended it as an entry point to Mahler to friends; I think most enjoyed it.

Needless to say, Haitink and the CSO pretty much smashed it to bits in an epic style. Unfortunately, it's been a week since then... I don't have many details to share. I will say that I listened to a recording of Bruno Walter conducting the piece the next day and I felt like there were some significant similarities there... an approach I can only call breathless and driving. I'm afraid I can't elaborate much further.

2) Beware of the Post-Mahler Daze
Then something completely cruddy happened. Standing outside Symphony Hall smoking a cigarette, waiting for the crowd to disperse a bit before heading toward the train, I was approached by a younger guy. I thought he was asking for a cigarette. He was actually asking for a few dollars. I told him I didn't have any, and he said that he really needed to get on the train. I said sorry, couldn't help... but then offerred to let him bump off my pass. He seemed harmless.

Walking toward the station, I asked him how his night was going. He said it was fine, but mumbled something else I didn't quite hear. He said something further, and that's when I realized he'd mentioned a gun. Oh, silly boy, I thought. You walked right into this, you know better than that. So I'm keeping my cool, he references his gun again - which I never actually saw, but I thought I'd play it safe - and asked if I had a phone he could "use" (I could already see where this was going). Um, yeah, sure. Then he tried to bargain with me to get the phone back - give me twenty bucks, you get your phone back. I'd fully snapped out of my post-Mahler daze, and I wasn't about to take out my wallet, period. We got closer to the train station. He kept bargaining with me. I finally got kind of annoyed. I looked at him and said, "Am I getting my phone back or not?" He shook his head. I told him to have a nice night and headed down the platform.

It all happened in about two minutes. I have device insurance on my phone, so no major loss. I have to think that if it weren't for Mahler I wouldn't have been so foolish. I've been around the block a few times; I know the dos and the don'ts. In short, if the idea weren't already taken, I might change my blog title to "Mahler Stole My Cellphone." So fellow Mahler lovers: post-performance, make sure you screw your head back on tight before stepping back into the real world!

3) ICE's Uber-Popular
The next night, Sunday evening, I tried to head over to see the International Contemporary Ensemble at Uncommon Ground on Devon. When I got there, the person seating everyone asked if I had a reservation. "A reservation," I said... I didn't know you needed one. From what I'd read online, there was no indication of needing a reservation. Apparently, so many folks had made reservations or e-mailed ICE directly to rsvp that there was very little room left. She said that I could wait at the bar and there would likely be a seat for me... okay, not bad. I waited. And waited. I heard applause. It was starting! I wasn't seated yet! I gave up. I left. After having waited thirty minutes prior to the performance for a seat, I really didn't feel like waiting further for what seemed to be a bit of a pipe dream.

So... a note to ICE. Perhaps you just weren't aware that you had a significant enough following to fill out a small venue. You apparently do. You may want to consider a slightly larger space next time.

And... a note to Uncommon Ground. You were all very, very nice about the whole thing, but it just didn't seem very organized. Which I'm sure is not entirely your fault. Still, you may want to keep this in the "lessons to learn from" file.

... CSO gets a number 5 stuck on its back, Tonic Blotter Deconstructs ...

2008-11-22T11:26:00.004-06:00

Well, Chicago, we did it. We're number five.

Er, okay, we didn't really do a heck of a lot. The CSO did, and they got some pretty great recognition for it... that's cool.

But Tonic Blotter wants to keep us smart and so(m)ber while we dance to the rhythm of our win, and thus turns in "Of Rankings and Such..." ...

Actually, Tonic Blotter's post is a smart deconstruction of ranking systems in general, orchestral rankings specifically, and a pretty good reminder that most of these things should be taken (like much in life) with a grain of salt. "You are comparing apples to oranges with respect to musical styles and artistic choices that cannot be compared one-to-one," he writes. Dead on, that is, and he proceeds to dissect a number of things that, well, can't be compared.

I think it's further important to keep in mind that the very process of these rankings overshadows the potential thisness of each orchestra, even while it claims to celebrate it. It streamlines the potential thisness into measurable portions and then holds up the final formula against a number of other streamlined potential thisnesses... in the end telling us very little about what or who each orchestra is.

Perhaps the biggest risk in all of this - even if it is an inevitable one - is the perpetuation of a strong voice of authority in the classical realm (and all the repercussions of the existence of such a voice). Isn't it time we welcomed and encouraged the weak voice, the minor voice, the inclusive voice? The voice that knows that the smaller orchestra has as much to offer as the CSO. The voice that ignores the size of one's endowments (um...) and looks instead to the sincerity and accomplishment of the players. Viens, oui, oui.

We can all get starstruck. I feel lucky to have the CSO within easy reach, and ditto with the Lyric. But much of why I love Chicago is the selection... the surprise, even, of getting blown away by a group or a soloist (or a piece!) you've never heard of. The CSO is a bright star in Chicago, but it's one among countless others.

Okay, okay... we can still celebrate for a few days. Congrats CSO!

... scheduling goes totally awry ...

2008-11-22T10:56:00.003-06:00

Well this is - gulp - embarrassing.

I had my wisdom teeth out on Monday... while the pain hasn't been bad, the whole event did leave me feeling more than a bit fuzzy, kind of like I was running two seconds behind everything else.

So here I am thinking that tonight I'm heading downtown to hear Mahler's Second, conducted by Haitink...

And I look at my tickets, and they were for Thursday.

Why on earth did I think they were for tonight?

Bummer part is: I was really looking forward to the performance. Mahler's Second is one of those pieces for me, my personal gateway drug that took me into more, more, more...

Oh, well... c'est la vie. I may see if cheap seats are available for the performance tonight (there is a performance tonight, after all).

Lord I feel pretty dumb.

... "Porgy and Bess": Two Photographers ...

2008-11-19T19:52:00.011-06:00

Oh, the paths you'll stumble on if you spend a bit of time exploring...

Consider, first, the cover of Miles Davis' Porgy and Bess lp, seen above, which introduces us to photographer Roy DeCarava (whose name I've found spelled at least three different ways across the internet). Mr. DeCarava is pertinent to our recent explorations for a number of reasons, the chief reason perhaps being that he's spent a fair amount of time capturing jazz musicians in photos; the image of John Coltrane below, for instance, is his handiwork. Also important, however, are some of the associations that DeCarava had; he provided images for a collaboration with Langston Hughes, The Sweet Flypaper Of Life in 1955, and took images of some of that era's most critical personae (consider the stunning portrait of Paul Robeson, also below). While it doesn't look like any of DeCarava's books are still in print, the standard used spots seem to have quite a few copies of a book first published in 2003, The Sound I Saw, which publisher Phaidon calls "a portrait of Harlem and the key figures of jazz in the late 1950s and early 1960s." The work is 100% DeCarava and looks pretty sharp...

That little excursion was interesting, so I thought I'd poke around for another jewel or two. A google search came up with this portrait of Leontyne Price, below, as Bess.

The portrait is by Carl Van Vechten, a photographer who, despite being about a generation older than DeCarava, worked with some of the same subjects, as Van Vechten worked throughout a good portion of his life to champion African-Americans in the arts. Van Vechten's massive collection of portraits, however, covers a wider range of subjects than DeCarava. Still, it's interesting to find connections and gaps between the work of the two... take, instance, Van Vechten's photo of Robeson (as Othello!) below, and compare it with the DeCarava's darker portrait. Interesting, indeed.

It took me a moment to figure out where I knew the name "Carl Van Vechten" from, but the Wikipedia article brought it back: Van Vechten wrote a number of novels, one of which, Nigger Heaven, garnered its fair share of controversy (according to Wikipedia, Langston Hughes was cool with it, but W.E.B. Dubois... not so much). A huge number of Carl Van Vechten's portraits can be found on the Library of Congress' internet exhibition... quite a bit to look at and enjoy, including 9 other portraits of Price, Ruby Elzy and John W. Bubbles (the Elzy and Bubbles pictures would have been from the first Porgy production, no?).

(My exploring also led me to a copy of Hank Jones' Porgy and Bess interpretations... fun for all!)

... Review: Black Milk - Tronic ...

2008-11-19T14:25:00.005-06:00

You've got to hand it to producer/emcee Black Milk: it's not easy to earn your own headlines and to establish credibility when you're coming out of a city that's been making as much noise as Detroit. Detroit may be in a long-term economic slump, but it's enjoyed, at least for the last ten years or so, a bit of an artistic renaissance... whether you pay attention to the popular charts or the murmurs of the underground, Detroit's probably put one or two artists in your sightline. When your home city is putting that much material out there, it's hard to make a name for yourself.

Yet that doesn't seem to have stood in the way of Black Milk's ascension in hip hop circles. Black Milk has been active as a producer and an emcee for quite some time now, putting in work with Slum Village and others, but I think it's fair to say that he didn't really begin to grab attention until just a few years ago when an EP (Broken Wax) and his second full-length (Popular Demand) turned more than a few heads his direction. His new lp Tronic was released in late October, and it comes at the end of an eventful year for Black Milk; he produced the majority of the tracks for Elzhi's excellent lp, The Preface, and released a collaboration with Fat Ray. It's fitting, then, that he'd wrap up the year with his own lp offering something of a recap of who he is and what he's capable of.

And just to be clear, Black Milk is a producer first, an emcee second. That's not meant as an insult but rather a compliment; Black Milk is certainly a capable and at times even an engaging emcee, but it's his production that steals the show. Tronic opens with a somewhat somber arpeggiated piano strain that is soon replaced by huge, raspy drums and a simple synth loop, a loop that would be more than effective if it were left at just that... but Black Milk is rarely to content to leave his tracks at just that, and instead digs into the track find perfect points to switch things up. In the case of this opening track, "Long Story Short," the switch-up comes with the breakaway of the drums and the subtle entrance of a horn line. It doesn't sound very significant, but that horn line becomes a soft-spoken motif across the remainder of the track and works to usher in the reprise of that arpeggiated piano the track began with, turning an otherwise simple track into a smart and cyclical whole. It's the sort of thing you miss if you're not listening closely precisely because it's done so well and without any fanfare.

That ability - to create tracks with a great deal of detail, detail that one is likely to overlook in light of each track's naturalism and craftsmanship - is a good summary of the who and what of Black Milk. The details never get in the way of the track, they only accent it, they work to progress it. Take the first single, "Give The Drummer Sum," which features a drum track cleverly constructed to feel disjointed and offbeat... every bit of that track - from the organ stabs occurring on every first beat, to the horn charts comprised of mostly long-held notes, to the chilled, jazzy coda that closes the track - works to gradually remove any sense of rhythmic awkwardness the drum track initially posed. The end result is that this strange bit of rhythm begins to feel as natural as any standard loop a listener might run across...

That all sounds so analytic, though. Half the fun of this Black Milk record is how its cleverness is, as noted before, so natural; take "Losing Out," featuring the underrated Royce da 5'9" and Black Milk trading ridiculous verses over an extra-ridiculous sample, more than enough fuel to get a listener geeked. Yet hidden under the surface of this track, too, one finds a number of surprises... the drum work is absolutely minimal, setting the stage for a coda that allows a lone snare to roll unpredictably... and that same coda introduces a completely new vocal line used chiefly as an outro for the track. These elements combine to form a track that can only be called epic, whether you're skimming its surface or diving in for a deeper look.

The final word? Tronic is a satisfying listen no matter how you approach it, and an album that, at least to my ears, officially puts Black Milk in a whole new league of producers... I wouldn't be surprised at all if this makes my top ten list for the year. Don't wait... go grab it.

Now check out "Give The Drummer Sum" and tell me I was lying...

... getting dressed for Porgy and Bess ...

2008-11-18T08:31:00.009-06:00

Porgy and Bess starts its run at the Lyric Opera House tonight, picking up a production from the Washington National Opera done by Francesca Zambello, with John DeMain conducting. Andrew Patner has a nice sneak preview here, and the Tribune tries to offer seven bits of trivia about the opera here. I, for one, have never checked out Truman Capote's The Muses Are Heard, and had no idea that it is Capote's account of a meeting of Porgy and Bess and the Soviet Union. I might have to put that on my need-to-read list...

Porgy and Bess certainly stands out as an opera that has probably contributed more to popular music, in terms of standards, than any other (particularly American) opera I can think of. The Duke may have shrugged off the negroness of Gershwin's 'negro' opera, but he couldn't deny the music itself... or at least not the most popular piece to come out of the opera, "Summertime," which he officially recorded no less than eight times, apparently with only one vocalist (Al Hibbler) (info courtesy of this awesome site). Those recordings range from formal to abstract in their approach and execution (and probably everything in between).

On the lp Piano In The Foreground, for instance, Ellington, accompanied by Sam Woodyard and Aaron Bell, manages to take the typically full-sounding "Summertime" and pare it down to something barebones, leaving an open aural expanse in which Ellington can (eerily) poke at the melody on the keys.

While Ellington may have recorded only one tune from the opera, Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald worked through nearly every song Porgy has to offer on their famous Porgy and Bess lp... I'm a pretty big Ella fan, and I always heard something a bit more bold in Ella's voice on this record. Take her approach to "My Man's Gone Now":

And of course Miles Davis, near the beginning of his partnership with Gil Evans, put together his perspective on Porgy and Bess. The record is nothing short of outstanding, considered a favorite by Davis enthusiasts and more casual jazz fans alike. It's interesting to note that this record comes not only at a peak in Davis' own catalog - his seminal Kind of Blue was the next record he released, to be followed immediately by the far- and forward- thinking Sketches of Spain - but also at a time that finds him moving into modal exploration. This, coupled with Evans' orchestral arrangements, makes for some of my favorite Davis records, period, and easily some of my favorite jazz listening regardless of era or performer. Listen to the range of the orchestra paired with Davis' strength and insistence in his own take on "My Man's Gone Now," an interpretation that can shift from heavy to light and back to heavy again in just a heartbeat or two:

Louis, Ella, Miles and Gil are hardly the only artists to take on Porgy in full, either. I didn't know, for instance, that Oscar Peterson collaborated on a Porgy record with guitarist Joe Pass, Peterson playing the clavichord and Pass plucking on an acoustic (a record that apparently did not get many rave reviews). I did know that Peterson had hit on Porgy's tracks earlier in his career on the record "... Plays Porgy and Bess." Wikipedia's got a list of other more or less full recordings in both the opera and the jazz world, a list just a bit of googling will prove hardly complete. And we'd be remiss not to note the number of artists who have picked up just a track or two, rather than taking a stab at the opera's ten-or-so established standards. Nina Simone left her mark on a number of Porgy's tunes, as did a number of other prominent (and lesser prominent) jazz vocalists and soloists.

And it hasn't only been the jazz world that has given Porgy a second glance. American Idol winner Fantasia put "Summertime" into the collective ears of a younger generation only five or six years ago. I can't help but think of Baaba Maal's take on "Bess You Is My Woman Now," hiding out there on that excellent Red Hot + Rhapsody Gershwin compilation (I'll try to hunt down my copy and upload it, as it looks like the record is now OOP).

In short, Gershwin's music has had an enormous impact on music in general... this we know. But it's easy to overlook feats like Porgy, to forget how much of a firestarter that opera has been, an opera that gets performed far too little. I won't get to see Porgy until December... until then, I'll be keeping my eyes open for different takes on this terrific music.

... some reorganization, rethinking, re-questing ...

2008-11-17T22:06:00.003-06:00

So... I've changed the blog layout in one major way, namely taking away the option of looking at that Labels (or tags) on the right hand side.

I did this intentionally, because I finished going into the every post and relabeling them. On the one hand, posts will carry a general label - namely, Performances, Albums, Books, Thoughts, Music Blurbs, Classical, Opera, a few others - as well as a label for any major figures in the post. A post on the Alfred Brendel performance I saw earlier this year, then, gets the Performances label, but also gets "Alfred Brendel," "Ludwig Van Beethoven," "Franz Schubert," and "Joseph Haydn." Instead of a looooooong list of tags somewhere in the page's menu, the tags will appear (as they always have) at the end of each post.

The goal is essentially to get really specific with tagging... I find that when I read others blogs, if I stick around to read other articles or posts, it's usually through a tag. The more general tags are just to keep some semblance of order, and aren't very defined in terms of what goes where.

