Thomasina’s last waltz

A period piece

At work we’re about to move premises, which has inspired a flurry of decluttering. (Although not perhaps quite as much a flurry as the organisers of the move would like.) This kind of behaviour is infectious, and has prompted some decluttering at home as well. The other motivation was the arrival of Richard Taruskin’s five-volume History of Western Music for Oxford, which made me realise that I needed to clear some shelves or buy some shelves.

I’ve not been as successful as I’d like, mainly because it’s too easy to be distracted by oddities unearthed. Like this number from 1968:

They don’t publish Teach Yourself books like they used to…

Some gems:

“It helps not at all towards a true understanding of his music  to be told that Mr. X is a serialist with neo-Romantic leanings, that he was born in Argentina, that he lives in Clapham Junction.”

“It is a characteristic of our age to take to pieces, to analyse. Yet what is remarkable is not that so much contemporary music is not understood, but that the listener should feel the necessity to understand it. No art exists primarily to be understood; it exists to be admired: to be a source of beauty, not of knowledge.”

And a quotation from Milton Babbitt’s 1964 description of Stravinsky’s Movements:

‘This compositional variety is mediated by a highly redundant set structure a second-order all-combinatorial set, each set form is hexachordally equivalent to or totally disjunct from fifteen other set forms, so that one-third of all the available set forms belong to a collection of sets which are hexachordally aggregrate forming, that is, hexachordally identical.’

You’ll be pleased to know that Mr Routh gives Mr Babbitt the benefit of the doubt. (And in fairness the source is an academic journal.) All the same, he’s right to point out how unhelpful this sort of thing is to anyone seeking to understand Stravinsky’s purpose.

Postscript…

And the composers? That’s always telling. Routh begins with Busoni and Debussy, followed by: Stravinsky, Messiaen, the Second Viennese School, electronic music and later serialism, Vaughan Williams and Tippett as well as “the English scene”, Ives, Copland and Varèse (and “the American scene”). The really interesting bits remain the appendices, setting out programming patterns for the BBC and selected British orchestras in the mid-1960s.

Eine kleine Schopfling

One of the good things about NaBloPoMo was that I got into the habit of posting daily, whether I was in the mood or not. [Not unlike Queen Elizabeth I, who would take a bath every six months, whether she needed it or not.] Today I am decidedly out of sorts, and definitely not in the mood.

I should be pleased that I snaffled a good seat for A Streetcar Named Desire, starring Cate (Blanche)tt, but it’s nearly a year off, so true excitement has yet to settle in. I should be pleased that I’ve reached the end of my annual publications schedule, but the next deadline is only three working weeks away, so any sense of respite is pure illusion. All in all, Thomasina is a woeful creature. 

In the moments like these there is but one solution: Die Schopfling, otherwise known as the Retail Therapy Oratorio. This madeupical of mine came about as the result of 1990s optical character recognition technology trying to cope with “Die Schöpfung” in a scanned text. Umlauts were guaranteed to throw a spanner in the works, but the result has given me a decade of pleasure already.

A Schopfling doesn’t need to be extravagant, a modest gesture will do, and so today I popped into the nearest Dymocks on my way home and picked up a copy of The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga.

I have been meaning to buy this novel ever since it won the Booker Prize (sorry Man, you’ve not paid me to assign you naming rights!) earlier in the year. I don’t normally go out of my way to buy prize-winning books, but in this case I felt a combined curiosity and obligation, the author having been a student at my high school, although after my time. 

I began reading it on the train. My stop arrived at page 30 along with the death of the lizard, but already I can tell I will enjoy its wicked humour and the conceit of a (one-way?) correspondence between the Indian “entrepreneur” and a Chinese politician.

I was passing Dymocks because I was on my way to Angel Place in the hope of avoiding an internet booking fee on my ticket for David and Jonathan as well as being able to select my seat properly. I was too late, but will plan better tomorrow. I really must get myself to a Pinchgut production after so many years of admiring their endeavours from afar and, embarassingly, from anear.

PS. If you haven’t already done so, cast your vote on this post.

Thomasina survived November

In the life of this blog since October 2005, Thomasina has been taking to the dance floor between zero and eight times a month. Put another way, 157 posts in three years, or lots of zeros.

Now, if you’ve been paying attention you’ll have noticed that this month Thomasina signed up for NaBloPoMo (“National” Blog Posting Month) for some daily motivation. And although she was challenged on one post, she believes she’s managed to avoid any gratuitous padding while still making the daily posting count (sometimes more than once), in what turned out to be a particularly gruelling November.

It was worth it; or at least very satisfying. She thanks all those who joined in to comment, and Sarah who gave her a plug via the Prima la musica… blogroll (thus guilting her into doing something about the non-existent Last Waltz blogroll – this is December’s project).

So what’s next?

Thomasina’s unique readers [and she reckons there are about 23.76 regulars, not counting the people googling after “Atlanta’s balls” or the correct tempo for the last waltz] have a chance to say via the poll below.

Online Surveys & Market Research

Closes 7 December.

