Where the Heart Beats 7

Chapter 6, "Ego Noise (1950-1951)" begins the second section of the book, where the mountains are no longer mountains. Many characters are introduced, and I'm noticing a pattern in these introductions that gets annoying in its repetitiveness. A leap back in time to show the origins of a particular character's interest in Zen, or in contemporary music, or in contemporary art, traced forwards to that character's meeting with one of the more major figures of the book. I'm also annoyed by the shifts between past and present tense, often within the same paragraph. Speaking of ego noise, these imperfections pull me out of a merged contemplation with the subject, instead becoming aware of the writing as writing, rather than as ideas expressed. This is also the problem with the structure, such as on page 193. This was the end of a fascinating description of Cage's fourth lecture of "Empty Words" at the Naropa Buddhist Center in Colorado. The quotes by Cage disrupt the narrative, muddying the idea that the Buddhist leader, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, had liked the confrontation of ego noise spurred by Cage's lecture performance. The author both clouds the punchline, and avoids addressing Cage's misunderstanding of his audience and Trungpa's delight in ego noise. Why is this ego noise good, if the goal is to avoid ego noise? Why doesn't Cage appreciate this ego noise? Why is the audience stupid for not being part of Cage's journey through Thoreau? (I'm using questions, just as the author likes to do when discussing Zen.) That last question reflects my frustration with Cage. He wants to create music that opens the mind, but he is unwilling to provide the same help that he got in his own spiritual journey. The four lectures go through a process of winnowing Thoreau's words, what Cage envisioned as clouds dissipating. But he got to see the beautiful cloud shapes first, before they dissolved. By delivering only the fourth lecture, Cage was doing the equivalent of showing a picture of a tiny wisp of cloud and saying, "look at that beautiful big shape!" I'm very intrigued by the lectures, but I feel that Cage was not only disinterested, but also indifferent to the audience. From page 136:

His music was headed toward disinterestedness – which is not "indifference," the word that keeps cropping up in academic writing on Cage. From the standpoint of spiritual practice, the two words having nothing in common. Indifference borders on nihilism. It has a quality of "not caring." It is "apathetic." It expresses corrosive cynicism. Ultimately, it is poisonous, both to the practitioner and to the culture as a whole."

It may not be that Cage didn't care about the audience, but perhaps was showing his own stupidity in not understanding their needs. He even faced away from them during the performance, creating more and more barriers to their understanding. Either way, he demonstrated a mighty ego in criticizing their responses as "stupid criticisms." Yes, the audience showed signs of closed-mindedness, but so did Cage in his own responses.

Where the Heart Beats 6

The fifth chapter ends the first section of the book, but rather than feeling like a conclusion, it seems to be setting the stage for future developments.  Cage's introduction to Hinduism is explored, as well as his lectures at Black Mountain College and The Club.  He meets Morton Feldman and reads Zen books at the Orientalia.  The chapter, "Seeking Silence" twists through time, jumping around not just in the titled era (1946-1950) but also forward to 1989 and back to 1907. This destroys a sense of narrative, just like in the first chapter. The descriptions of Ramakrishna's Hinduism and Meister Eckhart's Mysticism are fascinating, and Cage's development of his new artistic philosophy, "[music should] sober and quiet the mind, thus rendering it susceptible to divine influences," is laid out clearly.

Where the Heart Beats 5

"Chapter 4: Four Walls (1942-1946)" describes a very emotionally turbulent time in John Cage's life.  Different stories are told of how his marriage to Xenia fell apart, both from her perspective and from his.  Regardless of whose fault it was, it was clear that Cage was scared of the social dangers inherent in his homosexuality, but also became aware that he could no longer deny those feelings.  The author uses Henry Cowell's conviction on child molestation as an illustration of Cage's thinking.  Cowell had been driven by social taboos to seek sexual gratification with 17-year-old bullies in his neighborhood, rather than to enjoy physical affection with a peer.  The author suggests that his sentence of 15 years was caused more by Cowell's self-loathing about his sexual attractions to men than by the justice system's concern for the safety of the teenagers.  This self-loathing may be what Cage feared he could descend into, accompanied by the professional destruction that Cowell faced. 

