FriPod: Top 10

Here are the 10 most played tunes on my iTunes for the year (10 and 11 tied for the same number of plays).

1. "Creep" by Radiohead, performed by the Edward Welles Quartet.
2. "Hope and Memory" by Howard Shore, from the Lord of the Rings, Return of the King soundtrack.
3. "Luna" from Ayre by Osvaldo Golijov, performed by Dawn Upshaw.
4. "God Only Knows" by Brian Wilson, performed by Petra Haden.
5. "Ich Klag Mein Not, O Herr Mein Gott" a 5, by Anonymous, performed by the Copenhagen Cornetts & Sackbutts and Ars Nova.
6. "Down to the River to Pray" performed by Alison Krauss on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack.
7. "Twilight and Shadow" by Howard Shore on the Lord of the Rings, Return of the King soundtrack.
8. "Sueltate las cintas" from Ayre by Osvaldo Golijov, performed by Dawn Upshaw.
9. Saltarello detto del Naldi by Giralamo Fantini, performed by The Parley of Instruments.
10. "I am a Man of Constant Sorrow" performed by The Soggy Bottom Boys on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack.
11. "Jesus Christus Nostra Salus" a 8, by Heinrich Fink, performed by the Copenhagen Cornetts & Sackbutts and Ars Nova.

FriPod: Academic to After

Yes, I haven't blogged for a week. There are several causes for this silence:

1. It is the last week of classes, and I was trapped under ungraded exams and homework.
2. I got my early midlife crisis, and I was trapped by Wii Sports and Paper Mario.
3. I purchased several books, and I was trapped by Alex Ross and Stephen Ericksen.
4. DePauw's Post-Classical Symposium demanded my attention, and I was trapped by a panel discussion and four awesome concerts (two not associated with the symposium).
5. My furnace broke and kept me from seeing Alex Ross at the Hilbert Circle Theater, and I was trapped with two very cold cats.
   
6. My uncle died and my marriage ended, and I was trapped in an uncommunicative funk.

But now classes are over, I've gotten (mostly) over the funk and the symptomatic videogaming and bookreading, concerts are over other than my daughter's violin recital tonight, and my furnace is fixed. So now a new FriPod:

1. Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80, by Brahms, performed by Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
2. Accellerationen by Johann Strauss, Jr., performed by Willi Boskovksy and the Vienna Philharmonic.
3. "Accidentally Like a Martyr" by Warren Zevon on Excitable Boy.
4. "Ach Elslein, liebes Elselein" by Ludwig Senfl, performed by the King's Singers.
5. "Ach Herre, Sehe Uns Genädig An" by Jørgen Presten, performed by the Copenhagen Cornetts and Sackbutts and Ars Nova.
6. "Ach, weh des Leiden" by Hans Leo Hassler, performed by the King's Singers.
7. "Acordes moy" by Antoine Busnois, performed by Piffaro.
8. "Addendum" for violin, cello and piano by Chick Corea on Works.
9. "Adieu Mes Amours" by Anonymous, performed by the Copenhagen Cornetts and Sackbutts and Ars Nova.
10. "Africa" by Arturo Sandoval on Danzón.
11. "Afro-Cuban Lullaby" (traditional) performed by Christopher Parkening.
12. "After Antietam" by James Horner on the Glory soundtrack.
13. "After The Thrill Is Gone" by the Eagles on Eagles Greatest Hits Vol. 2.
14. "After You've Gone" by Creamer and Layton, performed by Roy Eldridge on Little Jazz.

Shameless Self promotion

Ronnie Pejril, whose sound installation at Quarry Sounds was really cool, shot some video of various parts of Quarry Sounds with his phone and posted them on YouTube. Here is his shot of me, though the audio is very faint:

I was up on a cliff overlooking the quarry, while people strolled below on the various paths. I'm told my sound carried over quite a distance, so I hope it wasn't too annoying to the other musicians. As you can see from the video, it was rather difficult for the attendees to actually see me.

In other news, my tenure and promotion has been recommended by the School of Music Personnel Committee. Now it moves up to the University Committee on Faculty.

I've become ambient!

