Tuesday, January 25, 2011
"To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory"
Percy Bysshe Shelley: Prometheus Unbound
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory"
Percy Bysshe Shelley: Prometheus Unbound
Steve Guttenberg: No Pants
If this is part of his comeback campaign.....it's actually not so bad as far as getting attention.
Schwarzkopf does Bist Du Bei Mir
In rehearsal the tempo has just gotten faster and faster since I first arranged it for VoW well over a year ago. Not everybody has Elizabeth Schwarzkopf's breath control, and it's musicologically correct to repeat both the A and B sections. But the inspiration behind it still sounds as beautiful as the time I first heard it as a college senior. It's the only recording of this piece I've ever heard that made it sound truly beautiful. In everybody else's hands, this piece sounds trite and not particularly memorable. But with Schwarzkopf and Moore, it's pure magic.
From the King of Queens
(Doug trying to coach football)
Doug: I'm a great coach and I keep things loose and fun. (calls on kid with hand up) Yes?
Kid: You're fat.
.....not a great show, but it's always on after Raymond. Even in syndication.
Doug: I'm a great coach and I keep things loose and fun. (calls on kid with hand up) Yes?
Kid: You're fat.
.....not a great show, but it's always on after Raymond. Even in syndication.
Quote of the Day
Dad: I just thought of a great name for a whorehouse in Vegas. The Bang of America!
.....thanks dad.
.....thanks dad.
"Of all the purposes of education, I think the most useful is this: It prepares you to keep yourself entertained."
- Roger EBERT
- Roger EBERT
All Good Music is Chamber Music
or "What would Janey and Ken do?"
After dinner with some family friends and an old elementary school friend, I turned on the radio and out came the Schubert Quintet, probably my favorite chamber work in the world (everybody else's too). I didn't come to singing until much later in my life, but I grew up playing chamber music with the same kids from the time I was six until the time I was sixteen. I've lost touch with everyone from that group, and I have no idea if any of them are still musicians. But it was in Janey and Ken's Instruction Room that I learned most of whatever little I know about music-making. Not just the fundamentals of making good music (though we were drilled on those plenty), but also how to take enjoyment in it. It's the atmosphere that I try to recapture in every rehearsal - an atmosphere that's profoundly serious but also profoundly silly. My violin teachers, (Janey and Ken, I <3 you wherever you are), ensured that everybody approached the music with total seriousness, yet nobody took themselves too seriously. We were all there to have a wonderful time, and there are legions of great stories that came out of those years. But the most important part of the fun was the enjoyment we got out of playing with one another. God knows, not every rehearsal was a picnic. It was a small room that contained enormous personalities. But it was a family atmosphere of people who lived together (it was our summer camp too, sleepaway for the girls), laughed together, fought together, and made music together. I don't think we were quite capable of realizing how fortunate we were to have been through all this with one another. We grew up together, and by the end of that period we had learned everything about one another's playing. From B----'s extremely luxuriant tone and vibrato to E----'s raw attacks, to L----'s technical impeccability to G------'s enormous sound, to T--'s meticulous attention to detail to my appetite for fast tempos and huge dynamic contrasts. I still remember each of them's exact sound when they played. We were taught not only how to express ourselves through our instruments, and not only how to play as an ensemble, but also how to adapt ourselves musically to one another. It was the soundest instruction a kid could possibly have in how to listen to other people. And it took me far too long to realize this, but to this day the lessons with Janey and the ensemble sessions with Ken may be the deepest musical experiences my life will ever have. There isn't a time I go into the rehearsal room where I don't think to myself "How would Janey and Ken do it?"
After dinner with some family friends and an old elementary school friend, I turned on the radio and out came the Schubert Quintet, probably my favorite chamber work in the world (everybody else's too). I didn't come to singing until much later in my life, but I grew up playing chamber music with the same kids from the time I was six until the time I was sixteen. I've lost touch with everyone from that group, and I have no idea if any of them are still musicians. But it was in Janey and Ken's Instruction Room that I learned most of whatever little I know about music-making. Not just the fundamentals of making good music (though we were drilled on those plenty), but also how to take enjoyment in it. It's the atmosphere that I try to recapture in every rehearsal - an atmosphere that's profoundly serious but also profoundly silly. My violin teachers, (Janey and Ken, I <3 you wherever you are), ensured that everybody approached the music with total seriousness, yet nobody took themselves too seriously. We were all there to have a wonderful time, and there are legions of great stories that came out of those years. But the most important part of the fun was the enjoyment we got out of playing with one another. God knows, not every rehearsal was a picnic. It was a small room that contained enormous personalities. But it was a family atmosphere of people who lived together (it was our summer camp too, sleepaway for the girls), laughed together, fought together, and made music together. I don't think we were quite capable of realizing how fortunate we were to have been through all this with one another. We grew up together, and by the end of that period we had learned everything about one another's playing. From B----'s extremely luxuriant tone and vibrato to E----'s raw attacks, to L----'s technical impeccability to G------'s enormous sound, to T--'s meticulous attention to detail to my appetite for fast tempos and huge dynamic contrasts. I still remember each of them's exact sound when they played. We were taught not only how to express ourselves through our instruments, and not only how to play as an ensemble, but also how to adapt ourselves musically to one another. It was the soundest instruction a kid could possibly have in how to listen to other people. And it took me far too long to realize this, but to this day the lessons with Janey and the ensemble sessions with Ken may be the deepest musical experiences my life will ever have. There isn't a time I go into the rehearsal room where I don't think to myself "How would Janey and Ken do it?"
(Water Night. From back when he was worth liking.)
Dearest Eric Whitacre,
The more successful you get, the more your music seems lame. When you were the new kid on the block seven or eight years ago, those eleven chords sounded cool. I guess they were the next evolutionary step from Morton Lauridsen's nine chords. But Lauridsen got old quickly when people realized that he had only one idea, now it seems that you're headed for the same dustbin. Now that you're Mister Big Shot, you're looking more and more like just another Lauridsen/Rutter hack whose music is way too enjoyable for the kind of singer directors dread working with to be any fun. Water Night is still a beautiful piece: elegant, erotic and full of dread. But success let all those beautiful sounds coagulate into diabetic shock. Every time I hear another piece by you, I think you need to be punched in the face that much more badly.
I really know how to market myself.
Love,
Evan
(I Thank You God, For This Most Amazing Day. I don't doubt some people would like this. They're just people whose company would make me sad.)
Mick on Keith
It is said of me that I act above the rest of the band and prefer the company of society swells. Would you rather have had a conversation with Warren Beatty, Andy Warhol, and Ahmet Ertegun … or Keith, his drug mule Tony, and the other surly nonverbal members of his merry junkie entourage? Keith actually seems not to understand why I would want my dressing room as far away as possible from that of someone who travels with a loaded gun. And for heaven's sake. No sooner did Keith kick heroin than Charlie took it up. In the book Keith blames me for not touring during the 1980s. I was quoted, unfortunately, saying words to the effect of "the Rolling Stones are a millstone around my neck." This hurt Keith's feelings. He thinks it was a canard flung from a fleeting position of advantage in my solo career, the failing of which he delights in. He's not appreciating the cause and effect. Can you imagine going on tour with an alcoholic, a junkie, and a crackhead? Millstone wasn't even the word. I spent much of the 1980s looking for a new career, and it didn't work. If I had it to do over again I would only try harder.
Profoundly, hilariously BITCHY.
I was very surprised when I found out at about ten years of age that Israelis were no good at skiing. I know what you're thinking, how can a desert country have any skiers? But I acquired this false notion because I thought that Slalom Skiing was in fact spelled Shalom Skiing. It made sense that my Israel-born friend and I would play Shalom Skiing on an Apple IIGS in the computer room of a Jewish Day School.
I was a very smart kid.
I was a very smart kid.
Quote of the Day:
Dad: (Watching Wheel of Fortune at the dinner table) Y'know your grandmother went to school with Vanna White.
Screwing with Brahms
(needs a faster tempo than Shaw's)
High time we started adding more classical to the rep again. I adore this piece, one of my two favorite Brahms choral works (the other one below). B-flat major Brahms is special: it's the key Brahms most often goes to when he wants the music to glow. It's the key of the Handel Variations, Haydn Variations, Second Piano Concerto, 'Denn Alles Fleisch' from the German Requiem, the first Sextet and the Third String Quartet.
...But it's written for men and too low for a mixed chorus. I'm not sure Brahms will forgive me for transposing it to E-Flat Major. And frankly, I'm not sure I care.
"Es tönt ein voller Harfenklang" for women only. This one can never be transposed.
