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Text of the page (random words):
gazine schiff says on the other hand daugherty informs us in september 1962 barthelme then working as director of the contemporary arts museum in houston arranged a performance of carter s music i would really like to know what the piece was barthelme born in 1931 and raised in texas was a full generation younger than carter a native new yorker born in 1908 in terms of their intellectual pursuits and their efforts to expand the language of modernism in their respective fields however the two appear to have much in common i got the feeling of covering much the same philosophical ground in each book names of influential figures beckett joyce pound eliot ashbery philip johnson recur and schiff and daugherty reach similar conclusions in trying to pin down the meaning of modernism and post modernism here s schiff the overused term modernism makes the most sense when it denotes an evolving many sided disputation about the relation of art to the rapidly changing conditions of modern life rather than a coherent movement or body of ideas and here s daugherty post modernism does not cannot denote a single ethos nor is it solely the province of artists writers and academics if by post modern we mean style over substance a blurring of values and vague historical awareness then the conditions for it are set by lawyers real estate developers money speculators televangelists and the nation s professional political class along with its symbiotic companion the professional media remember don s remark the disorientation in my stories is not mine it is what is to be perceived around us even the word flaneur shows up in both texts i had never in my life encountered the word flaneur despite the difference in their ages carter and barthelme produced some of their most characteristic innovative work in the 1960s a time of political and cultural turmoil and of violence in the united states and abroad barthelme addressed the vietnam war and the parisian days of rage explicitly carter disavowed any political programs in his music although the turmoil is certainly there to be heard phil lesh bass player for the grateful dead and a big carter fan once told me that as far as he is concerned the concerto for orchestra is 1968 in the end too both men saw their moments pass their stars partially eclipsed by a more self consciously populist aesthetic i found it poignant that the phenomenon known as minimalism dogged each of them in literature the minimalist par excellence was raymond carver in music of course it is philip glass of the two schiff s book is harder to categorize it s not quite a critical biography which schiff says has yet to be written not quite a memoir of a friendship not quite a reception history not quite an analysis of the music although it contains elements of all of these if backed into a corner i d call it a start in the process of historical evaluation carter s death in 2012 seems to have freed schiff to say publically things he must have kept private while the composer was alive he is more critical of some of the music than he s been in the past offers interpretations and terminology at odds with carter s own and even makes a few good jokes it s clear he doesn t care for carter s only opera what next though his dislike seems to have more to do with paul griffith s libretto than with carter s music as an aside i d submit that barthelme would have made an ideal librettist for carter he had just the knack for surreal comedy carter was looking for and some of his all dialogue stories have been successfully staged unfortunately he died of throat cancer at age 58 in 1989 years before carter ever considered writing an opera life is full of tantalizing what ifs as with everything schiff writes there are quotable insights on almost every page of carter but i must say i didn t find his comments on a symphony of three orchestras as enlightening as they might have been the decay of new york in the 70s another occasional theme in barthelme s work might provide a plausible context for the descent from the soaring trumpet solo of the opening to the bludgeoning mechanical ostinato of the coda but to my ear it doesn t account for all that sumptuous stuff in the middle the notion that carter s musical personality may be divided into carter light and carter dark isn t quite fully developed either and forgive me it makes him sound like a brand of beer other product lines would include carter pale ale and carter winter lager hiding man and carter also suggest these new york neighbors currently occupy the kind of critical limbo that often follows an artist s death barthelme and carter await rediscovery and a cultural positioning that may be possible if ever only when our current partisan squabbles about modernism are over in the meantime i read i listen posted by joe barron at 11 32 am 2 comments labels david schiff donald barthelme elliott carter tracy daugherty monday april 30 2018 all roads lead to the g spot every year when the prospectus for the upcoming season of the philadelphia orchestra arrives in the mail i leaf through it looking for a program or a particular piece to get excited about it rarely happens anymore the big orchestras especially on the east coast have become increasingly reactionary over the past few decades i d even go out on a limb and say yannick nezet seguin s repertoire is more limited than eugene ormandy s to maintain my interest in live music i rely on chamber groups and ensembles like orchestra 2001 which under the leadership of the young and amiable jayce ogren presented a pair of programs last week that i swear were put together specifically with me in mind on april 22 and 28 the group celebrated the 25th anniversary of the release of frank zappa s yellow shark album the last disk the composer issued in his lifetime the april 22 program titled zappa s radical classical roots was held at world cafe live and focused on zappa s musical heroes with works by edgard varese of course pierre boulez stravinsky and anton webern as well as three brief selections from the yellow shark the april 28 concert at the fillmore philly presented the almost complete yellow shark three pieces from the album improvisations worked out by zappa and the ensemble modern have not been approved for performance by the zappa family trust the second event was also preceded by a rare treat a reading of varese s ionization for percussion which i d never heard live both performances were uniformly outstanding the musicians of orchestra 2001 rose to every challenge the 20th century avant garde could throw at them of the two however i would say the first was the more deeply satisfying the music zappa wrote for classical musicians or for the synclavier as attractive as they can be often lack the cogency of l histoire du soldat or density 21 5 pieces like times beach ii and iii feel like fragments of larger works they don t so much begin and end as they seem to materialize out of nowhere linger in our plane of reality for a few minutes and then vanish the most successful of the lot were for me none of the above for string quintet in which the bravura lines for the first violin create an arresting point of focus and ruth is sleeping for two pianos largely because stephanie ho seemed to be having such a ball but then there was g spot tornado the wild and aptly titled synclavier piece arranged for small orchestra by ali askin that brought the second evening