Thomasina’s last waltz

A Chorus Line

On Sunday to see A Chorus Line at the Capitol Theatre. Thoroughly enjoyable, despite a nasty throat tickle that drove me out into the gilded foyer during “Dance: Ten; Looks: Three”. (Fortunately, my least favourite number in the whole show.) 

I’d never seen this musical staged before, although I’d seen the film as a teenager in the mid-1980s. Afterwards, I dragged my mother off to the specialist record shop near Michael’s Music Room (its name is escaping me just now) where the sales assistant advised us that the Broadway version was superior to the motion picture soundtrack. Nowadays, owning both, I can confirm he was right; the numbers added or updated for the film didn’t really improve on the impeccably honed score of the original. In particular, “Let Me Dance for You” – Cassie’s big number in the film – isn’t a patch on “The Music and the Mirror”.

Which is a long way of saying that I was glad to be finally seeing the show in its original form.

And now I hear of the death of its composer, Marvin Hamlisch, on Monday. He has gone to the great chorus line in the sky. Sobering – especially since he was only 68.

Apart from A Chorus Line, I became aware of Hamlisch through the family record collection: his soundtrack for The Sting, which also introduced me to the music of Scott Joplin, and the soundtrack for They’re Playing Our Song. 

In A Chorus Line I thought I’d recognised a sly nod to They’re Playing Our Song when Cassie sings, “Give me the chance to look forward to sayin’: Hey listen, they’re playing my song.” On checking the chronology on the weekend, though, I realised the nod would have to have been in the other direction if at all.

Seeing it at the Capitol Theatre seemed appropriate. In the old days, before the theatre was restored, that block was also home to the ballet studio of Joan and Monica Halliday. The Hallidays. I didn’t study there, but I did attend the intensive summer and winter schools. And it seemed lyricist Edward Kleban had been there himself when I heard his chorus for “At the Ballet”:

Up the steep and very narrow stairway
To the voice like a metronome
Up the steep and very narrow stairway
It wasn’t paradise, it wasn’t paradise,
It wasn’t paradise,
but it was home.

Not glamorous at all, but very, very serious. Does that song resonate with me? Well, I guess I’d probably take Bebe’s verse. 

A Chorus Line is in some ways a disturbing musical. Especially in productions where the director-choreographer Zack remains disembodied, Svengali-like and more than a little creepy – which is how I remember the film. There’s an underlying metaphor that can cut too close to the bone. But when I first saw it, it was just a strong, coherent musical with really well-written songs, a simple, compelling narrative and some fabulous choreography. “One. Singular sensation…!” Later, on learning how these stories had all come from workshops with real Broadway chorus dancers, it seemed more touching. And you don’t have to be a hoofer to feel keenly the experiences of Cassie (“Let me wake up in the morning to find I have somewhere exciting to go”) or Paul (whose collapsed knee and likely ended career prompts “What I Did For Love”).

Some obituaries…

New York Times
Chicago Tribune
LA Times

 

Skin and bones: a frindley theory

The other day Elissa Milne posted a thought-provoking post about preferred baroque keyboard composers and the possible correlation with personality types.

The tricky matter of French baroque music emerged, including the fact that it often doesn’t seem to satisfy or even be really successful when played on the piano. Which prompted me to air a long-held theory as to why Bach, Handel et al work on piano but the French baroque composers don’t…

Some music succeeds in its bones (think JS Bach, think Beatles). The things that make us love these works and which draw us in are at a very fundamental level of melody, harmony, rhythm and pulse. And such music can “take” a lot of varied treatments. You can play pieces like this on different instruments, arrange them, use them as the basis for jazz improvisation, you name it.

Some music succeeds because of its surface, its skin (think French baroque, think ABBA). The value is in the style, the gesture, the ornaments, the colours, the very mode of performance. This kind of music is much less malleable and often resistant to being rearranged, or having its performance style modified. It works when you play it “authentically” with the original performance practices of its creation and on the instruments intended. The further you depart from that the less satisfying it is.

As they say, the exception proves the rule, and one exception at the French baroque end of things is a delicious piece by François Couperin, Les Baricades mistérieuses. (When I eventually get a piano, this will be its baptismal piece.) In the Couperin the beauty and the appeal of the music is to be found in its harmonic bones and its textures. Which is why it can work very nicely on the piano.

Postscripts…
I’ve just learned that Angela Hewitt’s (piano) performance of the Couperin was used in the soundtrack for the recent film The Tree of Life.

Be wary of the performances of Les Baricades that are to be found on YouTube. Unlike Scott Ross, many keyboardists seem to miss the sensuousness of this music and play it much too fast. (Or, in one or two cases, they take it way too slow.)

Want to play it yourself? The 1717 edition of the ordre or suite from which it comes can be found here, with Les Baricades beginning on page 6 (requires the reading of alto clef for the right hand), and a modernised edition here.

 

Catherine the Great’s Lament

You wouldn’t believe what goes on in my court: Gambling. Harassment. A ghost. Multiple suicides. And I don’t even get a #walkon ! #opera702

That’s The Queen of Spades by the way. In the middle of Act II Catherine the Great arrives at a grand masked ball. Music is sung in greeting, but the scene ends before we actually see her on stage. Curtain.

Opera Australia and ABC 702 Sydney are running an operaplot style competition at the moment, hashtag #opera702. The prize is a walk-on part in Consumptive Courtesan by the Cove in March, which has prompted me to put a particular spin on my entries: each one has to convey the plot from a mute or walk-on cameo character’s perspective. Or in the case of The Queen of Spades, a character who doesn’t even get to walk on.

The problem with this approach is that it rather limits the number of operas that can be plotted, which is probably a good thing. Operaplotting can be addictive.

My other entries…

2 girls: trafficked. Pasha: spurned. Lover: to the rescue. Ruse: get my master drunk. Result: noble outcome. Me: I’m mute #walkon 
The Abduction from the Seraglio 

Door 1 red. Door 2 orange. Door 3 gold. Door 4 aqua. Door 5 white. Door 6 dark. Door 7 silver. Bartók and the Technicolor #walkon
Bluebeard’s Castle

I’m the deaf old servant, so while Figaro thwarts one marriage & facilitates another, I just get to #walkon and say “Eh?”
The Barber of Seville

I may have a stab at Lulu, so to speak, but after that I think I’m done. 

Vital Vacation Statistics

I took a week off. Here is a partial reckoning:

12 hours pretending I wasn’t really working
2 hours being all editorial and advisory by the light of the moon
550 kilometres
22 madonnas (and more) from Italy
100 manuscripts from Berlin (drool)
30 minutes photographing historical correspondence
1 hour of Tchaikovsky piano music (Album for the Young, The Seasons)
1 hour of Haydn sonatas (those that weren’t beyond my dormant technique)
3 movements from Grieg’s Peer Gynt suite in an arrangement for four hands
1 riotously wayward piano duo rendition of the overture to Die Meistersinger
2 hours of hand stitching
6 hours of ballet class
2 hours choosing spectacles
4 successful tussles with pumpkin hour
1 hour contemplating matters horticultural
0 tax returns completed 

Something in there was priceless – probably the piano playing.