This is also in preparation of some other adjustments that I'm hoping to make over the next few months. While I'd like to maintain some of the classical focus that I started this blog out with, I'd like to continue to balance that with a healthy interest in, well, everything else. I've got a few tricks up my sleeve that I'll soon pull out in hopes of accomplishing that.

I'm noticing quite a few regular readers popping in... I mean 'quite a few' in a relative fashion way, of course. Thanks to all who are reading... it's appreciated.

-thebigfunk

... when the met cuts some ish ...

2008-11-17T06:45:00.003-06:00

A number of blogs and news sites ran bits about the Met cutting four operas from the 09-10 season, with the first announced cut being Corigliano's Ghosts... I think Opera Chic's article was tops, though, because it ran the news right alongside news of economic opera woes in Florida and Baltimore. Of course, we know of the Michigan difficulties, and Washington's Ring Cycle difficulties, and the collapse of Opera Pacific, and...

Well, the list goes on. But when the big ones are making cuts right alongside the little(r) ones, you know the times are starting their swipes at the arts...

... Review: Jenny Lewis' Acid Tongue ...

2008-11-15T11:21:00.010-06:00

In the post directly below this one, there's a lala player with Rilo Kiley's "A Better Son/Daughter" loaded up and ready to play. Play it, listen to it. Do it now.

Listened? Good. Did you note how while the melody stays roughly the same, Jenny Lewis is pretty flimsy with the rhythm in her delivery, dropping lyrics in awkwardly, leaving off beats here and there and sometimes putting extra lyrical beats in new places? You know how the lyrics are barebones, confessional, almost diary-like ("And sometimes when you're on/you're really fucking on/and your friends they sing along and they love you... But the lows are so extreme/that the good seems fucking cheap/and it teases you for weeks in its absence")? Finally, hear how naturally it spills out, and how it all works in the end to create a bit of intimacy and rawness?

That's kind of Jenny Lewis' trademark, and actually in that track the liberties taken are pretty light... it works, and someone might say that it would be boring if she kept the initial rhythm of the melody going through the whole track. I'd probably agree. On other tracks Lewis sometimes seems to create the lyrical rhythm as she goes along, more interested in getting the lyrics out there than in fitting them into a rigid meter. See: "Accidntel Deth" on Rilo Kiley's More Adventurous, "Pictures of Success" from Rilo Kiley's first record (Take Offs and Landings), "Rise Up With Fists!!" from her solo lp. The effect of it all, the lyrical spilling-forth combined with her round voice that can be brash and sincere in the space of a single phrase, is a feeling of spontaneity and a certain b(e)aring of a secret. The proof is in the pudding, as they say.

On Acid Tongue, Lewis' second lp, she goes left where we might have expected her to go right. Yes, readers, the opening bit of this post had a point, and my point is this: Lewis wants to test her ability to craft melody and meter, and Acid Tongue is that test. The good news is that we learn she's more than capable of doing so. The bad news - or, in my book, good news, but to a lot of others it seems it's bad news - is it's up to us to learn to listen to this new Jenny Lewis.

Take the album's opener, "Black Sand." "I fell in love with a beautiful boy on the black sand," Lewis sings, the bulk of the line moving in pretty straight-forward triplets with an intentional rhythmic hiccup at the end of the phrase to cap it off. That melody and meter is more or less kept to throughout each verse. Or listen to the second track, "Pretty Bird," with a fragile melody for each verse and a more firm melody for the chorus, both being stuck to through the whole of the track. The arrangements for these tracks are relatively sparse and open, meaning the melody is at the front. Lewis wants you to hear it. And one could argue that the lyrics themselves have a bit more of a crafted feel with a bit more intent hiding behind them.

That's not to say she never ventures from this new formula; "Bad Man's World" juxtaposes a straight chorus against a more rambling verse structure, and "Godspeed" carries hints of an older Lewis (perhaps more in the actual sound of the vocals than anything else). The title track, "Acid Tongue," which appears to be an older track, sounds like it could have been a Rabbit Fur Coat outtake (and it's tempting to call it the highlight of the album). But the "new" Lewis is pretty prevalent, showing her restraint on "Trying My Best To Love You," even managing to stay the course on the upbeat "Carpetbaggers." The sprawling, nearly nine-minute "Next Messiah" experiments with the form, but in terms of keeping to the melody and rhythmic patterns laid out, Lewis proves a trooper.

The result, of course, is that the rawness and spontaneity that Lewis was so good at conveying is a bit more elusive here, not completely absent but certainly less explicit. That's not a bad thing. The first five tracks of the record in particular are really rather wonderful, and both "Godspeed" and "Trying My Best To Love You" are strong contributions to her catalog. I've been hearing more and more to pay attention to as I give the record additional spins and I'm convinced that "Next Messiah" alone justifies the price of admission. Some of the lesser tracks, such as "See Fernando," "Jack Killed Mom" and "Carpetbaggers" are fun for what they are, but they aren't particularly memorable and the album may have fared a bit better without them.

In short, Lewis didn't let us down. She may not have delivered an album with Rabbit Fur Coat shockwaves, but that's cool with me... there's a lot of quality stuff here, easily worth the purchase and more proof that Lewis is a growing force to be reckoned with.

Lala.com has the entire album available for a listen... so go listen to "Next Messiah" pronto!

... Rilo Kiley: A Better Son/Daughter ...

2008-11-15T10:34:00.001-06:00

... in response to cage's 4'33" ...

2008-11-12T21:59:00.002-06:00

... growing as a listener means...??? ...

2008-11-12T01:53:00.007-06:00

Rewind my listening life to a handful of years ago and you'll find me sitting with ears perked toward two performances of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor... a piece that, coincidentally, I think is great for a newbie (instant drama and a super hummable theme in the first movement paired with a second movement that's a bit more complex, a bit less immediate). In one hand I have Karajan's recording with Anne-Sophie Mutter, paired with Brahms' Violin Concerto (which is probably the reason I picked up the disc, come to think of it, as that would have been near the start of my now obsessive relationship with Brahms (Jan Swafford's fantastic bio certainly spurred me on even further). In this scene, I'm doing my best to weigh the Karajan/Mutter against Munch's recording with the BSO and Heifetz, paired with Beethoven's Violin Concerto.

An aside: To a new listener, comparing recordings of classical music can seem... actually, it can seem silly. Sure, solo pieces can vary quite a bit, and that's easy to relate to; it's one soloist against another, one person's Chopin against another's Chopin, and somehow the fact that it's one instrument playing makes it understandable, the difference audible. One person's playing and interpretation against another person's playing and interpretation: got it, check and mate.

But comparing orchestral performances, well, that's another animal altogether. Soloists might stand out - in the above case, it's reasonably easy to hear the difference between the approach of Mutter against that of Heifetz - but as a whole? A new listener is likely to assume it's a conspiracy to fill the review pages of Gramophone and squeeze a few more dollars out of wealthy patrons who aren't having to pawn belongings to make this month's rent. I'd maintain it was just me, just my initial impression, but in conversation with others who aren't entrenched in the music I've found the same degree of confusion and annoyance. To some degree, it's unfortunate; the newbie risks getting bogged down by the weight of having to choose between ten different performances at a record store, putting more emphasis on getting the "right" or the "best" recording rather than getting to know a new piece of music.

But back to the scene: I'm trying to strike my most studious classical listener pose and seriously weigh one against the other. I'm pretty sure I took notes - I do that a lot with anything, though - and I wish I could track those down; I wouldn't mind peering in on my thoughts, verbatim, because I don't know remember what I thought. If I had to make an educated reconstruction... well, I probably noticed that the playing time for the Munch performances was shorter, and as such the piece moved at a faster clip. The strings in the Munch are softer, not in volume but in (I'm not sure on the right word here) actual attack or timbre... they're a bit more blurred, they float a bit more, there's not as much of a figurative breath between notes. That difference is more noticeable in the second movement than any of the others, but that's probably something I would have paid attention to. Aside from that, I'm guessing I was left unimpressed by the contrast: what's the big deal?

Proust bit into a madeleine and was revisited by any number of ghosts made manifest by long, long sentences; I bit into a recording of Bartok's piano concertos a few days ago and had a similar experience, revisited by a former Me, a Me decidedly unimpressed. At work and not finding any music to fit my mood, Bartok popped into my head; I headed to lala.com, as I didn't have any on me, and decided to listen to a recording of Bartok's third piano concerto, preferably one that I didn't already own. One of the first to pop up was Esa-Pekka Salonen's recording of all three piano concertos with Yefim Bronfman. I pressed play.

The difference just a few years of listening has made in calibrating my ears - for better or worse - is undeniable, and I was so taken aback by what I was hearing that I had to put my work down (sorry, boss). A small note: the tracks are mislabeled; the first three tracks are Bartok's second concerto, tracks four through six are the third, and the last three tracks are Bartok's first. Listening to the performance of the first concerto, my ears said: this is a bit boring, a bit thin and yet heavy at the same time, almost sluggish. The first movement of the first concerto is a moody spot of music, erratic in nature, shifting unpredictably between stately and crazy, and I was getting none of this from the Salonen. Bronfman's playing seemed tame, almost hesitant to really bite into the meat of it. The second movement felt equally tepid.

Always willing to give a second and third chance, I shot over to the third piano concerto, which was what I was originally in the mood for. Unlike the first piano concerto, the third is lyrical, its direction and mood less schizo; what was erratic in the first comes off as exuberant in the third. Despite finding little to no enjoyment in the performance of the first concerto, Salonen and Bronfman's third felt fresh and light. Bronfman and the orchestra felt more in sync. Moving into the second movement, the strings sounded warm and full as they wandered through those quarter-note chords. Bronfman's playing felt light at the movement's opening where I was used to hearing a heavier, more hymn-like approach.

That's when I realized that I was comparing the Salonen, unintentionally, to the recording I've grown most familiar with this past year, the Boulez/Barenboim on EMI. Barenboim's approach during the second movement's adagio religioso section is different from Salonen's, as is Boulez's. Boulez takes a tad more time with those quarter-note chords in the strings, and Barenboim grabs your attention right away a more resonant (as in literal resonance) approach that seriously takes me back to sightreading chords out of hymnals. Continuing further through the movement, Boulez and Barenboim build a beautiful tension that Barenboim digs into relentlessly. All of this sits in contrast against the Salonen/Bronfman which seems less... existential? You might say that Salonen/Bronfman are seeing Bartok's glass as half-full, whereas Boulez and Barenboim are a tad more focused on what that glass might be lacking. (You got to ac-centuate the positive...)

This is a long post, and a long way of making a simple point: one learns to listen. That goes with any music, really, because I've experienced much the same thing in how I hear jazz, hip hop, all sorts of music really. Classical sits in an odd position, though, as it's all interpretation of work that has mostly been previously recorded (a hundred times over). The fact that Salonen's recording left such an impression on me - uninteresting for the first concerto, but very intriguing and worth hearing again on the third - and the further fact that I was automatically pitting it against the Boulez... it struck me.

A friend of mine once told me that the first time he saw a Jackson Pollack in person, he was impressed with the size, color and immediate impression; the second time he saw a Pollack, he was more riveted by the texture, and how the whole of it seemed so structured and spontaneous at the same time. He learned to see a Pollack. I've been noticing church architecture a lot more lately as I walk around the city, something that has never really caught my eye, and now that I've begun looking with an eye of intent, I see more. Experience is cumulative. It gathers force behind you - even when we wish otherwise - and shapes what you do and sense now. Maybe all those reviewers have a point (or maybe not). Now do yourself a favor and go listen to Gardiner's recent release of Brahms' First Symphony... I thought it was a lot of fun, and certainly a different Brahms than I'd heard before.

... an open letter to Lulu ...

2008-11-08T23:08:00.003-06:00

Dear Lulu,
I did it. I braved you. I survived our four hours together. I didn't walk away loving you, as I hoped, but I didn't hate you, either, as some friends thought I might. In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing you again... I feel we might be able to clear up a few misunderstandings, maybe get to know each other a little better.

In all honesty, some of your tangents were a bit hard to follow. Yet every time I thought about claiming that my cell phone was vibrating and asking for the check, you came in with some little unexpected bit that kept me wanting to stick it out.

I hope you didn't take offense that I dozed for those two minutes or so during that last hour we spent. It wasn't you, it was me. You felt fresh and new, seductive even. It's just that I'd had a long day at work and hadn't eaten much. I know, you probably hear that from all the men you meet with, but I swear it's the truth.

I have to admit: for a first date, you came off a bit strong. By the end of the night, I felt a bit used, even a bit... soiled. That's not to say I didn't know what I was getting into. I'd been given fair warning.

By the end of it all, though, I was really glad I showed up. Hopefully we can do this again sometime... but please, don't bring your friends along with you. They all seemed a touch possessive.

Sincerely,
thebigfunk

... Steve Reich/D*Note ...

2008-11-08T21:47:00.005-06:00

Recently on a discussion board I frequent, a poster asked about Steve Reich. He'd been digging around for info on D*Note, an electronic artist that seems to flirt with any number of subgenres (as the best often do), and saw that D*Note cites Reich as an influence.

I quickly hopped over to Lala and listened to D*Note's Criminal Justice album; the influence is unquestionable (and the lp is great). "Deep Water" is formed on the rhythmic pulse of a harp-synth loop fading in and out of the track, juxtaposed against a bit of piano that could almost be ripped from Reich's Piano Phase. Aside from some thick chords of (what sounds like) synthesized strings (brought in for a bit of linear drama I suppose), the piece succeeds in giving that floating feeling that so much of Reich's work offers, ultimately using very little to create something much bigger.

You can hear a bit of Reich in other tracks, too, like "V," but most interesting to me is how you can hear the influence in the lp's closing track, "The Garden Of Earthly Delights." Interesting because, despite the Reichian rhythmic contrast present in the layers of loops, the whole of it is different from anything Reich might think of... a beautiful, insistent track with big and soulful vocal performance, it builds and builds over its nine minutes. You're begging for it to break loose into a climax but that's a bit too cheap for this track, a bit too easy... instead it flirts with you, simmering down and then boiling right back up again, but never truly boiling over. Okay, so that part's Reichian, but, you know... alright, just listen to the damn track already.

Turns out D*Note did a remix of Piano Phase on the Reich Remixed project, alongside a number of other names that everyone should make a point of getting to know (DJ Spooky, Nobukazu Takemura, Howie B). A quick spin through that project was actually pretty satisfying; the artists definitely weren't afraid to pick up the track and truly make it their own (see: Coldcut's remix of Music for 18 Musicians).

Not that electronic artists being influenced by Reich, Glass and Co. is anything new. Still, it's always nice to find a new bit of connect-the-dots to play with for a minute. And hearing Reich in D*Note left me thinking about a number of other artists who use some of the same techniques - Blue Six comes immediately to mind - that may not be directly influenced by Reich but probably caught some aural drift from his direction.

... California, you're supposed to be the crazy state ...

2008-11-07T00:03:00.004-06:00

I'm not trying to turn this blog into a political thing... but really...

Prop 8 got passed? Really? Really?!?!?

I'm honestly surprised... I guess a part of me just assumed it would fail.

I am perpetually baffled by opponents of gay marriage... from a purely practical perspective, a pragmatic, everyday perspective, saying "no" to gay marriage breeds discord. Saying yes fosters acceptance.

Oh wait... oh, I get it. They don't want acceptance.

What does Rufus have to say about this?

... it all happens so quickly ...

2008-11-05T23:47:00.007-06:00

We can look back and reflect, counting the months of campaigning, the eight years of failed Bush policies, the last fifty years of the modern civil rights movement, and a four hundred year history that includes the taint of slavery and stains of genocide, countless highs and lows in a national story as absurd as it is hopeful, as confounding as it is expected.

Last night, however, everything felt spontaneous. Sitting on a friend's couch, talking about what was going on in each others' respective lives, watching election results roll in. I received a text message that said, "Looks pretty good so far." We must have mentally blinked for a moment, there on the couch, because we looked up at one point and found the electoral map replaced with one big closeup of our new President's face.

It seemed to happen almost without thought: a breath, a quiet burst and it was over.

Before we knew what we were doing, we had our shoes on and were heading downtown toward the crowd that had assembled at Grant Park. We found parking with surprising ease. We walked casually at first, soaking it in, and as we saw people begin to run toward the park we picked up our pace as well.