Quote of the Day:
(Nameless to protect the innocent): Apparently the people who approve of masturbation in Delaware are a Silent Majority.
Morty's (Krupin's) is closed!!!!!!
Far more stunned by THIS than the Republican victory. Heartbreaking. It is now impossible to get a decent pastrami sandwich in DC after Loeb's closes at 4:30 in the afternoon.
It's not a great day to be a Democrat. But no matter what hardliner Progressives say, it was a magnificent two years. I'm not a huge Ezra Klein fan, but I completely agree with THIS. Some really liberal blogs excepted, when's the last time you heard someone complain about government doing nothing?
Note to People Who Plan on Not Voting
If the reason you haven't voted is because you're worried about getting accosted by local fanatics at the gate, there's a simple solution. Every polling place is required by law to have an entrance near the back for the disabled and elderly. If you think getting chatted up by the uncle of some local guy you've never heard of is really that bad, you can enter through the handicapped entrance and nobody will know the difference. This way you can both do your part to uphold democracy, and still get a great rush out of cheating the system.
Your friendly neighborhood good citizen,
Evan
Your friendly neighborhood good citizen,
Evan
Apologies
Earlier today I wrote a post about tommorow's election that upon rereading it felt much more like a screed against Republicans than any rational comment. Sincere apologies to anybody who might have read it and been offended. In a previous life I was a failed political blogger, and one of the reasons I stopped regularly writing about politics was because a subject so abstract is all too easy to allow raw emotion to substitute for real analysis. Politics, like music or any other subject worth studying, is only 1% feeling. The rest is nothing but detailed analysis, and the deeper you burrow into the subject, the more mature your feelings become.
TOP 100 RALLY SIGNS
Der Fersko told me last night about a sign that said "Join or Die...AHHHH SNAKES!"
...Apparently Revolutionary War jokes aren't good enough to crack the top 100.
Der Fersko told me last night about a sign that said "Join or Die...AHHHH SNAKES!"
...Apparently Revolutionary War jokes aren't good enough to crack the top 100.
The Rally
From SULLIVAN
Now I'm sorry I couldn't go yesterday.
One of these days I'll take the time to write a lot more about Stewart/Colbert. Any way you look at it, it might be the most important American phenomenon of the last decade. Stewart is as integral to how we grew up as Dylan was to our parents and W H Auden was to our grandparents. It doesn't mean everything he does is wonderful (though few can deny the majority certainly is), but it does mean that he articulates something within most people we know: an attitude, a longing, even an archetype, that is bigger than his message, and maybe even a little antithetical to it.
In the meantime, I wanna watch some random crap on youtube before the Ambien kicks in. I know Stewart would approve.
If the ghost of Richard Nixon will allow me, Stewart and Colbert have sensed a silent plurality, alienated by both parties, still hoping for Obama's success, and yet unwilling to worship any politician or even take themselves too seriously for fear of falling into the same foul-smelling bullshit that already covers far too much of our political culture.
Now I'm sorry I couldn't go yesterday.
One of these days I'll take the time to write a lot more about Stewart/Colbert. Any way you look at it, it might be the most important American phenomenon of the last decade. Stewart is as integral to how we grew up as Dylan was to our parents and W H Auden was to our grandparents. It doesn't mean everything he does is wonderful (though few can deny the majority certainly is), but it does mean that he articulates something within most people we know: an attitude, a longing, even an archetype, that is bigger than his message, and maybe even a little antithetical to it.
In the meantime, I wanna watch some random crap on youtube before the Ambien kicks in. I know Stewart would approve.
Quote of the Night:
Der Fersko: Obama and Biden are like the second coming of Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon.
The Moldau on Mandolins
Very muddled at times, and weirdly rewritten. But the big tunes work strangely well, don't they? Here's the real thing below for comparison.
I'll never tire of this piece.
Judd Apatow's AJWS Movie
American Jewish World Service.
"Jews are givers. They see people in need. They may be pushy about it, but they're gonna help you. They may be annoying as they do it, but they will do it....Y'know it's like somebody saving you from a fire and the whole time they're saying 'You had to wear that sweater? I gave you a red sweater, you're wearing a blue sweater?'"
- Sarah Silverman
...and once again I'm pretty sure Patrick Stewart is the world's funniest living classically trained actor.
....except maybe Peter O'Toole. And where's he?
....Dead?......
The Old Castle
My favorite movement from Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. A truly incredible find for four reasons:
1. This arrangement for recorders is really cool.
2. It comes ready-made in an arrangement that works reasonably well for singers to teach them how to sing complex, but not too complex, harmonies.
3. I like the idea of doing something from Pictures at an Exhibition for chorus. Every other kind of group has done it.
4. Did I mention it's really cool?
1. This arrangement for recorders is really cool.
2. It comes ready-made in an arrangement that works reasonably well for singers to teach them how to sing complex, but not too complex, harmonies.
3. I like the idea of doing something from Pictures at an Exhibition for chorus. Every other kind of group has done it.
4. Did I mention it's really cool?
Working on a Halloween Medley for VoW. I friggin' hate medleys as much as I friggin' hate most Halloween music (all five songs of it), but this one will be cool: Tom Lehrer, Warren Zevon, Cole Porter, Creedence, Kurt Weill, AC/DC, Michael Jackson. All macabre, all simplified in the extreme to do in one rehearsal, none more than a minute-and-fifteen long (one or two potentially a minute less than that), and all filling me with at least a modicum of excitement to get it done.
If any chorister reads this it won't be a surprise....Ah well, they'd probably rather know what they're getting anyway.
Noel Coward, Stephen Sondheim, The Eagles and another Tom Lehrer song didn't make the cut. Sad.
If any chorister reads this it won't be a surprise....Ah well, they'd probably rather know what they're getting anyway.
Noel Coward, Stephen Sondheim, The Eagles and another Tom Lehrer song didn't make the cut. Sad.
me: sounds good
i'm split between two parties saturday night
not sure what i can do, as there are three other friends in town this weekend as well
The Koosh: TO THE CLONING MACHINE!
...This is not a way to inform people that I'm allowing myself some semblance of a social life again....ok, maybe just a little...
i'm split between two parties saturday night
not sure what i can do, as there are three other friends in town this weekend as well
The Koosh: TO THE CLONING MACHINE!
...This is not a way to inform people that I'm allowing myself some semblance of a social life again....ok, maybe just a little...
I can't bare to let people think that the post below is the real impression they should have of the Wolf's Glen Scene from Weber's Der Freischutz. So here's the second half of it in a great performance with the vocal score tacked onto the video so you can read along with the music, text and stage directions. This is probably better than any staging. Like so much theater out of High Romanticism, it probably works best in your imagination anyway. I don't think anybody (except maybe Wagner) would claim Der Freischutz as one of the great masterpieces of civilization, but Holy Crap it's cool as hell. It's probably best to think of this as comic book fiction or pulp opera for 19th century Germany.
Alright, this is just STUPID. If I can get away with seeing people coming into town without going to the rally, I'm not going anymore.
h/t Der Fersko
h/t Der Fersko
Danse Macabre
Time to start getting ready for a Very Special Halloween Rehearsal.
What would be really nice would be to write some lyrics to this piece by Saint-Saens, which 150 years later is still the best Halloween piece ever (and if you abridge it would take less rehearsal to throw together than Thriller). Saint-Saens was a royal bore when he was trying to be serious, but when he was in a lighter mood he was one of the most entertaining composers in history (think Carnival of the Animals). But much as I'd love to, writing lyrics to this would be a colossal waste of time:). Still, nice movie and amazing sound for an orchestral recording from 1924 (from the Philadelphia Orchestra and Leopold Stokowski).
What would be really nice would be to write some lyrics to this piece by Saint-Saens, which 150 years later is still the best Halloween piece ever (and if you abridge it would take less rehearsal to throw together than Thriller). Saint-Saens was a royal bore when he was trying to be serious, but when he was in a lighter mood he was one of the most entertaining composers in history (think Carnival of the Animals). But much as I'd love to, writing lyrics to this would be a colossal waste of time:). Still, nice movie and amazing sound for an orchestral recording from 1924 (from the Philadelphia Orchestra and Leopold Stokowski).
Confession
....This is not easy to make.....
I'm getting tired of Beethoven's 9th. Not revolted, just tired. Tired of the metaphysical bull that it always picks up, tired of the slow tempos at which it's performed, tired of the awful German poetry the choral movement sets, tired of the endless performances to the exclusion of every other work, tired of enormous orchestras treating it like Richard Strauss, tired of people acclaiming it as the greatest piece of music in history without hearing what else there is. In the right performance it can still be amazing, but how often do we get that?