 

Fantasy Subscription 2011

Last week I was giving pre-concert talks here in Sydney, and I began by saying that the concert in question was one I’d been looking forward to all year – partly because it gave me a chance to hear in the concert hall two pieces I hadn’t heard live before (Tchaikovsky’s Voyevoda, Op.78 and Prokofiev’s Symphony-Concerto), partly because I’m an admirer of Osmo Vänskä’s work and of his Beethoven in particular. It also happened to be the final subscription program of the year and yes, when you’re feeling tired “final” has a very attractive ring to it.

This is one of the traps of working in music. Attending lots of concerts is a fabulous thing, enviable even, but it’s very easy to feel jaded after a while. So it’s helpful to imagine myself a “civilian” and think about the local orchestra concerts I would have attended if I were choosing to attend just nine – much in the same way that some people devise fantasy football teams. 

And so, my fantasy subscription for 2011:

Ashkenazy/de Lancie et al (Grieg’s Peer Gynt with narration)
The world needs more orchestral concerts that are conceived and presented as “shows”, as entertainments, without compromising artistic quality or programming integrity in any way. This was one of them. 

De Waart/Sydney Philharmonia Choirs (Beethoven, Barber, Adams)
Beethoven Seven. Best Beethoven symphony of the lot. ’Nuff said.
And Edo conducting Adams. 

Carter (Kerry, Grainger, Bartók)
The premiere of a new work by a composer I admire – of course I was looking forward to it. Topped off, on the night, by especially brilliant introductions by Andrew Ford. Grainger; the Australian guy in his shed. I won’t be forgetting this image in a hurry. 

Lang Lang in Recital (Beethoven, Albéniz, Prokofiev)
Every bit as astonishing as I’d expected. It was heartening to see he’d abandoned the satin polka dot suit and the unbearable OTT-ness I remembered from Blossom 2005.

Morlot/Pahud (Bach, Jarrell, Holst)
This was always going to be about the Jarrell flute concerto. Sue me. 

Evgeny Kissin in Recital (Liszt)
Fascinating, intriguing, jaw-droppingly impressive. There is nothing he can’t do. When I’m an old lady I will bore my sisters’ grandchildren with stories about hearing Kissin. Four times now. 

Strobel (Metropolis, restored with Huppertz score)
I had never seen Metropolis before. People I know who had seen it, told me that, with this new restoration, the whole movie made sense to them for the first time. The score lacked originality but what was so interesting about it was its sophistication and effectiveness as a film score given that this was a nascent genre in 1927.

Nott/Zimmermann (Brahms, Dean, Schubert)
It was the Dean I wanted to hear most of all, but my interest was further stimulated by the things Jonathan Nott had told me concerning his approach to the programming of the concert as a whole. 

Vänskä/Weilerstein (Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Beethoven)
See earlier comments. 

Inevitably there’s a concert you leave out of your fantasy subscription which turns out to be one of the highlights. This year that was the program with Nigel Westlake’s Missa Solis. I was aware from the beginning of the very personal significance of the piece and the terrible story behind it. But somehow that doesn’t prepare you for the experience of hearing the music, in the concert hall, with the composer conducting, and knowing that every musician on the stage is heart and soul behind this moving performance.

Classic 100 Twentieth Century: a personal list

The voting called for our “ten favourite works written since 1900”.

I took this literally: favourites. Not necessarily the greatest or the most seminal or the most famous or the most representatively “20th century”, whatever that might mean. Just favourites. For me this is music that I’m always happy to listen to, music which has given me inspiration or delight, music that has special significance for me.

The original shortlist was long (nearly 40 works) and, inevitably for the 20th century, stylistically diverse. More so than in any previous poll, it broke my heart to bring it down to ten. At this point it was necessary to invent some “rules” – each composer could be represented only once, for example, and I aimed for some representation across genres: orchestral, concerto, theatre, small ensemble…

My positive biases are evident: orchestral sound, music for dance, dramatic inspiration. Please don’t jump to conclusions about my negative biases, although the initials of one are DSCH. And I happily endorse the presence of musical theatre. Twice. Bite me, as they say.

In the end, four of my choices were in the 100, one of these scraped into the top 10 (Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet). Two of my composers made it in but with other works. The countdown isn’t over, but for the other four I’m resigned to being part of the invisible long tail.

And so my ten, annotated…

BARTÓK Bluebeard’s Castle
Thought about the Concerto for Orchestra (42 in the poll), which I've loved ever since we studied it at high school. But Bluebeard is so much more astonishing and powerful. (And I figured, correctly, that the Concerto would get plenty of votes without my help – this is a recurring theme.) 

(13) BERNSTEIN West Side Story
This is is far and away the best thing he ever wrote. And it’s cool.

KERRY This Insubstantial Pageant
This was a fond choice: I played my part in bringing this piece about. But I knew it wouldn’t make the 100, as it’s not available in a commercial recording. It should be. (Meanwhile, a reference recording can be borrowed from the AMC, and there’s an excerpt online including the quotation from Vivaldi’s “La tempesta di mare” flute concerto, which made me smile.)

LUTOSŁAWSKI Concerto for Orchestra
There’s a story here: heading off to a concert as a flute-playing teenager in order to hear Rampal play Mozart and coming away with my head buzzing with excitement about this piece by a composer I’d never heard of before. This choice is symbolic of what I strive for in my programming and ceaselessly hope for in my concert-going: come for one thing, go away thrilled by a discovery of some kind. (See Vasks.)

(10) PROKOFIEV Romeo and Juliet
Everything I love about Prokofiev’s music, plus heart in abundance.   

(62) RAVEL Piano Concerto in G
Another story. I first heard this exhilarating piece at the age of eight-and-eleven-months. It was in the theatre not as concert music, and as a result the movements now always sound as if they’re being played out of order – thank you very much, Mr Murphy.

SONDHEIM Sweeney Todd
«Have a little fop, Finest in the shop, Or some shepherd's pie peppered with actual shepherd on top…» This was the first Sondheim musical I saw. I considered others, but this one’s the closest in many respects to whatever it is that we define as “classical”, so it seemed right.  

(35) STRAVINSKY The Firebird
Oh, how I struggled in choosing between this, The Rite of Spring (9 in the poll) and Petrushka. How to decide between voluptuous beauty, pounding exhilaration and the slightly bleak but moving tale of a puppet come to life?   