While I'm still not happy with the author's descriptions of Cage's music, it is not because she is not trying.  She quotes performers and critics in efforts to describe Four Walls, The Perilous Night, and Ophelia, as well as including her own emotional impressions.  What frustrates me as a music theorist is that there is little or no detail on the musical structures themselves that create these impressions.  I want to know what type of chord is repeated att he end of Four Walls, what the melody line is, how much of the structure was determined by Cage and how much by the performer.

Larson does do a good job in showing how Cage's personal concerns affected his aesthetic philosophy, as he became concerned that the emotional energy he poured into his works was not recognized by the audience, critics, and fellow artists.  It was in this personal and artistic confusion that Cage found Zen Buddhism to be a lifeline; a way to survive the divorce from Xenia, a way to come to terms with his sexuality, a way to find better reasons for writing music.

Where the Heart Beats 4

Chapter 3 of Kay Larson's book, Where The Heart Beats, is titled "Merce Cunningham" even though he is not a major character of the chapter.  Yes, this is the first time Cage meets him, but their connection is not significant at this point.  Rather, it is Cage's connections to dancers such as Bonnie Bird and Martha Graham, and artists like Mark Tobey that influenced his life at this point.  Larson describes the visual arts very well, and the dance repertoire adequately.  But her musings on Cage's music itself is lacking.  She makes the claim that Cage invented live electronic music in 1939 with Imaginary Landscape #1, showing no awareness of the theremin (invented in 1919) or the ondes martenot (invented in 1928).  And her descriptions of the invention of the prepared piano lack the momentousness that this amazing development deserves.  The interaction between Zen and Dada is very interesting, and I'm amazed at the luck Cage had to be in the right place at the right time.  He got hired at the Cornish School of the Arts, the location of the first radio lab in the country.  He was involved in a summer percussion concert at Mills College that suddenly became a Bauhaus workshop with the arrival of László Moholy-Nagy.  Granted, Cage did exhibit courage to make his own opportunities, by moving to New York with no money, only a shady promise from Max Ernst for housing. 

Where the Heart Beats 3

Chapter 2 is entitled "John Cage 1912-1938."  Considerably longer than the first chapter, it is broken into different titled sections:  "The View From Pacific Palisades," "The Shape of the Future 1: Men," "The Shape of the Future 2: Music," "The Shape of the Future 3: Art," "Buddha of the Bathroom," "Luigi Russolo," "Arnold Schoenberg," "Oskar Fischinger," and "Walking Water Walk."  Many more Cage quotes are used to create pseudo-conversation.  The opening sections have fascinating descriptions of Cage's early adult life.  He really bluffed his way into just about every aspect of his life, from painting to music to love.  I had no idea that Cage got married, though the author uses quotes to make the very good point about the underground lifestyle forced upon homosexuals in the 1930s that Cage found untenable.  Plus it sounds like he was very confused about his whole sexual identity, falling into and out of love very quickly.  Slowly, as Cage encounters more movers and shakers of the avant-garde, he moves from dabbling dilettante to serious practitioner.  And the seeds of his influences from Dada and Futurism are explored, though more from the perspective of Marcel Duchamp and Luigi Rossolo than from Cage's perspective (so far).  There are hints of the connections to Buddhism as well.  The quotes flow much better than in the first chapter, and the chapter ends with a tease about Cage's later success with Water Walk to show the results of those early influences.

Where the Heart Beats 2

Chapter 1 is part of the first section: Mountains are Mountains.  Everything is as we understand it, before Zen makes us unpack everything.  D. T. Suzuki is introduced through his influences on the Beat Generation, notably Gary Snyder, Allan Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac.  With the Beat set up, suddenly we are shifted to Project Manhattan and Robert Oppenheimer for a brief look at Dr. Atomic's association with Vishnu, before sweeping over to Japan for a biographical account of Suzuki's early life.  The descriptions of life in a Zen temple are very appealing.  They filled me with peace, and got me thinking about starting to meditate again.  I'm also impressed by Suzuki's dedication to Zen, even though he never formally became a monk.  While at university, he would walk over 30 miles to sit zazen (meditate) instead of going to class.  He was brought to the U.S. by the abbot of his temple, Soyen Shaku, to serve as a translator both for Soyen and for Paul Carus, who wanted to translate ancient Buddhist works into English.  Suzuki is portrayed as an incredible workaholic.  He translated many works, wrote his own texts, and traveled all over the world to study different philosophies and to give lectures on Zen Buddhism. 