Here's one better than most. The London Classical Players under Roger Norrington. Traditionalists still howl with outrage at this recording, but nobody did a better job at stripping the varnish off. Finally, here's a Beethoven people can relate to. This is not a Beethoven who is interested in transcendence, or synthesis, or the noumenal world. This is a Beethoven that's just interested in following the metronome mark, and he's really pissed off.
I'm pretty sure 15-year-old Evan just disowned me.
I'm getting tired of Beethoven's 9th. Not revolted, just tired. Tired of the metaphysical bull that it always picks up, tired of the slow tempos at which it's performed, tired of the awful German poetry the choral movement sets, tired of the endless performances to the exclusion of every other work, tired of enormous orchestras treating it like Richard Strauss, tired of people acclaiming it as the greatest piece of music in history without hearing what else there is. In the right performance it can still be amazing, but how often do we get that?
Here's one better than most. The London Classical Players under Roger Norrington. Traditionalists still howl with outrage at this recording, but nobody did a better job at stripping the varnish off. Finally, here's a Beethoven people can relate to. This is not a Beethoven who is interested in transcendence, or synthesis, or the noumenal world. This is a Beethoven that's just interested in following the metronome mark, and he's really pissed off.
I'm pretty sure 15-year-old Evan just disowned me.
Why do Smart People Drink More?
People really wonder why THIS is?
OK....I'll explain it for all you idiots out there. Don't feel bad though. You're probably not that much dumber than me:).
It's a big universe out there. And who could have cause to doubt that there are entities in the Heavens whose average intelligence can be measured against ours the way Albert Einstein's could against a gnat's.
In the grand scheme of things, we're all idiots. The smarter of us may not yet be able to send a man outside the solar system or develop a self-generating source of power, but we can develop cleverer names for stupid people than they can for us. Therefore, the vices that we refuse to tolerate in relatively dumb people - like alcoholism, bad music and stupid hats - become vices which we develop means to tolerate within ourselves. Ergo, Coors Light becomes Veuve Clicquot, country music becomes alternative rock (sorry but it's true), and backwards baseball caps become porkpie hats. Same idiots, different shirt.
The world is now explained. Go to bed.
OK....I'll explain it for all you idiots out there. Don't feel bad though. You're probably not that much dumber than me:).
It's a big universe out there. And who could have cause to doubt that there are entities in the Heavens whose average intelligence can be measured against ours the way Albert Einstein's could against a gnat's.
In the grand scheme of things, we're all idiots. The smarter of us may not yet be able to send a man outside the solar system or develop a self-generating source of power, but we can develop cleverer names for stupid people than they can for us. Therefore, the vices that we refuse to tolerate in relatively dumb people - like alcoholism, bad music and stupid hats - become vices which we develop means to tolerate within ourselves. Ergo, Coors Light becomes Veuve Clicquot, country music becomes alternative rock (sorry but it's true), and backwards baseball caps become porkpie hats. Same idiots, different shirt.
The world is now explained. Go to bed.
Apparently the Duke sex thesis is inspiring COPYCATS. This could be the new 'change a lightbulb' joke.
h/t CM
h/t CM
Boris at the Bolshoi
For anybody who wants to understand what the big deal about Boris Godunov is....
This is from 1949 (not 1947 as said above), the late Stalin years and the Golden Age of Moscow's Bolshoi Opera under their much-venerated chief conductor (that is until Stalin literally banned him from the opera house in 1952), Nikolai Golovanov. The Boris is Alexander Prigorov, who was actually Golovanov's second choice to play Boris. His first was Mark Reizen, who was Jewish, and his preference for Reizen over Prigorov was the reason Stalin eventually banned him from the Bolshoi. I don't think we're quite capable of understanding what this opera, about nothing less than the eternal suffering of the Russian people, meant to those who lived through the World Wars and the Bolshevik purges. But we can still marvel at the intensity they generate.
Performances like this are why I love opera.
This is from 1949 (not 1947 as said above), the late Stalin years and the Golden Age of Moscow's Bolshoi Opera under their much-venerated chief conductor (that is until Stalin literally banned him from the opera house in 1952), Nikolai Golovanov. The Boris is Alexander Prigorov, who was actually Golovanov's second choice to play Boris. His first was Mark Reizen, who was Jewish, and his preference for Reizen over Prigorov was the reason Stalin eventually banned him from the Bolshoi. I don't think we're quite capable of understanding what this opera, about nothing less than the eternal suffering of the Russian people, meant to those who lived through the World Wars and the Bolshevik purges. But we can still marvel at the intensity they generate.
Performances like this are why I love opera.
The age of the walkman is OVER, and thank god for that.
Meanwhile, reading NORMAN LEBRECHT continues to be a favorite pasttime. Here's what may be my single favorite line in years from him:
"The social pleasure of sharing music was terminated when people clamped plugs in their ears and tuned into a selfish sound. Music in the Walkman era ceased to connect us one to another. It promoted autism and isolation, with consequences yet untold."
Does this mean there would be no Forrest Gump without the Bee Gees?
Meanwhile, reading NORMAN LEBRECHT continues to be a favorite pasttime. Here's what may be my single favorite line in years from him:
"The social pleasure of sharing music was terminated when people clamped plugs in their ears and tuned into a selfish sound. Music in the Walkman era ceased to connect us one to another. It promoted autism and isolation, with consequences yet untold."
Does this mean there would be no Forrest Gump without the Bee Gees?
Shakespeare Done With Original Pronunciation
h/t Der Miksic
For the moment, I have a hard time believing this is quite the real thing. This sounds to me purely like Shakespeare done by leprechauns. But well, who knows? When Shakespeare called Romeo & Juliet the 'two-hour's traffic of our stage,' I vaguely remember one scholar calculated that the lines would have to be spoken five-and-a-half times faster than are usually done in order to make it two hours long.
That being said, in music the authentic instruments movement just sounded like diluted modern performances until performers added research about tempos, ornamentation and acoustical space. The speech in this performance is about the usual tempo for speaking Shakespeare's verse, plodding. As always, the only authenticity that matters is great artistry. Midsummer, like all the Shakespeare comedies, can be lethal if the dialogue is played at anything but top speed. It has to quick if only to keep up with the speed of Shakespeare's comic timing. Listen to this audio recording of Peter O'Toole and his then-wife Sian Philips (later the unforgettable Empress Livia in I, Claudius) in the Taming of the Shrew. To me, this will always be a much more authentic way to do Shakespeare.
HERE is an example of the benefits of Historically Informed Performance in music.
WWE's Right To Vote
And while you're at it, stand up to discrimination against the National Association of Pickup Stick Fans (nobody cares, they vote Democrat)
Home
More or less the final draft:
Home
You hang up the phone, with a girlfriend boyfriend, mother father or son,
You think he's just a tool, or she's a harpy, and imagine fighting with a gun,
You were fighting over money, sex, distance and time, cuz the things you don't have they've got a ton,
So you wanna have some fun, and you think I'll just have one, and you realize that the fun, has just begun, then before you know it it's overdone, and your stomach feels like it's carrying a ton, so you lean on the john, then you go for a run, and your lungs feel a stun, and your head feels spun, and you think to yourself,
I miss home. I really miss home.
You move to the city, and you're full of ideals, and you think this'll be my day,
You wanna make a difference, and you know the world'll hear, all the things you have to say,
You've got a great idea, but they just don't see it, and they wish that you would just go away,
So you say that you'll obey, and pretend that it's okay, cuz to them you're just a lump of clay, and you know that to your boss it's all just play, so behind his back you jump into the fray, and your boss's boss gives him a spay, and the whole office tells you that there's hell to pay, and your boss tells you that you can't stay, so you quietly pack up and think nothing but Yay, cuz your friend has a job for you the very next day, but then she tells you that there's no pay, so you secretly pray, and you consider eating hay, and on your friend's couch you lay, till the month of may, and you think to yourself,
I miss home. I really miss home.
You're moving to the capital, your backs are packed, and they tell you how much you grew,
You take a look outside, you stand at the window, and you see it from a different point of view,
They give you a hug, and they think it's great, that you're doing all the things that they didn't do,
Then you get to a place where it's all new, and you find yourself a whole new crew, your personality changes to a different hue, and you find that guys (girls) are giving you a cue, and your're living alone so you're feeling blue, so you go to a club with the intention to woo, and the cute guy (girl) next door is in the queue, and he shares your taste for Mountain Dew, so in the bathroom you work up your nerve with brew, then you force yourself to stick to him (her) like glue, but (s)he worries being seen with you is strictly taboo, so she (you) get(s) really worried that you'll (he'll) take her (you) for a shrew, so you find the desperate drunk to go home with in lieu, and the next day you discover that you have the flu, and the doctor gives you a pill to chew, but you go home and you feel like poo, and hope that the drunk will get his (her) due, and the whole experience is something you rue, and you think to yourself:
I miss home. I really miss home.