We could hear his voice booming from open doors and cars and windows on the streets of downtown Chicago, and soon we could hear the voice coming from ahead of us. The excitement and clamor of an unlikely crowd rose into the air and resonated; never has emotion and inspiration seemed so palpable, so embodied and yet so otherworldly.

As we stepped onto the entrance, President Elect Obama closed his speech. Crowds filed out and we followed. Chants broke out and died away, people skipped and danced and strangers hugged strangers while, for a bit of time, the streets became a massive open path for a throng of supporters. Every minute or two a wave of ecstatic shouts would sweep from behind us and make its way to the front, pushed on and pushed forward with so much electricity, a force uninhibited. There was no violence, no mischief. All we could do was walk, smile and laugh.

I'm not sure how long we walked. Maybe a half hour, maybe an hour. On the way home, the young and the energized lined up outside of bars and clubs, some set up camp on sidewalks and played games, every one commemorating the night in his own way. My cab driver told me that he'd received phone calls from China and parts of Europe. "The world is as excited as we are," he said. "This is not just a win for America, it is a win for democracy and a win for the human spirit." It's unlikely I'll ever find a cab driver in such an openly eloquent and poetic spirit again.

At home, I started to wonder at the weight that now sat on this man's shoulders, the burden of expectation. I began to worry for the months and years ahead.

But I couldn't stick to worry. I'll worry tomorrow, I thought. Last night was no night for worry. It was an evening and morning to celebrate.

The brightest moments in history are both instant and enduring, brief moments that push the world beyond the boundaries of time by speaking to the present, resonating with the past and answering a call that whispers to us from the future. When the television flashed the words "President Elect Obama" on the screen last night - just like that, without effort, so light - that moment spoke to the here and now, it reached into the past and it looked with hope into the unknowable future.

... the change we need/a change is gonna come ...

2008-11-02T12:04:00.004-06:00

I worry, at times, that we've put too much of our hopes on the shoulders of Obama.

But I can't help thinking that "A Change Is Gonna Come" is such an appropriate tune for the moment... seeing voters turn out in record numbers, the amount of investment shown by new voters, old voters, voters that previously felt shut out and shunned. This election has given new life to an eschatology that had seemed rundown and run dry. For some of us, it has reinvigorated the very possibility of a "to-come."

It has taught us that contrary to whatever Hegel might say, we have not reached the end of history. Lyotard writes in The Postmodern Condition that the shattering of metanarratives, of the overarching threads that bestow meaning, is symptomatic of postmodernity, and he's by all means right... but I wonder if those metanarratives are being replaced by something, something other 'postmodern' thinkers have termed the event... oh, but now I'm just getting off track (and I don't have the thought-power to back up anything I'd want to say).

So here we are. My love and admiration for Aretha runs deep, and she does what is possibly my favorite version of this track.

... Alex Ross (Chicago Humanities Fest) ...

2008-11-01T19:39:00.005-05:00

Alex Ross, author of The Rest Is Noise and music critic at the New Yorker, spoke this afternoon at Northwestern's Thorne Auditorium as part of the Chicago Humanities Fest. The place was mostly full and everyone seemed pretty excited to be there.

The presentation was, essentially, a speedy trip through his book, and, as such, through the twentieth century's many streams of music. Ross used the same clips posted as the audio guide for the book over at his website, therestisnoise.com.

So no major surprises to report. Still, Ross is an able presenter, and the juxtaposition of the music and Ross' condensed text proved effective a number of times through the talk.

What I left most impressed with in the end, however, was hearing (in an hour!) how truly diverse those many streams of music are. Whatever bones one might have to pick with Ross' text, one can't dismiss the fact that he does a very good job of displaying the sheer variety of twentieth century music, works that often sound from the opposite end of the spectrum as other work written at the same time.

The Chicago Humanities Fest continues through November 16th. There are still a number of interesting presentations to come, including one featuring Chicago's own Ars Antigua in a presentation called "The Birth Of Opera" on November 8th, and, running at the same time, a performance from CUBE featuring a number of contemporary pieces (including Reich's New York Counterpoint). Chicago, I heart you.

... the damnation of faust ...

2008-10-30T23:37:00.003-05:00

Was kind of off-the-charts.

Of course, I think Berlioz pretty much wrote it for me and me alone. It speaks to several musical 'clinchers' of mine... a full choir, an oboe pulling a lot of weight (let's hear it for the oboe!). The metaphysical stuff: a story of existential angst turned horribly, horribly wrong, with a few lewd jokes thrown in for good measure.

And a fucking children's choir.

Lagged a bit here and there, but overall I thoroughly enjoyed it. The CSO sounded pristine tonight. Don't know if it was Dutoit or what, but they seemed to really tear into it.

And the section that opens part four, with Marguerite's long bit and the weepy violin? Priceless.

If money was no object, I'd see it again on Saturday, easily.

... Eric Cutler at the CCC, 10/28 ...

2008-10-29T20:36:00.004-05:00

Okay, I'll admit it: when I sat down and opened the program at last night's Eric Cutler performance, I had a geek moment. I had to try really hard to keep from making that face I make when Prince takes the band into an unexpected horn break, the same face I make when I finally sink into the groove of Miles' epic "Stuff"...

The first part of the concert was going to be Schumann's Liederkreis, op. 39. I actually don't know or own too much Schumann... but when I first started venturing into the murky terrain of lieder via Schubert, I somehow found my way over to Schumann (probably because they were so close together on the cd rack). Liederkreis, then, was one of my first purchases in such a style. Since then it's become something of a favorite of mine.

So I had to try not to make the face. And I had to try not to make the face all the way through it. Oh, geekiness, geekiness.

He followed up with Beethoven's Adelaide, three pieces of Schubert and four bits from Strauss... actually, the program as a whole felt very coherent, each piece moving quite nicely into the next. By the Schubert pieces, Cutler seemed to let loose a bit, and he pretty much tore into the Strauss stuff.

I have no idea what the encore was... gorgeous, though. Definitely a strong performance.

Tomorrow night I see Damnation... this has been an excellent musical week and a half for me.

... why use classical music as punishment? ...

2008-10-27T21:48:00.006-05:00

Chicago Classical Music posted a bit on their blog about this article from the Associated Press. The short and dirty: a student, who had been issued a fine for playing his (hip hop, of course) music too loudly, was offered a chance to lower the amount of the fine by listening to twenty hours of classical music. The author wonders if "this unconventional punishment could have future success."

I certainly hope not.

I can almost buy the judge's rationale:

Champaign County Municipal Court Judge Susan Fornof-Lippencott says the idea was to force Vactor to listen to something he might not prefer, just as other people had no choice but to listen to his loud rap music.

"I think a lot of people don't like to be forced to listen to music," she said.

Sure, okay, I get the idea behind it; he intruded on other people's field of hearing (a strange notion, if you ask me), so "we" will go ahead and intrude on his.

But using classical music for such a sentence, particularly in light of how hip hop is seen as a throwaway medium by most folks over the age of thirty-five, smacks of "my music is better than your music" silliness with a dash of "youcrazyyoungfolks, letmeteachyouaboutrealmusic" thrown in for seasoning.

Why classical? Why not any number of other genres? Or better yet... why the screwy sentence at all? It could be interpreted in any number of ways; the worst possible connotation of such a sentence has the nauseating odor of condescension wafting up from the ass of its high horse... as I think about this, I'm picturing Miss Havisham's morgue of a house. I'm not sure why.

Here's the kicker:

As [the judge] sees it, they get the chance to have their fine reduced "and at the same time broaden their horizons."

Oh yes, I'm sure someone being forced to listen to twenty hours of classical music will walk away from the experience with eyes and ears anew. I'm sorry, but I wouldn't want to listen to twenty hours of classical music, and I pay pretty good money to go and hear the stuff. If I ever had to sit through twenty hours of Bach at someone else's command...

In short, is this really the impression of classical music we want to leave on anyone's minds? Tell you what, set the student down and have him listen to twenty hours of nails on a chalkboard or have him watch twenty hours of Hannity and O'Reilly (oh really, o'reilly?).

I can only hope that, someday, this judge rolls through a sidestreet playing a Bach cantata just a little too loudly - it's hard not to, sometimes! - and that she's then forced to listen to Nas' Untitled on a loop.

Because obviously we'd be broadening her horizons, right?

Here's a fanmade video for Nas' "Black President" to cap off this post... *shots fired!*

... Eric Cutler performance: Tuesday, 10/28 ...

2008-10-27T17:25:00.004-05:00

Just a quick heads up... Eric Cutler will give a free performance at the CCC tomorrow night, 7:30 pm. I'd recommend showing up early as I'm assuming it will be pretty packed. Seriously though, it's free. This is a no-brainer.

... Erato/"Appalachian Spring"/Northern Exposure...

2008-10-26T21:33:00.005-05:00

I headed down to the Cultural Center again today to hear a program of American composers, including the premiere of a piece by Andrew Beall, Song of 'Almah, for marimba, soprano and strings, performed by the Erato Chamber Orchestra. The program opened with Rounds for String Orchestra by David Diamond, a piece that definitely caught my ear, and also included Alan Shulman's Rendezvous for Clarinet and Howard Hanson's Serenade for Flute, Harp and Strings. The performance was capped off with Aaron Copland's famous Appalachian Spring Suite.

I was struck by how many people had come out to hear a program of mostly unknown music. The performance was pretty strong overall; it will be interesting to watch Erato grow as an ensemble over the next bit of time.

But what struck me a few minutes before Appalachian Spring Suite began had little to do with the concert; instead, I thought of an episode of Northern Exposure from season three, "Democracy In America." The episode follows the town of Cicely as it stages its first mayoral election in over twenty years. Up to this point, Holling Vincouer has held office without any challenge, but he now finds himself facing down Edna Hancock for the office; Edna has been driven to running for the position after Holling failed to follow through the installation of a stop sign near Edna's land. Typical of NE at its highest peak of quality, "Democracy In Action" offers countless exchanges about the virtues and dangers of democracy, the potential superficiality of the process, the possible sociological insights an election might offer, and, ultimately, a true and sincere ode to America as a country in which power can presumably pass from one hand to another with little to no trouble.

I thought of the episode primarily because of its use of Copland's Appalachian Spring Suite during the scene in which the vote finally occurs. They use a few of the variations Copland offers of "Simple Gifts." After watching it again this evening I noted that Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man is used near the beginning of the episode as well. Moosechick's Northern Exposure website has a nice rundown of the episode.

Watching the political process in action through the lens of twenty-four hour media crews can be rather depressing; I think this episode does a good job of reminding us that, despite its drawbacks and the inevitable pandering that transpires, our election process really is something to be proud of and to cherish. At the end of the episode Ed describes himself as feeling "manly" for voting, and then he gets a little more specific: "I feel bigger," he says. I think I felt a bit of that bigness myself when I left the voting booth after early voting. In honor of election season, here are some clips to get you thinking about America's virtues, as well as its unmentionables.

Chris opens the show with one of his quintessential monologues, quoting Whitman in the process:

Ed struggles with figuring out who should get his vote... he turns to Maggie and Joel for help, but neither do him much good, and the conversation devolves into typical insult-slinging with political affiliations as fodder:

A bit later, Ed asks Chris to help him sort through the various interpretations of (and opinions on) the nature of democracy:

The candidates debate (in a way eerily similar to our own series of debates)... Chris quotes Basho. Oh, Northern Exposure, I pretty much love you.

Finally, Cicely rocks the vote to the tune of Appalachian Spring Suite. Chris explains the significance of this to Ed. I love this scene:

Hey Chicago... don't forget to vote!

... this strange economy ...

2008-10-25T14:02:00.004-05:00

The Detroit Free Press reports that Michigan Opera Theatre is cancelling their entire production of I Pagliacci, as well as a performance of L'elisir d'Amore, due to economic troubles. I lived and worked in a Detroit suburb for two years, and attended two productions at the Detroit Opera House during the the time I was just beginning to explore opera with any serious level of commitment. Michigan's specific financial struggles were depressing to witness then; it's terribly sad to see the state's economy continue to decline even when it seems it can't get much worse.

Stories like this coupled with the layoffs and 'furloughs' at New York City Opera can certainly make one a bit woosy (and not in the good way). Before we all come down with Doomsday Dropsy, keep in mind that the Lyric has sent out e-mail surveys to gauge interest in an additional matinee subscription due to high demand.

Still, I worry...

... Dessay/Kaufmann: Manon ...

2008-10-25T00:44:00.004-05:00

Acts I & II: Mrs. Dessay, please become a 'Ms' and marry me. You can even betray me a couple times, as long as you wind up lying on a table and singing somewhere in the process.

Act III: Kaufmann as a priest? Confession just got a lot more exciting.

Act IV: Were they dripping hot candlewax on the shirtless guy at centerstage?

Act V: Don't take this the wrong way... but just die already, I really, really want to shout "Bravo!"

Curtain Call: Mrs. Dessay, if I ever see you skip across the stage all cute like that again, I might bumrush the stage and steal you away. This stands as fair warning.

... the acoustics of autumn: two upcoming chicago shows ...

2008-10-23T22:50:00.007-05:00

Autumn brings out the acoustic guitarist in me... the would-be acoustic guitarist in me... and since I'm pretty miserable on that end, I usually give in and just listen to a whole lot of acoustic-guitar/folksy/singer-songwritery stuff. Two upcoming shows fit that bill rather nicely.

Folk wunderkinds Jeffrey Foucault and Kris Delmhorst - two-thirds of acoustic trio Redbird - will be at Schubas on October 30. Foucault's been on my radar for a while now, probably since about '04 when his Stripping Cane was released. He's a master at doing an awful lot with very little, in terms of arrangements, but it's his songwriting and voice that's the real star. His lyrics are dangerously intimate, as though he's leaning in to whisper some raspy, clandestine morsel of well-worn truth. A healthy touch of twang creeps in at times, particularly live... I've seen him twice now, and both times left me blown away. Hey, Mr. Foucault, drop another album already!

I've followed Delmhorst for about the same amount of time (they're married, too, dontcha know). Despite similar springboards, they're really rather different from each other, as evidenced by Delmhorst's Strange Conversations, an album that, for me, tried to do a bit too much all at once. I haven't picked up either of her two releases this year, but both have gotten strong reviews; her Songs for a Hurricane pops back into my rotation every four or five months. Definitely a strong show that, barring other plans, shouldn't be missed.

And then there's Richard Shindell at the newly renovated Morse Theatre on November 7. Shindell is something of a mystery to me in that he can pretty much do no wrong. His live album, Courier, is a great example of this: not a weak song present, and a great sample of some of his best work. Where Foucault's lyrics are confessional, often in the first person, Shindell is a storyteller that knows how to grab you in the very first line and keep you listening til the last chord rings out. He's a great guitarist, too, with a number of tricks up his sleeve (and a penchant for some curious tunings). His most recent record is all covers (including Josh Ritter, Springsteen, and my absolute favorite Jeffrey Foucault tune, "Northbound 35").

Fortunately or unfortunately, I'm supposed to see The Damnation of Faust on the 30th, and Lulu on the 7th, two performances I've been so looking forward to! I've exchanged tickets once this season, but I just might have to swap my tixs for Lulu... I'm really hungry to see Shindell live. Got some thinking and calendaring to do.

Some vids to get my points across:

Shindell performs a fav of mine, "Next Best Western"

Foucault heads "Northbound 35"

You can't get much more talent on one stage: Delmhorst, Foucault, Peter Mulvey and David Goodrich perform Delmhorst's "Shotgun Singer"

And let's wrap it up with Redbird (Mulvey, Foucault, Delmhorst) performing Greg Brown's "Ships"

... "The Pearl Fishers" ...

2008-10-22T23:41:00.005-05:00

Just got back from the Lyric's production of Bizet's The Pearl Fishers. Is it just me, or does Bizet look a bit priestly in the pic to the right? The bulk of criticism thrown at the opera is focused on the weak storyline... I'd say this is fair game, particularly in the way things are wrapped up haphazardly in the final act, but once it's on stage it actually moves along at a decent clip. I remember taking an amateur playwrighting class at a thespian festival one summer... one of the key points driven home was how much anticipation you can build in just the first few minutes of a play by setting it just right. The Pearl Fishers succeeds in this regard; by the time the famous duet ends and we find out a beautiful woman is about to hit the stage, you've got the opera pretty much wound up and ready to spring.