WESTLAKE Omphalo Centric Lecture
There’s a reason this music for percussion ensemble is one of Nigel Westlake’s most frequently performed works (I believe). It’s just so damn addictive! Encore please. (Westlake has been represented by his Antarctica music (29); the Penguin Ballet number is kind of adorable.) 

VASKS Cello Concerto
When you program the Australian premiere of something unfamiliar, it’s not often the letters flood in, all with some variant of “I wasn’t expecting to like this piece at all and it turned out to be a highlight of the season.” (Yess!)

As a final note… I discovered after I finished that, quite without realising it, I hadn’t chosen any works that were technically 20th century but which spiritually (to my ears) belonged in the 19th. So no Rachmaninoff, no Mahler, no Elgar, no Richard Strauss. I guess that tells you something about the effect the label “20th century” has on my brain.

Postscript…

I send my regrets to Messrs Adès, Berg, Britten, Debussy, Edwards, Gershwin, Hindemith, Janáček, Meale, Messiæn, Nancarrow, Poulenc, Schoenberg, Schultz, Sculthorpe, Weill and Who-Killed-Cock-Robin, as well as the Misses Panufnik and Kats-Chernin. Some of you did just fine without me, I’m glad to see.  

Calligraphy porn

Or perhaps I should call it “Feathers, skin and gut”

Those who know me really well know that I think one of the most exquisitely sensual sounds in the world is the scratch of a quill scribing on vellum. And as I’ve pointed out before, clearly Peter Greenaway thinks it’s pretty special too. (Sadly, the video clip from Prospero’s Books that I’d previously linked to is no longer available, but try the beginning of this one.)

Now, thanks to Austin Radcliffe at Things Organized Neatly, I have another piece of calligraphy porn for my collection. No scratching in this one, but Bach ain’t bad.

 

Coincidentally, this gorgeous video turns out to be part of a campaign for Jumpstart Jr., a Dutch foundation which loans gut-string violins and cellos to gifted and ambitious young musicians dedicated to historical performance. (Australian cellist Catherine Jones is one of the beneficiaries.) Their slogan is “No gut, no glory” – I like it!

Useful and beautiful: a tribute to the work of Steve Jobs (1955–2011)

I can’t claim to be the first to draw a comparison between Steve Jobs and British designer William Morris. Long before this past week – around the time of the Stanford commencement address where Jobs explained how calligraphy led to his innovations with fonts – people were already making this connection. Jobs himself “got it”:

“We don’t have a way to talk about this kind of thing,” Steve said. “In most people’s vocabularies, ‘design’ means veneer. It is interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.”

Or as Morris said: “If you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”

There’s an irony in the comparison, as Harry Rutherford observes in his tribute, but the comparison holds nonetheless. I’ve been attracted to Apple products since 1987, in large part because of their simplicity, their beauty and their elegant functionality. And we have Steve Jobs to thank for these qualities. 

It’s not all roses. If there’s one area where I’m critical of Apple it’s the way aesthetics all too often take priority over ergonomics – it’s been a long time since I used an Apple mouse or keyboard for that reason. So not always useful. As for computer fonts: such creative power is fabulous but it doesn’t always lead to beauty. Think how many ghastly, half-baked flyers, posters and newsletters we could have avoided if Steve Jobs had never attended calligraphy class? (Ok, that price is worth paying…)

As others have also pointed out, it wasn’t just about the design and technological developments themselves, the real achievement was the way Jobs and Apple changed (and raised) our expectations of technology, sparked creative possibilities, gave great delight and empowered a generation. I didn’t know the man, but I’m grateful for the legacy.

Where, oh where is Proper Discord?

Some time between 9 and 13 June 2011 Proper Discord disappeared. The blog was deleted; the twitter feed was protected then deleted altogether; the remarkable, hilarious Xtranormal videos were taken down from the YouTube channel.

I’m utterly devastated. Others’ reactions here. How will we now keep up with the Podunk Symphony Orchestra, not to mention the doings of principal oboe Puffy Sphincter? Who will make us simultaneously laugh and wince?

As one follower said, “I hope we’re not losing our voice of reason.” But I fear we have. The signs point to a sudden and comprehensive retreat from the internet; not abandonment or hiatus. One tiny consolation: the 364 of us who were subscribing via Google Reader still have the astutely witty and uncompromisingly logical assessments of the state of music marketing to consult in private.

Checkmate

I really didn’t want Checkmate to turn out a period piece.

My expectations were based on memories of seeing the ballet as a teenager, and the powerful images of fear and raw anguish present in the photos of Robert Helpmann’s performances as the Red King in 1937 and then – when he was on the verge of death himself – in the Australian Ballet’s first production in 1986. There’s an intensity of emotion that comes through even a still photo. Especially a still photo.

And there lies one of the ballet’s challenges: its 1930s stylisation and sometimes static staging – like a tableau – often work against the drama of the scenario by composer Arthur Bliss.

All the same, I liked it. I liked the stylisation, the arcane, almost courtly presentation of a passionate theme; I liked the music. The fact that the scenario was devised by the composer – as opposed to the composer writing to someone else’s scenario – is a source of strength. It’s a remarkable and important work. It has integrity. I even liked Ninette de Valois’ choreographic language, all sur la pointe and, as Colin Peasley so aptly describes it, “very stabby”.

So it made me sad that more people in the theatre didn’t really warm to it. At least not on Tuesday night, when for a moment I feared the tepid applause wouldn’t last long enough for a proper curtain call. 

If I’m rational about it, I can see why it might not truly resonate with audiences in 2011. At least nowadays, this is a ballet that digs its own grave.

If Death is going to win out over Love – and let’s face it, it does this on stage all the time – then we must want to cast our lot in with Love. But in Checkmate, Love’s representatives are old, frightened and feeble, or young, naive and sentimental. (Seriously, Red Queen, what made you think for a minute that pleading would gain you any ground against a stronger woman??) As for Death, he gets the better deal in that he draws the winning colour.

But the Black Queen… She’s the cool, calculating female who will win at any cost and at no cost, who will flirt without an ounce of feeling, who will stab you in the back (and your King too). We know that female and we do not like her. We do not like to see her win. (I sensed a faint collective desire to boo this character, but no one seemed to feel sufficiently worked up to actually do so.)

And yet. And yet… I like it!

Of course, for me it’s one of those ballets that’s loaded with association and significance. All the ballet biographies and histories I devoured as a kid instilled a reverence for the names: Dame Ninette de Valois, Sir Robert Helpmann, the ‘Vic-Wells’ company… even Margot Fonteyn had a role in the premiere. Long before I saw it, it was a ballet I wanted to get to know.