You come back home, and they're excited to see you, and your happy to be with your kin,
You give them a hug, and they give you a kiss, and they tell you that you look really thin,
Then your grandmother calls, they disappear for a minute, and look sallow when they come back in,
And much to your chagrin, they ask where you've been, and warn beware of sin, and you ask why do they begin, they say you should have thicker skin, cuz you should be more like your twin, so you reach for the gin, and grow an idiot grin, and take a car for a spin, so you take it on the chin, and get a bruise on your shin, and you've wrecked the tail fin, cuz you ran into a bin, and you think to yourself:
Where is home?
Home
You hang up the phone, with a girlfriend boyfriend, mother father or son,
You think he's just a tool, or she's a harpy, and imagine fighting with a gun,
You were fighting over money, sex, distance and time, cuz the things you don't have they've got a ton,
So you wanna have some fun, and you think I'll just have one, and you realize that the fun, has just begun, then before you know it it's overdone, and your stomach feels like it's carrying a ton, so you lean on the john, then you go for a run, and your lungs feel a stun, and your head feels spun, and you think to yourself,
I miss home. I really miss home.
You move to the city, and you're full of ideals, and you think this'll be my day,
You wanna make a difference, and you know the world'll hear, all the things you have to say,
You've got a great idea, but they just don't see it, and they wish that you would just go away,
So you say that you'll obey, and pretend that it's okay, cuz to them you're just a lump of clay, and you know that to your boss it's all just play, so behind his back you jump into the fray, and your boss's boss gives him a spay, and the whole office tells you that there's hell to pay, and your boss tells you that you can't stay, so you quietly pack up and think nothing but Yay, cuz your friend has a job for you the very next day, but then she tells you that there's no pay, so you secretly pray, and you consider eating hay, and on your friend's couch you lay, till the month of may, and you think to yourself,
I miss home. I really miss home.
You're moving to the capital, your backs are packed, and they tell you how much you grew,
You take a look outside, you stand at the window, and you see it from a different point of view,
They give you a hug, and they think it's great, that you're doing all the things that they didn't do,
Then you get to a place where it's all new, and you find yourself a whole new crew, your personality changes to a different hue, and you find that guys (girls) are giving you a cue, and your're living alone so you're feeling blue, so you go to a club with the intention to woo, and the cute guy (girl) next door is in the queue, and he shares your taste for Mountain Dew, so in the bathroom you work up your nerve with brew, then you force yourself to stick to him (her) like glue, but (s)he worries being seen with you is strictly taboo, so she (you) get(s) really worried that you'll (he'll) take her (you) for a shrew, so you find the desperate drunk to go home with in lieu, and the next day you discover that you have the flu, and the doctor gives you a pill to chew, but you go home and you feel like poo, and hope that the drunk will get his (her) due, and the whole experience is something you rue, and you think to yourself:
I miss home. I really miss home.
You come back home, and they're excited to see you, and your happy to be with your kin,
You give them a hug, and they give you a kiss, and they tell you that you look really thin,
Then your grandmother calls, they disappear for a minute, and look sallow when they come back in,
And much to your chagrin, they ask where you've been, and warn beware of sin, and you ask why do they begin, they say you should have thicker skin, cuz you should be more like your twin, so you reach for the gin, and grow an idiot grin, and take a car for a spin, so you take it on the chin, and get a bruise on your shin, and you've wrecked the tail fin, cuz you ran into a bin, and you think to yourself:
Where is home?
Young Fogey Rant
Just returned from the Met's movie theater simulcast of Boris Godunov with my grandmother as part of her ongoing 90th birthday celebrations. A frightening, awesome, wonderful experience of a magnificent though deeply flawed work that left me with tears trickling down my beard even after my Bubbie and I fell asleep for forty-five minutes of it. But it was with sadness that I realized yet again that in a few years I may be one of the only people I know left who is desperate for more experiences like this one.
The theater was as packed as one would expect for a Rene Pape performance conducted by Valery Gergiev. But excepting me, there were two people in the theater without gray hair. What is it about my generation that they will pack themselves like sardines to see anything by artists like Andy Warhol, The Decemberists, or Wes Andersen, and yet leave the greatest stuff of previous eras completely untouched? Does it really not speak to them? Or have our parents just failed to show them what's great in it?
I believe in great art. And great art, from whatever era, doesn't explain itself. It takes repeated exposure, time and commitment. Not all of it is going to seem interesting on the first try, and some of it still won't interest you on the hundredth. But when it comes together, you simply feel more alive, and willing to sit through a hundred mediocre performances, books, exhibits, films just to get to one great one. Once you've been bitten by the bug, there's no going back.
There's no reason art can't be entertaining, but the best of art does something beyond entertainment. If it's great, it never averts its gaze from questions that are by definition unable to be answered, and it goes to places in people's psyches that they would rather not visit or even acknowledge. It can sometimes feel like eating your vegetables, but just as people need vegetables to survive, they need art too. I really do believe that. Even if people don't believe in God, people still starve for elements of their lives in which they can put greater effort. People need something that is more beautiful, more truthful, and more meaningful than their everyday worlds. Because if life is no more than bills to pay and treadmills to run, how do we know that we're living it? Sure, there are all sorts of great artists today from every walk of life, but are they appreciated for what they are? It's true that some people turn to the Beatles or Otis Redding (let alone Outkast and Bjork) for wisdom and consolation, but how many more in the last forty years have done so because they just liked the tunes or the beat?
It was not always like this, it's well within living memory that there was an enormous public in America of all ages for the great art of the past. And if the tastemakers in my generation (whoever they are) have decided that the past is not worth preserving, who am I to tell them that they're wrong? But why the allergy to anything earnest? Why the allergy to the past? Why the allergy to art that burns to communicate something deeper than 'why so serious?' You can't cast off the mantle of the past unless you know it well enough to give it a real critique. Otherwise you'll just end up making the same mistakes that previous generations did and your children will resent you for leaving them to pick up the pieces of life that you dropped. This is the story of England between the world wars, of Rococo France and of Late-Imperial Rome. In our time, this is the process that the Baby Boomers seemed to start, and who knows how far my generation can take it before our children/grandchildren can do little but resent us for not preparing them for whatever gathering storm lies in our wake? If you can't accept that parts of life are serious, then eventually it becomes just as hard to accept the parts of life that are silly. Pretty soon you'll just end up allergic to anything that makes you feel an emotion deeper than 'eh' and whatever else you can conjure out of your own naval-gazing. Not only will you turn a blind eye the suffering around you, but you'll also miss all sorts of opportunities to take pleasure too.
...and get off my lawn!
Finlandia Hymn
At some point we're absolutely doing this. Not necessarily in this translation or arrangement, but this is simply a beautiful version. Even the kids aren't terrible.
I never listen to Sibelius until the weather gets cold. Guess I'm compulsive like that..
Paavo Follows Ludwig
No doubt some grad student could write a thesis on why Paavo Jarvi's performance of Beethoven's Eroica Symphony with the German Chamber Philharmonic of Bremen is something unique in the hundreds of performances of this piece I've heard in my life, and thousands more of other Beethoven works. But in this, perhaps the single most crucial 15 minutes of music to everything that we now understand music is (this and Louis Armstrong's Hot Five?...another day for that). Instead, let me explain:
Prop 1: Deaf composer - cannot hear his music.
Prop 2: Deaf composer can read a clock.
Prop 3: Deaf composer is not moron.
Ergo: When metronome mark equals 60 to the dotted quarter deaf composer BLOODY WELL MEANT IT!
check out how Paavo Jarvi becomes the Edmund Hillary of Eroica climbing
...and yes, I've taken the ambien.
Lead Like A Great Conductor
This is a really fantastic video, and as pithy an explanation of mastering the process of conducting as I've ever come across. Don't let anyone fool you by telling you that conducting is easy. In a sense it is. It's one of the easiest things in the world to do badly. And even after you master it (which I by no means have ever come close to doing) there's no guarantee of great performances. You have an obligation to prepare as much as you can, but there will always be variables that no leader can control.