This week is DePauw's ArtFest, which has a new topic every year. This year's topic is Art and the Environment. Some things make perfect sense with this topic, like the decorated community bikes to encourage all of the community to bike rather than drive cars. Other events do not fit the topic at all, such as the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra's concert. In fact, the School of Music often has difficulty crafting performances that fit the year's topic well. But tomorrow I will be taking part in a performance that definitely fits Art and the Environment. DePauw has a beautiful Nature Park, which used to be a working quarry. One of my colleagues, Nicole Brockmann, has designed a 30-minute walking tour within the park, with musical performances planted along the way. The tour, called Quarry Sounds, ends at the new Prindle Institute of Ethics, where string ensembles will perform during a reception. Here is a Google Map that Nicole created with the tour and performers labeled. Click on the points or the labels to get more details. Most of the performers are students at the School of Music, but my meager efforts on the cornetto will be matched by faculty members Ronnie Pejril (ambient sound installation) and Gabriel Crouch (singing with students in a chamber group). I'm looking forward to this. The leaves are in full color change right now, and the weather has been gorgeous (brisk but very sunny).

Ouch

From Stephen Smith's New York Times review:

Brass intonation, mostly secure throughout, fell apart during the familiar opening toccata of Monteverdi’s opera “Orfeo.” Execution improved when the trumpeters switched to cornettos, narrow wooden horns that provided more flexibility but less heft. For anyone seeking an explanation for the invention of the modern trumpet, here it was.

FriPod: Sweets

This is inspired by Fred Clark's list, but I stay more generic.

1. "Come again, sweet love doth now invite" and "Come away, come, sweet love" by John Dowland, performed by the QuintEssential Sackbut and Cornett Ensemble.
2. "Come againe, sweet Nature's treasure" by Edward Johnson, performed by the QuintEssential Sackbut and Cornett Ensemble.
3. "Come Back, Sweet Papa" by Paul Barbarin and Luis Russell, performed by Louis Armstrong and the Hot Fives.
4. "Dear Sweet Filthy World" by Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet from The Juliet Letters.
5. "If Love's a Sweet Passion" by Henry Purcell, performed by Rolf Smedvig and Michael Murray.
6. "Sweet Air" by David Lang, performed by Sentieri Selvaggi.
7. "Sweet And Lovely" by G. Arnheim-LeMare-Tobias, performed by the Thelonious Monk Quartet.
8. "Sweet Emalina, My Gal" by Henry Creamer and Turner Layton, performed by Art Tatum.
9. "Sweet Georgia Brown" by Ben Bernie, Maceo Pinkard, and Kenneth Casey; performed by (1) Ella Fitzgerald, (2) Bud Powell.
10. "Sweet Lorraine" by Cliff Burwell and Mitchell Parish, performed by (1) Art Tatum, (2) Coleman Hawkins.
11. "Sweet Love, if thou wilt gaine a Monarches glory" by John Wilbye, performed by the QuintEssential Sackbut and Cornett Ensemble.
12. "Sweet Rain" by Mike Gibbs, performed by Stan Getz (on the album of the same name).
13. "There Is Sweet Music Here" by Stephen Chatman, performed by the Lawrence University Concert Choir.

It's HIP to be square

Last week I went to two concerts of the Bloomington Early Music Festival. On Saturday, May 19th, I took my daughter to see Bloomington Baroque, really a catch-all name for any group of musicians organized by Stanley Ritchie. In this case, it included my daughter's violin teacher, Allison Edberg, along with Kiri Tollaksen and Bruce Dickey (!) on cornetto, bassoon, continuo, tenor, and two violas da gamba. Kiri and Bruce were fabulous, they can play so in tune and with wonderful dynamic shadings. Allison played the Schmelzer violin sonata, and turned in a great performance. Then this last Thursday I schlepped back to Bloomington to see Kiri and Bruce play in Kiri's group, Quarter Comma (a tuning system joke). This included a great soprano, continuo, dulcian (bassoon) and harp. The bassoonist hit some clunkers in his featured pieces, and the harpist made me nervous with her uncertain stage presence, but overall the concert was great. I sat closer for this concert so I could watch Bruce's and Kiri's fingers, picking up some good tips from these observations.

Boston's WGBH will be broadcasting Boston's Early Music Festival from June 11-17. It looks like the only opportunities to hear period brass music will be Nachtmusique and the festival orchestra (which includes former classmate Alex Bonus). Full details of the broadcast schedule can be found here or here for pdf.