You Can on a Cannon

In 1995 the pass-code for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra photocopier was “1812”. There are probably only three other people on staff who remember this.

Punching out the pronouns

Shifting to a different “enthusiasm”…

A few months ago I came across a nifty business card from an Australian company that does office design work. Two pictures speak, I would say, about two thousand words.

 

November 4, 2008: A Joyous Day

‘Dennis’, commenting on one of my favourite music blogs, complained today: ‘Oh no. Is this yet another arts/music/culture blog that falls from what used to be a welcome respite from the incessant political din?’

I know where Dennis is coming from, but this wasn’t simply another election. This one was important. The result was momentous, empowering, inspiring. Here in Australia, when Obama claimed victory (early afternoon on Wednesday for us) the excitement in the office where I work was palpable. The few who were American or who’d worked in the States were beaming and proclaiming it a great day for America. The rest were smiling just as much, because it’s a great day for the world.

In a sense, Dennis is right, and my “arts/music/culture blog” isn’t going to offer any special insight into the US election, for all that I’ve been following it with interest and hope. Perhaps I too should be offering respite from the din.

But it’s one of those days where I feel I can’t possibly write about anything else. There’s simply no appropriate response other than to say again, it’s a joyous day.

PS. Many thanks to the chained bear for this link.

Seven multiplied…

Prima la musica has extended a voluntary tag to the Seven Things About Me meme, the rules of which are noted at Score Desk. As I understand it, the facts are intended to be a combination of the random and the weird.

1. Childhood ambitions and their inspirations: pirate (Treasure Island), submarine captain (Navy open day), pilot (too many Biggles books).

2. Irises. Always. Nothing but.

3. Recorder, viola, harpsichord – instruments on which I never had lessons but which I somehow found myself playing. Viola was the first instrument that I played on the stage of the Sydney Opera House.

4. Musical theatre. My first musical love. There was a time when I could sing all the songs from just about any musical you cared to name. There are still times when I’d rather hear Sondheim than Mahler. [I’ll drink to that.]

5. Fifteen. The number of years I collected and devoured concert and theatre programs before realising that someone must be paid to write and edit these things. And normally I’m so quick off the mark…

6. My handwriting? I taught myself as a kid. From a little book Dad owned called Good Handwriting and How to Acquire It (1954). I share with Winsome Evans the view that it is simple courtesy to write in an æsthetically pleasing hand, and with the Chinese and Japanese the idea that calligraphy is an essential item in the scholar's toolbox. Oh, and I'm a typography nerd.

7. I think the most exquisite sound in the world is the scratch of a quill scribing on vellum. Clearly Peter Greenaway thinks it’s pretty special too:

Update: the above YouTube clip is no longer available, but the beginning of this one will do.

I join the cowards of the world by also suggesting that, if the whim takes you, you may consider yourself tagged. Don't have a blog? Make a facebook Note instead.

Impressions on first hearing Tchaikovsky’s Manfred in concert

The bass clarinet had been moved to sit beside the bassoons, and the opening reveals why: together they all play Manfred’s theme. The effect is reedy (of course) but reedy in a way that suggests an organ. I wonder if Tchaikovsky had any intention that this would be echoed in grander terms at the very end of the symphony where he brings in a reed organ (these being more common in Russia than pipe organs). No way of knowing, and in any case this performance ends differently (see page 16 here).

One of my friends, an erstwhile horn player, isn’t fond of Tchaikovsky. Apparently his horn parts are not what you’d call “grateful”. But in this symphony they have their shining moments and more than a few occasions where they’re called upon to play pavillon en l’air – very impressive. I’m not convinced that with horns (as compared to other brass or woodwinds) this direction makes much difference. But it certainly attracts the eye and thereby the ear.

The scherzo second movement: wonderful pointillistic effects, very interesting. In his pre-concert talk the Maestro said that this movement had no real melody and no real accompaniment. That’s true at first, but in the end Tchaikovsky simply can’t resist “the big tune” – it’s what he does best, glorious unending melody. This movement ends with a magical effect like water droplets (two harps, pizzicato violins…). It’s as if we’re not really up in the Alps with the fairy after all, but are watching everything from inside a conservatory on a rainy afternoon, perhaps with Byron's poem to hand.*

Another observation from the Maestro’s talk: he made us laugh with a lovely analogy of Tchaikovsky “always good with his homework”, the idea being that in his numbered symphonies he did his level best to follow the model of Beethoven [and his German successors, Schumann for example] and in Manfred to adopt the model of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. Which in turn made me laugh when the finale reached the point of the almost obligatory fugue. For what could be more like musical “homework” than the most academic of compositional techniques? But you know it’s no ordinary fugue when the tambourine makes an entry. (The finale is a bacchanal after all.)

Tchaikovsky’s numbered symphonies may be more balletic, but the Manfred is more theatrical. And I don’t just mean that it has a narrative program – the theatre is built in to the musical effects, and “effective” it is.