To be successful at it is like being successful at any other leadership position, only moreso. A conductor is like a boss who looks over your shoulder every minute of your workday and corrects your mistakes in front of all your co-workers. If misunderstandings are unavoidable in any line of work, how much more potential for them is there when you're in a rehearsal process? But like any other leadership job there are three basic ways to go about it: control everything, delegate everything, inspire everyone in a partnership. Even if the third one sounds like the most attractive option, the sad reality remains that people don't always achieve success through inspiring others, painfully hard as they may try to. Some circumstances just can't be helped, and classical musicians invariably rank near the bottom of any survey that asks about job satisfaction, and unfortunately few conductors are both beloved and successful. It's a depressing truth of large-ensemble music-making that orchestras and choruses are based on pre-20th century models of governing, endowing a leader with autocratic power and subjecting themselves to his (almost invariably his) whims. I've played and sung under enough bad and mean conductors that at the same time that I coveted this profession for nearly my whole life, the idea of becoming a conductor made me slightly queasy.
As Itay Talgam implies, the best conductor he shows here is Carlos Kleiber. Indeed, in some ways he's probably the greatest conductor of the twentieth century and should be a role model for anybody who wants to conduct - except in one way which Talgam neglects to mention. Kleiber was as masterful a conductor as Marlon Brando was an actor, or Orson Welles was a film director or Tolstoy was a writer. Superlatives mean very little, but listening to Kleiber conduct Beethoven or Wagner or Strauss can often feel as though you've never understood the music until you've heard him direct it. In the words of one critic, it's an experience like Homer returning to us to recite the Iliad.
But operating at such a high level takes its toll, and as a result Kleiber suffered from concert nerves so profoundly debilitating that he could only conduct a few concerts a year for the last thirty-five years of his life. He canceled more concerts than he conducted, and in the final six years of his life he didn't conduct at all. Like all the aforementioned examples, operating at such an exalted level proved impossible to maintain in a normal career trajectory. He could have had any major position in the world and asked for any salary. But he turned them all down, and rather than settle for an inferior product, he gave up trying when he got less than ideal circumstances. To this day, most music-lovers have never realized what they missed by not hearing the concerts he never gave. Who knows how many more people would have been inspired to love classical music if only he had conducted more?
(The storm movement. From his only ever public performance of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony.)
AMAZING.
(h/t Der Schneider, who's not the same person as Der Schreiber, though in the past people have occasionally wondered).
(h/t Der Schneider, who's not the same person as Der Schreiber, though in the past people have occasionally wondered).
Anyone who has ever read anything by Amos Oz knows that he's one of the greatest writers of our time (start with A Tale of Love and Darkness). He may have come from a prominent old family - his great-uncle Joseph Klausner was a very famous intellectual in his day and Chaim Weitzman's Heirut opponent for Israeli president - but his novels are by and large portraits of Israel's forgotten people. Like Chekhov and Faulkner before him, he's most interested in giving three-dimensional portrayals of people far worse off than he is and he's far more fascinated by the lives of people affected by the decisions of leaders than he is in those who make them.
And he's not just a great writer but also an important moral voice: a founding member of Peace Now and the first prominent Israeli to warn of what a disaster the settlements would be (with the sole exception of David Ben-Gurion). He's also no doctrinaire leftist, and he shows that you can still have principled opposition to many of the Israeli government's policies without playing into the hands of people who rather see the State of Israel disappear. So when he SAYS to believe that peace between Israelis and Palestinians is closer than we think, I believe him.
And he's not just a great writer but also an important moral voice: a founding member of Peace Now and the first prominent Israeli to warn of what a disaster the settlements would be (with the sole exception of David Ben-Gurion). He's also no doctrinaire leftist, and he shows that you can still have principled opposition to many of the Israeli government's policies without playing into the hands of people who rather see the State of Israel disappear. So when he SAYS to believe that peace between Israelis and Palestinians is closer than we think, I believe him.
For Benoit Mandelbrot (1925-2010)
My fractal geometry is rusty (.......), but without it or Mandelbrot's great love of music, we would have very little Gyorgy Ligeti. Here's Clocks and Clouds, which Ligeti definitively based on Mandelbrot's mathematics and one of the great scores of the 20th Century.
On The Backs of Others
(Final Draft to the Lyrics of the Opening Song of the Concert for DC....ok, maybe not the opening song)
On the Backs of Others
In every country of the world,
It's always boom and bust.
Except the cap'tal cities cuz,
They hold our bonds in trust.
In Them we Trust and Liberty
Because we have no choice,
And if we don't what good is it
Since they speak with our voice?
And with our gold they pave our roads
And give us daily bread.
But we who have no gold to spare
Must we put in our share for them to spread?
On the Backs of Others.
But if our share is in Detroit
And Cincinnati too,
How come we can't see where it goes,
Or how it comes to you?
Will it be taken to a place,
Where char'ty goes to die?
And if it does will we know then
That politicians lie?
Cuz if they don't then we excuse
Th'excesses of the job.
When people smile as they stab,
Remember they climbed up the angry mob.
On the Backs of Others.
They're just like you and me, no doubt
They cook ther'own Sauce Bearnaise,
And caviar and de Foie Gras,
Since duck's a food you braise.
And if they say they're not like us
We'll run the dead-beats out,
Cuz we don't like no elite bums
gone tell us what to doubt.
Cuz if we doubt then we will know
That we must then feel shame,
And with such shame we must cast off
the burden that the White Man brought to fame.
On the Backs of Others.
So fat cats get the greenbacks in
Their pockets deep and wide
While children starve and poor men curse
what all good men abide.
For all good men and women too
take note what they observe.
And yet they never see we get
The leaders we deserve.
And when those leaders then exude
An unmistake'ble whiff,
We put the clothespin on our nose
Close eyes and let them lead us off a cliff.
On the backs of others.
On the Backs of Others
In every country of the world,
It's always boom and bust.
Except the cap'tal cities cuz,
They hold our bonds in trust.
In Them we Trust and Liberty
Because we have no choice,
And if we don't what good is it
Since they speak with our voice?
And with our gold they pave our roads
And give us daily bread.
But we who have no gold to spare
Must we put in our share for them to spread?
On the Backs of Others.
But if our share is in Detroit
And Cincinnati too,
How come we can't see where it goes,
Or how it comes to you?
Will it be taken to a place,
Where char'ty goes to die?
And if it does will we know then
That politicians lie?
Cuz if they don't then we excuse
Th'excesses of the job.
When people smile as they stab,
Remember they climbed up the angry mob.
On the Backs of Others.
They're just like you and me, no doubt
They cook ther'own Sauce Bearnaise,
And caviar and de Foie Gras,
Since duck's a food you braise.
And if they say they're not like us
We'll run the dead-beats out,
Cuz we don't like no elite bums
gone tell us what to doubt.
Cuz if we doubt then we will know
That we must then feel shame,
And with such shame we must cast off
the burden that the White Man brought to fame.
On the Backs of Others.
So fat cats get the greenbacks in
Their pockets deep and wide
While children starve and poor men curse
what all good men abide.
For all good men and women too
take note what they observe.
And yet they never see we get
The leaders we deserve.
And when those leaders then exude
An unmistake'ble whiff,
We put the clothespin on our nose
Close eyes and let them lead us off a cliff.
On the backs of others.
In politics, as in the arts, there is never a time when it isn't far better to be an UGLY WINNER than a beautiful loser. You either make the compromises necessary to fight another day, or you hang it up. But the price of hanging it up is always far worse.
During his campaign, skeptics warned that Barack Obama was nothing but a "beautiful loser," a progressive purist whose uncompromising idealism would derail his program for change. But as president, Obama has proved to be just the opposite — an ugly winner. Over and over, he has shown himself willing to strike unpalatable political bargains to secure progress, even at the cost of alienating his core supporters. Single-payer health care? For Obama, it was a nonstarter. The public option? A praiseworthy bargaining chip in the push for reform.
This bloodless, if effective, approach to governance has created a perilous disconnect: By any rational measure, Obama is the most accomplished and progressive president in decades, yet the only Americans fired up by the changes he has delivered are Republicans and Tea Partiers hellbent on reversing them. Heading into the November elections, Obama's approval ratings are mired in the mid-40s, and polls reflect a stark enthusiasm gap: Half of all Republicans are "very" excited about voting this fall, compared to just a quarter of Democrats. "Republicans have succeeded in making even the president's victories look distasteful, messy — and seem like bad policy steps or defeats," says Norman Ornstein, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. "Many on the left have expressed nothing but anger, frustration and disappointment."
But if the passions of Obama's base have been deflated by the compromises he made to secure historic gains like the Recovery Act, health care reform and Wall Street regulation, that gloom cannot obscure the essential point: This president has delivered more sweeping, progressive change in 20 months than the previous two Democratic administrations did in 12 years. "When you look at what will last in history," historian Doris Kearns Goodwin tells Rolling Stone, "Obama has more notches on the presidential belt."
