"Handel operas are boring," said someone I know. And I agree -- or rather current productions generally are, despite the fad for Handel operas, despite how well some singers sing them, and despite all the clever ideas that directors have. They're boring because Handel operas aren't any kind of drama we readily understand. Mostly they're strings of arias, each in the same undramatic form, A-B-A, the point being, first, to express two contrasting affects (Baroque Music 101), and, second, to give the singer a chance to put on a show. Contrasting … [Read more...]

A while ago, driving into New York, I listened to the start of the broadcast of the opening concert of Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart festival. I heard one complete piece, the overture to Mozart's opera La clemenza di Tito, along with commentary from Margaret Juntwait and Fred Child, top radio personalities from, respectively, WNYC (New York's public radio station) and NPR's Performance Today. And the commentary made me itch. Juntwait and Child sound like smart, humane people, and when they started praising Mostly Mozart's new music director, … [Read more...]

I'd never heard this guy, who entrances audiences at Lincoln Center with programs called "What Makes It Great?" in which he explains classical masterworks. He's also got some CDs of his explanations. And he pretty much entranced me, explaining Mozart's Jupiter Symphony with the Mostly Mozart Orchestra. He really has a knack for getting under the hood of a piece, and getting everybody -- even people new to classical music -- hearing fabulous details of how the piece works. I learned a lot. But at the same time, there's something very retro … [Read more...]

Rob Kapilow finished his presentation with a Q & A, involving both him and some of the musicians. One question was about the future of classical music -- the person asking was afraid we might not have any future. Kapilow and the musicians answered very seriously. One of the musicians said we needed to restore music education in our schools, and the audience applauded. From the warmth of the applause, it's easy to see that the classical music audience is worried that classical music might disappear, and that restoring music education is a … [Read more...]

A little clarification. One way to define the artistic limits of 19th century Italian opera is by the way works were cast. New operas were commissioned on a commercial basis. An impresario would rent a city's opera house, recruit singers, and find composers to write operas for the singers to sing. The singers fell into established types -- a prima donna, a primo tenore, a baritone, maybe a buffo or serious bass, and a few comprimarios, singers of small roles, who clearly weren't very good. These comprimarios, and their apparent lack of any … [Read more...]

Here's a scary thought I've been nursing for a few months. Has classical music always been well-bred? More well-bred than other arts, I mean. I'm afraid this might be true. I developed this fear after last season's New York Philharmonic performance of Haydn's Creation, which I blogged about, asking what Haydn's treatment of his biblical text could mean to us today. And then it struck me. Why, when we deal with old classical music, are we so often dealing with such lofty subjects? Where, in the 18th century, was the musical equivalent of … [Read more...]

I didn't hear Elvis Costello's orchestral piece at the Lincoln Center Festival, but I don't think I had to. I did hear the three-track sampler Deutsche Grammophon sent out, and it confirms everything I read in the reviews of the complete work -- the music is notably unoriginal. We can all be glad, I guess, that Costello seems to be a competent orchestral composer, but on second thought, maybe I'm not happy about that. If he hadn't been able to write this score, maybe he wouldn't have written it, and then we (and he, too, if he's honest with … [Read more...]

Very interesting -- and, I thought, very melancholy -- piece by Stephen Hartke on the Pulitzer prizes, linked here yesterday. Or maybe it's not the piece itself that's melancholy, but me, as a result of reading it. Hartke's subject, of course, was the recent change in the Pulitzer music guidelines. No longer, said the Pulitzer board, will only classical pieces be eligible. According to the new rules, jazz, musicals, and even movie scores -- maybe even pop albums -- can be nominated. And that, says Hartke, is a bad idea. Nor is he alone in … [Read more...]

Jeffrey A. Dvorkin, the NPR ombudsman, says (in a piece linked here) that he finds many of NPR's music reviews "incomprehensible to some listeners, and I confess, to me." And then he gives some examples, one of which, from a review of Wilco, is this: These extended explorations and others, like the five minutes of abrasive dental-drill feedback drone near the end of the disc, give Wilco's music an entirely new dimension. The guitar isn't here to make things pretty. Tweedy uses savage, wild lunges to punctuate the verses and sometimes to … [Read more...]

Never, in all my musical life, have I talked about anything as much as I've talked about the Concert Companion. And not because I start the conversations. At the ASOL conference at Pittsburgh, people wanted to talk about it with me. And the press does, too. I've never done so many interviews about anything before. Obviously, there's lots of interest. But one interviewer, a very smart and serious music critic, said something interesting. He said the Concert Companion is "controversial." I'd never thought of it that way. I know there's some … [Read more...]

Some thoughts on the news from Seattle, about that city having the highest concentration of arts-related business. That, the story suggested, had something to do with Seattle being a smart place, and might say something about the quality of Seattle's art. Well, Seattle has one of the absolutely top opera companies in America, a really high-quality operation, and one of the worst music directors of any major orchestra. The larger issue here, though, has nothing to do with the intelligence of any city, or the concentration of arts anywhere. I … [Read more...]

I've enjoyed the attacks Susan Elliott of Musical America has made on The New York Times, for its coverage (and critical remarks about) the New York Philharmonic's recent conductor excitement. We need debate, for God's sake. Music critics -- excuse me, classical music critics -- are far too polite. But I don't quite get why Susan says the Times is "slanted." The critics there don't like Lorin Maazel, the Philharmonic's music director. Susan does like him. But that doesn't make the Times critics "slanted," no matter how often they repeat their … [Read more...]

The Times doesn't report these stories very well. That's quite apart from the Times critics' opinions, which are their own business. I'm talking about the Times's reporting, their purely journalistic coverage, which isn't written by people who know much about the orchestra business. When Ralph Blumenthal used to cover orchestra matters a couple of years ago, he'd get the names of major orchestras wrong, writing (for instance) "Cleveland Symphony" instead of "Cleveland Orchestra," a telltale sign that he wasn't in his comfort zone. Robin … [Read more...]

As long as I'm talking about the press, I might as well say something about how music critics write about music directors. Or, more specifically, the way they write about how music directors are chosen. Often, critics suggest their own choices for these positions, reasoning, as far as I can tell, something like this: "I like the way X conducts. And if one concert by X is good, a whole season would be even better. I also like the kind of repertoire X conducts, and would like to see my local orchestra do more of that repertoire. So they ought to … [Read more...]

Subscribers to Musical America had a delightful surprise this morning -- editor Susan Elliott went out and bashed The New York Times. She was reacting to the Times's coverage (linked here) of the New York Philharmonic announcement, about Maazel's contract being extended, Muti coming in regularly to guest-conduct, with still more regular guest-conducting slots for David Robertson and Alan Gilbert. Susan's position was simple enough, starting with her headline: "New York Times Coverage Slanted?" (You have to subscribe to Musical America to read … [Read more...]