*After the second movement had evaporated to its conclusion the coughers entered in full force, as if they had been forced to sit in the rain themselves. What is intriguing is that after the Associate Concertmaster broke a string in the third movement, necessitating a longer-than-usual break before the finale, the audience sat in near hushed silence while he changed his string and retuned. Which just goes to show that rarely does anyone need to cough between movements (at least no more than at any other point in the performance) – it's purely a nervous mannerism brought on by the discomfort of nothing happening.

White Tie and Tails

Mind the Gap has visited the perennial topic of what orchestral musicians wear for concerts.

Molly Sheridan talks about the tuxedo – I see more concerts performed in tails than tuxes (which she might consider even more extreme) but the spirit of her observations still applies. I think I'm agreeing with her in saying that with 70 to 100-plus musicians, uniformity and even formality are inevitable.

It's a tricky subject and I need to be careful, because I'm not the one sitting on the stage performing (and I'm not a man). But here goes.

In defence of the tail suit, it is one of the few styles of suits that is flattering for nearly all shapes and sizes. I have yet to see a man who doesn't look good in well-cut tails. And it is an especially good look for the conductor who must be viewed from behind. It's purely an æsthetic judgement rather than a practical one, but compared to lounge suits, shirts and pants, or even the tuxedo, a tail suit tends to look fantastic.

Also in defence of tails: precisely because they are at the high end of formal wear, the styling changes relatively little over time (unlike lounge and business suits, which are prey to fashion). Probably the last major change to the tail suit was when Fred Astaire altered the cut of the vest so that it no longer showed below the jacket front (he wanted a longer, cleaner line). And this means that the investment in an expensive piece of tailoring isn't wasted after a couple of seasons. It also avoids the issue of individual musicians appearing to be more "fashion forward" than their stand partners.

Now I know that part of what keeps some people from (or from fully enjoying) orchestral concerts is the perception they form based on the sight of formal wear en masse. It seems there is sometimes an expectation or desire that musicians should look more like ordinary people. (Aside: I find that interesting. After all, what musicians are doing is really quite extraordinary. And why shouldn't classical musicians adopt a "costume" of sorts as other performers do? Say what you will, a concert is an entertainment. End of aside.) If this is the case and clothing really is hurting audience development then that's something orchestras the world over need to address, although I suspect that it's other aspects of concert-going that are far more off-putting, but newbies – and oldies – latch onto dress because it's visible and easy to talk about.

My concern is that attempts to follow or conform to contemporary fashion, or even to pursue the line of a "designer uniform", are likely to distract from the music – you start to notice what the musicians are wearing, and not necessarily for the right reasons.

Spelling Strine in Firefox

Monday night's techie tip – for Mac users.

Sick of the Firefox browser marking your perfectly good colourful Australian English as misspelled? Wondering why the System and Firefox preference settings don't make any difference on this front? Is turning off spell check altogether not an option?

Download this addon.

Then, the important part, you need to follow the instruction that the developer doesn't provide – not on the download site, not on his "website" – but which I found here. (Thanks Rooster.)

In any text editing field (such a blog posting/commenting field, or a forum entry field) right-click and choose "English / Australia" from the Languages menu.

As Kelvin Eldridge points out on The Rooster's site, the dictionary in this addon is five or so years old. If that ends up bothering you, and it may not, go here to get a current one for little more than the cost of a Charbucks coffee.

My five words

From last week: Richard Lacayo proposed banning five words from art writing. I thought I'd set out to do the same for music. At first I thought in terms of concert program notes, which are the closest in spirit to the wall cards or catalogue copy of an art exhibition. Except the problems there can't so easily be narrowed down to individual words – perfectly unhelpful notes can be (and are) written using perfectly ordinary vocabulary, without even resorting to ugly constructions such as "musics" or trendy jargon (matrixes, paradigms, enculturated hierarchies…).

So for my first stab at the challenge, I assembled the five words I'd most like to see removed from the lexicon available for music copywriting, specifically classical music copywriting. As you'll see, I lost count along the way:

1. Thrill [used as a verb]
2. Brilliant, Beautiful… [and adjectives generally where the Perfectly Chosen noun or verb would be more Powerful]
3. Tour de force
4. Magic(al)
5. Don't miss… [yes, that's a phrase, too bad]
6. Featuring/Features
7. The program culminates… [sorry, another phrase, aka "after interval/intermission", a dead giveaway that the copy is simply reciting what might be better conveyed with a list of repertoire and artists]
8. Acclaimed

Then there are the metaphors, about which I have mixed feelings. They can work wonderfully. Or not. Question (do not use Google): Which of Berg's orchestral works yields a "sonic sorbet"? And what does that mean anyway? That it's sweet? Icy? The programming equivalent of dessert? A palate cleanser? (In which case mightn't you want it at the beginning?)

Three for the music nerds

From the path that is overgrown comes news of a project from the Royal Academy of Music. Tantalising news, since it's not yet at the stage for open release. Called RAMline, it uses the Topic Maps standard to create what appears to be an intricately linked database of digital resources. From the RAM's description:

“The RAMline is a unique multi-dimensional index of music and musicians linked to local digitized archives and other online resources, such as manuscript sources and published editions, live performances and recordings, musical criticism and comment. This index can be used to display a timeline of musical history and the life-cycle of any piece of music, from antiquity to the present, as well as to chart musical profiles of individuals and organizations. It is multi-dimensional in that the index can be explored from the perspectives of people, works, places, events, and dates; it is unique in that the connections between musicians and musical works are categorized in a rigorous yet flexible ontology which makes sense of the processes and products involved.”