In fact, when the history of this administration is written, Obama's opening act is likely to be judged as more impressive than any president's — Democrat or Republican — since the mid-1960s. "If you're looking at the first-two-year legislative record," says Ornstein, "you really don't have any rivals since Lyndon Johnson — and that includes Ronald Reagan."
Quote of the Day:
Der Miksic: do you have any thoughts on Stanley Kunitz? (referring specifically to his poetry, rather than, say, his abs)
Exhibit A
In why Historically Informed Performance is a good thing:
This is what Bach used to sound like, even when played by Menuhin and Oistrakh, arguably the two greatest violinists of the mid-20th century.
What Bach sounds like now when played by Andrew Manze and Rachel Podger, Baroque violin specialists who completely pwn the giants.
This is what Bach used to sound like, even when played by Menuhin and Oistrakh, arguably the two greatest violinists of the mid-20th century.
What Bach sounds like now when played by Andrew Manze and Rachel Podger, Baroque violin specialists who completely pwn the giants.
Quote of the Night:
david: this is the year of the zach galifinokus (semantically correct... boom) remake of old movies
its kind of a funny story = one flew over the cuckoo's nest
Due Date = planes trains and automobiles
I cant wait to see what he does with Coming to America
its kind of a funny story = one flew over the cuckoo's nest
Due Date = planes trains and automobiles
I cant wait to see what he does with Coming to America
Mad Men/Nature Boy Mashup
If I didn't have five (hopefully six) pieces to finish before Sunday, I'd be thinking non-stop about which other pieces fit perfectly with the Mad Men theme song.
h/t HaZmora
The DEFINITIVE Super Mario Sheet Music. Is it bad that I think I spotted an error in the Flagpole Fanfare?
h/t Das Liang.
h/t Das Liang.
Demon Sheep
I'm pretty sure that nobody really knows what this ad is supposed to express.
h/t The Koosh
h/t The Koosh
Quote of the Day:
HaZmora: have you seen the Welles' Othello?
best Iago ever
outside of Gilbert Gottfried's of course
best Iago ever
outside of Gilbert Gottfried's of course
Being Popular
(Evan sits quietly in his room, attempting to do Kol Rinah work, along comes Eugene O'Neill and Rachel Berry from Glee. They walk into his room, arm in arm. Eugene's other arm has a whiskey, Rachel's other arm has an i-Phone.)
Eugene O'Neill (to Rachel): Perhaps there's something to this gay marriage thing. God knows the straight ones never worked out.
Rachel Berry: And maybe you're right about all good girls wanting to marry their fathers. The problem is that I could never figure out which of my fathers to marry.
Evan: I suppose it's not worth mentioning that I'm working on something important right now.
Eugene: Shut up kid, this is what's important.
Rachel: We need to talk to you Evan, seriously. We're totally concerned about your attitude towards mixing high art with popular culture.
Evan: I suppose I have no choice but to listen to this....
Rachel: We're happy being apart from each other.
Eugene: I'm not happy.
Rachel: I don't want to challenge people. I want the world to love me. People who challenge other people always look unhappy and kind of creepy.
Evan: And what do you think of this Gene?
Eugene: I agree with her. Even if in twenty years she'll be a sauced whore like my mother.
Evan: Your mother was addicted to morphine.
Eugene: Whatever.
Rachel: Why do you dislike us both so much?
Evan: I don't dislike either of you at all.
Eugene: That's a shame...
Rachel: So why are you always staring daggers into Gleeks whenever you meet them?
Evan: I don't stare daggers, I roll my eyes. And I do that because nobody should be liked unconditionally.
Rachel: I don't even know what that means. But I do know that unconditional love makes the world go 'round!
Eugene: And nobody'll tell her the world is flat...
Evan: Loving and liking are two very different things Rachel. I like Glee a lot every time I watch it, and I like Long Day's Journey Into Night. But I don't think it's a good idea to make a religion out of either of them. If you take Gene's plays too seriously you'll end up thinking people are miserable creatures and go crazy in the first five minutes. If you make a religion out of Glee you'll end up a narcissist who can't see the world out of anybody's eyes but you're own.
Rachel: I can see the world through other people's eyes!
Eugene: She can. Just a few minutes ago she was telling me how great it must be to be Liza Minnelli.
Evan: I don't doubt you can Rachel. But the world is a much more difficult place than your show allows.
Rachel: But we show people's problems! We show problems all the time! Is it so wrong to make people's problems adorable with a little song-and-dance?
Evan: There's nothing wrong with it. But nobody's adorable all the time. It would be a lot more interesting if you showed people being disgusting and then demonstrate why they're still worth loving.
Eugene: Who needs love when you have disgust?
Rachel: I don't see why anybody should do that. Putting on a good song-and-dance is frustrating enough without people seeing what goes into it.
Evan: How will you know until you try?
Rachel: What about the Gleeks?
Evan: What about them?
Rachel: They have a right to love shows like mine.
Evan: They certainly do. And I have a right to disagree with them.
Rachel: But why do you disagree? All we want is for you to love us.
Evan: There you have it. A show like yours doesn't want to give people the choice.
Rachel: But we just want to be loved so badly!
Evan: You can't force people to do that. What would be so terrible if you let us see the show from a different point of view?
Rachel: What point of view do we not show?
Evan: Well, why do we never get stories from the orchestra musicians' point of view? Or the tech people? Or that journalist guy who likes you so much?
Rachel: Why should we? This is our show and they're not as interesting as we are. We have to use them to get what we want from them.
Evan: I don't know that they're not as interesting. But if your show tried to see things from their point of view you it would go a long way to making the show something more than adorable.
Rachel: Again you go off with these grand dreams about all the stuff my show should be. We just want to entertain people, we don't care if they don't want anything more from us. Why can't you just be satisfied with entertainment? Look at me, I'm an entertainer and everybody loves me.
Eugene: Except for whatever unfortunate kid knocks you up.
Evan: OK Gene. Even I'm cringing now.
Rachel: No, he's right. I'll probably end up trapped in a bad marriage with kids I can't stand.
Eugene: Then maybe we can make an artist out of you.
Evan: Rachel, how can you possibly talk about yourself like this?
Rachel: That's my whole point. I'm probably the same as lots of the singers you see week-after-week in all your rehearsals. A lot of us don't have much hope for what life's going to give us, so we just want to have some fun while we can still convince ourselves that we're worth loving for a little bit of time every week.
Eugene: Hooray for women setting the bar low! (downs the rest of the whiskey)
Evan: Rachel, I don't know where to begin. That's not how most singers feel, that's how most people feel. Life is difficult for everybody, but the one thing that can ensure that life stays difficult is to not aim higher. If you want to just be entertained, then you can be sure that you will feel just as miserable about your problems after the performance is done as you did before. But the one thing you can do to combat that is to perform things that challenge your beliefs about what life is and let you view things with a different perspective. And that is why I became a conductor - so that I can give people music that makes them feel completely different about their lives after they experienced it than they did before. It's a long process and not always the easiest, but it's worth it every time. I'm pretty good at what I do, and while there's no doubt that I was born laying on the sarcasm on thickly, I always try to be considerate to the feelings of the people who sing under me. I love singers, and I wouldn't want to work with anybody else.
Rachel: But how would we ever know that without you always indicating approval at what we do?
Evan: You don't need my approval, you just need my counsel for how to be a better singer. So long as you work hard, you will always have my approval.
Rachel: But I'm a girl. I need constant approval.
Evan: Oh my....Rachel, this is 2010 and you are not a talented woman, you are a talented person. If somebody like me would disapprove, you'd have no reason to take me seriously. Hopefully women like you will never again need to tell themselves that life will only get better if other people approve of them.
Eugene: I'll never approve of women.
Evan: We know.
Rachel: Wait. So does this mean you're saying my show is anti-feminist?
Evan: Not quite. But it's skirting the line. (Evan realizes what he just said and cringes)
Eugene: Good one dumbass.
Rachel: Shut up Gene.
Eugene: Yes ma'am.
Rachel: I don't know how you can think that. We've empowered women all across the country!
Evan: Glee is a show that gets its power from its ability to caricature it's characters in different ways and then subvert those stereotypes. But just maybe,...very seldomly,... stereotypes are stereotypes for a good reason. Sometimes the show implies that not only do women have the ability to be manipulate others, women and men, at a level that men can't, but that in some ways this is a good thing and that this should be viewed an endearing trait. It's no different than how Glee occasionally shows Puck's bullying as an affectionate vice that he doesn't get rid of in spite of having a sensitive side. By including this, part of the message you all are giving is that 'It's OK to do terrible things because even people who do terrible things can have redeeming qualities that make their terrible acts worth putting up with.' We watch Tony Soprano kill dozens of people, we watch Don Draper lie to everyone in his life, we watch Homer Simpson ruin his family's lives. We're supposed to feel sympathy for what makes them do what they do and occasionally even love them, but we're never supposed to excuse their flaws.