Checkmate is a ballet with a distinctive, coherent style – musically and choreographically. There’s no reason why, period piece or not, it can’t be appreciated for what it is. It is stylised, it does seem arcane. That’s not a terrible thing when the inspiration is chess – calculating, drawn out, merciless, and yet as capable of arousing passions as the next game. But is chess the best analogy for a contest between love and death? Life and death, yes; you don’t need Ingmar Bergman to prove that. But Love as a contestant? Perhaps that’s the weakness. A chessboard scenario with its cool strategy offers no sensible place for Love, which is perhaps why she is so poorly defended in the match.

In the end, the Tuesday audience gave its most rapturous applause to a set of slow pas de deux danced to Arvo Pärt. (Apparently a copyright symbol is a compulsory part of its title. What’s next? Hamlet^©?) There was no dramatic conflict here. It was perfectly controlled, exquisitely executed. In many ways it was even cooler and more technically calculating than Checkmate, the music was certainly more static. But, and this is the important part for the 21st-century sensibility, it managed to be more sensuous and was entirely lovely. Checkmate will never be “lovely” but it will always intrigue me.

Operaplot 2011: Butterfly Fan Art

The operaplot madness this year includes a fan art category. So I’m abandoning my customary wordie cleverness to pay tribute to the best operaplot of all with inks and aquarelles on watercolour paper.

Operaplot by @primalamusica, art by @frindley

Postscript…

If this Pinkerton looks rather more like a ballet dancer than an opera singer it’s because earlier this evening I allowed myself to get all weepy at the Australian Ballet’s Madame Butterfly.

Trolls

Since I’m immersed in all things Peer Gynt…

The first is a trick for Mac users.
1. In System Preferences > Speech > Text to Speech, set the System Voice to Cellos.
2. In TextEdit, type the following:

We are nasty little trolls, little trolls, little trolls,
We are nasty little trolls and we are after you!

3. Select the text then choose: Edit > Speech > Start Speaking

Don’t own a Mac? It sounds like Steve Jobs should be paying Grieg royalties…

Nasty Little Trolls

This next item from a quartet of Sibelius Academy-trained cellists is suitably savage (adjust volume to taste):

 

She wasn’t making it up, you know

“Our own Mrs Prendergast has kindly volunteered to give us a talk – for free, which I think is wonderful of her – on how to make patchwork quilts out of old skirts. The reason for this is that the last speaker of the season is going to be excessively expensive (but I’m sure it’s going to be worth it) – we’re going to have a Vogue expert to speak to us about how to make skirts out of old patchwork quilts.”
Anna Russell, from “Introduction to the Concert, by the Women’s Club President”

 

Adolfo evening dress (1967), recycled from a late 19th-century crazy patchwork quilt. More information here.

Postcript…
And yes, I should have bought a polarising filter a long time ago.

Theatre-goers, a comparison

Theatre-goers are younger (slightly), they seem to be more hip and often better dressed, and – this is the important part – at interval they are 96.3 per cent more likely to be talking about the actual play.

Postscript…

This is really just a prelude to me waxing lyrical about how much I loved loved loved Long Day’s Journey into Night, an act which must be postponed since it’s seven minutes to pumpkin hour.

The Fifth Deadly Sin

I believe it’s lust.

 
And the Faber-Castell Perfect Pencil is now mine.

Shuttercrossing: you’ve got mail

On Monday my first Shuttercal postcards arrived.

 
They took about two days from time of ordering to the postmark date, and another ten days to arrive from the United States. Quality is nice, too, even if the mailing process means they end up with faint orange barcodes printed across the front. Any message on the back is printed in a fairly small font, so there’s room for quite a bit of news if you’re so inclined. My conclusion? Definitely an option for postcrossing as well as casual greetings.

Shuttercrossing: postcards from your photos

Ever since Avant Card began doing business in the early 1990s, I’ve been collecting postcards, mostly of the promotional variety. I pick them up if they’re clever, or funny, or beautiful, or if they’re about something I’m interested in. I like them best when they have space to write on the back – somehow they feel more like the real thing.

But there came a point – it might have been when I was packing for the fourth long-distance move in my life – when several shoeboxes of postcards seemed excessive. And then, 1218 days ago, I discovered Postcrossing. The site explains it pretty well – basically it’s a fun way to get rid of spare postcards while actually using them for their stated purpose by sending them to random people in other countries. Of course, I receive postcards in return, so this isn’t really a way of banishing clutter. But at least the collecting seems less pointless.

My other enthusiasm is Shuttercal, the calendar-based daily photo project site. (You can check out my most recent photo over there on the right.)

And now the two enthusiasms are combined. Shuttercal is offering a postcard printing-and-postage service: select a photo from your own calendar, write a message, enter an address and the finished postcard is printed and mailed for you, anywhere in the world (USD2.90). It’s brand new, so I can’t report on the results yet, but the idea certainly appeals.

Oh, and no need to point out that this won’t help me get rid of my postcards either…

Sometimes an editor needs to laugh

And so while this isn’t new, or even groundbreaking, I’m going to share it anyway: The The Impotence of Proofreading.

I like Taylor Mali a lot (there’s another great one called “What Teachers Make”). Perhaps if he’d been in my staffroom I could have contemplated teaching another term. Actually, that’s a lie – the lure of putting on concerts was always going to win out. It’s best if I leave other people to change the world one 8th grader at a time.

New Year Madness

In music two things lead to insanity:

La Follia…

And Benjamin Franklin’s glass armonica…

Wishing you a happy new year! 

Sleeping Beauty: The Program

I have six minutes till pumpkin hour (yes, I know that’s the wrong fairytale) so no time to comment on the production in this post. But I do have time to say this:

Thank you, oh publications people at the Australian Ballet. For the first time (at least since the 70s) you have given us a program book that fits in a girl’s handbag. You wouldn’t believe how happy this makes me – how deliriously and irrationally overjoyed I am. Yee ha!

It’s a handsome number, with no compromise in its scope.

I’m just going to say one thing, which in no way diminishes my joy but which might have spoiled it if I were 15 or 20 years older: the body copy font is just too small. It’s 6.5 point by my reckoning (the embedded quotes are even smaller!) and although, unlike in concerts, there’s no need for it to be read in semi-darkness, it really wants to be at least 8.5 or 9 point. For two reasons: the obvious one is legibility and reading pleasure; the other one is to avoid the page design looking as if an A4 layout has simply been shrunk down all round to fit the new size.

Oh, and since I’m griping (joyously, of course): it would be so nice if the cast sheet, when folded in two, fit nicely inside the book without jutting out. After all, we’re being encouraged to sit these new programs “snugly” on our bookshelves, and the cast sheet is an essential record of the performance and the dancers we’ve seen, so we’ll want to keep that pretty snugly too. If 20mm were trimmed off the height of the cast sheet it would be perfect. Actually – wicked thought – I could do that myself: there’s a band of sponsor logos across the bottom… Ahem.