The slides from Antony Pitt's presentation about the project can be found here.

Which reminds me of a link sent by a colleague earlier this year, this one from the Royal College of Music. Their Centre for Performance History site provides links to a whole bunch of projects and resources, including Concert Programmes 1790–1914. (Performance history ranks high on the list of Thomasina's enthusiasms.)

And while pottering about on the RAM site, I came across their APOLLO collection (Academy Pictures On-Line) – yet another resource to support the eternal hunt for interesting, relevant, not-too-tired music illustrations.

Revolutionary Music

I like to joke about "When the revolution comes…"  (as in, "When the revolution comes I am going to wipe every copy of PowerPoint from every PC on the planet"), but more serious revolutionary thoughts have been on my mind of late.

In May, CityMusic Cleveland – a chamber orchestra that takes free concerts to communities all over Cleveland, Ohio – is presenting a program called Revolutionary Music. The music includes likely revolutionary candidates: Ligeti, Ives and Beethoven (of course), as well as making an unexpected case for Vivaldi. Thinking about this program brings to mind the theory, which I heard so long ago I don't recall exactly where, that a "new music" (literally) has been emerging every 300 years or so.

Ars Nova in 1300 gives the beginnings of what ultimately became the high Renaissance (madrigals, etc.); Nuove Musiche turns up in 1600 with the invention of opera and the all-important idea of harmony grounded on a bass line, which of course is still with us; New Music of the 20th century opens the floodgates of invention.

Now it's possible that the wealth of new voices and diversity of styles in the past century means that the every-300-years theory is kaput. Or it could be that we'll get to 2200 (not us personally) and find there is a new "new music" that will allow musicians and music lovers to see the points of commonality and dependency in what's happening right now. How I'd love to be there.

When the revolution comes…preamble

I've yet to come up with my definitive list of five words, but in the meantime, some preliminary thoughts.

First, I would rather not ban perfectly good words that simply have the misfortune to be (over)used in lazy or inaccurate ways. "Sheer" as an intensifier, for example, is a useful word that occasionally is the only word that will perfectly convey the intended meaning. No blanket bans there.

Nor should reasonable technical terminology suffer, so long as it can be presented in contexts where the gist if not the precise meaning is conveyed. Technical terms are not the same as jargon words: the former can be empowering when mastered and they usually can be attached to something that you can hear and/or see; the latter ultimately just exclude, especially when they are adopted for abstract and intangible concepts. Looking at the Whitney examples, it's important to note how few of them contained any actual technical terms referring to practical art techniques or visual effects – but they were full of conceptual jargon.

Dancing about music

The Australian Ballet has reminded me once again of their Jerome Robbins Celebration, a quadruple bill that's coming up in May (Sydney) and June (Melbourne).

So a disinterested plug. Why should you go to this ballet program? Let me count the reasons…

1. The Concert
This is one of the sweetest, funniest, most entertaining ballets I’ve ever seen. The pianist on stage performs a recital of Chopin. The dancers are the audience – behaving in all the ways that audiences do, including sitting in the wrong seats – and they dance out their fantasies in the most delightful ways. Did I mention I adore this ballet?

2. Afternoon of a Faun
Not Nijinsky’s original choreography or narrative concept (no infamous autoeroticism or pencilled toes on tights) – but still amazing, still sensual. 

3. The Cage
Two years ago the SSO played Stravinsky's Concerto in D for strings (1947) in the Mozart series. In his introduction the concertmaster, Dene Olding, told us about the ballet that Jerome Robbins created on this music in 1951. The narrative was perhaps a tad more detailed than was necessary for a concert performance of a “concert piece”, which he admitted at the time, but it was fascinating nonetheless. Robbins’s harrowing libretto is inspired by the way some female insects and arachnids kill the male after mating, and by what he recognised as the “terribly driven and compelled” character of the music. I’d say the music is performed more often than the ballet, so this is a great chance to see it.

4. A Suite of Dances
This one I don't know, but like The Concert it brings the music on stage: a solo cellist playing Bach. So musically you can’t lose: Bach, Stravinsky, Debussy and Chopin.

A footnote: the Australian Ballet’s media publicity is touting Robbins in large type as the “Academy Award winning choreographer of West Side Story”. I do sincerely hope that they don't get a bunch of disgruntled emails from patrons complaining about the absence of Bernstein’s street gangs.

Dancing about art

Last month art blogger Carol Diehl wrote about the impenetrable prose at the Whitney Biennial. Or rather she exposed it for what it was, merely by quoting it in its invisible clothes. This is a language all of its own  “where new adjacencies might reactivate latent meanings”. Ugh.