The downside, of course, is that you can pretty much predict the rest of the action from that moment, and the few surprises that come along (I'm thinking mainly of the fire) are sprung so suddenly that they feel rash and unfounded.

But you know, aside from the story, The Pearl Fishers has a lot to enjoy. Sure, the choral numbers do little to advance the plot, but they're certainly a wonder to listen to (and this production pulled them off wonderfully, just fantastic). Almost every major aria or duet is hummable, and that's not necessarily a bad thing; the themes stick in your head long after you've left the opera house. I, on the other hand, am still humming that devilish strings run from the end of the second act, a testament to both the orchestra (really, really strong tonight) and the scoring (extremely colored, but also very driven by a number of distinct melodies and motifs that are easily recalled).

Nathan Gunn showed his, um, guns, in more ways than one - I know, the joke's probably been made dozens of times this season - Cabell wooed the audience during her aria at the beginning of the second act, but it was Eric Cutler that, for me, stole the show. Full disclosure: I have a softspot for tenors. But I swear he mustered something special tonight, nearly flawless. All in all, I really don't have any bones to pick with the production... one might say that the Lyric polished a bit off copper into a, um, pearl? Okay, that's the last one, I promise.

One final comment: I thought the set design was stunning, but the lighting was especially effective. Really nice, earthy scheme that did a lot to help set the production up properly. Maybe it's the ex-techie in me, but I was definitely struck by its execution.

I see Manon on Friday... I'm a tiny bit wary as I've yet to find a recording to really get me hooked - I've been working through the recording with Beverly Sills, mainly - but it will be my first time seeing Dessay on stage, and the reviews have been tremendously positive... so I'm excited. Full Disclosure: Excited is my usual state, one of the benefits of being a novice in so much of this!

... Happy B-day, Solti/A Request ...

2008-10-21T18:24:00.004-05:00

Today would have been Solti's 96th birthday... from 1969 through 1991, Solti held the position of Music Director for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, so it's not surprising that WFMT had some pretty nice Solti material playing when I got to work early this morning.

Unfortunately, at that time of day I'm generally a bit groggy... and thus a request to anyone who was listening between the hours of 7 and 9 this morning: one of Strauss' Four Last Songs was played this morning, sung by Kiri Te Kanawa and accompanied by Solti on the piano.

If anyone happens to know where this can be found (or even if it's commercially available), please leave a comment or e-mail me. I'd like to get my hands on it if possible.

On an unrelated note: Ray Lamontagne released his third lp today, Gossip in the Grain. Here's hoping it's as good as his last.

... one downer, one major upper and a bottle of advil ...

2008-10-19T22:37:00.004-05:00

I was determined to hear some good music this weekend. I can go weeks without going out, preferring instead to sit inside and make my way through books (and contemplate their possibilities as operas or musicals: The Brothers K, anyone?). The moment I set my heart on hearing some music, however, I won't rest until victory is won.

Friday night's performance of Vanessa was a bit of a bust, but to be fair I didn't see the whole thing. For the first time ever, I walked out of an opera performance. I've got a little wisdom tooth problem going on - it's made an advil junkie out of me (not bad when taken with a Stella Artois (sorry mom and dad!)) - and the pain started to creep back in near the end of the first act. That was kind of the bitter icing on a dry piece of red velvet cake... the performance just didn't catch me. Once intermission hit, I was feeling trapped... I stepped outside for a bit of air, but once my feet hit the stairs of the entranceway they just kept walking, walking, walking toward the train station. I wrote more in a comment elsewhere on the site.... I'll leave it at that.

When I opened my eyes and rolled out of bed this morning, I realized my hankering had not yet been satisfied. Sleepily, I clicked over to the Reader and saw a listing for a performance at the Cultural Center downtown. Boccherini and Haydn for free... okay, I thought, I can do that. I showered, killed a few hours, popped some ibuprofen and hopped on the L.

So in I strolled to the gorgeous Preston Bradley Hall at the CCC, not expecting anything particularly special... just some nice music to hopefully make me forget my the pain coarsing from my lower jaw uptoward my ear. What awaited me, however, was a pleasant surprise.

The New Millenium Orchestra, a Chicago-based orchestra that seems to know no traditional musical boundaries - they're performing with Lupe Fiasco at the Congress Theater at the end of the month - began with a beautiful ride through Boccherini's Symphony No. 4 in D minor, "La Casa del Diavolo." It was clear right from the start that this orchestra wasn't messing around: a full and balanced sound, a very visible group chemistry (so important for a smaller orchestra), all the marks of a strong ensemble. The piece returns to its opening melody in the third(?) movement, and I chuckled when I heard a young couple behind me remark, "Wait, didn't we already hear this part?" Lucky for them, the orchestra used it as a springboard, launching into the final movement with ample energy, showing a great deal of control as they built and built toward the close of the piece... I'm not exaggerating when I say that I was on the edge of my seat. If this had been the only piece performed, I would have felt fully satisfied.

Lucky for us, Haydn's Cello Concerto in C, featuring soloist Amit Peled, was waiting in the wings. Certainly far from being an ignored piece, I've heard the concerto performed at least two other times... I don't recall either of those performances feeling as warm or sincere as Peled's did today. It doesn't hurt, of course, that it's a favorite piece of mine, with that long sustained entry note from the cello in the second movement (and its parallel in the third movement). Peled did it much justice here, and tackled the more virtuosic sections of the third movement with energy and ease.

The real prize moment of the performance, however, came by way of a brief encore, conductor Francesco Millioto pulling Peled back to the stage to take on a bit of Bloch's Prayer for Cello and String Orchestra (I had to ask an exiting musician what the piece was!). Words aren't very good at describing that little bit of heartwrenching heaven... I wanted him to do an encore of the encore. What a composition! On the way home from work tomorrow, I'm stopping at my local B&N, and who knows what ruin shall come to pass if they don't have a recording of it!

The final piece was Haydn's "Farewell" Symphony, showing a few mostly negligible flaws but rounding out the concert nicely. All in all, a very, very nice performance; I'll be keeping my eyes open for the New Millenium Orchestra from here on out.

I leave you with these words of wisdom: when life hands you a downer, strangle it until you get your upper. And then visit an oral surgeon.

... Garrison Keillor gets it started ...

2008-10-18T23:09:00.003-05:00

The fineness of Garrison Keillor's October 15th article, "Sense of Clarity," comes as no surprise to those of us who follow him with any regularity, and yet it's stunning to think that he's been at it for nearly forty years. Forty years is a span of time older, in itself, than I am. The ultimate melange of urban and rural executed with such grace that the two apparent opposites appear to the audience as bed buddies: that's Garrison Keillor.

In February 2008, when Keillor endorsed Barack Obama, I smiled. I don't have too many heroes, and I've never really thought about it that much, but should the question be posed and if I were cornered and tipsy, Garrison Keillor might be the first name to come to mind. It's always a bit stomach-turning when your heroes disappoint you, when they drop some off-color comment that the media picks up and repeats until the next fall from grace pokes its head from underground a day or two later. But when they validate your romantic notion of them, the world's colors seem brighter and its troubles a bit less troubling.

Still, no surprises. Garrison Keillor is Garrison Keillor. His recent string of articles have been knock-outs, but "Sense of Clarity" is especially perfect. Master of the sort of segue that in anyone else's hands might seem abrupt or nonsensical, Keillor goes from church service to daily troubles to election talk with ease. And he ends by praising Obama's poise and cool-headedness, attributes I feel American politics haven't seen in some time.

But what of the music? Hopefully this isn't too new to most of you, but if you're wondering how to introduce your young one to the orchestra, you can't do much better than Keillor's "Young Lutheran's Guide to the Orchestra." Click here to listen at lala.com.

... every genre's got a secret weapon [Ray Lamontagne] ...

2008-10-17T00:24:00.003-05:00

The act of listening to music is no easy nut to crack, and when we try to break it down into categories/approaches we usually end up with overly simplistic definitions that don't do a very good job of representing what the act of listening usually consists of. For all of our attempts to separate the intellectual/analytical/engaged approach from the personal/subjective/reactive approach, we make no real advances on the real event of listening.

I'd like to think that my own listening habits combine a healthy mix of those extremes, usually in an individual sitting. As I sit and listen to Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5, I turn one ear toward my instinctive emotional response - the 'ooh!' and 'ah!' ear - while I try, with the other, to follow the various themes and variations and developments that unfold. No fixed perspective here, no sirree. Still, privately I champion the more engaged side of listening (which doesn't have to be intellectual, or even strictly musical).

Yet I find that every genre, for me, has a secret weapon, a one-two combo sure to leave me flat on the mat. The intellectual in me is wary of these secret weapons, as they expose the fact of my preferences and turn my anti-habit and anti-comfort tirades against me. One of those combos is the simple singer-songwriter formula of Sparse Setting + Fragile Voice. If that Sparse Setting features the added bonus of coming off as Lush... well, it's all over. The below clip of Ray Lamontagne's "Be Here Now" is pretty much exactly what I'm talking about:

It doesn't hurt that the lyrics come off as a series of brief meditations or aphorisms (I know I shouldn't, but I'll even use the word 'koan' here). The arrangement never seems tied down but instead floats. No big payoff, no line dance to send it all home... it just is.

A little part of me enjoys acknowledging these secret weapons. After all, we have no reason to be scared of preference unless it threatens to become an obstacle to approaching the figurative Outside. And they confirm a continuous and cumulative experience that informs our present state, or, even further, the affirm it. And who doesn't like a bit of affirmation now and then?

... Chicagoans: don't forget "Vanessa" ...

2008-10-15T16:25:00.003-05:00

If it hadn't been for a mailing that arrived a week or two ago, I might have missed the opportunity to see the production of Samuel Barber's Vanessa being staged by Chamber Opera Chicago right now. The Tribune gave a positive review here, though it seems there's been little buzz otherwise. I'll be attending Friday's performance... I'm going in unprepared (never heard a lick of music from this thing) but pretty excited.

... there's a joke in this somewhere (Doctor Atomic) ...

2008-10-15T15:54:00.004-05:00

The Met's staging of Doctor Atomic is up and running, and I'm afraid the (informal, blogger) reviews seem to echo the 'huh?!?' attitude that was aired over the Chicago and San Francisco runs. Maury D'annato offers a particularly chuckle-worthy review on his blog, My Favorite Intermissions. While I'm eager to grab the DVD when I have a chance, I'm wishing an audio recording was made available in conjunction with the release...

I won't rehash thoughts on the opera... I've written and thought about it enough (for the time being, anyway)... here's my post with thoughts after listening to the Lyric's rebroadcast.

Peter Sellars is out for this production, replaced by Penny Woolcock. The NYTimes has a nice interview/article on Sellars, Woolcock and the new Atomic here.

... Rufus Wainwright and those damned ladies ...

2008-10-13T22:34:00.006-05:00

The Guardian and The Telegraph have both run articles on Rufus Wainwright's upcoming debut as opera composer. The opera is titled Prima Donna, and Wainwright claims Callas' post-retirement interviews with Lord Harewood as its main inspiration. The opera will premiere as part of the Manchester International Festival in 2009; it looks like tickets have already gone on sale, and they're sure to go quickly.

While it's reasonable to be skeptical of pop and "classical" crossovers, Wainwright falls into a unique category. Wainwright has been pushing the genre borders of his own music further and further since his first, self-titled lp in 1998. On that record, "Damned Ladies" saw Wainwright playfully drop a long list of references to lead female roles (Desdemona, Gilda, and Katya come to mind), bringing the figures back to a more personal and realistic plane with its chorus:

And why don't you ladies believe me when I'm screaming
I always believe you

Since 2003's Want One, in fact, the influence of classical, in both traditional and more modern forms, has asserted itself more and more. At times the nod from Wainwright has seemed almost tongue-in-cheek, playing to common stereotypes of opera or playfully mimicking something between straight baroque and Mozart ("Little Sister"). In other songs, however, the presence is far more serious. The orchestration of that album's "Beautiful Child," for instance, features a heavy brass presence that almost recalls Mahler in its size (and lead trumpet figure, which makes me think of the figure from Mahler's Fifth), as well as layers of vocals the likes of which pop music hasn't seen in some time. Want Two features "The Art Teacher," a piano and vocal piece that resembles art song more than anything you might find on the radio. The same album features "Waiting for a Dream," a track pushed onward by an insistent circle of piano chords and a subtle but integral string arrangement.

His most recent lp of original material, Release The Stars, found Wainwright flirting with minimalist (and modernist) tendencies on both "Not Ready to Love" and "Leaving For Paris No. 2." The former, a sparse and open ballad that seems to positively float until about the 2'15" mark at which a piano enters and alternates between forceful, full chords and a light, almost impressionistic playing. The track shows Wainwright as a writer with a firm grasp of color and movement, bridging the progression of the lyrics with the progression of the music through the careful and understated entrance and exit of instruments. "Leaving For Paris No. 2," on the other hand, boasts a similar minimalism that will ultimately head in a totally different direction; instead of the satisfying resolution from floating to grounded that "Not Ready to Love" provides, "Leaving..." embraces an almost dizzying ignorance of time while incorporating a sort of dissonance in its strings (see the second section, when the piano drops out). When I saw him perform "Leaving..." live last year, the first composer to leap to mind was John Adams.

But if there's any one track that convinces me that Wainwright might actually work as Composer with a capital C, it has to be "Nobody's Off The Hook." Not unlike "The Art Teacher," the track is more reminiscent of art song or Schubert than any pop music I can think of, a perfect merging of lyric and melody, wonderfully conversational yet never awkward. The string arrangment, and its interaction with the piano, is nothing short of exquisite.

Wainwright has, I think, proven himself capable of taking on the scope of an opera. I worry a touch about the fact that he has opted for an "older" style - he references Massenet in both articles - but I worry primarily because of how critics might respond; it makes it a bit easier to cast the work in the light of a mimickry, a novelty. All of this being said, if there's some angel out there who would like to pay for a trip to the festival, a set of tickets and a dashing new wardrobe, please don't think twice.

Here's "The Art Teacher":

A live performance of "Nobody's Off The Hook":

And a *wonderful* performance of "Beautiful Child" (without the strings, but with the horns courtesy of a synth):

Finally, the ephemeral and elusive "Leaving For Paris No. 2":

... Paul Festa's "Apparition of the Eternal Church" ...

2008-10-09T18:36:00.004-05:00

I have been thinking a lot lately about the sheer size of classical music's catalog. Think, for a moment, of just the established and canonical repertoire... for a completist like myself - "I like this guy! I want to read everything he's ever written about everything, and I want to read it all right now!" - the number of a heavyweight composer's traditionally revered works, not to mention his or her entire oeuvre, can seem discouraging to say the least. I often feel behind the curve when I admit, sheepishly, that I've never heard a famous, game-changing work. In fact, it can be an obstacle even to this humble blog of mine; how can I have anything important to say upon hearing a piece that's completely new to me while it's impossibly entrenched in the ears of any listener worth his weight in records?

Paul Festa's documentary Apparition of the Eternal Church, screened yesterday at the beautiful St. James Cathedral, offers a unique answer to that question while throwing a number of other questions, conundrums and meanderings into the mix along the way.

The idea is astonishingly simple. Festa sits 31 people down, throws some earphones on their head and presses play. They don't know what they're about to hear, they're just asked to talk about it while they're listening. The piece? Messiaen's wall of organ(ic) dissonance, Apparition of the Eternal Church.

Few of the listeners are musicians, most are artists and eccentrics. There are a few famous names - Justin Bond, James Cameron Mitchell, Harold Bloom, Albert Fuller - but just as many folks that left me scratching my head in trying to figure out whether I've seen them on tv somewhere. And so they talk. There are childhood stories of church, memories of family relationships, musical analyses, vivid dream-like images, and one long intoxicated recounting of a funeral procession.

The secret to the film's success may be found in how little Festa appears to interfere in their conversation. Aside from the occasional request for a listener to expound more on something they just said, Festa is on the sidelines. The interviewee is left, then, with a great deal of room to just open their mouth. The results are often hilarious, equally insightful, at times quite quippable and, in the end, real. The underlying consequence is a brilliant subtext on religion and the world, the sacred and the profane, and the mystery of the ineffable. When we recall that all of this is taking place in the shadow of Messiaen's Apparition, a full and curious poignancy seems unavoidable.