FriPod: Hit to Hope

1. "Hit the Road Jack" - Percy Mayfield, performed by Ray Charles on Ray! A relationship breaks up, because the man is no good. Clearly part of his problem is that he doesn't listen.

2. Hoc Largire, a 6 - Anonymous, performed by Copenhagen Cornetts & Sackbutts with Ars Nova. This is the fourth verse of O Quam Glorifica: O Father of all lights, through this sacred Flame/give unto us thy only Begotten Son,/who with Thee reigns brilliantly in the heavens,/ruling and governing for all ages./Amen. Very peaceful, yet with a certain trepidation.

3. "Hoedown!" - by Bobby McFerrin, performed by Bobby with Yo Yo Ma on Hush. This piece doesn't start out sounding like a hoedown, but the middle section is stereotypical. It seems to poke fun at this culture, with the simplistic and highly repetitive nature of this middle section. No understandable lyrics in this piece, but I'm inclined to not approve of this stance.

4. "Hogwarts Forever and the Moving Stairs" - John Williams on Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. Sounds like a brass quintet arrangement rather than a typical orchestral soundtrack score. I wonder if this is available for quintets to purchase? The second half is more typical, evoking the spookiness of Voldemort's theme.

5. "Hold On My Heart" - Genesis on We Can't Dance. Yes, I own CDs of Phil Collins and Genesis, holdovers from my high school days in the 80s. It is truly painful to listen to most of these tracks now.

6. "Holde Gattin, dir zur Seite" from The Creation - Haydn, performed by John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists. Very classical operatic, a love duet for Adam and Eve.

7. "Homecoming Hymn" - from the Lawrence University Jazz Ensemble's New Stories. This CD was cut when I was a junior at Lawrence. The particular track is a combo piece, based on a theme that is a pared down version of "Joyful, joyful we adore thee." It has a great sax solo by Doug Schneider.

8. "Honesty" - Billy Joel on 52nd Street. "Honesty, is hardly ever heard, and mostly what I need from you." Preach it, Billy.

9. "Honeysuckle Rose" - Fats Waller, performed by Benny Goodman on Live at Carnegie Hall.

10. "Hooker's Hooker" - Marvin Hamlisch on The Sting soundtrack. Think "The Stripper."

11. "Hope and Memory" - Howard Shore on The Lord of the Rings - Return of the King. I love this one.

12. "Hope Fails" - also from LOTR-ROTK. I don't like ending on this track. Previous tracks are much more hopeful, even Billy's plea for honesty. He at least hopes for honesty, whereas hope is lost here.

Lost histories

Jonathan Bellman has a very interesting post about musical knowledge that has been lost.

For me, one of the most pleasurably unearthly sensations is that of hearing or witnessing something that one would never have imagined to have survived—something, in a sense, one has no business hearing. This is one of the real attractions of the study of historical performance practices, for me at least; one seeks to recapture sounds, techniques, approaches, and even ways of hearing that disappeared long ago. Ultimately, perhaps, it is nothing more than the basic historian’s impulse: There Was Something Worth Knowing Back Then, And We Are Diminished For Having Forgotten It. And here we find ourselves fellow-traveling with, for example, ethnobotanists: we share the simple humanities-based impulse that what was previously known or thought or experienced was of value and is worth preserving, even if the value is now understood differently. It is also where we part company with narrow orthodoxies of whatever kind: religious, political, scientific, which tell us what we do and do not EVER need to know.

I do find a pleasure when playing my cornetto, knowing that I'm recreating timbres that were around in the Renaissance. But I'm also just attracted to the sound in itself, which is the "Worth Knowing" part of the equation.

What I got for Christmas

Two are continued efforts to grow my cornetto recordings collection, and three are continued efforts to grow my contemporary music collection. I enjoy pointing out that the seven-CD collection is of music composed by and performed by a person who gave me a hard time during a public interview. I don't take it personally, as Rzewski treats everyone that way. I also could see that he wanted to get to the truth, which I can respect. Plus I found his music very moving. The Moon, sun and all things is a fabulous collection of Baroque music from Latin America, performed by Ex Cathedra and the Quintessential Sackbut and Cornett Ensemble. Eighth Blackbird is poetry in sound, and I haven't had a chance to listen to the Golijov yet.