Richard Lacayo picked up the theme at Time online – that's how I found Carol's blog – beginning with a visual slam by reproducing Art as Idea: Nothing by Joseph Kosuth. Two pertinent comments here: “Why is so much curatorial writing so dreadful? Why is it so clogged with the decrepit formulations of academic artspeak? Why does so much of it sound like it was written by an anxious schoolkid delivering a labored term paper?” Followed by: “Finally, bad writing is just insider talk. It's not directed to the public at all, but pitched to the coterie of other curators and academics who use jargon to signal to one another their initiation into the world of… jargon.”

Now Eric Gibson at the Wall Street Journal has turned the emerging theme into a full-fledged piece. He points to Duchamp and conceptual art as the point where the rot set in – at least for the plastic arts.

This all hits a nerve because a lot of writing about music… Stop. …because nearly all bad writing about music suffers from the exact same flaws that Lacayo identifies. (Some bad writing about music is bad for other reasons, it's true.)

The key difference between the two art forms might lie in the point that Gibson makes:

“From the late 19th century to just after World War II, writing about modern art was clear. It had to be. Critics from Émile Zola to Clement Greenberg were trying to explain new and strange art forms to a public that was often hostile to the avant-garde. To have a hope of making their case, these writers couldn't afford to obfuscate. Today, when curators and critics can count on a large audience willing to embrace new art simply because it is new, they don't have to try as hard.”  [Italics mine]

In this respect art bears no resemblance to the concert world. Contemporary composers and their "curators" might feel they have to try harder than ever, because the audience willing to embrace new music simply because it is new is woefully small. But perhaps it could be said that we've been trying too hard and in the wrong ways: writing about contemporary music can be as impenetrable as what the Whitney's dishing out for its Biennial.

And in any case, for concert-goers the problem isn't confined to contemporary music: there's plenty of impenetrability (or simply inept writing) attached to writing about music from the classical canon too. Which is not to say there aren't many many good program notes and fine, perceptive annotators (I couldn't not say that, I belong to the breed!). But there's also plenty of writing that seems determined to put the listener off; and plenty of writing about music that might read well enough, but which simply isn't helpful or illuminating.

What's the solution? Ridicule (along the lines of there is nothing the devil hates more than laughter)? That would be George Bernard Shaw on the matter of Hamlet's soliloquy:

“Shakespeare, dispensing with the customary exordium, announces his subject at once in the infinitive, in which mood it is presently repeated after a short connecting passage in which, brief as it is, we recognize the alternative and negative forms on which so much of the significance of repetition depends. Here we reach a colon; and a pointed pository phrase, in which the accent falls decisively on the relative pronoun, brings us to the first full stop.”

Lacayo, on the other hand, suggests a starvation method. He believes the bad writers in the art world (well, half of them) would be disarmed if the following five words were removed from the lexicon:

1. Interrogates
2. Problematizes
3. References (as a verb)
4. Transgressive
5. Inverts

So perhaps it's time to give some thought to the five words I would ban from music writing. When the revolution comes…

Stay tuned.

Stress relief

Some days you just need something like this.

 

 

Manic mode is especially satisfying.

Link courtesy of a blog that does not supply iodide.

Tick Tock

While working on a project, I came across this performance of György Ligeti's Symphonic Poem for 100 Metronomes. Rather than use human performers, a kind of tripwire mechanism is used to get it all going. And someone's posted it in a backwards version too…

Huzzah!

The creator of this game is making it progressively more difficult, so I'm posting my score now, before it becomes too embarrassing.

[Edit: The Font Game is now hosted by i love typography.]

Friday's rant is not so forgiving

RE: Office 2007

Dear Microsoft

Why do you insist on trying to make things "easier" for us by removing our control? Why do you clutter our screens with ribbons full of features for which we already have the keyboard shortcuts under our fingers, while hiding the occasionally needed features that we used to be able to find so quickly in the menus.

At the same time, why do you make it so difficult to permanently hide those "default" themes, style sheets and font sets of yours, which we know we will never want. Why do you not provide a single dialog box in which the features of a theme or style set can be viewed, analysed and modified? And why must you establish three or four ways of doing anything, so that turning off one of those "helpful features" (such as the one that decides we want to create a bulleted list when we want to do nothing of the sort or the one that thinks superscripted ordinals look good) requires changing the settings in several places before it sticks.

Oh, and why do you insist on trying to make Word a sub-desktop publishing program? There are really good programs specifically designed for that kind of work, and not all of them are thousand-dollar behemoths. Word is a word-processing program and when it comes to designing or publishing documents it's an unwieldy mess. Except now it's an unwieldy mess when it comes to word-processing too.  Grr.

Bring on Dark Room I say! (Write Room for home.)

Short letters

“The letter I have written today is longer than usual because I lacked the time to make it shorter.”
– Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)

As I recall, an apology along these lines is attributed to a Roman writer in Robert Graves’ I, Claudius. Now I must go in search of a copy to find the details.

Being there

Continuing with the criticism theme… The previously mentioned review of the SSO's Brahms 5th Symphony concert included a wonderfully striking image:

“The conductor Paul Daniel, the chief conductor-elect of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, energised and disciplined the orchestra, like a tall and amiable leader on a hike where no bush, tree or distant slope escapes being pointed out.”