As the film came to its conclusion, Bruce Barber took attendees on a wild ride through the piece on St. James Cathedral's breathtaking organ. Perhaps Festa understood the need to soothe the wracked nerves of audience members: after the last long chord of the Apparition finished resonating, Barber delivered a slower, sweeter Celestial Banquet.

In its short length of an hour, the film issues an important reminder to the novice and the experienced listener alike: music really is meant to be listened to. Yes, we hear music differently as our listening accumulates and our experience ripens, and no one wants to stay a novice forever. But that experience can certainly be a hindrance as well. Would anyone ever really want to be in the position to say, I've heard it all? The force of music is in its effect and the response we issue forth. Thank you, Mr. Festa, for taking the time to remind us to listen and respond.

--------------

Andrew Patner has a nice review of the film on his blog. Chicagoans have one more opportunity to check it out downtown on Sunday, October 14th, at 1 pm. Details, and showings in other cities, can be found here. The Messiaen fest has performances all weekend; its schedule is here.

And of course, the Apparition:

... Exposure v. Attendance ...

2008-10-09T07:23:00.003-05:00

In a Canadian Press article about the Met's third year of HD cinema broadcasts, Peter Gelb tells the following anecdote:

"When I was a child, I used to be very disappointed when I would turn on the TV and a game would be locally blacked out because it wasn't sold out," Gelb says recently from his office in New York.
"At a certain point, the sports teams realized that, in fact, maybe it's counterintuitive - the more exposure they had electronically, it was actually better in terms of encouraging attendance in the stadiums themselves."

In the ongoing hoopla regarding digital music's pros and cons - namely, exposure v. sales - I wonder if pundits, execs and artists alike should also be taking a cue from sports. Instead of worrying about whether Johnny paid for that mp3 and has the right to burn more than four copies of it, how about coming up with a genuinely unique way to tap into Johnny's new interest in such-and-such an act?

Exposure or attendance? Hmmm...

... Messiaen: Quatour pour la fin du temps ...

2008-10-05T18:54:00.004-05:00

A wonderful bit of music-making took place at the University of Chicago's Mandel Hall yesterday afternoon. CSO clarinetist John Bruce Yeh, violinist Cho-Liang Lin, cellist Gary Hoffman and pianist Christopher Taylor came together to offer a charged reading of Messiaen's Quatour pour la fin du temps, managing, to my ears anyway, to pull out the complex and sometimes contradictory emotional content of the piece with enormous spirit and sensitivity.

The performance opened with Debussy's Premier Rhapsody for Clarinet and Piano. Prior to this I'd only heard the piece as scored for clarinet and orchestra. It seems to me that the clarinet/piano score shines more light on the jazz-tinged chords and the freewheeling and often humorous tone of the piece. Yeh seemed to begin a bit hesitantly but quickly found his footing, moving through the virtuosic clarinet runs - that for whatever reason reminded me of Coltrane - with ease and verve. Taylor and Yeh worked wonderfully as a duo, clearly connecting over the rhythmic pulse of the work. A number of jazz artists proclaimed a certain admiration for Debussy, and I can't think of a better piece to illustrate why.

Lin and Hoffman were next to take the stage with Ravel's Sonata for Violin and Cello, a piece completely new to me. If Debussy had left jazz impressions in my head, Ravel certainly didn't dissipate them. As in Yeh and Taylor's performance, Lin and Hoffman proved a wonderful pair, both showing themselves unafraid to dive into the rather raucous (and at times aggressive!) nature of the piece... I'm thinking, in particular, of the second movement, with a plucked violin dancing over rhythmic "booms" from the cello. Very enjoyable... actually, that movement reminded me very much of a portion of Shostakovich's Trio No. 2, I believe the second movement.

But what I'm sure most in the audience had come for was Messiaen's Quatour pour la fin du temps, or Quartet for the End of Time. The first time I heard the work I thought to myself: is there another composition that requires each of the four instruments to be at the absolute top of their game? Every instrument gets an incredible amount of solo time, the piano being the only exception (but even it gets its share of the spotlight, particularly in the hypnotic downward chord shifts of the second section, Vocalise. Certainly, any small chamber group needs rhythmic certainty, an understanding of direction and a strong sense of unity, no matter what the piece. But something about the Quartet jumps out as a truly unique situation, where so much of the work is intimate and every instrument, as such, truly in the spotlight. (A confession from a relative classical music amateur: it was, indeed, Alex Ross' (now certified genius) treatment of the piece in The Rest Is Noise that led me to the quartet.)

After the respective pairs had shown such electricity together through Debussy and Ravel, I had a strong hunch that the Quartet would be a treat... it unquestionably was. There's a lot of emotion in Messiaen's piece, but what makes me really sit up and listen is how much of that emotion is, in a conventional sense, opposed with each other. The end result is something of a painter's palette, with sweetness, bittersweetness, terror, bliss and anxiety all amply represented, and yet the colors interact with each other so very well. The four players collectively proved my point, at least to me.

But the focal of the performance in my book turned out to be Yeh's Abime des oiseaux. Yeh approached the performance with a touch of theatricality and managed to turn nine minutes of solo clarinet into a split-second... I wanted it to go on longer. There was a different sort of surprise in store for me, however, when the group reached the back-to-back Danse... and Fureur... sections. I'd not noticed how - brace yourself - jazz-tinged these portions of the piece are. I find a performance a success if it brings something out of a work that you never really paid attention to before...

And now, not to soil this already choppy review... but a note to the elderly woman a few rows ahead of me:

Did you really, really, really need to read the newspaper during the performance? I have to say, I nearly put my manners aside to something after the concert had ended. What was so important that you had to rustle, rustle, rustle your way through a significant portion of a performance that those around you genuinely wanted to listen to? The dow took a 700+ drop today... I sincerely hope your portfolio is in shambles. With love, thebigfunk

... we won't play your disco: WCO musician's strike ...

2008-10-05T12:34:00.005-05:00

A detailed post over at Jason's Double-Bass Blog gives us the scoop on the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra's musician's strike.

I don't know enough about the inner-workings of an orchestra to weigh in on anything here... but I do wish more patrons would be sympathetic to the plight of orchestral musicians. The few that I have known have often stretched themselves thin with teaching gigs, concerts and recitals, often with little money to show for it at the end of the month, and they do it because they love what they do. Showing no understanding of the average musician's tightrope is, in my opinion, not much better than having the musicians take their meals with the servants.

Thanks to Jason Heath for taking the time to dive into the matter...

... Looking Forward: 10/2 - 10/5 ...

2008-10-01T23:45:00.001-05:00

Some good stuff this week... far from an exhaustive list of everything going on. This week in Chicago:

10/2, 7:30 pm - Rockefeller Memorial Chapel
Messiaen: Messe de la Pentecoste
Other Composers: Bach, Couperin
Performed by: Dame Gillian Weir, organ

10/2-10/4 - Symphony Center
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5
Other Composers: Sibelius (Symphony No. 4), Tilson Thomas (Street Song for Symphonic Brass)
Performed by: Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conductor: Michael Tilson Thomas

10/3, 7:30 pm - Northwestern University, Pick-Staiger Concert Hall
"Keyboard Conversations: Haydn and Mozart - Humor and Heartache"
Performed by: Jeffrey Siegel, piano

10/3, 7:30 pm - University of Chicago, Mandel Hall
Messiaen: Oiseaux exotiques
Other Composers: Beethoven, Debussy
Performed by: Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, conductor: Pierre-Laurent Aimard

10/4, 7:30 pm - University of Chicago, Mandel Hall
"Messiaen: Spheres of Influence"
Composers: Benjamin, Boulez, Levinson, Messiaen, Ptaszynska, Takemitsu
Performed by: Members of eighth blackbird, Pacifica Quartet, Stephen Gosling (piano), Cliff Colnot (conductor)

10/4, 7:30 pm - Harris Theater
The Sphinx Chamber Orchestra & Harlem Quartet
Composers: Mozart, Lobos, Walker, Marsalis, Vivaldi, Abels

10/5, 1:30 pm - Elizabeth Stein Gallery
The First Annual CUBE Awards for New Music (Concert & Reception)
Hosted by: Andrew Patner

10/5, 3:00 pm - Chicago Cultural Center FREE
Accessible Contemporary Music presents "Composer Alive: Paris"
Composers: Stephane Delplace, Jean-Francois Zygel, Phillippe Hersant, Pierre Sancan
Performed by: Accessible Contemporary Music

10/5, 3:00 pm - University of Chicago, Mandel Hall
Messiaen: Quatour pour la fin du temps
Other Composers: Debussy, Ravel
Performed by: John Bruce Yeh, clarinet; Cho-Liang Lin, violin; Gary Hoffman, cello; Christopher Taylor, piano

... Au fond du temple saint: three performances ...

2008-09-29T20:32:00.003-05:00

Youtube amazes me sometimes.

"Au fond du temple saint" from Bizet's "The Pearl Fishers" as performed by Placido Domingo and Sherrill Milnes:

The same duet performed by Nathan Gunn and William Burden. Gunn will perform the role of Zurga in the Lyric Opera's production this season.

And Andrea Bocelli with Bryn Terfel:

And there are many, many more to browse...

... Looking Forward: UChicago's Messaien fest ...

2008-09-26T19:02:00.004-05:00

October 2 through the 11th finds the University of Chicago presenting a celebration in honor of the centennial of Olivier Messaien's birth. I was crossing my fingers for a performance of St. Francis of Assisi," apparently without luck, but the schedule looks quite promising nonetheless. On October 4, members of eighth blackbird join up with Pacifica Quartet for a very nice set of contemporary pieces - Messaien's "Piece for Piano and String Quartet," Boulez's Derive I, Takemitsu's Ame no jumon among others - followed by Quatour pour la fin du temps (paired with Debussy and Ravel) on October 5. Of special interest to me is the final performance in the festival, Pacifica Quartet performing Berg's Lyric Suite, a piece I recently heard for the first time and have fallen in love with since.

Actually, looking over the performance schedule, much of the music will be rather new for me. There is a good side to being a relative newbie in all of this... so much to hear, so much to discover.

Also of note is Accessible Contemporary Music's October 5th premiere of Sextet by Stephane Delplace. Free and open to the public at the Chicago Cultural Center.

... bear with me, i'm gushing ...

2008-09-25T20:25:00.004-05:00

The 2008 Season - that's right, I'm starting to capitalize it and just call it "The Season," sort of like, "The City" - has only just begun... and yet I've completely succumbed to its wiles. Over the summer, several blogs entered an understandable slow spell, but the abundance of news that the Season brings with it has awakened them from their slumber...

Take the Met's opening night gala. Or was it Renee Fleming's opening night gala? It's hard to tell, considering that the whole evening, based on reports, was far more devoted to her than to the music. Okay, overlooking the music is nothing new for opening nights - who am I kidding? I've never been to an opening gala, that means I'd have to wear something fancy... - but overlooking the music for one specific superstar soprano? The basic rundown for those not in the loop, here's the scoop:

Fleming performed three acts from three operas (Act II from Traviata, Act III from Manon, and the final scene from Strauss' Capriccio). As if it couldn't get any more diva-ed out, three top-name fashion designers - Christian Lacroix, Karl Lagerfeld, John Galliano - created costumes for each of the acts (Lacroix offering *two* for Traviata, Lagerfeld offering *two* for Manon). Admittedly, the Lacroix dress to the right is stunning... but in the end, it sounds like the evening was too much glitz and glamour without the goods to back it up. NYTimes has pics of all the dresses and a full write-up here.

Meanwhile, on the opposite end of the spectrum, director David McVicar (a superstar in his own right) called Natalie Dessay "the most undiva-ish diva I know" in a nice Tribune piece on the soprano... making her diva allure all the more palpable. When I saw the Met's HD stream of Peter Grimes earlier this year, Dessay played host and seemed so wonderfully charming, an impression confirmed by every interview I read with her. The Lyric's Discovery Podcast for Manon, recently uploaded, features Dessay, Jonas Kaufmann and conductor Emmanuel Villaume. Dessay is, in addition to charming, wonderfully insightful. I think I'm in love.

Shifting to the male gender, Eric Owens, who played General Leslie Groves in the Lyric's staging of Adams' Doctor Atomic, is taking the role to the Met this season. A nice interview with Owens has been posted on Sequenza21 about that role...

But he also speaks about the very exciting CD release of Adams' A Flowering Tree... my order is placed and I can't wait for it to arrive. I saw Chicago Opera Theatre's staging of A Flowering Tree this spring and thoroughly enjoyed it, finding the music both moving and hypnotic. I'm eager to hear Jessica Rivera in the role of the lead. Adams' Doctor Atomic also gets a DVD release on BBC/Opus One at the end of the month... hard on the wallet but exciting for the ears and eyes.

To bring it all full-circle, the Met's live HD broadcast to cinemas across the globe began with Fleming's gala performance and will continue on October 11 with Strauss' Salome. Doctor Atomic follows on Nov. 8, and Berlioz's The Damnation of Faust on Nov. 22. The Met's website seems down tonight... there's some great info here.

If I'm ambitious, I'll put together a nice list of this weekend's Chicago events a little later. Don't hold your breath, though...

... Theremin Schmeremin ...

2008-09-21T10:41:00.002-05:00

The Theremin... I never knew!

... And the seasons commences ...

2008-09-21T09:50:00.004-05:00

If I fib a bit and say that my lack of posting was a planned hiatus, will you call foul or play along? Regardless, The Season - that is, the CSO's season, and in a handful of days the Lyric Opera's season - has commenced. Right on time, I'm back to offer terribly amateurish observations and the occasional unsavory pun.

The Lyric opens with Manon on September 27, featuring the dazzling talk-of-the-blogs Natalie Dessay in the title role (and none other than Jonas Kaufmann as her ill-fated lover). As much as I am looking forward to seeing a performance in mid-October, I admit to being even more excited about Bizet's The Pearl Fishers. A totally new opera to me, I just finished listening to the whole of it last night (the Plasson recording). The closing scenes of the second act, when Leila and Nadir profess their love and then immediately are discovered, are nothing short of exhilarating. Nicole Cabell will play Leila, with Nathan Gunn (!) in the role of Zurga and Eric Cutler as Nadir.

I was disappointed to hear that Riccardo Chailly will not be making his scheduled two-week stint with the CSO - even more disappointed as I had tickets! - but, after reading that it's medical, I figure we should cut him a break. As wonderful as it might have been to hear Mahler's 10th in the hands of one of his most renown interpreters today, the season's just beginning and there's plenty to look forward to over the next several months. My Mahler fix will still be satieted on November 20, with Haitink conducting the Second.

All of this classical buzz has had me listening away... the summer brought a much needed hiatus from the orchestral and operatic realms, but in sweeps the fall and out come the piano sonatas and massive symphonies. That's all for today.

... Bizet's Djamileh at Chicago Cultural Center ...

2008-08-01T23:19:00.003-05:00

The Tribune ran an article yesterday on the CCC's upcoming production of one of Bizet's lesser-known operas, Djamileh. Tickets are free but only a limited number are available at the door; it seems most need to be picked up in person. Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday... info here.

... A Light Slump ...

2008-07-03T12:43:00.003-05:00

I've been in an odd mood lately... for one thing, I haven't been listening to much classical. The flip side of that is that I've had a hard time getting excited about *any* music lately... not for lack of quality or quantity. Just haven't been quite there.

A do have a few posts up my sleeve, though. They'll be coming later this weekend.

Just wanted to check in and say, "Hey, I'm still here."

... Vance Gilbert: Youtube Interview/New Album ...

2008-06-20T22:07:00.003-05:00

It's amazing what putting your Itunes on shuffle can do. It pulled up Vance Gilbert a few days ago, specifically "Waiting For Gilligan," and I heard the song in a way I hadn't really heard it before. Hit his website out of curiosity only to find out that he's got a new album, "Up On Rockfield" on the way... it's in stores in September, but you can grab it on Itunes or preorder at his website. Soundclips are available in the website's "Store" section...

I've always felt that Vance Gilbert could benefit from a strong producer. On "Unfamiliar Moon" the production took on an aesthetic I feel is more conducive to what he does best: write, sing and play. It sounds like "Up On Rockfield" might be approached in the same vein.

Hit the Youtube a bit after and found an eight-part conversation I hadn't seen before, uploaded a few months ago:

I'll assume you're smart enough to follow the links to the other parts...