After 14 pages, Cage is allowed to quote a koan as part of the supposed conversation on which this book is structured.  But the author does not respond to this quote as part of a dialogue.  Rather, she explains where Cage heard that koan, and some of the first works Cage composed based on Buddhist ideas.  The chapter ends with another koan, written as if Cage is quoting it, but not why.

I'm intrigued by Suzuki's story, and want to hear more about how he influenced Cage.  But the structure of this book is bothering me.  Perhaps I'm being too Western-minded, expecting a linear logic that isn't appropriate here.  But I certainly feel that the author is flitting from subject to subject without making clear transitions. 

Where the Heart Beats 1

Several months ago I was asked to write a review of Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists by Kay Larson.  I just got the book last week, and started reading it.  Since I haven't been blogging much lately, I thought I would do a "live blog reading" of the book, posting my impressions with each chapter, instead of waiting until I was done to give an overall review.  The book is in fifteen chapters, plus a prelude, epilogue, and the Maha Prajna Paramita Heart Sutra.

The prelude introduces the three main characters in the book: John Cage, Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, and the author herself.  The description of Suzuki is intriguing, telling that he was not a Zen master, though still considered an expert on Zen.  He was not formally educated, but clearly a master of languages, having taught himself Sanskrit, Tibetan Sanskrit, and Pali, and fluent in Japanese, English, classical Chinese, and "several European languages."  It certainly makes me want to learn more about him.  The introduction of John Cage did not teach me anything new, and did not do much to evoke the avant-garde sense of wonder that I associate with his works.  4'33" is naturally given the main stage, but just a taste is given.  Perhaps the book will delve more deeply later, giving only a teasing taste in this Prelude.  The author describes her own path to Buddhism, and explains the structure of the book.  Grouped in three sections, the chapters are meant to follow a Buddhist arc of revelation.  And within the chapters, quotes from Cage are used to create a sense of conversation with the author.  This could work, or be very annoying as a conceit.  I shall see.

Book Review: So Much To Say

“So Much TO Say: Dave Matthews Band 20 Years On the Road”, Nikki Van Noy

This is the newest popular book about DMB, published in 2011.  It is organized in ten chapters, plus an introduction and discography.  This book is intended to represent the views of the diehard fans who follow the band from venue to venue each summer.  Each historical event is accompanied by quotes from fans who were there, practically one quote for every paragraph. The writing reflects this intention, as the author is also a huge fan who can’t keep from gushing at every opportunity.  The first chapter, “An Evening Spent Dancing,” begins at the last show of the band’s twentieth year of existence.  This show is used as a template to provide an overview of the band’s history, with a heavy emphasis on the grassroots nature of their success.  There is a sense of ownership, that the fans discovered and influenced DMB.  “…what makes the DMB fans so unique is that they have actually played an integral role in the trajectory of the band from day one.  In so many ways, DMB fans are just as much a part of the story and history of this band as the musicians themselves.” (p. 9)

Chapters Two, “Getting Started” and Three, “The Little Red Van” cover the origins of the band.  Van Noy focuses on Charlottesville, Virginia, painting a picture of the artistic environment there in the late ‘80s that encouraged musicians to collaborate.  There is a very brief description of Dave Matthews’ upbringing, with no mention of his early musical experiences before he came to Charlottesville  in 1986.  There are many quotes from local music critics and some of Dave’s earliest music friends, like Mark Roebuck.  Very rarely is the music itself described, beyond a general “acoustically-driven folk-rock style of music.” (p. 22)  “[t]ypical of the quintessential DMB sound, with its distinct acoustic guitar, driving rhythm, bellowing sax, and full-band crescendo, all underlying whimsical yet introspective lyrics.” (p. 25)  There is a big effort to describe the scene, the feel of the audience itself, such as the tradition of taping shows and trading tapes. 