Now comes the nerdy complaint, which probably I and maybe two others will be making: those of us who keep our program books and actually plan to take them down to Croydon to get the bookbinder there to make them into annual volumes will be wondering why, oh why, couldn’t this change of program format be kept until the beginning of the 2010 season? Now I’ll have to bind the first three programs from 2009 in one book and keep this final one to be bound with the four from 2010 (assuming the format doesn’t change again). “Grr” is the customary response, I believe.

But ignore the whinges (especially the nerdy one). This was quite the nicest surprise of the year.

A postscript, some years later…

As it happened, the format did change again – back to the original “souvenir” size in 2010. So this one program was something of an aberration. Until, that is, 2022, when the compact format was tried again. And this time it was done right: designed for the size (and gorgeously so) and wonderfully rich in content, both words and pictures. This time the delirious joy is here to stay. Alas, there are now no cast sheets at all, unless one remembers to go to the trouble of copying and pasting the relevant info from the website, formatting it to fit on a single sheet and printing it out. That’s kind of tedious, but it doesn’t diminish my happiness. 

Getting “into” classical music

The other day FK of Classical Review posed the question: “Would more people get ‘into’ classical music by hearing it first on CD or in a concert hall?”

I’m assuming the question is about getting into classical music generally, as opposed to getting into specific musical works. And since it’s a hypothetical question as it stands, I’m going to turn it into something more personal if not necessarily more scientific:

What got you “into” classical music?

Was it hearing the music on recordings, was it hearing the music in the concert hall, was it hearing the music used in some incidental way (soundtracks, advertisements…),  or was it something else?

This post is my answer. You’re invited to share a response in the comments, or to write your own blog post and leave a link here. (Does that make it a meme? Maybe.)

*****

I got into classical music as a kid, when I was too young to be taken to formal concerts, but not too young to ask for my favourite records to be put on.

The family record collection was probably 75 per cent musical theatre and 25 per cent classical (orchestral) music.  So strictly speaking, the musical genre that I first got “into” was musical theatre and I got into that solely via recordings, since I was in late primary school before I saw any musicals on the stage. (By contrast I’ve never been interested in recordings of opera and my interest in that genre is solely from performances.)

Anyhow, classical music. Recordings first. No prepping or priming or earnest guidance from my parents. The music was there simply to be listened to and enjoyed. I didn't particularly identify what I was listening to as “classical” music. It was all just music, from Scheherazade to Eagle Rock. I knew I preferred the Rimsky-Korsakov by a long shot, but I wasn’t making any particular genre distinctions with the exception of one: singing and no-singing.

But recordings were only part of the picture. There was a piano in the house, my big sister was taking lessons, and at some point I began fooling around, trying to work out notation with the aid of one of those paper charts that sit at the back of the keyboard and improvising what I called “fairy music”. This was probably maddening, formal lessons were in order!

But there’s more, and if this next factor wasn’t the real reason I got “into” classical music, it certainly has influenced my taste in the long term. It’s dance, specifically ballet. I first heard live orchestral music not in a concert hall but in the theatre, in a production of Giselle that I saw when I was about 6 or 7. The first accomplished pianist I heard play regularly was the ballet school accompanist. The music I most liked to listen to, I realise now, was often ballet music or at least well-suited to dance. My favourite mode of “listening” involved moving. There were plenty of concert works I heard for the first time in the theatre, for example Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G (which I loved, aged 9) and Webern Opus 5 (which I hated, aged 14). And I grew up revelling in the colour and buoyancy of Russian and French music and the elegant rhythms and phrases of baroque music.

All in all, it was a gradual immersion that began at a very young age, first with recordings and then through the theatre. My attraction to classical concerts is really part of a bigger love for live performance generally, and it seems to have emerged as much from a childhood of going to plays and ballets as from the music itself.

To my shame, the memory of my earliest classical concerts is really hazy. There was my first studio concert, in which I played some little beginner piece in the midst of a program of lieder and advanced repertoire (the other students were all much older and mostly singers). My teacher also conducted the Western Sinfonia, and I recall going to a couple of those concerts, probably when I was in primary school. Around the same time there was the SSO concert in the Sydney Town Hall to which I was taken in fervent anticipation of seeing and hearing a harp. There was a harp, but not as soloist; I was very disappointed.

The first orchestral concert that I really remember was the SSO, in the Opera House, with Jean-Pierre Rampal as soloist. I was at least 12, because I’d begun learning flute. Mum and I set off with the primary goal of hearing Rampal play Mozart. I remember the concert so vividly because I emerged from it having lost all interest in Rampal, and Mozart – I had just heard Lutoslawski’s Concerto for Orchestra. Woah! Now that was exciting stuff. But by that time I was well and truly “into” classical music, I knew that was its name, and I also knew that I belonged to a nerdy little minority. And I didn’t care because I was in love.

Peter Grimes

Others are way more qualified to write about opera than I am, but I want to enthuse a little. You’ve been warned.

Here’s the scenario: someone who’d done a half-show at the previous OA production he attended raved to me about Peter Grimes. Enthusiastic reports came from one, two, three other trusted sources. So I knew I had to go, especially since I still bear the bruises from kicking myself for missing Billy Budd. The final prod came in the form of an attractive rush price. Now there were no “barriers”, as the marketing bods would say. It turned out to be one of those nights where I saw a lot of familiar faces. Heaps of industry acquaintances and colleagues, performers, various “important people”, the odd composer. This was good to see: an audience full (literally full) of the kind of people whose opinions are likely to hold sway.

I’d not seen this opera or listened to it in its entirety before. Like many orchestrally biased music-lovers, my appreciation is for the Passacaglia and Four Sea Interludes. But I’m not sure I’ve seen any Opera Australia production that I’ve liked better, has been better sung and played, or made more musical and dramatic sense.

The storm-painted curtain opens on a period piece, a town hall in all its sturdy detail, an interior not from the early 19th century but c.1940. It’s Britten’s era, in other words, not Crabbe’s, and Britten’s sympathies emerge unhindered. The hall becomes the set for the whole opera, shifting easily from indoor to outdoor communal spaces with just the subtlest of variations (some of them carried out by possibly the most illustrious stage-hand ever: Peter Carroll as the silent Dr Crabbe). There are basically no private spaces in this opera, barring one, which I’ll get to.

The set conveyed no real sense of the sea, and you could argue that this is a (minor) weakness when the music so overpoweringly redolent of the sea. But there’s reason in the madness, I think. First, the music needs very little help; its evocations are even more powerful for not being mirrored in any literal or naturalistic attempt to represent the sea or the shore. Second, and more important, it allows us to step back slightly from the plot and see the theme: this is an opera that ultimately is about community, public opinion, and gathering together vs social isolation and rejection. I think we can be sympathetic to Britten’s Grimes in a way that it’s nearly impossible to feel for the Crabbe Grimes because he’s recast as the dreamer and an outcast, battling futilely against an implacable, tight-knit community. Crabbe, on the other hand, portrays a Grimes whose sole motivation seems to be the desire to exert power over a weaker character. You don’t go all weepy when he goes mad with despair. You do when Stuart Skelton does.