According to Dar Williams' website, we can also expect a new album from her in September entitled "Promised Land." The news blurb mentions a cover of Midnight Radio from Hedwig, and mentions "a new pop sound." Yay on the former, apprehensive on the latter. Regardless, it will be good to hear some new material from her... here's to hoping it's as good as "Beauty Of The Rain."

... New York Steps Up ...

2008-05-29T23:18:00.004-05:00

If karma works like a checkbook, a running tally of debits and credits, New York may have just canceled out the Sean Bell fiasco. Fortunately, no matter how karma works, history isn't easily effaced: Sean Bell was shot fifty times, and no amount of good will will erase the absurdity of a verdict nearly amount to commendation.

I suppose that's neither here nor there... the point of this post:
The Advocate
NY Times
MSNBC

In other words, a gay couple from NYC could potentially catch a flight to Toronto, head back home and be recognized by the same metrics of recognition afforded a straight marriage.

Just in time for NYC's Pride festivities... kudos, NY!

So how long can Hillary and Obama avoid some pertinent questions???

... Coming Soon: The Listening Sessions Get Rolling ...

2008-05-28T21:26:00.004-05:00

In some ways, I've listened to classical music all my life. I took piano for much of my youth and picked up the occasional classical recording throughout high school and college.

It wasn't until a few years ago that I started listening closer and diving deeper. My official "conversion" was, I think, sparked by Mahler's Second Symphony. Around that time I also saw my first fully-staged opera, Fidelio, in an attempt to understand an art form that seemed so distant and foreign to my ears. The result of those two experiences has been a growing relationship with classical music of all sorts, from the traditionally accepted to the fringe and contemporary movements.

Late last year I began a project that I've more or less kept up with: pick a piece of music, listen to it several times over the course of a week or so, and write about it. The experience has undoubtedly helped me to grow in my understanding of the music I'm listening to, and it's helpful in "cracking the code" of a given piece. Hence the name of the blog, The Listening Sessions.

Next week I hope to debut a podcast that was really part of the impetus in starting this blog several months back... the goal is to take a piece of music and talk about it, while playing back recorded examples, in order to help make sense of the composition. It will be geared toward new or amateur listeners... from one amateur enthusiast to another.

But because I never want this blog to become solely focused on classical music, I also hope to include some popular music features as well.

So stay tuned for what I hope will be an adventure for anyone who chooses to listen...

... Borders Music Resets ...

2008-05-26T11:40:00.003-05:00

I walked into a local Borders last week to pick up a few things and was surprised to find the entire music section spun around. I was saddened to figure out that the categories that had taken the largest hit were classical and jazz... as well as books on music.

Don't get me wrong... no one should be walking into a Borders with tremendous hopes of expanding their collection in all sorts of new and exciting directions. But when I walked into another Borders out of sheer curiosity and found that they'd done the same thing - compressed their classical cd offerings into just over four feet of space! - it was certainly a bit of a letdown.

They're having money troubles, yes yes, we know. But I worry for the new classical music listener who is now forced to thumb through offerings online instead of in person, even though the genre as a whole has been slow to shift to the new digital format.

I wonder if that means that now is a good time to act on my dream of owning a classical music store in Chicago? If there are any angel investors out there, holla!

... Opera Marketing Woes ...

2008-05-26T10:41:00.005-05:00

Brian Dickie writes of how proud he is of COT's A Flowering Tree production... and how he was a bit disappointed with the turnout. I was too. Did a sexy Giovanni turn opera-goers off from the rest of the season? Doubtful. Is it more difficult to sell "new" music than old music? I don't think that's necessarily true. I think audiences are just difficult to peg sometimes... it's hard to figure out what they want and when they want it, and it's even harder to be able to deliver it... and it's extra-difficult to get the word out that you have what they want, that they just need to come and get it.

I feel that a lot of the opera and classical music world fails in the marketing department. Either they focus almost exclusively on the incestuous classical audience that will already be seeking them out (if they genuinely want to attend). Or they pander to a younger generation with promises of more sex! more violence! more aliens at the opera!

I don't know what sort of marketing COT had out for the season, or for any particular production - I tend to walk around with my eyes closed - but I do know they made some steps in the right direction. The "Opera Underground" series is a great idea, a way to mix socializing with a night at the opera... I hope it was successful. Scoring the simulcast in Millenium Park was brilliant, obviously, and had to have gotten some positive attention.

I'd love to see an opera company exploit some other options, though. Why no one has worked to capitalize on the relationship between figures like Glass or Adams and the contemporary fringe genres is beyond me, however. Take a handful of Midwestern bands that figure Adams as an influence - they're out there, trust me - and put together a "PostClassical" night at The Empty Bottle. Scared money don't make none.

That being said, I hope this doesn't deter COT from bold and new productions in the future. It was ultimately Chicago's loss if they missed A Flowering Tree, and they'll hopefully be kicking themselves when Italy declares it a triumph...

... speaking of soul music: Al Green ...

2008-05-25T10:42:00.003-05:00

Al Green + Ahmir Thompson + James Poyser = ???

Probably greatness, at least that's the impression I'm getting from the clips I've heard, the stories I've read, and some friends who picked up the leak...

Lay It Down will be released this Tuesday... Amazon has a nice making-of video posted on their site. My prediction: this will by summer record, without a doubt.

... Review: A Flowering Tree ...

2008-05-25T09:00:00.005-05:00

When I left Harris Theater on Friday night after seeing Chicago Opera Theater's production of John Adams' A Flowering Tree, I found my mind drifting off a bit, bouncing between images and sounds of soul singers. That's right, soul singers. Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye. That's where my mind settled.

John Adams hasn't abandoned the opera ship; this wasn't a concert of soul or rhythm and blues. But my mind was there nonetheless, for a very simple reason: the best music released by that pantheon of greats shares an undeniable quality of restraint. Every thing in its right place. Do yourself a favor and pull out Aretha's Young, Gifted and Black and listen to "First Snow in Kokomo." You'll hear a narrated story with understated accompaniment, wonderful backing vocals and occasional instrumental flourishes that all come together to paint a vivid and beautiful picture, guided of course by Aretha's perfect vocal performance. It fits as part of a larger album, too, in musical tone, instrumentation and mood. Every thing in its right place.

With the exception of a few flaws that are easily forgotten, A Flowering Tree puts every thing in its right place, too. A simple fairy tale with just three main roles, one of which is a narrator, the tale unfolds through a minimalist setting and music that never feels overbearing or too heavy for the action in question; innovative and direct solutions to unusual staging requirements - how do you turn a human into a tree on stage? - are stunning in and of themselves, even more successful as part of the whole. The end result is an aesthetically and musically cohesive production that allows the audience to put their imagination to work and tease out the colorful details for themselves.

The three main vocalists - Sanford Sylvan as the Storyteller, Natasha Jouhl as Kumudha and Noah Stewart as the Prince - were, simply put, perfect for their roles, turning in seemingly flawless vocal performances. Jouhl and Stewart demonstrated a remarkable chemistry, particularly in a second act duet that left me wishing there were more duets for them to work through. And the entire production - from the chorus to the dancers - seemed to share in an energy that was absolutely infectious.

There are the normal eccentricities we might expect from Adams, especially following Doctor Atomic, most notably the fact that the chorus numbers are performed in Spanish despite the rest of the opera being performed in English (with no justification from the action or setting). But the eccentricities never get in the way of the opera's overall success, and Adams' has truly delivered some terrific music for A Flowering Tree. Toward the end of the second act sits a striking extended piece of music featuring the orchestra's strings working through dense blocks of chords while a lone trumpet wanders over the top searching for something, like our two leads.

If COT's Don Giovanni had perhaps added a few too many dashes of this, a little too much of that, A Flowering Tree seems wiser; it prefers to leave open what should be left open, particularly when setting a fairy tale. All in all, A Flowering Tree left me energized, inspired. Judging by the response from the crowd, I don't think I was alone. Chicago Opera Theater has given us two hits (in my book) this season... they'll close out their offerings with Orlando, opening this Wednesday.

... A Flowering Tree: Overture ...

2008-05-24T10:46:00.004-05:00

Don't have my thoughts together to post quite yet, but I must say that when I left Harris Theater after watching Chicago Opera Theater's production of John Adams' A Flowering Tree... I was absolutely giddy.

There are a lot of things anyone can point out about the opera as far as drawbacks or flaws go... but by and large, I thought the entire thing was just beautiful. The music, the setting, the performers... all were just terrific.

More a little later today or tonight, once I've gotten a chance to digest things a bit.

... Lyric Opera fiscally responsible ...

2008-05-21T22:57:00.004-05:00

The Lyric Opera trumps the US Government in a number of areas... better singers, for one, and I'm pretty sure it would fare better in the polls right about now. And now it has another notch to brag about: "fiscal responsibility":

"Lyric Opera of Chicago released the initial financial results of it's 2007-08 season today, with the company reporting having sold 98 percent of its seating capacity for the 79 performances comprising its season, in addition to having maintained a surplus in excess of $800,000."

More at Opera News. In other words... our congressmen might do well to see more opera.

... Hahn: Sibelius/Schoenberg (and mutterings) ...

2008-05-20T21:16:00.004-05:00

Today involved a trip to the dentist... there's nothing I hesitate at more than the dentist. And while I emerged alive and not in pain, the final verdict was that I will, in fact, soon endure quite a bit of pain... fillings and wisdom teeth extraction being the main causes. I will spare you the morbid detail of my dental history... suffice to say that I have been negligent with these little things we all teeth. The good news is that I stopped drinking soda several weeks ago... and I don't even miss it that much. My success with cigarette cessation, on the other hand... not as triumphant.

In other news... I picked up Hilary Hahn's recent recording of violin concertos from Schoenberg and Sibelius today. The Sibelius is one of my favorite compositions, period... I believe my infatuation over the piece stems from one little phrase in the first movement that just seems, to my ears, to just cry. It cries, wonderfully and terribly all at once... I'll give a time marking for the phrase in a future post, once I've digested the disc a bit more. I'm completely unfamiliar with the Schoenberg (apparently, I'm not alone). One listen left me confused, but that's to be expected. I was pleasantly surprised, however, at how much emotion I was able to glean from it... I was assuming it would come off as much more distant and obtuse than it actually did.

Finally, I bit the bullet and got a full eight opera subscription for the 08/09 season at the Lyric. I'd been meaning to treat myself to something nice - I've accomplished quite a bit lately on the self-development/personal improvement tip - so I indulged. My wallet won't thank me, but, Natalie Dessay willing, my ears and eyes will.

... Grant Park Music Festival ...

2008-05-19T20:14:00.003-05:00

I'm generally not a big fan of outdoor music performances, especially for classical or instrumental music. But the calendar for this summer's Grant Park Music Festival is surprisingly diverse... most surprising is the amount of new or contemporary music featured over the course of the season. Steven Mackey's Lost and Found and John Adams' Dharma at Big Sur are coupled with Beethoven's Seventh on July 16th; an all-choral program made of exclusively American composers includes Corigliano, Golijov, Morten Lauridsen and Steven Sametz (who I had to google!) is featured on July 29 and July 31.

In addition, a number of lesser-known works are being dusted off... Sibelius' The Captive Queen on July 9th and July 11th, and a Nielsen symphony in August.

It's great to see such a lineup... and it just might get me out to Millenium Park a few times this summer.

... Obama Got Pull!!! ...

2008-05-18T22:15:00.005-05:00

I don't know if the number's accurate, but 75k is being thrown around as a turnout number for Obama's Portland rally.

Want to know what 75,000 sweaty bodies look like?

-------------------------------->>>>>>

There's your answer.

None of them trump this kid though, and the supporter to the right. They're two expressions sum everything up: we're hopeful, and we're effin' mad.

... A Flowering Tree Reviews ...

2008-05-17T18:10:00.004-05:00

Reviews are beginning to show up for COT's production of Adams' A Flowering Tree, and they seem mostly favorable:

Chicago Tribune (John von Rhein)
Chicago Sun-Times (Andrew Patner)

No blog reports yet. I see the production this coming Friday.

... Doctor Atomic: A Second Listen ...

2008-05-17T17:41:00.003-05:00

When I saw Doctor Atomic in January at the Lyric, I came out with very mixed feelings that were hard to express. On the one hand, I felt that there were many beautiful moments and a great deal of interesting music. On the other hand, it seemed as though the staging of the opera was awkward, rigid and, for lack of a better phrase, trying too hard. Much of the choreography seemed especially choppy and some of the acting overblown.

But beyond all of that there was still something else, some other obstacle to being really satisfied with Doctor Atomic. After listening to the rebroadcast on WFMT today, I think I know what that is: vocal intervals.

Contemporary music does things with intervals that would have been scandalous in pre-twentieth century music; arguably, much of this daring comes out of Mahler, Strauss, Stravinsky and Schoenberg. While I am not nearly as knowledgeable about contemporary composers as I'd like to be, I very much enjoy contemporary music and, though I may find certain features difficult to work through, I rarely have complaints about its musicality.

But the awkward tonal intervals that Adams employs in many of the vocal lines just feel unnatural; I think it shows in the sometimes shaky performances by members of the production's cast, many of whom are top-notch singers. I don't know that I necessarily feel that opera today should always follow a natural phrasing - lord knows it hasn't in the past - but I do feel that awkward phrasing and melody can create an obstacle to taking a piece seriously. I think this is best shown by the character of Groves, who spends time talking about the weather and his diet... is it comic relief? Yes. But even as comedy it falls flat.

I don't know if I'm expressing myself in proper terms. My overall impressions after this second listen? The opera is rather cluttered. It goes on too long. Its best portions are ironically its instrumental interludes, where Adams puts the orchestra to work at wonderfully complex rhythmic chains and layers... these are the moments in which the pressure that should have been present throughout the entire opera actually manifests. Kitty and Oppenheimer's house scene - "Am I in Your Light?" - and Oppenheimer's "Batter my heart..." aria stand out as the best solo features, and quite a few chorus numbers are of special interest.

I guess in the end, I came away from this listen as mixed as I did from the performance I saw. That being said, I ripped it and hope to listen to it more over the next few weeks to see if I can't wrap my head around it a bit more.

... Northern Exposure: All Is Vanity ...

2008-05-16T23:58:00.007-05:00

Northern Exposure is one of my favorite television series, and "All Is Vanity," from the second season, is one of my favorite episodes. The best writing in the series always managed to wrap up a number of separate storylines into a larger theme (without blatantly proclaiming the connection from a soapbox); "All Is Vanity" does exactly that.

Maggie's father comes to visit, and it quickly comes to light that she has lied to her father in letters, telling him that her new boyfriend is none other than Dr. Joel Fleischman. Joel plays the part, for better or worse, and Maggie puts on her best performance of Daddy's Ideal Daughter.

Holling Vincouer is convinced that Shelly, his significant other, would find his penis more attractive if it were circumsized... and thus plans to do it.

And the heart of the episode: a stranger dies in Joel's office, before even being seen. No one knows who he is or where he comes from. The town keeps watch over his body until a decision is reached as to its fate.

And through it all we see vanity in its countless forms. Why does Maggie keep up a charade for her father? Is it for him, or is it for her? Why doesn't Holling, being the man's man that he is, stand up to Shelly and say that he doesn't want to get a snip-job on his Johnny? And why is it that the town becomes so attached to this cold body, so connected that they don't want him shipped to Juno for an autopsy? Is there a vanity there, as well?

The answer, it seems, comes in the closing scene. Maggie reads Shakespeare's Sonnet 116:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Each aspect of vanity in the episode comes out of love for others, but that love can be deluding, deceptive. The victor is not the one who tries desperately to change for the other, but rather the lover who accepts. It is only at the end of the episode, as we watch the stranger's body burn on a funeral pyre, that we realize how vain vanity is. There's more than a little Heidegger in the episode, and that's brought out by the Chris Stevens' closing speech.

Below is the episode's closing scene, one of the best moments in the series.

... The Great California Divorce ...

2008-05-15T22:49:00.004-05:00

Congrats, California, on a smooth divorce: on Thursday, the California Supreme Court annulled the state's same-sex marriage ban. Read the CNN article here, and the NYTimes article here; the full text of the opinion is available here. The best part: Governor Schwarzenegger said that he would respect the ruling and would not support a constitutional amendment to overturn the verdict.