The studio albums are discussed in the next chapters.  “For Dave, it was important there was a delineation between the live show recordings that already existed in abundance and the band’s first major label studio effort.” (p. 60)  “Together, Dave and Tim [Reynolds] laid down dual tracks for Under the Table, resulting in a full acoustic ound that not only immediately set DMB apart from the vast majority of its musical counterparts of the time but also went a long way toward re-creating DMB’s bold live energy in recorded form.”  Now that Van Noy is talking about the actual music, several discrepancies and clumsy phrases come out.  In efforts to describe the diversity of musical styles of the album (which is true), Van Noy conflates rhythmic patterns with stylistic feel, emotion with orchestration.  There are connections between these features, but in the same way as apples and asparagus.   Yes, apples and asparagus both start with a, are foods, and nourish us.  But it is hard to talk in one instance about the tartness of a Gala apple, and contrast that with the mushiness of overcooked asparagus.  Van Noy also makes the mistake of implying that the lyrics of the songs on Under the Table and Dreaming were written after Dave’s sister Anne was murdered.  The album is dedicated to her, but the lyrics were set well before the tragedy in January of 1994. 

Inserted between chapters are minibiographies of fans, tracing their lives in their connections to the band.  At the middle of the book are sixteen pages of color photographs of the band, fans, and famous performance venues.  The pictures are mostly credited to relatives of the author, as well as Weekly Davespeak.  The book ends with the most recent tours, up to the “break” of 2011, and has a discography up to 2010.

If you want to get a feeling for the attitudes and passions of the DMB fan community without going to a concert or wading through the forums at antsmarching.com or dancingnancies.com, this book will help you.  But if you are looking for a clear history of the band and descriptions of the music, there are better choices.

FriPod: Dr. Atomic

Right when I took my blogging hiatus, I received a review copy of John Adams' Doctor Atomic Symphony, performed by the Saint Louis SO, conducted by David Robertson. It only seems fair that I actually review it, even if 2 months after every other classical blog. My impressions are unsullied by any experience with the source opera, so take that as you will. First of all, the performance of the orchestra is phenomenal. Every sound is clear, nuanced, and directed. The opening movement, "The Laboratory" is the shortest, at only 2.5 minutes. It opens with proper foreboding about the creation of a military monster. The immensity of the bomb, both in physical size and in global effect, is portrayed with wide ranges, extreme dynamics, and densely dissonant chords. This movement does calm down, perhaps with the introspection that often begins a research project. "Panic" is indeed frenzied, lots of fast strings with intense brass and woodwind lines over them. This is great running music, much like Adams' Short Ride in a Fast Machine. The background pulse stays the same, but foreground rhythms change up the feeling of meter significantly. At one point the strings sound like a geiger counter. Over the 14+ minutes of this movement the style does change, losing the frenzy for isolated moments before panic sets back in. There is a nice trumpet solo in the middle, played very well by Susan Slaughter. The third movement, "Trinity" plays with layered rhythmic ostinati in a very minimalist way for the opening. The trumpet solo is almost heart-breaking, but something keeps it at a remove for me, I think there is some kind of disconnect between the trumpet and the accompaniment. In fact, it is somewhat reminiscent of Ives' The Unanswered Question, which Adams mimicked in his On the Transmigration of Souls. But something about this solo makes me want to have it connect with the orchestra, unlike the other two works.

I watched Gustavo Dudamel conduct the premiere of Adams' City Noir on PBS the other night, and had similar reactions as to this symphony. There are plenty of moments that make me want to turn to something else, but just as my hand reaches for the TV controls or the iPod, Adams throws in a sound that intrigues me and keeps me listening.

What Beats in a Warm Summer's Night?

Stan Katz, director of the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, was concerned about the lack of things to do in the summer. He was pleasantly surprised to discover the So Percussion Summer Institute giving an outdoor performance. Read about his reactions to the concert at the Chronicle for Higher Education.