Rachel: But this is totally contradicting what you said earlier. This is getting people to see things from a different point of view!
Evan: It's not a different point of view when you can hear claims like the ones made in Glee in every high school in America. That doesn't challenge people, that defines laziness.
Rachel: Well I suppose see your point. But we make too much money to change anything about that.
Evan: No argument there. I'm all for making money and wish I had a lot more these days. Anyway I suppose we should wrap things up. By the way, you should be nicer to that creepy journalism kid who likes you. That was me ten years ago.
Eugene: If kids like that boy and Evan didn't spend so much time trying to impress girls like you with their political correctness maybe they could grow up to be Eugene O'Neill!
Rachel: Ah-ha! So you admit it Eugene O'Neill. You watch Glee.
Eugene: Only when The Biggest Loser isn't on.
(In walks Stephen Sondheim who opens his mouth six feet wide and eats both Eugene O'Neill and Rachel Berry in a single bite and gulp)
Stephen Sondheim: Thanks Evan! I was really hungry!
Eugene O'Neill (to Rachel): Perhaps there's something to this gay marriage thing. God knows the straight ones never worked out.
Rachel Berry: And maybe you're right about all good girls wanting to marry their fathers. The problem is that I could never figure out which of my fathers to marry.
Evan: I suppose it's not worth mentioning that I'm working on something important right now.
Eugene: Shut up kid, this is what's important.
Rachel: We need to talk to you Evan, seriously. We're totally concerned about your attitude towards mixing high art with popular culture.
Evan: I suppose I have no choice but to listen to this....
Rachel: We're happy being apart from each other.
Eugene: I'm not happy.
Rachel: I don't want to challenge people. I want the world to love me. People who challenge other people always look unhappy and kind of creepy.
Evan: And what do you think of this Gene?
Eugene: I agree with her. Even if in twenty years she'll be a sauced whore like my mother.
Evan: Your mother was addicted to morphine.
Eugene: Whatever.
Rachel: Why do you dislike us both so much?
Evan: I don't dislike either of you at all.
Eugene: That's a shame...
Rachel: So why are you always staring daggers into Gleeks whenever you meet them?
Evan: I don't stare daggers, I roll my eyes. And I do that because nobody should be liked unconditionally.
Rachel: I don't even know what that means. But I do know that unconditional love makes the world go 'round!
Eugene: And nobody'll tell her the world is flat...
Evan: Loving and liking are two very different things Rachel. I like Glee a lot every time I watch it, and I like Long Day's Journey Into Night. But I don't think it's a good idea to make a religion out of either of them. If you take Gene's plays too seriously you'll end up thinking people are miserable creatures and go crazy in the first five minutes. If you make a religion out of Glee you'll end up a narcissist who can't see the world out of anybody's eyes but you're own.
Rachel: I can see the world through other people's eyes!
Eugene: She can. Just a few minutes ago she was telling me how great it must be to be Liza Minnelli.
Evan: I don't doubt you can Rachel. But the world is a much more difficult place than your show allows.
Rachel: But we show people's problems! We show problems all the time! Is it so wrong to make people's problems adorable with a little song-and-dance?
Evan: There's nothing wrong with it. But nobody's adorable all the time. It would be a lot more interesting if you showed people being disgusting and then demonstrate why they're still worth loving.
Eugene: Who needs love when you have disgust?
Rachel: I don't see why anybody should do that. Putting on a good song-and-dance is frustrating enough without people seeing what goes into it.
Evan: How will you know until you try?
Rachel: What about the Gleeks?
Evan: What about them?
Rachel: They have a right to love shows like mine.
Evan: They certainly do. And I have a right to disagree with them.
Rachel: But why do you disagree? All we want is for you to love us.
Evan: There you have it. A show like yours doesn't want to give people the choice.
Rachel: But we just want to be loved so badly!
Evan: You can't force people to do that. What would be so terrible if you let us see the show from a different point of view?
Rachel: What point of view do we not show?
Evan: Well, why do we never get stories from the orchestra musicians' point of view? Or the tech people? Or that journalist guy who likes you so much?
Rachel: Why should we? This is our show and they're not as interesting as we are. We have to use them to get what we want from them.
Evan: I don't know that they're not as interesting. But if your show tried to see things from their point of view you it would go a long way to making the show something more than adorable.
Rachel: Again you go off with these grand dreams about all the stuff my show should be. We just want to entertain people, we don't care if they don't want anything more from us. Why can't you just be satisfied with entertainment? Look at me, I'm an entertainer and everybody loves me.
Eugene: Except for whatever unfortunate kid knocks you up.
Evan: OK Gene. Even I'm cringing now.
Rachel: No, he's right. I'll probably end up trapped in a bad marriage with kids I can't stand.
Eugene: Then maybe we can make an artist out of you.
Evan: Rachel, how can you possibly talk about yourself like this?
Rachel: That's my whole point. I'm probably the same as lots of the singers you see week-after-week in all your rehearsals. A lot of us don't have much hope for what life's going to give us, so we just want to have some fun while we can still convince ourselves that we're worth loving for a little bit of time every week.
Eugene: Hooray for women setting the bar low! (downs the rest of the whiskey)
Evan: Rachel, I don't know where to begin. That's not how most singers feel, that's how most people feel. Life is difficult for everybody, but the one thing that can ensure that life stays difficult is to not aim higher. If you want to just be entertained, then you can be sure that you will feel just as miserable about your problems after the performance is done as you did before. But the one thing you can do to combat that is to perform things that challenge your beliefs about what life is and let you view things with a different perspective. And that is why I became a conductor - so that I can give people music that makes them feel completely different about their lives after they experienced it than they did before. It's a long process and not always the easiest, but it's worth it every time. I'm pretty good at what I do, and while there's no doubt that I was born laying on the sarcasm on thickly, I always try to be considerate to the feelings of the people who sing under me. I love singers, and I wouldn't want to work with anybody else.
Rachel: But how would we ever know that without you always indicating approval at what we do?
Evan: You don't need my approval, you just need my counsel for how to be a better singer. So long as you work hard, you will always have my approval.
Rachel: But I'm a girl. I need constant approval.
Evan: Oh my....Rachel, this is 2010 and you are not a talented woman, you are a talented person. If somebody like me would disapprove, you'd have no reason to take me seriously. Hopefully women like you will never again need to tell themselves that life will only get better if other people approve of them.
Eugene: I'll never approve of women.
Evan: We know.
Rachel: Wait. So does this mean you're saying my show is anti-feminist?
Evan: Not quite. But it's skirting the line. (Evan realizes what he just said and cringes)
Eugene: Good one dumbass.
Rachel: Shut up Gene.
Eugene: Yes ma'am.
Rachel: I don't know how you can think that. We've empowered women all across the country!
Evan: Glee is a show that gets its power from its ability to caricature it's characters in different ways and then subvert those stereotypes. But just maybe,...very seldomly,... stereotypes are stereotypes for a good reason. Sometimes the show implies that not only do women have the ability to be manipulate others, women and men, at a level that men can't, but that in some ways this is a good thing and that this should be viewed an endearing trait. It's no different than how Glee occasionally shows Puck's bullying as an affectionate vice that he doesn't get rid of in spite of having a sensitive side. By including this, part of the message you all are giving is that 'It's OK to do terrible things because even people who do terrible things can have redeeming qualities that make their terrible acts worth putting up with.' We watch Tony Soprano kill dozens of people, we watch Don Draper lie to everyone in his life, we watch Homer Simpson ruin his family's lives. We're supposed to feel sympathy for what makes them do what they do and occasionally even love them, but we're never supposed to excuse their flaws.
Rachel: But this is totally contradicting what you said earlier. This is getting people to see things from a different point of view!
Evan: It's not a different point of view when you can hear claims like the ones made in Glee in every high school in America. That doesn't challenge people, that defines laziness.
Rachel: Well I suppose see your point. But we make too much money to change anything about that.
Evan: No argument there. I'm all for making money and wish I had a lot more these days. Anyway I suppose we should wrap things up. By the way, you should be nicer to that creepy journalism kid who likes you. That was me ten years ago.
Eugene: If kids like that boy and Evan didn't spend so much time trying to impress girls like you with their political correctness maybe they could grow up to be Eugene O'Neill!
Rachel: Ah-ha! So you admit it Eugene O'Neill. You watch Glee.
Eugene: Only when The Biggest Loser isn't on.