Unfortunately, the religious and political right are vowing to push such an amendment come election season... that's no surprise, of course, but hopefully that will ensure more voters come out to vote during these pivotal elections.

The elephant in the room, of course, is that neither of the two Democratic presidential candidates has come out in support of gay marriage initiatives, forcing voters to choose among the lesser of evils. Neither McCain, Obama, Clinton or Paul have a "clean" record in this regard. That's no surprise, either... politics as usual (c) Jay-Z. They wouldn't want to risk losing the "family" vote, but they've got to find a way to secure the GLBT vote as well... so let's just straddle the fence somewhere in the middle.

Interestingly enough, Chelsea Clinton attended a number of political events held at gay bars over the last month. Take that for what it is.

... 1,001 Afternoons In Chicago (and other stuff) ...

2008-05-14T22:24:00.004-05:00

Accessible Contemporary Music, a Chicago-based new music ensemble, will round out their season in June with what sounds like a rather interesting project. Taken from their website, here's a rundown:

"1,001 Afternoons in Chicago is an innovative collaboration between ACM and The Moving Architects based on the stories of legendary Chicago newspaperman Ben Hecht. During the 1920's Hecht, a writer at the time for the Daily News, challenged himself to write a short story each day and publish it in the paper. He succeeded and the result has been compiled and published as 1,001 Afternoons in Chicago. This collaborative piece explores 12 of the stories through music, motion and visual imagery."

The ensembles will perform the piece twice on June 14th and June 18th in Chicago; tickets are two dollars cheaper if purchased through acmusic.org. The Moving Architects have kept a blog documenting some of the blood, sweat and tears behind the project, which you can read here.

If you need a contemporary music fix before then, you may be interested in the Contemporary Music Ensemble's program of Ives, Feldman and Cage on May 30 on the Northwestern campus; visit the Pick-Staiger Hall website for tickets and info.

For the opera-goers, Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore will be performed at Northwestern on May 23-24, tickets again available via Pick-Staiger... I've yet to make it up for a production on the campus, so I'm going to try to make it this time around. I'll be seeing COT's new production of A Flowering Tree [which premieres tonight!] that weekend, though, and there's only so much time to go around...

And of course, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is quickly finishing up its season with a bang: the Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival performance features Schumann, Hindemith, Berg and Beethoven; the weekend of the 22nd features the ubiquitous Four Seasons (even if Chicago can't navigate through the seasons itself); the end of May finds Michael Tilson Thomas taking us through Dvorak's Eighth Symphony, and early June sees the conductor's intriguing The Thomashevskys multimedia project in action. I will almost certainly attend this latter program.

In short, no drought on music here in Chicago for the remainder of May. And that doesn't include Badu and the Roots at the Chicago Theater!

... Lyric Opera rebroadcasts ...

2008-05-11T11:26:00.005-05:00

The 2007-2008 season at the Lyric may have ended, but that doesn't mean there's not more opera to enjoy.

WFMT will be rebroadcasting the entire 07-08 season through June... and yes, there are live streams to be had.

May 10, 12:30 pm: La Traviata
May 17, 1:30 pm: Doctor Atomic
May 24, 12:30 pm: The Barber of Seville
May 31, 12:30 pm: Eugene Onegin
June 7, 12:30 pm: Julius Caesar
June 14, 12:30 pm: La boheme
June 21, 12:30 pm: Die Frau ohne Schatten
June 28, 12:30 pm: Falstaff

Free opera broadcasts? Can't beat that. Just head over to wfmt.com and click "Listen"...

... COT's Don Giovanni: Blog Reviews ...

2008-05-11T00:18:00.004-05:00

I figured it would be interesting to see what some bloggers had to say about COT's raunchy Don Giovanni:

Mia Fioritto seems to have found it disrespectful to the women on stage...

Stephe finds himself questioning his previous aversion to modernized opera settings...

From the Ledge's review is positive, and wonders whether or not modernized or reconceptualized settings help to bring in new audiences...

Hopefully a few more attendees, perhaps from the 2000+ simulcast turnout, will share their thoughts...

... Review: Chicago Opera Theater's Don Giovanni ...

2008-05-10T23:30:00.007-05:00

As the first few steps are taken and the first few notes are sung, it quickly becomes apparent that this is not your typical approach to the Don. It's not your typical approach to Mozart, or even to the most scandalous of the accepted opera repertoire. At least not here in the States, where our tenors and baritones have yet to don Mickey Mouse masks and strut in the nude... by and large, we're still playing it safe. Which is one of the reasons I can, being of sound mind and body, energetically endorse the Chicago Opera Theatre's current run of Don Giovanni. Because any one thing or aspect I might find fault with, I can also find potential in, and I can only hope that other companies might follow the cues of COT to be a bit bolder and a bit more alive.

Diane Paulus places the opera in a contemporary nightclub criss-crossing a number of aesthetics: it's burlesque, it's S&M, it's a dinner club... and just to be safe, there are two stripper's poles placed at the center of the stage. Don Giovanni is the hedonistic owner of the establishment, Leporello's clad in a red leather trenchcoat, and Donna Elvira is dressed as something of a dominatrix (complete with riding crop!). The entire ensemble is constantly flanked by a party of girls outfitted by your sleazy local sex shop, the whole group always groping or being groped, two, three, four at a time... Madonna goes to the opera.

There's no use arguing that it's inappropriate. Mozart was a scatalogical pervert who penned the filthiest jokes in letters to his sister and various loved ones; read the letters, and laugh a little. Amadeus may have taken a single characteristic and turned it into an entire character portrait, but it doesn't erase the bit of truth it's founded on. And this composer, in turn, takes an already scandalous character and brings to it his own flair and fortuitous touch.

So let's put the idea that Don Giovanni isn't already teeming with sex, violence and decadence out of our heads. Paulus chooses to focus on these aspects of the opera in her production, to explode these darker shades and let them permeate across the entire stage. Standing in the murky shadows of such an approach, each character is impacted. Giovanni? Relentless, insatiable and unshakable. Elvira? Torn between the noble truth and the lure of the fantastic (and the fantasy). Zerlina? A young innocent learning how to manipulate and seduce. To Paulus' credit, the setting undoubtedly affects each performer's portrayal in a positive way, allowing for mini-epiphanies through the entire performance: "I've never *thought* of Ottavio in that way," and so forth.

There's a risk, of course, the risk that the vision will overpower the acting, the singing, the overall performance... and unfortunately this Don doesn't entirely escape such a fate. Donna Elvira is dressed in a severe and forbidding black leather, but this didn't match what was a rather intimate and vulnerable portrayal by Kristina Szabo. And while the setting allowed for a number of tantalizing group performances, I was left questioning how much the ensemble bought into it; they at times gave off a sense of hesitation, even discomfort, and such a hint can act as a significant obstacle for an audience working to buy into a radical staging.

The ultimate cringe-worthy moment of the evening came during Leporello's famous aria: as he recounted Giovanni's passion for "beginners," out came a Britney Spears mimic, school skirt, pigtails and choreography swiped from the music video for her early-career ode to masochism. This type of moment was not fully isolated. One dance scene found the ensemble shuffling through contemporary club moves... which would be fine, if the rhythm supported it. Instead it comes off as laughable and a bit embarrassing.

But with all of its faults, it's clearly a Don Giovanni worth watching. Many in the cast were terrific, but the chemistry and tempo shared by Leporello (Matt Boehler) and Giovanni (Iain Paterson) was especially dazzling. Isabel Leonard delivered a wonderfully seductive Zerlina in each of her arias, and Rhoslyn Jones' coloratura performance enchanted the audience throughout. In truth, the opera seemed to put on its best face with only one or two performers on stage at a time, which says much of the strength of their portrayals. I wouldn't have had Paulus approach the opera in any way other than this - it was provoking, no doubt - but it's a shame that it occasionally overpowered the young and promising collective talent of the cast.

Jane Glover of course turned in a wonderful musical performance throughout, supporting the recitatives with her own harpsichord magic; we Chicagoans are lucky to have her doing such a large amount of work in the city. Overall, a great start to COT's 2008-2009 season, and an appetite-whetter for A Flowering Tree.

... roads shut down and no news coverage ...

2008-05-08T00:01:00.004-05:00

Word from friends in the city is that several major streets in NYC were virtually shut down today due to civil disobedience in response to the Sean Bell verdict. And yet...

No news coverage. 216 arrests, including Al Sharpton and the fiance of Sean Bell... and no bloody coverage.

We're talking about 50 shots.

We're talking about excessive force.

We're talking about a judicial system that let three police officers get by with hardly a slap on the wrist.

To those who made it to the protests, please know that you have supporters in spirit all over the country.

Protests are scheduled to continue over the next week and further... our thoughts are with you.

... CSO Music Director: Riccardo Muti ...

2008-05-05T18:44:00.005-05:00

The Fantastic News: Riccardo Muti will be the new music director for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

The Added Bonus: Both Haitink and Boulez will continue to do what they do, at least until Muti takes the podium in the fall of 2010.

The Extra Added Bonus: I get to test my theory that Italian men in the public eye never really grow old and wrinkled like the rest of the world... they grow old and even more attractive. How does that work?

The front page of the CSO's website has all the info you need, and Andrew Patner's blog has a really nice article on the appointment; he'll also be rebroadcasting a Muti interview this evening, along with a new Haitink interview. I'd cooled off on classical music the last few weeks, but I think I'm going to celebrate by listening to a selection or two from Muti's collection of Tchaikovsky symphonies on Brilliant Classics.

... breathe in, breathe out ...

2008-05-05T17:15:00.006-05:00

It's be a lot easier if I didn't like it so much. But I do like it, I even thought about saying, "We'll be together forever" and giving the goshdarn thing a big hug.

But I didn't. Instead I've added up dollar signs and dollar sense.

On May 9th I will stop smoking. That's my set date.

That means I go on a smoking free-for-all until then, right???

... Review: Scott Matthew - self -titled ...

2008-04-26T18:00:00.002-05:00

Scott Matthew - Scott Matthew
Glitterhouse Records

When Shortbus hit theaters the blogs began a-buzzing... about sex, mostly, but also about the music. Scott Matthew was at the center of the music buzz. Everyone was wondering about that ethereal voice singing behind several key moments in the film... who did it belong to? Scott Matthew was the answer, but there wasn't much to discover. He hadn't released a proper full-length.

So never mind its short length - it runs a mere thirty-five minutes - and disregard the fact that three of its eleven tracks were featured on the Shortbus soundtrack; Scott Matthew's full-length has arrived, and those are ultimately paltry details.

Paltry in light of how gorgeous this album really is. His work on Shortbus was so compelling because of three obvious points: a unique and beautiful voice, a wonderful sense of melody, and lush yet minimalistic arrangements. Matthew sticks to these building blocks through most of his lp and offers his rather straightforward songwriting through a filter of intimate acoustic arrangements.

The second track on the album, "Abandoned," offers a good example of his basic approach. It opens with a simple acoustic guitar strum, followed by Matthew singing a bare-bones melody and a cello moving softly underneath. As though he were adding ingredients to a dish, Matthew adds block piano chords under the second verse and then doubles his vocal line at the chorus, one voice stretching up into a near-falsetto, the other grounding the arrangement with a harmony line in the lower register. "And god it's strange/ to be the only one to talk to," he sings, the lyric reflecting the tint of longing coloring the entire track. By the final reprise of the chorus the vocals have become more complex, layering at least three (possibly four) vocal lines over each other, sometimes overlapping, sometimes falling apart. And as softly as the song arrived, it's ended.

"Abandoned" is far from the only melancholic track on the record... it's fair to say that loneliness is its theme, with the struggle out of loneliness as the other side of the coin. The opening track, "Amputee," hopes that a loved one feels as lonely as he does whenever they're apart. "Laziest Lie" throws off someone's apology as a forgery, while "Habit" notes a penchant for turning good things into bad by merely opening one's mouth. And even if there are brief moments of musical reprieve - "Prescription" is driven by a plucked banjo and decorated with light piano runs, "Upside Down" features an ukulele and bright vocal harmonies that just keep getting brighter - the lyric never strays far from a question of dependence or loneliness.

So it's a good thing that Matthew's voice and songwriting are such ideal partners for these darker things. "Surgery" features just his vocal line and an airy piano, "Habit" again outfits him with a cello, a piano, a whole-note bassline and an acoustic guitar. The final effects of these carefully formed performances, combined with his rich and fragile voice, are distinct feelings of quiet surrender and isolated reflection.

There's no doubt that Matthew understands how these might sound to a listener; it can feel good to slip into hollowed out songs of sadness. Matthew says it himself:

"And if winter of discontent
it fills your bones, it's your only friend
Feel free to defend your right
Don't fight, simply slip out of sight
to sweeter terrain
Balladeer."

Here he's crafted an album perfect for those of us looking for a terrain somehow both darker and sweeter. You can listen to clips at his Myspace page as well as his official website, and I recommend purchasing the record directly from Glitterhouse Records.

... This Weekend: Mahler's 4th, Tanya Morgan ...

2008-04-18T16:53:00.002-05:00

Chicago's got choices, this weekend, and difficult ones.

Hip hop newcomers Tanya Morgan, fresh off some dates featuring them as an opening act for The Roots, headline a show at The Note, reportedly one of the last live acts at the club until it changes to a new (no-live-music) format. Still relatively new on the scene, the group is quickly establishing themselves as someone to pay attention to. A whole slew of openers start it off around 9 and the cover's affordable...

But then again, RJD2 is at the Abbey Pub, along with Dalek... tough choice, no?

Either way, you'd be a fool to pass up an opportunity to hear Mahler's Fourth on Saturday played by the Northwestern University Symphony Ensemble... only $9, 7:30 start time. Or save the cash for Sunday's Pierre Laurent-Aimard performance at the CSO, a run-through of Bach's Art of Fugue.

And finally, Me'shell Ndegeocello rocks out the Kinetic Playground tomorrow night. Mahler against Me'shell? Now *there's* a hard decision.

... Last.fm and classical music info, no. 2 ...

2008-04-18T10:19:00.001-05:00

Well it's good to see that I wasn't alone in my tagging anxieties...

See: The Classical Tagging Guide

I have quite a number of concerns with this tagging system, but as far as last.fm goes, it makes sense. Last.fm basically recognizes three fields - artist, album, track - and so if one *really* wants to tag their info in a manner that will allow Last.fm to track it... yes, it makes sense. It looks pretty.

But I can fit a lot more information with just one more field added - the Composer field.

And I really can't see going back and retagging all of my music... perhaps an album a day...

... Music's Little Worlds: Saul Williams ...

2008-04-16T23:05:00.002-05:00

Music's Little Worlds: Saul Williams

Seven Steps From Monday, Vol. 1 Part 3

World-making isn't limited to the fantastic. Classical composers inject bird calls into their music or use melody and instrumentation to evoke a specific worldly setting, and DJs spin and cut an aural interpretation of the urban landscape. These are not mere transcriptions, but interpolations and an active hermeneutics. When lyrics enter the scene, however, we are reminded of how close these musical worlds can come to our own in another way. Successful pop songs are often successful because they capture, in a few simple or not so simple lines, a moment that many can relate to: a breakup, romance, mourning, thankfulness, bitterness, loneliness. At times a song manages a spectacular feat, though... through its soundscape and its lyrics it manages to create those worlds we've been noting, worlds near to us in their familiarity and yet distant and murky.

Saul Williams' Scared Money opens with a simple horn loop and tamborine shake laid out over a loose percussion line, a fully-shaped beat with a vague Spanish influence. At its start its emotive quality is vague, neither positive or negative. Williams enters with an easygoing delivery, layering both lower register and upper register vocals in a half-sung fashion:

Callin' haves and have nots
Every cell on the block
Every n*gga with a trigger empty-barreled or cocked
Marchin' like parade of scar if you been stabbed or shot
Son, we smokin' these batons right in front of these cops

It becomes apparent that the track is, at least through the first section, a sort of call-to-arms, and the vivid imagery Williams employs pieces together a world that seems tangibly real. The track's chorus - "Scared money don't make none" - is that call-to-arms in a nutshell, a soft organ entering the mix in an added sign of urgency. The horn loop in the shadow of the lyrics begins to feel like hip hop's parallel to a bugle call.