The New Religious

I recently* received two review CDs that are modern takes on religion. First, Phil Kline's John the Revelator. This Mass in both English and Latin is performed by the vocal group Lionheart and the string quartet Ethel. Some of the movements sound very traditional, chant in polyphony or monophony such as the opening "Northport", and some are very modern, with pop-tinged beats, minimalist ostinatos in "The Man Who Knows Misery", crunchy dissonances like "The Snow Fell", explorations of George Crumb-like timbres in "Dark Was the Night" or jazzy extended harmonies in "The Unnamable" and "Sanctus". I'm ashamed to admit that one section of "The Unnamable" sounds to me like the Oompa Loompas singing in the newer Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie. The male voices in octaves, with mid-Eastern pop accompaniment, just reminds me of one of the musical productions with little red men. This is a fairly eclectic work, like a less-extreme version of Golijov. I think Kline strikes a good balance of contemporary and contemplative, and the performances are great.

The second CD is D'Arc: Woman on Fire, a music theater piece by Jay Cloidt and Amanda Moody. Based on the life of martyred Joan of Arc, this is much more like the brashness of Golijov's Ayre cycle, with 14th century hymns sitting next to electronica, indy pop sounds, solo cello (featuring ex-Kronos Quartet member Joan Jeanrenaud), and lots of recorded sounds mixed in. The vocals by Amanday Moody are more pop-ish than Dawn Upshaw's performance in Ayre, raw and focused more on the drama than the beauty of sound. The whole D'Arc recording production seems to lack some aural depth, making it feel a little amateurish despite the interesting compositions and good performances. The religious music isn't as spiritually intense or authentic as Kline's work, but still interesting.



*Recently by my standards, rather long ago for the Kline CD by blogging standards.

Up

Tonight I took the kids to see Pixar's latest film, Up. Twice I teared up, the relationship between the man and his wife was so sweet. I wish they didn't feel the need for the fighting scenes, but the dogs are great, especially Doug. And Russell is very cute without being overly so. I could tell my kids were affected by the absence of Russell's father. During the merit badge ceremony my son had to come over and sit on my lap, I think to confirm that I was there. I can't imagine parents who don't want to spend time with their kids, or who won't even realizing how damaging their absence can be. Perhaps I'm judging Russell's father too harshly, we aren't told why he stopped coming to the ceremonies, or why the first marriage ended. But c'mon, be there for your kid. They won't always have a giant, colorful, flightless bird who loves chocolate.

Like I have time to waste!

Ben is an evil, evil, man. He informs me of this site, where you can create music governed by gravity.

I watched the pre-inaugural concert Sunday night. I teared up during Renee Fleming's performance of "You'll Never Walk Alone." Perhaps the best performance was James Taylor with John Legend and Jennifer Nettles. They actually listened to each other while improvising and embellishing, and their voices blended very nicely. Will.I.am and Sheryl Crowe didn't sound comfortable with each other, and Herbie Hancock was trying to take things way out, not followed at all by the rest of the musicians. Lincoln Portrait was good, though I had to strain a little to hear the orchestra. I love me some Pete Seeger, and kudos for singing all of the verses of "This Land is Your Land", but I couldn't hear his voice at all. I'm sure that concert was a nightmare to mic, and things did go pretty smoothly despite being outside in cold weather.

I'm going to an inauguration viewing at the Union in about half an hour, I'm very excited.

Mario!

I was busy for the last two weeks, first going to upper Wisconsin for a final tribute to my grandpa, then spending a week getting certified to teach Speaking/Listening intensive courses. And I wrapped it up with a perfect evening spent with my kids. First, I picked my son up at his new school with my bike and his tag-along for the first time. Then my daughter joined us to take Weasley for a walk in our finery before we headed to Indianapolis for a perfect dinner at P.F. Changs and a very interesting concert by the Indianapolis Symphony. It was called Video Games Live, arrangements of video game music for orchestra (and choir when appropriate). What I didn't expect was that this concert was held in conjunction with Gen Con. I first realized this with the sign at PF Changs, plus all the people at the restaurant wearing Blizzard or Bioware shirts. The crowd at the concert was mostly orchestra neophytes, but very enthusiastic about the projected video game clips and especially a visit from this guy:

As you can hear, he is competent, but his touch lacks nuance. And the flatness of amplification made it even less desirable. In fact, there was too much amplification overall, which made the concert lose the immediacy of live music, a real shame. This is not a good example of reaching out to new audiences for the purpose of exposing them to the joys of live orchestral music.