to a sensational close ormandy used to say the most sure fire concert finale is brahms second symphony whose last movement is guaranteed to send the audience home with a jolt g spot tornado is in the same class there is just no resisting it before the last crash of the gong had died down the fillmore crowd was on its feet calling for an encore which sadly it didn t get the piece has stuck in my head ever since all hail ogren and orchestra 2001 for a pair of memorable performances thanks too to joe klein professor of music at the university of north texas who spoke at both programs klein teaches a course on zappa and was billed in the programs as a zappa expert a title he said he didn t fully deserve his classes are full of zappa experts he said and the audiences in attendance at last week s programs probably also had their share he was right the pre and post concert chatter each eveninng was impressively well informed the second night s crowd seemed particularly devoted with some audience members traveling from as far as north carolina and new york state for the privilege of hearing the yellow shark live i think i ve heard more live zappa in the 25 years since his death than i did when he was alive with the dedication of groups like orchestra 2001 and andre cholmondeley s project object his legacy seems secure for the foreseeable future posted by joe barron at 3 24 pm 2 comments labels eugene ormandy frank zappa g spot tornado johannes brahms joseph klein orchestra 2001 stephanie ho thursday march 29 2018 heavy on the brahms don t want to let too much time pass before i mention a pair of morale boosting concerts i attended over the weekend on saturday pianists rollin wilber and kasia salwinski presented another of their signature theme programs at the gemütlich ivy hall in philadelphia the subject this time out was musical fantasies a catch all that covers a lot of different kinds of music kasia salwinski and rollin wilber performed a program of musical fantasies march 24 at ivy hall the program was repeated at the ethical society march 25 in her introductory remarks kasia said the fantasy has been a favorite form of hers since she was a student though really the word refers to a lack of form a fantasy is something composers of bygone eras wrote when they tired of limitations imposed by the sonata which as early as the time of chopin had come to seem somewhat academic the program began with schubert s f minor fantasia for four hands and ended with mozart s fantasia no 2 also in f minor also for four hands a delightful work yet surprisingly substantial for something originally written for a musical clock that s mozart for you in between we heard chopin s f minor fantasy op 49 mendelssohn s f sharp minor fantasy op 28 beethoven s moonlight sonata quasi una fantasia in case you ve forgotten and brahms s fantasien op 116 the brahms sensitively played by salwinski affected me particularly perhaps because i m feeling rather melancholy these days elliott carter used to complain about what he called the weepy side of brahms this is one of those issues on which he and i part company as always with these two top notch pianists the program was varied yet unified with much to enjoy and much to think about sunday afternoon the elysian camerata offered still more music by schubert and brahms in bala cymwyd the rosemunde string quartet and the string quintet in g major op 111 the schubert was touching and the rosemunde theme always puts a catch in my throat the brahms on the other hand was a blast to hear live and in close quarters it s a big dense work that from a few feet away in the lively acoustics of st asaph s church felt almost symphonic my spirits could use many more weekends like this posted by joe barron at 2 27 pm no comments labels brahms elysian camerata fantasy kasia salwinski rollin wilber schubert friday march 23 2018 essays after a sonata for the past few weeks i ve been living with kyle gann s new book charles ives s concord essays after a sonata an exhaustive study that combines literary history musical analysis and aesthetic philosophy it s an endlessly fascinating resource and a book i ll be returning to often analyzing a favorite piece of music is for me rather like describing a mental state in terms of neural activity it s necessary i suppose but does little to capture the quality of the experience as detailed and daunting as gann s vivisections can be however they do us the service of exposing the planning and intelligence the artistry if you will that ives lavished on his second piano sonata the underlying unity of a composition is not a selling point that would have impressed ives gann says still it impresses me and although ives downplayed the value of form what he would call manner in evaluating a work of art it is also true that after self publishing the concord in 1920 he devoted the better part of three decades to revising editing and tweaking the score until he arrived at a form that satisfied him and even then it didn t quite gann s chapters on the essays before a sonata the short volume ives published as a companion to the concord are more fun though less essential to understanding the music and they go a long way toward rehabilitating ives as a thinker and prose stylist ives was not the first to judge art from a moral standpoint or in terms of a fundamental duality in both respects gann argues he owes a large mostly unacknowledged debt to john ruskin gann admits however that in the end ives s treatise on substance and manner may have to remain for us no practical typology or description in other words it doesn t offer much of a guide on the best places to spend our entertainment dollar to my mind dualisms like substance and manner can create a useless diversion entangling the listener in endless parlor games about which pieces conform to the standard and which don t they also deny us our right to determine our own response to a work of art a song or a symphony may be enjoyed for any number of reasons no one of which is deeper or more authentic than any other to paraphrase ives s father don t pay too much attention to substance if you do you may miss the music i ve listened to the concord sonata countess times over the years and i ve seen it performed live more often than any other piece now i m hearing it again with fresh ears picking out details that had grown almost inaudible through repetition i am grateful to gann for reintroducing me to a piece i thought i knew well and for loving ives as much as i do i should also mention the book includes a concise helpful chapter on ives s first piano sonata a remarkable work that is often overlooked beside the concord this week i listened to it again in donna coleman s fiery recording and with gann s notes in mind i was able to navigate its conflicting cross currents without once losing my bearings posted by joe barron at 5 03 pm no comments labels charles ives concord sonata essays after a sonata kyle gann thursday january 11 2018 the wreck of the inarticulate i wrote this after reading longfellow s wreck of the hesperus it helps to have a dictionary handy the wreck of the inarticulate for cal i t was the inarticulate that sailed the ocean blue a schooner brig or barquentine nobody really knew skippèr and crew were fearless men whose only major failing was total ignorance about the lexicon of sailing jibs and stu n s ls martingales gammon tack and luff braces ratlines shrouds and stays they knew it all as stuff scuttle course and miz...