It was a reminder that music criticism – concert reviewing specifically – isn't simply about judging something, telling us whether it was "good" or "bad". It's also about conveying to the reader who couldn't be there what that particular concert was like, it's about finding the apt metaphor or analogy that, without assigning praise or disapproval, suggests the character and distinctiveness of the performance.

The Smallest Room

“I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me.”
– Max Reger (German organist and composer, 1873–1916)

[Ich sitze in dem kleinsten Zimmer in meinem Hause. Ich habe Ihre Kritik vor mir. Im nächsten Augenblick wird sie hinter mir sein. Source: the marvellous Lexicon of Musical Invective by Nicolas Slonimsky.]

Reger's letter was in response to a dismissive review by Rudolf Lewis (Münchener Neueste Nachrichten, 7 February 1906) who, writing of Reger's new Sinfonietta, said "its tonal language essentially depends on conjuring up the illusion of significance by a thousand contrapuntal tricks" and referred to "the unpleasant sensation that someone, placing full faith in the psychological phenomenon of suggestive power, is taking us for fools."

But Reger wasn't the first to use this neat turn of euphemism – the earliest attribution (with "letter" or "missive "rather than "review") goes to Voltaire. Nor was he the last, apparently this handy retort may have been picked up by Noel Coward and even Sir Winston Churchill.

Critical trends

A few weeks ago violist Tabea Zimmermann played with the SSO. Stumbling on Melons liked her playing a lot:

“Definitely, to coin a phrase, Zimmerman could play the Nokia phone tune and it would be compelling. But I am glad that Lentz’s piece had her very superior advocacy.”

Last week cellist Ralph Kirshbaum was in Sydney, prompting this response from SMH critic Peter McCallum:

“Before this, we had had the opportunity to hear the deep richness of Ralph Kirshbaum playing his Montagnana cello, which would have been pleasurable enough in Bah, Bah, Black Sheep, but which found an apt foil in the ruminative meandering lines of Bloch's Hebraic Rhapsody, Schelomo.”

Is this a critical trend?

Or do I sense an album concept coming on…

Dancing about architecture

So how is it that Facebook knows I'm sometimes more interested in the liner notes than the performances?
 

Typography and music

An irresistible musical analogy from a typographer.

I look for unevenness, for letters that are over- or under-weight, for any inconsistencies that might flag the flavor. Every letter must be independently legible so that if it is seen out of context it will not be misread. Finally the entire alphabet must be ‘in tune’…. The oboe is the first instrument you hear when a symphony orchestra begins to ‘tune up.’ The oboe gives the pitch. It has great penetration and can easily be heard by all the other instruments. Now comes a surprising coincidence: the letters O B E in the word OBOE and the lowercase letters o b e—or preferably o d e—are, by the nature of their design, key letters that give the pitch to which other letters of the alphabet may be tuned. O B E and o d e carry a big load in determining the character of a style. They are not dramatic shapes like a or g or s, but they sound the pitch clearly. First they must be in tune with each other, then the remaining letters should be in design harmony or in artistic balance with these three. All must be in tune.

Edward Rondthaler, Life with Letters, as they turned photogenic, 1981.

Link: eXtreme Type Terminology | i love typography

Thus poke Zarathustra

If Zoroaster got a facebook account…

Disclaimer: Hi. My name's Yvonne and I'm a Wordie addict.

Here there be burnout

Two days, two depressing posts. First Butts in the Seats quoted an article about job prospects in non-profit organisations, which began:

"Do you feel your contributions in the workplace are overlooked? Are you consistently swamped with work at the office, but still feel empty when the week ends? At the end of the day, are you ashamed of what you've accomplished and how you reached the end result?"

The theatre-manager author of BitS suspects that "even non-profit people feel this way about their jobs". Sad enough, but true. Working for an orchestra, say, can be wonderfully fulfilling but it's no guarantee of freedom from stress or long hours or general frustration.

More depressing was the "arts administrator" (what kind is unclear but her words suggest an orchestral instrument in the background) who admitted to not loving orchestral concerts at all. Laurie Niles, host of Violinist.com, quoted her on Adaptistration:

"I am not drawn to the symphony. Sorry to say it but true. I'd rather play pool than go to a classical music concert. I'd rather go to a multi-media experience, like a symphony performing a soundtrack live and show the movie simultaneously. I like lecture concerts as well. Anything... ANYTHING but just sit there, not be addressed as an audience member at all, and listen to music I've heard or played a hundred times."

This was in answer to the question "What do you love about going to the symphony?" Now, normally my hackles would be rising in reaction to yet another example of the word "symphony" being used where what is meant is "orchestra", "symphony orchestra", "orchestra concerts", "symphonic music". But in this case I'm too struck by this administrator's candour (it would be natural for someone in her position not to admit to feeling this way) and by her jaded assessment of concertgoing.

I won't say I've haven't sometimes felt like I don't want to hear another concert for a very long time, that there aren't moments when attending a concert once a week (or more) can actually seem more like a chore than a pleasure. All sorts of things contribute to that: uninteresting performances and plain old fatigue being typical culprits. But the feeling always passes, because the power of the music itself and the power of live performance offers something irresistible.