The one truly private space is Grimes’s hut, in Act II. Here Neil Armfield proved that less is more. There’s an interlude. Dr Crabbe methodically clears the stage, then moves to the curtained platform at the rear of the hall and beckons it forward. And the whole wall moves, slowly, inexorably to the front of the stage proper. It’s the simplest thing, really, but the effect was oppressive and somehow damning. Shudder. 

From Britten himself came tiny discoveries and exquisite pleasures. Some of the text setting in Widow Sedley’s part is astonishingly effective, with such striking colours in the accompaniment. Her amateur sleuthing and predictions of doom are clearly meant to be a pain in the proverbial, but I didn’t want it to stop.

There was no faulting the cast: Skelton as Grimes; Peter Coleman-Wright as Balstrode; Susan Gritton as the one character I can’t quite understand, Ellen Orford; some serious-looking casting in the supporting roles and an adorable pair of “Nieces”. Aside from the mad scene (or the scene in which the orchestra switches off its sconces and Grimes’s life totally falls apart), Skelton had me wowed with his amazing pianissimos. At one point he was singing so softly while projecting so unerringly, that, as was commented to me, it was as if he was singing from offstage. And then to bloom from that into a perfectly shaped crescendo. Stunning. Is there nothing he can’t do? But always in the service of the music. The same is to be said for Coleman-Wright.

I’m not sure how to sum this one up, because everything seemed so right and so wonderful and so moving. Let’s just say it was, without hesitation or question, a “stay to the end” evening at the Opera House. And that’s high praise.

Ambition

Other little girls wanted to be ballerinas (this I understood) and nurses (this I didn’t). My first serious ambition was to be a pirate.

This was thanks to Robert Louis Stevenson and my dad, who read Treasure Island to me on Saturday afternoons while sitting on the stoop of his workshop, with the result that tales of the high seas and buried treasure will always be accompanied for me by the faint aroma of sawdust. (Oh, and thanks also to whoever wrote that very detailed and fabulously illustrated history of piracy, which I devoured as a child.)

Then I was taken to a Navy open day. Now I knew: I wanted to be a submarine captain. The romance of being able to sail undetected beneath the waves clearly outweighed the discomforts and cramped conditions. The grownups thought it very amusing to remind me that I wanted to be a pirate; I informed them I would be a pirate in a submarine. 

And so it remained until later, having read rather more Biggles books than is good for anyone, I decided that I wanted to be a pilot. [Insert Pirates of Penzance quip of choice here.]

[The tall ship above is a replica of Captain Cook’s vessel, the Endeavour. Both photos taken at the Australian National Maritime Museum.]

Beethoven numbers and the mind of the people

I was responding to a comment from yesterday’s post and was reminded of the Omniscient Mussel’s exercise in Beethoven numbers. What had begun as an informal personality test (the speedy, musical alternative to the Myer-Briggs) became the source for a statistically invalid but entertaining assessment of the popularity of Beethoven symphonies. (This was in response to a post from Ben, the Classical Convert, who had been examining the view frequencies of Karajan’s Beethoven symphonies on YouTube.)

At question in yesterday’s discussion was the ascendency of Beethoven 9 and whether it would score the No.1 spot.

My reaction was “please no!” For all that I recognise the importance and significance of this particular Beethoven symphony, it’s not one that I ever feel the urge to listen to and I would be unlikely to pay to hear it in a concert. (The Seventh, on the other hand, I find irresistible; it appeals to my sensibilities and ways of responding to music. My Beethoven number, incidentally, is 736521489, allowing for small shifts in the internal rankings.)

As you’ll glean from my comment on Miss Mussel’s post, I suspect that we have a self-fulfilling prophecy going on with the Ninth. Concert promoters would perhaps like the Ninth to be “the one”, and so we’ve all been complicit in building a mythology around it. But I suspect that many in regular concert audiences actually prefer other Beethoven symphonies more, and I’m quite certain that most musicians prefer other Beethoven symphonies more (not because they’re jaded but because the other symphonies give greater satisfaction).

That said, in ABC Classic FM’s original Classic 100 (any genre) Beethoven 9 was the top ranked of any of the symphonies, at No.3. The Pastoral came next at No.6, after that the Eroica and the Fifth, way down at No.40 and No.42; the highest ranked non-Beethoven symphony was Mahler 5 at No.43. (Apparently we don’t like symphonies all that much.)

If this were our guide, then the top ten in the Classic 100 Symphony should be Beethoven 9, 3, 6, 3, 5, Mahler 5, Saint-Saëns’ Symphony with Organ, Dvořák’s New World Symphony, Mahler 2, and Mahler 8 and at No.10 Beethoven 7, would be the runner up and making the chances of my favourite reaching No.1 very slim indeed.

But interesting things can happen. At No.1 in that original survey was Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto – a well-deserved accolade for a sublime piece of music. The adagio from this concerto was also the top ranked “favourite Mozart moment” (or rather, “Which moment of Mozart’s music can’t you live without?” as the question was put). So you’d reasonably expect the Mozart Clarinet Concerto to be at the top – or at least in the top five – of the Classic 100 Concerto. Not so. The leaders there were Beethoven’s Emperor, Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, Bruch’s Violin Concerto No.1 (he wrote others, you know) and Elgar’s Cello Concerto. The poor Mozart Clarinet Concerto had been relegated to No.6, which wasn’t all that surprising unless you knew of its earlier triumphs.

And this is what makes me think that Beethoven 9’s original success won’t necessarily carry over to the Classic 100 Symphony. What listeners choose when they’re asked to focus on a particular genre may be quite different from their generalised favourite “piece of music” or “musical moment”. Perhaps narrowing things down, and comparing apples with apples, encourages us to be more objective, slightly less concerned with what simply moves our spirit or gives us pleasure (what we like) and slightly more concerned with concepts of “greatness” and the intrinsic value or importance of a work. Clearly what turned up as simply our favourite piece of music didn’t do so well when we make it part of a comparison of concertos. And perhaps the iconic and mythological power of the “Ode to Joy” – which is what I suspect many people were really voting for in that first survey – similarly won’t stand the test as we pronounce upon our favourite symphonies.

At least, says Thomasina wickedly, I hope not!

(An astute twitterer from the Melbourne choir scene has come to the conclusion that Beethoven’s Ninth will not be the No.1 symphony, since the MSO Chorus has not been booked for the concert in which the top symphony will be performed live in its entirety. This seems like a pretty smart as well as appealing conclusion.)