But then that realism shifts. The beat breaks, the steady horn loop is taken out of regular commission and instead cut in at different intervals. "It was all a dream," Williams says. "I used to fantasize I was Malcolm/ Or Martin the pulpit/ the ballot or the bullet." These lyrics are no longer half-sung, and there's nothing easygoing about the delivery... we've swerved into an entirely new area. This area isn't restricted by time: "I used to pray to change back the year." It's a world that is right up against reality but not always at one with it:

But I'm fearless
Sometimes I feel alone: homeless, peerless.
What will it take to shake the land
for everyone to hear this?

The unity of the first section is broken by the instability of the second. A world both close to us yet distant is created, all the more poignant because we still understand, the lyrics still hit home, but we're in a terrain that's wholly individual. We recognize its energy more than its absolute content. Williams begins to zone out, thick images layered over each other, right up next to each other and coming so quickly that we can't even hope to keep up. Wholly individual with all the traits of Otherness intact.

The track ends with the original loop more or less in place and Williams' delivery less emphatic with a touch of surrender. And the listener is left in as much limbo as he was when he first recognized the call-to-arms. Williams manages this balance of worldliness/otherworldliness over the whole of his recent album, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust! You can download it directly from his site for free, if you like, or for a voluntary payment.

... Music's Little Worlds: The DJ ...

2008-04-15T11:18:00.002-05:00

Music's Little Worlds: The DJ
Seven Steps From Monday, Vol. 1, Part 2

The method of composition is completely different, but if the art of production in hip hop and various forms of electronic music isn't world-making then it's hard to tell what is. Through sampling, layered instrumentation and deft engineering, the best producers create landscapes both recognizable and foreign. It starts at a urban imagery, no doubt, with breakbeats and vocal samples giving musical shape to a distinct city landscape.

But it moves beyond that, as well. Listening to DJ Shadow's "The Number Song" from his landmark album Endtroducing... is a lot like riding the subway, the train slowing and stopping at various points along the way, allowing new sounds into the collage. It may seem surprising to note that, structurally, one could approach "The Number Song" from a loose sonata-form perspective. The dense loop that opens the track works almost as an initial theme, with little decoration... when the layers fall away at 0:40, leaving just the drum loop, you're left with a second theme that, despite being "derived" from the first, feels markedly different. We return to the first theme again but not for long. At 1:40 we enter something close to a development stage: new ideas abound, a lot of them rhythmically built off of sounds previously featured (listen to the vocal samples, the prevalence of numbers). We're back at the first theme shortly after, which then breaks off into a final brilliant coda at about 3:20, ending on an open drum sample.

It doesn't *need* the structure, but it's there in some shape. DJ Spooky does away with any firm structure in his "Thoughts Like Rain," opting instead to play creator to an immense, surreal terrain. This track from Songs Of A Dead Dreamer focuses at first on one shimmering motif, which opens and plays through the bulk of the track, sounds briefly appearing over and under it. A hollow drum pattern comes in, and later a subtle bass line. What can only be described as city sounds - approximating engines and car horns, but muffled - dominate the track by 4:00, the drums, bass and even the shimmer having dropped out of earshot. All that's left are these city-like sounds with a great deal of echo and shape, leaving the feeling that one is deep in a tunnel. As the final phrases roll by, though, it's hard not to notice that the dynamic shape of these sounds - the way they move - is not altogether different from the traveling shape of the shimmer that opened the track. This does not provide a satisfying cadence or resolution, but rather a moment that can only be described as an eerie epiphany. If all of this seems to be distinctly urban, a quick relisten might give a second perspective: there's a very real naturalism at work, with rattles and whispers hinting at the wildest earthly terrains - deserts, rainforests, wastelands.

Mahler used rich orchestration to create textures and colors so thick that the listener feels pulled into them, absorbed by them. When some DJs set to work, they use the space of sound in a similar fashion, exploiting the technology of playback and speaker settings to make the music move. They don't need to tell the trumpet player to play as if he's far, far away... instead, they give that direction to the sound itself.

... Music's Little Worlds: Gustav Mahler ...

2008-04-14T20:06:00.001-05:00

[Today is the first in what will be a significant portion of the material on this site, "Seven Steps From Monday." Seven interlinked posts beginning every Monday, one a day, pertaining to music (in one way or another). They'll often contain links or downloads.]

Music's Little Worlds: Gustav Mahler
Seven Steps From Monday, Volume 1, Part 1

It is not surprising that the music of Gustav Mahler has taken on a mythology all its own, complete with a creation story (Symphony No. 3), heroic actions and heroic deaths (Symphony No. 2), and, most importantly, commentary on the struggles of life in all its forms (Symphony No. 1, Symphony No. 5). Mahler's rich orchestration vividly evokes images both real and surreal, concrete and abstract. "A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything." A quote perhaps overused and even abused by this point, but poignant nonetheless.

What makes Mahler unique as a world-maker, however, is precisely that marriage of the abstract and the concrete. Whether we are discussing his earlier symphonies that included a guide (which many listeners are thankful for), or the remainder of his output that stood without a program, we can safely say that Mahler offers a unique synthesis of image and abstraction. And this would seem to be a hallmark amongst those that create worlds, not only in music but also in other fields: it can be understood as a world at once close to our own, and thus understandable, but also distant and hazy. Mahler's gestures are as often grand as they are intimate. Brass figures that so unequivocally suggest military fanfare are quickly shattered and replaced by shapes less discernable. We can place this world, insofar as we can relate it to our own, but we cannot and do not inhabit it. It is that which is closest to us and yet, in the same motion, that which is furthest from us.

Mahler seems, of all the major composers, to be the most prominent in this act of world-making. And if we accept this perspective on his work, the question soon rises as to the shape of these worlds: what is their form? their content? And what do we make, then, of the recurring phrases and various connective tissue throughout his output, specifically throughout his symphonies? Are these passages or links between worlds? Or do they stand, instead, as a sign of a larger, coherent world unto itself?

There is no answer, of course... it's for the listener to decide. And perhaps it is most fun, and even most appropriate, to entertain *all* answers at any given moment. To listen for both unity and multiplicity in the world and worlds of Gustav Mahler.

1. Gustav Mahler - Symphony No. 2 in C Minor: III. In ruhig fliessender Bewegung (Philharmonia Orchestra (c/Otto Klemperer))

Right-click, "Save link as" to download file. All downloads are intended for journalistic and sampling purposes only with the hope that you will find something you like and buy the recording.

... identity crisis ...

2008-04-13T12:56:00.001-05:00

What do I want to be when I grow up?

Do I want to be a general music blog?

A classical music blog?

Why are the two always so separate?!?!

I don't think they have to be.

From this moment forth, I will be my own blog. If you can't handle a little Badu next to your Brahms (or your Brahmin), stay out of the listening room.

... Early Glimpse of COT's Don Giovanni ...

2008-04-12T20:59:00.002-05:00

Brian Dickie has posted some rehearsal photos from Chicago Opera Theatre's upcoming production of Don Giovanni (conducted by Jane Glover, directed by Diane Paulus). There are still affordable subscriptions to be had for the three operas being performed... but if you're dirt broke, don't miss out on an opportunity to view a free outdoor simulcast at Millenium Park.

... Last.fm and classical music info ...

2008-04-12T18:41:00.001-05:00

Classical music poses a number of difficulties for digital organization. As most players now include all the basics needed to create a reasonable profile for any given music file, I've been tagging my music in what I would think is a pretty rational manner:

Artist: I usually put the ensemble first, and then the conductor and any soloists in parentheses separated by a semi-colon.
Title: The full name of the piece followed by a hyphen and movement info. For example: "Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op. 83 - I. Allegro non troppo"
Composer: The composer's full name
Album: I've recently altered the way I do this slightly... the last name of the composer (unless more distinction is needed) followed by a colon and the work (or works). I haven't included composer or soloist info in this category.

What I've noticed, however, is that Last.fm doesn't bring up the composer tag... as a result, when I play the above piece, it shows the artist info (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (c/Andre Previn)) and the title (as above), but Brahms is mentioned nowhere.

I found it interesting (and a bit frustrating)... wonder what the best way around this glitch is?

... music and the internet ...

2008-04-12T18:26:00.001-05:00

I have been without a home-based internet connection for something like two, maybe two and a half years. I made the choice to get rid of it (I got rid of cable television at the same time) and by and large I haven't missed it.

This morning I had cable internet installed in my apartment.

Here are a few thoughts I'd like to share:

1. Digital Tags
Disconnect your modem and put a cd into your computer, one that you haven't already ripped... what's that? No tag info. Folks can develop technology that beams information from one end of the world to the other but haven't figured out that it's a good idea to add a universal tag format to cds? You don't know how nice the internet is until you've attempted to tag all three discs of Bach's St. Matthew's Passion on your own. For this, kudos to the internet, a big kiss off to the industry.

2. Sociable Music
I hit the net as soon as the cable guy was gone. I downloaded a bunch of stuff I've been without: Itunes (I'd only had Windows Media Player(!)), Firefox, some add-ons... and last.fm. Scrolling through my del.icio.us bookmarks (which I've barely touched in the last two years) and looking through last.fm, I was struck with how crucial this digital stuff has become. The proliferation of networking sites is interesting, really... and I realized how much I've missed having a series of music blogs to click through (*adds "Said The Gramophone" to Google Reader*). Kudos to the internet for doing what it does, even if you have to wade through a whole lot of crap to do it.

3. Speed Dating
Buying a cd for me is like beginning a new relationship. When I buy a cd - I probably purchase a minimum of ten discs a month - I come home, unbutton my coat and settle into a chair. I struggle with the cd wrapper for a minute. I deal with that stupid spine label affixed at the top. I pull out the liner notes and note who produced what and maybe even indulge in a little fantasy about what such and such a track is going to sound like... I inevitably try to fastforward to a track that captured my interest but get sidetracked. Before the night's over I'll listen to the album once or twice all the way through. I'll form some initial opinions. I'll replay stuff that makes me make the funky face.

As Itunes imported my 10000+ tracks and organized them and all that stuff it occurred to me that the next generation of listeners may essentially be speed dating. That's not all bad... you don't have to pay for dinner on a crap date, and you don't have to sit through a conversation or a meal if you don't want to. There's a light at the end of the tunnel even in the worst moments.

But what will listeners be without media-object fetishization? Under educated, that's what. There will no longer be a "Thank You" page of liner notes to wade through for no real reason whatsoever... but how much there is to be gained from the Thank Yous! We know that Trent Reznor thanked Prince and Public Enemy in the liner notes to Pretty Hate Machine, and that influenced our perspective on his entire ouevre.

I have no kudos or disses here... just a vague angst and yearning.

4. Supernovae
We know that the age of the superstar is quickly collapsing. It is hard to imagine the possibility (or impossibility) of another Beatlesmania.

As radio and television continue to ClearChannel their programming, we simultaneously witness a new age of labelless distribution, MySpace rappers and blog-propelled mini-stars.

There will be more music than ever. There will also be more crap than ever.

Don't let the supernova pop your eardrums.

The End.

... deal or no deal? Chicago Sinfonietta ...

2008-03-18T20:36:00.002-05:00

Hey Chicagoans: if you head over to chicagoclassicalmusic.org and register as a user, you'll be able to purchase tickets for either the 3/30 or 3/31 Chicago Sinfonietta performances at 50% off. The program is in celebration of "International Women's Month" and features all female composers.

... noisy noise?: The Rest Is Noise ...

2008-03-11T19:43:00.001-05:00

Alex Ross’ narrative of classical music in the twentieth century, The Rest Is Noise, has received a great deal of praise since its release, indeed mostly praise. It was only a matter of time before the more critical river began to flow in its direction, and it seems that that time has come.

I find much of the criticism to be fair, and I think there are several more fireballs to be thrown. Ross does manage to essentially skim over the last thirty or so years of music, haphazardly at that, highlighting only a handful of names in a list that could be much longer. This critique cites a bias in Ross toward American composers or happenings on American soil, and not without reason. Any strong book – and I do think that The Rest Is Noise is strong – will have to stand up to the uncovering of its flaws; I’m glad some writers are taking on that work. [If you are blessed to have friends who care about this stuff, print out a few articles and pour a few drinks… maybe a good drunken argument can come out of it.]

That being said, I worry a bit that criticism might overshadow what I believe is the book’s greatest strength. Ross has managed to write an account of classical music that is both exciting and exceedingly informative, an account that has somehow found itself in the hands of a greater public, many of whom are reading these names and titles for the first time. I’ve seen the book popping up everywhere: on trains, at coffee shops, on an airplane.

If The Rest Is Noise is flawed, so be it. I’m more interested in the number of new listeners this flawed book might attract. I don’t believe that any of its shortcomings will steer new listeners terribly wrong; I’ve spoken to a number of experienced listeners who still found the book fresh and learned some new stuff along the way.

And if you haven’t read it yet… read it. It’s very much worth it.

[edit: doing a quick Google blogsearch for "the rest is noise" brought up a great number of results... here's a snapshot:

- Renewable Music seems to find some of the criticism rather silly.

- Soho the Dog seems to agree (in illustrated form).

- I can find only a handful of "bad" reviews in a sea of praise... I think Alex Ross "wins" this one.]

... March 9, 2008: Alfred Brendel ...

2008-03-11T19:30:00.002-05:00

It goes without saying that a certain air of anticipation tinged with sadness made its presence known all throughout Symphony Center on Sunday afternoon [March 9]. You don’t arrive knowing that you are about to see the final performance of one of the world’s most respected pianists, Alfred Brendel, without a few mixed emotions. [For those interested, the performance was reviewed in the Chicago Tribune and on Cyber Classical, as well as Andrew Patner's blog.]

For this young, passionate listener (and amateur piano player who wishes he’d practiced his lessons with a bit more rigor), Alfred Brendel represents quite a few firsts. The first time hearing This Piece, the first time clicking with That Piece. He single-handedly sparked an interest in Mozart at a point in my early listening when I was trying to understand what all the fuss was about. The first collection of complete Beethoven piano sonatas I assembled was out of Brendel recordings (Vox). He was, for me, a safe starting point in any number of musical explorations. My appreciation for Brendel has since grown to include a better sense of his style and approach, even as I’ve come to be able to criticize him at various moments. In a word, Brendel was at the start of my classical music listening, and I don’t imagine I’ll ever “put him away.”

As I looked over the crowd that had gathered, I had the distinct feeling that I wasn’t alone. To my left sat three young men who appeared to be brothers. Their family was absent, no parents looking over their shoulder. They spoke excitedly before the performance about the program – “See, I told you he’s going to play the Moonlight.” “The Moonlight is Opus 13 No. 2, he’s playing No. 1!” “Ooooooh…” – and sat with rapt attention throughout. An older couple behind me playfully hummed the theme of the third movement from Mozart’s Sonata in F major.

Brendel walked onto the stage at a brisk clip, sat at the piano and launched almost immediately into Haydn’s Variations in F minor. The applause was just as immediate, yet Brendel hardly breathed, beginning the sparse opening phrases of the aforementioned Mozart sonata before that last bit of applause had fully passed. If the Haydn warmed the audience up, the Mozart lit a blaze. It was Brendel, alright, rarely letting up in tempo yet managing to let every note sound with an uncanny clarity.

I was most excited to hear Beethoven’s Sonata in E-flat major, Op. 13 No. 1. All of the contrasts and twists of this nuanced piece were conjured by Brendel with a grace that one must assume comes only with age, time, and experience. The opening andante, tight yet singing and hymn-like, moving abruptly into the allegro… the theme of the third movement returning so sweetly in the closing bars of the piece… the ovation began as soon as the final notes rang out.

Intermission could not have come soon enough. Schubert’s Sonata in B-flat major, a rather appropriate work for a farewell concert (as many have noted), should start a bit of excitement in any room. On Sunday afternoon that excitement was made tangible. Brendel worked through the whole of it as one would expect: distinguished, a bit detached yet fully invested, the music left to do its thing.

Two encores – Bach and Liszt - and suddenly the performance was over. For those of us lucky enough to witness it, it seemed but one seamless moment. If this seems over-written, overwrought with emotion… so be it. Yet imagine, for a moment, what it must be like to sit at a piano, to bow humbly in front of a sold-out concert hall, knowing that the work you’ve devoted your life to is at its end, at least in the eye of the public. Knowing that you are closing one door tonight in a series of doors that will soon be through. There’s a lesson for all of us there, I think… I’ll let you know if I ever crack it.