Still, there are things orchestras do that put us in the way of jaded reactions like the one above: one of these is not always treating the performance like the "show" – the entertainment – that undoubtedly it is and which the audience feels it deserves; the other is playing the same old cycle of repertoire to the point where even a casual concertgoer might feel as if she's heard it all "a hundred times".

Now this second problem is a tricky spot that we've got ourselves into gradually since the formation of the Canon of Great Music in the 19th century. Nearly two centuries on we've trained concertgoers to want a gently percolating selection of "great classics" and received masterpieces by composers who are preferably long dead. It's going to take a long time to get out of that one, if indeed we ever do. But the first problem should be easier to solve, if only we could bring to orchestral concerts (without sacrifice or compromise) those aspects of stagecraft, polish and presentation that are second nature in the theatre.

Mozart writes from Paris

Paris, 3 July 1778
Mozart writes to his father:

I have had to compose a symphony for the opening of the Concert Spirituel [This was the 'Paris' Symphony in D major, K297]. It was performed on Corpus Christi day with great applause...I was very nervous at the rehearsal, for never in my life have I heard a worse performance. You have no idea how they twice scraped and scrambled through it. I was really in a terrible way and would gladly have had it rehearsed again, but as there was so much else to rehearse, there was no time left. So I had to go to bed with an aching heart and in a discontented and angry frame of mind. I decided next morning not to go to the concert at all; but in the evening, the weather being fine, I at last made up my mind to go, determined that if my symphony went as badly as it did at rehearsal, I would certainly make my way into the orchestra, snatch the fiddle out of the hands of Lahoussaye, the first violin, and conduct myself! I prayed God that it might go well, for it is all to His greater honour and glory; and behold – the symphony began. Raaff was standing beside me, and just in the middle of the first Allegro there was a passage which I felt sure must please. The audience were quite carried away – and there was a tremendous burst of applause. But as I knew, when I wrote it, what effect it would surely produce, I had introduced the passage again at the close – when there were shouts of 'da capo'. The Andante also found favour, but particularly the last Allegro, because, having observed that all last as well as all first Allegros begin here with all the instruments playing together and generally unisono, I began mine with two violins only, piano for the first eight bars – followed instantly by a forte; the audience, as I expected, said 'hush' at the soft beginning, and when they heard the forte, began at once to clap their hands.
[from a translation by Emily Anderson]

This is an oft-quoted letter, from which we learn (or are reminded) that:

• 18th-century rehearsals were scrappy affairs
• 18th-century orchestral concerts were often led/conducted by the first violin
• 18th-century audiences were accustomed to responding verbally and with applause during the performance
• Mozart was unashamed about studying the tastes of his audience in order to (a) delight them and (b) surprise them

But the part I like best is Mozart's expression of sheer pleasure at his success:

I was so happy that as soon as the symphony was over, I went off to the Palais Royal, where I had a large ice, said the rosary as I had vowed to do – and went home…

Imagine that: 22-year-old Mozart, relieved that his worst fears weren't realised and thrilled by a wonderful audience reaction, goes off to the Palais Royal to eat ice cream. And on that subject here's Elizabeth David, my favourite cooking writer, in her social history of ice and ices, Harvest of the Cold Months. Apparently there were five or six cafés in the Palais Royal, including the fashionable Café du Caveau (of M. Dubuisson, who claimed to have introduced liqueur-flavoured ices to Paris) and the Foy (or Foi), which was the oldest and most famous and renowned for its good coffee, lemonades and ices.

The Foy had an exceptional privilege, permission to serve refreshments in the gardens of the palace, although not to set tables. Everything had to be balanced on chairs.

And as I've written elsewhere, that makes for quite a picture: Mozart eating ice cream, resting his supper on a chair.

Explaining the trick (or not)

Over at NaBloPoMo the theme for April is letters, but over at Adaptistration, where Drew McManus blogs about orchestra management, governance and change, it's TAFTO or "Take A Friend To Orchestra" month. Here's how it works, with a roster of bloggers, administrators, musicians and enthusiasts writing about the simplest thing in the world: inviting a friend to come to an orchestral concert with you.

It's important because, as with anything else that might be unfamiliar, laden with traditions, and ever-so-slightly arcane (the racetrack, the stock exchange, the vineyard, the high Anglican church…) it can sometimes take the company of a friend to ease you through those first tentative steps.

Today's contribution comes from Matt Heller, an orchestral double bassist – the kind of person who finds it difficult to "take" friends to concerts because he's usually playing in them. He expresses the (I suspect not uncommon) fear that taking a friend to hear an orchestra just might leave you with an enemy!

His story ends well, though. It also suggests that we can get in the way by overemphasising preparation and concrete knowledge as a key or a way in to music:

"Maybe it was a good thing that I didn't accompany them to the concert. I would have just babbled about music history and stylistic periods; whereas the experience of seeing and hearing an orchestra for the first time, all the distinct sounds and gestures of the musicians and instruments, might only be  diminished by too much explanation – like a magician explaining how a trick was done."