Transient since 1947 – the ugliest building on campus

Sydney University has the most beautiful campus in the country.*

That is, unless you’re studying Linguistics.

The Linguistics professor at Sydney Uni is Bill Foley. He’s an expert in a New Guinea language called Yimas. (The only thing I really remember about Yimas is that it has the ability to fold the meaning of an entire sentence into a single-word construction. The Germans have nothing on these guys.) In the first lecture for Ling 101 he began by announcing where we could find the department: “In most universities the architecture** department has the ugliest building on campus. Here it’s the linguistics department.”

That building is the Transient Building, a corrugated fibro-clad blight on Fisher Road at the top of Physics Road.

It’s not strictly true that it’s the ugliest building on campus because there’s a nearly identical and equally ugly building*** on the perimeter overlooking Parramatta Road. But it’s ugly nonetheless:

As the name suggests, it was probably never intended to be still standing in 2009. It’s the university equivalent of the enduring high school demountable (although I suspect mosquitoes don’t breed in its power points as they did at a certain high school in Carlingford). Or, as one of my friends said the other day: “Transient since 1947.”

Meanwhile, some imaginative linguists and ethnomusicologists have decided that the Transient Building “symbolises” the impermanence of language. Surely the symbolism goes deeper than that? If this building symbolises anything it’s the sheer tenacity of language.

* I’ll grant that parts of Melbourne University, and the University of Western Australia with its Spanish Mission style buildings and Juliet balcony, both give Sydney Uni a run for its money, but Sydney still wins.

** According to the Sydney Architecture site, buildings such as this [what’s depicted as the Transient Building is in fact the Ross Street Building***] are “much-beloved” for their simplicity and flexibility and “should be heritage listed”. Hmm, perhaps that’s why the architecture department usually has the ugliest accommodation.

Typos I have known and loved

Back in the old days – well, 13 years ago – the Australian orchestras’ program notes were often scanned from the previous published use, treated to an optical character recognition process, and re-typeset.

Proofreading was much more entertaining in those days.

Foreign words and characters proved especially interesting, and OCR misinterpretation of these is the source of my favourite madeupical: Die Schopfling [a shopping spree], from Haydn’s long-lost retail therapy oratorio.

But the very best was this one – not so much for the error itself, but the correction applied to it by a colleague in one of the orchestras:

The overture, it was claimed, “begins with an orchestral tutu” [tutti].

P couldn’t resist an insertion:
“…and ends in a strapless evening frock.”

Larger than life

This is why I love the theatre!

Slonimsky: plot master

Ok, so it’s more than 140 characters, but it is in one sentence. A masterly Rosenkavalier “operaplot” from the inimitable and ageless Nicolas Slonimsky:

26 January 1911
Der Rosenkavalier, “Komodie für Musik” in three acts by Richard Strauss…full of sophisticated waltzes and ironically sentimental arias, to Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s tale placed in 18th-century Vienna, in which a conniving dowager designates her young lover as the bearer of a symbolic silver rose sent from her aging cousin to a young coquette in proposing marriage, with a characteristic reversal of roles as the cavalier of the rose woos and wins her after many a transvestiture (in the third act the Rosenkavalier, a mezzo-soprano, is disguised as a maid thus reverting to her natural sex), the score containing 118 identifiable leitmotivs, according to officious exegetes, is produced at the Dresden Opera, Ernst Schuch conducting.

Love those “officious exegetes”.

And another priceless gem for an opera rather less well known:

17 February 1900
Anton, opera in three acts by the 27-year-old Italian composer Cesare Galeotti, wherein a young Libyan, whose pagan mistress slays his early Christian concubine known as the “Flower of the Catacombs”, flees to the Egyptian desert, suppresses his sensuous memories, resists a series of diabolically contrived temptations and becomes sanctified as Saint Anthony, to a musical score gushing out crimson floods of curvilinear melos, is produced at La Scala, Milan. [italics mine]

Source: Nicolas Slonimsky – The First Hundred Years (1994)

Nutcracker: the reminiscent review

The Australian Ballet has launched a new, communally written blog, Behind Ballet. It hasn’t really settled yet, and some of the writing is very amusing in its earnestness. But the variety of themes and diversity of voices is excellent. More important, today’s post, “Universal Genius: How Tchaikovsky became Australian”, reminded me that I had to put my ticket for Nutcracker in my bag for tomorrow!

I saw Graeme Murphy’s Nutcracker when it was premiered in 1992. I have two vivid memories from it all. First was seeing the season brochure or perhaps a feature article explaining that Murphy was going to create an “Australian Nutcracker”.

I admired Murphy’s work tremendously – Beyond Twelve was a long-standing favourite, for example – but at that news my heart sank. Terrible visions came to mind of cringe-making attempts to Australian-ise classic masterpieces such as Carnival of the Animals, attempts that always seemed to be trying too hard and going in too strongly for some overtly “Aussie” flavour. So of course I anticipated the worst. And hence came one of the most delightful evenings I’ve ever had in the theatre, as Murphy’s Nutcracker demolished my fears and prejudices.

One of the factors behind the success of this version is that the original libretto is in many ways quite weak and it lacks the satisfying dramatic arc of Swan Lake or even Sleeping Beauty. The essence of the action is all over by the end of Act I and Act II becomes a pretext for spectacle and a lot of pretty dancing. Then there’s the mismatch in the relative importance of the dramatic leads versus the real (dancing) leads. Which is a long way of saying that there is room for dramaturgical improvement on the original. And Murphy achieved this by constructing an ingenious story line that makes its logical way through Tchaikovsky’s music.

But really, what I loved most about the Murphy Nutcracker was the brilliance with which it injected the Australian flavour. He avoids all clichés with the masterly exception of the Hills Hoist. (A prefiguring of the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony perhaps?) And instead he’s dug down for some genuine Australian ties to this Russian ballet and found them in the touring De Basil Ballets Russes and the Borovansky company, who gave this country a taste for what the Australian Ballet does now. The connections all made perfect sense and they map beautifully onto the original drama of the music. And – very important – there’s no loss of fantasy or magic.

What’s bookmarked on my DVD of this? Among other things:

The battle with the rats. These are the Bolsheviks to Clara’s White Russian officer, but they are still rats, and in costuming and movement they are by far the most fearsome rats I’ve seen in a Nutcracker production anywhere.

The tai chi scene. This is remarkable for being danced in a slow-motion silence for a good minute or so. Only when it’s over do the touring dancers come bustling through in their rickshaw to the sounds of Tchaikovsky’s Chinese Dance (Tea): foreigners bringing foreign impressions.

But these are just clevernesses. The thing I can’t “bookmark” is the overall emotional impact of Murphy’s retelling – convincing and moving in every way, nostalgia without sentimentality. Tchaikovsky would be pleased, I think.

