Some people will hate this one. It's something the distinguished rock and blues critic Robert Palmer said in a film called Bluesland (I found the quote in a book by Dave Marsh, The Beatles' Second Album):My feeling is that if you want to listen to something primitive, you should listen to Mozart. Because if you hear Mozart, there's almost no rhythmic variation in it, it's 1-2-3-4 forever. No cross-rhythms or polyrhythms to speak of. The way that music's interpreted, all of the tonal qualities of the instruments tend to be very clean and … [Read more...]

I've talked many times here about performance practice in the past -- how musicians used to change the music they played, and how they often improvised their changes. We know that, of course, and the standard word for what they used to do is "ornamentation." What we don't often hear, though, is how extensive those changes used to be. So here's a striking example. It's a passage from the Almamiva-Figaro duet in the first act of The Barber of Seville, as sung by Manuel Garcia, the tenor who created the role of Count Almaviva. It was published … [Read more...]

I hope one thing's clear -- that when I said Christa Faust's noir thriller The Money Shot would make a good opera, I wasn't just trying to be provocative, or to break any barriers. I didn't say, "OK, I'm going to go out and find an opera subject that could turn opera upside down." Instead, I was naive, as I almost always am. I read the book, loved it to death, and thought, with no ideological spin at all, that I'd love to make an opera out of it. In the same breath, of course -- because I think about these things so much -- I stopped being … [Read more...]

In the spirit of my "Disconnected in the past" post, here's an opera I'd like to write. It would be based on a hardboiled thriller I've just read, The Money Shot, a piece of noir perfection by Christa Faust. This is the story of a former porn star, who now works as an agent for women in the sex industry and gets caught in the ripples from a truly ghastly business, run by people who import women from Eastern Europe and turn them into sex slaves. These people try to kill our heroine, whose (stage) name is Angel Dare, and whom we first meet left … [Read more...]

I'm grateful to everyone who joined in our recent discussion, about ways that classical music isn't connected to our present world. And that includes people who disagree with me, who are always welcome here, and who often teach me a lot. Soon enough I'll post my own revised list of ways in which classical music doesn't connect. But first, here's a disconnect from the past! I recently read a novel by Balzac, called Ferragus, which is dedicated to Berlioz. (It's part of a trilogy, and the second installment, The Duchesse De Lange, is dedicated to … [Read more...]

"Whether through discussion circles, on-line forums, or post-event coffee hours, the larger idea for arts organizations is that their job is to build community around content, rather than just generating content." -- from my fellow-blogger Andrew Taylor's post, "Enabling and rewarding your critics."   … [Read more...]

I'm sure we've all read about this -- the YouTube initiative, which big-time orchestras have joined, to allow musicians anywhere to audition for orchestra projects online. ArtsJournal linked to the New York Times story, though you'll forgive me if I think my wife's piece in the Washington Post was more incisive. Now, I think this is a good thing, maybe a wonderful thing. But someone highly placed in the biz gave me a critique this morning -- the project didn't do anything to help orchestras or other classical music institutions develop an … [Read more...]

I'm making a list -- and checking it twice -- of all the ways in which classical music doesn't connect to our larger culture. This'll eventually be a detailed blog post. I'd love comments. Can anyone add to the list?1. Most of the music at classical concerts comes from the past. So we're rarely engaged with contemporary life. (Is this one reason the people who go to these concerts like them?)2. Formal dress looks archaic, and out of touch.3. The musicians don't talk to the audience. In our culture today, people expect musicians to talk.4. … [Read more...]

Here's a comment from Eric Lin, a college student, to my "Why I'm Here" post. I'm giving it a post of its own, because I think it's important:There is some overlap between the theater folks and the classical music folks at the school I currently attend, and I happen to have worked and know people in both circles. This season, student dramatic productions include works by Edward Albee, Arthur Miller, Sondheim, a Mac Wellman play from the mid-1990s, and The Front Page, a comedy from the 1920s. This is not including the bi-annual productions of … [Read more...]

More from the current Rolling Stone, featuring their list of the 100 greatest rock singers. This is from Jonathan Lethem's introductory piece, an overview of rock singing:...what defines great singing in the rock-and-soul era: that some underlying tension exists in the space between singer and song. A bridge is being built across a void, and it's a bridge we're never sure the singer's going to manage to cross. The gulf may reside between vocal texture and the actual meaning of the words, or between the singer and band, musical genre, style of … [Read more...]

I'm willing to smile at PR exaggerations. But what about this one, from a Detroit Symphony press release?Hundreds of music artists across every genre - R&B, rock, pop, jazz, blues, techno and classical - have called Motown home and now, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) welcomes another music superstar - Leonard Slatkin - to its ranks as the DSO's 12th Music Director. Is this plausible? Does Leonard Slatkin rank with Aretha Franklin, Motown Records, the Supremes, and Marvin Gaye? And if not, does the DSO look silly for implying that … [Read more...]

...while I work on a larger post about what classical music would look like if it really did connect with the world around us. Bono on Bob Dylan, from the current issue of Rolling Stone:When Sam Cooke played Dylan for the young Bobby Womack, Womack said he didn't understand it. Cooke explained that from now on, it's not going to be about how pretty the voice is. It's going to be about believing that the voice is telling the truth.I read this today to my Juilliard class on music criticism. My question to them (and to everyone in my blog … [Read more...]

I want to thank everyone, and really warmly, for all the responses to my query earlier, and for all the comments you post here every day. You encourage me, teach me, tell me things I didn't know, make me think more deeply, and just generally make me glad to be blogging. This isn't just my blog, i've come to think. It's in some way all of ours, mine and yours together. We're all engaged in a grand joint effort, to rethink classical music, and to change it and make it better.But I also want to say that not all the queries spoke exactly to what … [Read more...]

Sunday night at Le Poisson Rouge, the new NY club where lots of good music happens. Among much else, it's the new home of the Wordless Music series, no surprise, since Ronen Givony, who founded Wordless, books classical music at Le Poisson Rouge. I'm there Sunday to hear my friend Bruce Brubaker, along with Elissa Cassini, Susan Babini, and Ben Fingland, play Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time. Opening the show is Goldmund, who plays ambient music on piano, with electronics, and closing is Sylvain Cheveau, with more ambient music, mostly … [Read more...]

We hear a lot these days about niche markets, and often enough -- as happened just a few days ago in a comment to one of my posts -- someone talks about classical music as a niche market, and therefore likely to thrive in the emerging niche culture.But I don't think that's right. Oh, it's a hopeful idea, with (if it were true) an encouraging payoff. Classical music wouldn't have to change, and it wouldn't matter if we never reach a new audience. Our own niche audience would be all that we'd need.Think about that, though. A niche market is, more … [Read more...]