I think it's true that for most people who become interested in classical music a thirst for knowledge and deepened understanding is awakened, often in a big way. But perhaps at first we should trust in the capacity of a musical performance to speak to people on its own ineffable terms.

Why we come to see a band

Today Bernard Zuel reviews Air's Sydney concert, making a couple of observations about concert-going in the process. First, he asks why he was there in terms that would find sympathy with more than few classical music lovers of the audiophile bent:

"I was wondering what I was gaining from hearing Air live rather than playing the pristine recordings at home, or in my car or through good-quality headsets."

Some of that was to do with problems of amplification in the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall (which is a tricky enough venue without amplification) and Zuel has a point to make about the lure of the iconic over care for the experience of the audience.

But then he gets to the interesting part:

"It may be that for me Air has always been music to accompany living, and this time, whether it was La Femme D'Argent's Sunday morning breakfast mood, Electronic Performers' night time walk through wet streets, Highschool Lover's quiet book at the beach holiday, or Mer Du Japon's winding back streets driving, I felt I was not quite doing but observing, just outside the music rather than inside it."  [bolding mine]

Which makes me wonder, how many of the so-called culturally aware non-attenders might feel the same way about orchestral and other classical concerts?  If you know classical music from radio and recordings, and if you view this music as an intimate part of the soundtrack to your life rather than something for that apparently passive act: active listening, then that's just another reason why a formal concert performance might not be immediately appealing. (And mind you, when Zuel talks about "music to accompany living" I don't think it's mere background distraction he has in mind.) If you like the music enough to want to be "inside it" then a concert hall may have little allure.

"Doing" listening, really getting inside music, isn't the easiest thing in the world; do the conventions (silence, stillness, dim light, "rules" about applause and so on) make listening more difficult, keeping us on the outside, even as they attempt to provide the perfect context for it?

Zuel's experience at AIR ended happily:

"It built from a measured pulse to something vibrant and propulsive, the surprisingly low-key visuals finally taking an active role, the sensuality edging into earthiness, the room losing its confines, and bodies losing their strictures. Ah, yes, this is why we come to see a band."

When an orchestral performance reaches the point that we can forget about the acoustic, forget about the sleeping dentist and the angry aesthete, forget about the rules and get inside the music – that's when we know why we've come to see a "band".

Y is for…

Decorated initial adapted from the Speedball Text Book by Ross F. George, 16th edition (1952).

…Anyone who can learn to write can learn to letter, for no unusual talent is needed. Students who invest sufficient time to master the fundamentals as presented in this manual will enjoy richer returns on their investment than can be derived from any similar investment in the allied arts.

And today Y is for yikes!

T is for taps

And Tolkien's Letters from Father Christmas.

Everyone knows The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, and plenty know about The Silmarillion and the other books, even if they haven't actually read them. Then there is a little-known collection of letters that Tolkien wrote to his children during the 1920s and 30s, now held in Oxford's Bodleian Library. The letters come from Father Christmas, and in the 1995 edition that I own these are reproduced and mounted in the book with facsimiles of the envelopes.

Father Christmas's handwriting has an ornate but shaky character that must have taken ages to write (presumably Tolkien's attempt to disguise his own hand); the illustrations are beautifully assured. Occasionally the letters are written by others, such as Ilbereth the Elf on the occasion that Father Christmas was too angry and upset to write himself – the North Polar Bear had fallen asleep in the bath with both taps running and his hind paw on the overflow. This wasn't at all unexpected, it seems that the NPB was always doing something silly, like the time in 1926 when he was responsible for "the biggest bang in the world" by turning on another "tap", the one that released all the Northern Lights  for two years in one go.

In his final letter, Father Christmas writes:

Dear children,

Now I shall have to say goodbye, more or less. I shall not forget you. We always keep the names of our old friends, and their letters; and later on we hope to come back when they are grown up and have houses of their own, and children…

Your loving Father Christmas

How I wish I'd kept my correspondence with Santa Claus.

R is for reading

“It is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is ‘soporific’. I have never felt sleepy after eating lettuces; but then I am not a rabbit.”
The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies

Dear Beatrix,

Thank you for teaching me to read; thank you for not being afraid to throw sesquipedalian words at very young readers. And thank you for demonstrating how a writer can gracefully introduce unfamiliar words or concepts and use context rather than didactic explanations to give them meaning.

JK Rowling seems to have understood your model; Mr Lemony Snicket most irritatingly does not, despite attempting to conceal his clumsy device in the persons of various equally irritating adult characters. ('"Irritating" means causing annoyance and giving displeasure,' writes Thomasina, coughing into her handkerchief. 'We know!' choruses a multitude of readers.)

Letters are things, not pictures of things

“The shapes of letters do not derive their beauty from any sensual or sentimental reminiscences. No one can say that the O’s roundness appeals to us only because it is like that of an apple or of a girl’s breast or of the full moon. Letters are things, not pictures of things.”
Eric Gill
Creator of Gill Sans and the London Transport typeface.