The journey

 “I liked the metaphorical notion that every time you went into the place to see a play, you went on some kind of journey.”

Richard Wherrett

When the Sydney Theatre Company staged its first productions at the Wharf Theatre in 1985, the thing that formed the strongest impression on me was the sheer distance from street entrance to the actual theatre (about 200 metres). Richard Wherrett, quoted above, is right about the effect the walk has. And what I found most intriguing about this long walkway were the floor boards, which are set diagonally. I was told or read at the time that this feature was a legacy of the site’s history as a working finger wharf: diagonal boarding was best for rolling barrels and wheeled trolleys. I’ve never tried to verify this but it seems plausible, and the thought inevitably comes to mind whenever I go to a production there. Occasionally, when I’ve been running late, I’ve fantasised about being able to literally “barrel” along to the end.

Photo note: the “faded” patches in the foreground are a trick of light created by a gobo mounted high on the wall. They enact the STC’s new logo: three follow spots loosely gathered on a central point. I confess it took me a while to “get” this logo, mainly because there is a much-used simplified (solid) version, which doesn’t look like lights falling on a surface so much as three random ellipses.

What the composer wrote

Last month I mentioned a young composer who’d knocked my proverbial socks off with an intelligent, engaging program note. My reaction was subsequently confirmed by three separate proofreaders. “If only all composers would write like that,” was the common sentiment.

But now you can read it for yourself [PDF]. And come hear the piece, of course.

Phil Jameson’s piece is called Pebbles and Stuff, which for some inexplicable reason I kept typing as “Pebbles and Things”. [Bad keyboard!]  Even at the eleventh hour, as the presses were about to roll, I spotted an errant “Things” in the fine print. Fingers crossed I found them all…

My favourite essay question

I’m reminded this morning, for reasons I won’t go into, of my favourite essay question of all time:

Why is Beethoven’s bad music so much more incredibly worse than his good music?

This was thrown at us in, I think, second year uni. If I’ve kept my essay, which is possible, it will be buried in a box somewhere, so I can’t quote from my undergraduate insights. I do recall thinking it would be a fun essay (true) and therefore easy to write (wrong conclusion). As a result I left it till very late and ended up focussing on the shortcomings of the Choral Fantasy and the truly dreadful [but I like you] Wellington’s Victory battle symphony. I think I wrote about genre pieces, function and intent, the changing role of the composer and the nature of ambition in shaping musical works, and a relative lack of sketches (for Beethoven). The good Dr R’s comments suggested that I, too, had suffered from a lack of sketches.

I don’t think I’ve ever found a satisfactory answer to the conundrum: why is it that when Beethoven is “bad” (ordinary, uninspired, dull even) he really is “bad” in a way that, say, Mozart never is?

A few of my favourite blogs 2

Today’s selection represents practising musicians who blog.

First up the Bass Blog, written by Michael Hovnanian. He never identifies his mid-western orchestra by name but, well, you only have to look at the URL… Bass Blog has an appealing dry wit and plenty of entertaining insider anecdotes. Better still, there’s no bitterness or cynicism.

Thirteen Ways, the blog of Eighth Blackbird, could probably count as an orchestra/ensemble blog. But this Chicago-based contemporary music group is small and the tone closer to a bunch of musicians blogging than anything remotely institutional. Tim Munro never fails to make me laugh (but of course, he’s Australian, and a flutist).

I have a friend who jokes about “organ bores”: organ enthusiasts (invariably organists themselves) who can recite specifications of various instruments for hours on end and who, when they go missing on tour, will invariably be found checking out the local church organ. This might be amusing but it’s dreadfully unfair. If you share this view of organists then This Blog Will Change the World will change your mind.

In her own words, composer and performer Elaine Fine has had a “rich and varied life”. Some people might just say that because it sounds fine. Fine says it and it’s absolutely true. What’s also nice is that she thinks about music deeply and experiences it keenly. As a result, Musical Assumptions makes for interesting and often thought-provoking reading.

A few of my favourite blogs

I’m beginning an occasional series – the category tag will be “favourite things”. First up, blogs.

Classical Convert: A beginner’s guide to classical music, by someone who switched at 23

I just love it when really bright, intelligent people get into classical music as adults and begin exploring it in their own ways. That the Classical Convert (Ben) chooses to share his journey and discoveries with others is wonderful.

I’m reminded of concert intervals spent in the corporate lounge of a former orchestra. One of the regulars, the spouse of a staff member, had no formal musical training, but he was as observant as they come and possessed a very discerning ear. He often didn’t have the conventional vocabulary for articulating what he’d noticed, but he sure as anything could zero in on what was working or not in the performance. I often wondered whether he heard and noticed more because he wasn’t encumbered with the theoretical training that most classical musicians receive. Just a thought.

Ben’s pieces on nerds and switching are a special treat.

The next two blogs form a pair in my mind: two lawyers, two musicians, two concertgoers, two insightful writers with wide-ranging interests. There’s nothing better than when MK of Tonic Blotter and Marcellous of Stumbling on Melons go to concerts. MK, from Chicago, also captures birds with his camera; Marcellous has the advantage of attending concerts in Sydney.

Then there’s Inside the Classics from the Minnesota Orchestra. This is, so far, the very best “official” orchestra blog I’ve come across. I love its candour – the two contributors are very open about the process of making music and preparing concerts and their thoughts about the music world; I love that it’s really well written and the tone is just right. I don’t live in Minneapolis (sometimes I wish I did – their music director is one of my favourite conductors and the weather’s colder there right now) and I’ll never attend one of their concerts, but it’s still compelling reading and that says it all.

In case you think all I care about is music, here are some other blogs that have earned a place high on my feed list:

A Dress a Day – lexicographer Erin McKean wears and makes dresses [see her redefine the dictionary in one of said dresses on TED]. I do neither of these things at present, but she’s a super-engaging writer with a great sense of humour so I follow her blog. She also tweets words of the day and naturally I stole the idea.

I Love Typography – indeed I do!

And Ampersands – if there’s a character I like more than the ampersand it’s a well-formed capital Q.

Swiss Miss is a Swiss designer in New York. Her discoveries make me smile.

Futility Closet is my refuge from productivity, ’cause every girl needs one of those.

Indexed is a simple concept cleverly and diligently executed. A model to us all.

And Andrea Joseph posts exquisitely detailed drawings on her sketchblog. Never again will I sneer at the humble biro.

This is barely scratching the surface. And especially in the area of music and the music business there are many more blogs that I follow assiduously and admire greatly – I really need to get my blogroll assembled!

Delight

A lot of things make me happy: books, words, an aesthetically pleasing writing hand, theatre...

This is one of Prospero's lines from The Tempest.