(In walks Stephen Sondheim who opens his mouth six feet wide and eats both Eugene O'Neill and Rachel Berry in a single bite and gulp)
Stephen Sondheim: Thanks Evan! I was really hungry!
Quote of the Day:
Dad: I've been reading about the decline of America my whole life. But one of these days it's going to be true.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Happy 70th John
Don't usually like commemorating artist's birthdays, but he would have reached his biblical threescore and ten today. In some weird way, that's worth remembering.
Concert Tomorrow Morning!
Time: Saturday, October 9 · 11:00am - 11:30pm
Location: 4200 Connecticut Ave. NW (UDC)
More Info Come support local farmers and hear your favorite local chorus too! Stop by the UDC Farmer's Market at the Van Ness metro station to hearus sing the music of Mozart, Sublime, Dvořák, Bob Dylan, and more!
(totally forgot to put this here!.....oops)
Location: 4200 Connecticut Ave. NW (UDC)
More Info Come support local farmers and hear your favorite local chorus too! Stop by the UDC Farmer's Market at the Van Ness metro station to hearus sing the music of Mozart, Sublime, Dvořák, Bob Dylan, and more!
(totally forgot to put this here!.....oops)
Insomniac edition
Staying up to watch a Macbeth movie with Patrick Stewart in the middle of the night is a potentially disastrous idea. Staying up to watch this movie while having taken ambien right before it comes on is still more disastrous.
Fortunately....this looks to be pretty mediocre. Stewart is a very mannered Macbeth, adapting a very subtle and totally unconvincing Scottish burr and toning down his voice in an attempt to sound like a weary soldier, but instead he just sounds 85. The witches are plainly nonthreatening, and Lady Macbeth looks like she wandered in from Real Housewives of DC.
I'll stick with Orson Welles and Ian McKellen (especially for Judi Dench's incredible Lady)
Fortunately....this looks to be pretty mediocre. Stewart is a very mannered Macbeth, adapting a very subtle and totally unconvincing Scottish burr and toning down his voice in an attempt to sound like a weary soldier, but instead he just sounds 85. The witches are plainly nonthreatening, and Lady Macbeth looks like she wandered in from Real Housewives of DC.
I'll stick with Orson Welles and Ian McKellen (especially for Judi Dench's incredible Lady)
I can:
A: Get VoW off the ground.
B: Contribute to destroying WEEZER
...this is harder than it sounds....
h/t Il Giovine.
A: Get VoW off the ground.
B: Contribute to destroying WEEZER
...this is harder than it sounds....
h/t Il Giovine.
Reviewing kids' ART. This thing is probably over ten years old by now. Great art is timeless....
Also, competing with children is always funny. I brook no discussion on this matter.
Also, competing with children is always funny. I brook no discussion on this matter.
(Dimitri Mitropoulos, one of the greatest, and most underrated, conductors of all time. With the New York Philharmonic.)
A bit more than fifty years ago, there was a conductor who finally stood on the cusp of a superstardom that everyone had thought was his for the taking even thirty years before that. The Greek conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos made his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic in the mid 1920's. And when the pianist on Mitropoulos's debut program cancelled, the young conductor astonished the musical world by directing from the keyboard and playing the solo part Prokofiev's new 3rd piano concerto from memory. As a conductor, Mitropoulos had a repertoire of nearly a thousand works, all of which he could similarly conduct from memory. But musical Europe was exactly as xenophobic as the rest of Europe then was. And a Greek musician, even a great one, could not stand a chance when a good native musician was available. Mitropoulos came to America, where he spent a dozen years forming the Minneapolis Symphony (now the Minnesota Orchestra) into one of America's great ensembles. It was expected in all quarters that when Serge Koussevitzky retired from the Boston Symphony, Mitropoulos would take over. Instead, Boston stunned the musical world by selecting the French conductor, Charles Munch. Instead, Mitropoulos took over the New York Philharmonic. The Philharmonic, and the New York press, hounded him out within five years for playing too much uncommon music and taking too many risks in performance. He was replaced by his one-time protege, Leonard Bernstein. Within three years of leaving the Philharmonic, Mitropoulos was dead.
Mitropoulos was everything a mid-20th century conductor was not supposed to be. Conductors are pampered beasts by their very natures who used to hold the power of immediate dismissal in their hands. But while most other conductors of his time were known for their tyrannical manners, Mitropoulos was regarded as an unworldly saint who never raised his voice to musicians, even when the musicians agreed that it would have been deserved. While most other American-based maestros trained orchestras into well-oiled machines, Mitropoulos took very little interest in technical finesse (as many recordings attest), preferring instead to make sure that the musicians were communicating the spirit of the music as he felt it must be conveyed. Most conductors of his time were content to perform the same 50 pieces over and over again, but Mitropoulos used his eminent position to champion as many unknown works as his position would allow. Whereas other conductors kept their profligate (and usually hetero)sexual activities as hushed up as possible, Mitropoulos never denied his homosexuality and in doing so allowed his performances to be barraged in the New York Press with all sorts of euphemisms like 'Too sensitive,' and 'Not rugged enough.'
It's difficult to listen to an Eschenbach performance and not call Mitropoulos to mind. They share the same scarily versatile musicianship, the same vaguely religious air about them, the same courtesy to their colleagues, the same lack of concern for technical matters, the same penchant for unfamiliar repertoire, the same desire to play familiar music in unfamiliar ways, the same openly secret sexuality, and the same career trajectories.
Eschenbach spent a dozen years with the Houston Symphony. Before him, the Houston Symphony was regarded as a fine provincial orchestra where great conductors could make stopovers to earn a lot of money. Stokowski, Barbirolli, Fricsay and Previn all directed the Houston Symphony, but none of them viewed it as their most important appointment. Eschenbach was the first star conductor to throw himself unreservedly into the city's life, and Houston loved him for it. The Houston Symphony went on tours, struck up a relationship with NPR, and made more recordings than ever before in its history. It was never the most technically adept orchestra in America, but it played everything from Bruckner to Stephen Albert with the commitment of a great orchestra. When he left, it was thought that Eschenbach was ready to be 'promoted' and get an appointment with the 'Big Five' (traditionally considered the greatest orchestras in America: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago).
But as it turned out, Cleveland didn't want him, and neither did New York. Philadelphia needed a music director to open its new hall, and management signed Eschenbach because Simon Rattle wasn't interested. Management signed Eschenbach without ever consulting the musicians. Eschenbach had not conducted in Philadelphia in five years, the reason being a lack of chemistry. Philadelphia is the virtuoso among American orchestras, priding itself for a century on possessing a technical elegance that can outstrip every other ensemble in America. The very virtues that made Eschenbach a star in Houston - the spontaneity, the warmth, the willingness to take risks - brought him down with the ultra-grizzled Philadelphia musicians. Their relationship was like a chemistry set made by Enrico Fermi. Reports from Paris tell that his simultaneous relationship with the Orchestre de Paris was similarly frought.
Now humbled and entering his seventies, Eschenbach has moved a step down the ladder and is taking on the National Symphony in our hometown. Eschenbach is not by nature a musician of the jet-set. He is not temperamentally suited to be the sort of musician who can fly from city to city, tell an orchestra exactly what he wants and then go elsewhere. He needs one place to base himself in order to thrive. Eschenbach is the sort of musician who naturally cultivates long-term relationships with musicians, and those relationships take time to reveal their potential. If nobody else were to speak up in his favor, Eschenbach could still rely on a steady stream of internationally renowned soloists who'd still line up to work with him. Renee Fleming and Lang Lang both consider him a mentors, and Eschenbach's working relationships with them continue unabated regardless of how great their stardom grows.
The appointment was considered paradoxically safe and controversial. Here is a star conductor, with more name-recognition, than anyone ever expected would ever come to Washington. Here is also a conductor in his seventies, with rampantly individualist ideas and only present for ten weeks of the year. Only time will tell if Eschenbach will be what's needed in at the NSO. But give him a chance, there's a better than usual chance he might be.
Celibidache: My Favorite Quack
I want to write Sergiu Celibidache off as a crank, but every time I try to I hear live recordings like these....can anybody else get Verdi to sound this exciting at this tempo? There are two types of performing greats in classical music. There are the greats who can realize music exactly as you hear your ideal performance in your head: musicians like Toscanini, Artur Schnabel, Nathan Milstein, Domingo. Then there are the greats who can realize music in ways you never thought were possible and open doors of possibility to things of which you never conceived: musicians like Furtwangler, Sviatoslav Richter, Yo-Yo Ma, Maria Callas. Celibidache is unquestionably in the second group, and the second group is never as consistent. But when they hit on something, they give the kind of experiences that the first group can never give.
...and I can't wait for VoW to do some Verdi.
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