But my kids loved it, and the whole evening gave us a chance to talk about school, games, music, and life. So I'd happily go to this concert again.

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.

EatDrinkGambleSex

Well, that title should help my traffic. But it is also one movement of Casino, a work by Phillip Bimstein. Bimstein writes a post-minimalist type of musique concrète, with recorded and sampled sounds superimposed with traditional musical instruments. Perhaps this is the Varèse-ian school of music that Robert Gables is looking for. The voice of the dice-caller in Casino is rather bland sounding. Perhaps this can have an ironic twist on his philosophizing about a tawdry subject, but as a sonic feature it was disappointing. The voices of Robert Logan, "Bushy Wushy The Beer Man", and Larkin Gifford are more complex, combining with the sampled sounds and repetitive music in a pleasing variety of timbres. Information and other reviews about the Starkland CD, Larkin Gifford's Harmonica, can be found here.

Music and Memory

I just finished reading this very good book by Bob Snyder. Bob is a composer who teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. While the title and the opening make this seem to be a very specialized book, it actually covers many different topics in music cognition and music theory. Snyder includes sections on Gestalt psychology, Jonathan Kramer's theories of linearity and vertical time, pitch discrimination, Lerdahl and Jackendoff's musical hierarchies, rhythm theory, music and metaphor, as well as many details of the psychology of memory. I picked this book up to bolster my pedagogy model, but ended up finding many things appropriate for my phenomenology of time project. This is a well researched book, but also very readable by musicians, psychologists, neuroscientists, and interested laity. It provides a great introduction to many of the issues of music cognition and music theory, so much so that I'm considering using this book as the foundation for my psychology of music class. While the book only covers some topics quite superficially, it refers to excellent books and articles for more depth on each of those topics. I could have the students track down sources, both to learn more about the subject and to practice good research skills. But regardless, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in music cognition.

A Concise History of Western Music

This post represents two firsts for me. This is the first book review requested by a publisher specifically for my blog. I haven't been receiving lots of swag like other bloggers, so this feels noteworthy. The second first is being hounded by the author to write the review.

This book is indeed a concise history. Clocking in at 316 pages (not including appendices), Griffiths' coverage of 4500 years of music (45,000 years if you include his Chapter 0) has to be brief. To save room, Griffiths does not give detailed biographies of major composers, and nonmusical history is very sparse (though more is included in the chapters on the Twentieth Century). There is also no world music, and not much popular music, essentially a history of Western Art Music.

Griffiths takes a mostly chronological approach, organizing music history into eight periods. These periods are defined by how the composers conceive of or use time. Each period is described in a brief introduction before longer chapters delve into the details. The first period, "Time whole," deals with music before notation was developed. This short section (necessarily brief as the lack of notation limits our knowledge of what the music sounded like) is followed by the first uses of music notation, "Time measured 1100-1400". I found the descriptions of the theory and the historical developments interesting, but the attempts to describe the emotional content of the music by Leonin and Perotin were not convincing. This lack of aesthetic enthusiasm stands in stark contrast to the excitement Griffiths is able to engender in later works. But many important theorists and treatises are mentioned as well as composers and aesthetic movements, and the descriptions of Machaut's works are excellent.

Griffiths calls the Renaissance "Time sensed 1400-1630." He clearly has an enthusiasm for DuFay, devoting several pages to his life and music. But I was also enticed by the descriptions of Obrecht. Throughout the book, Griffiths does a great job emphasizing how various eras of music were lost and rediscovered, sometimes very late. In the case of Obrecht (1457/8-1505), he "was forgotten soon after his death, and his music was little known until scholars and performers began bringing back into circulation in the 1990s." (p. 62)

The Baroque (through to Rococo) is "Time known 1630-1770." The Classical era was "Time Embraced 1770-1815", the Romantic saw "Time escaping 1815-1907" before it was tangled from 1908-1975. The last section, "Time lost 1975-," is all too short after the seventy pages devoted to the bulk of the Twentieth century. And in those seventy pages Griffiths saw fit to give four pages to Jean Barraqué [who?] while never mentioning George Crumb once. The Romantic era was swamped with names and dates, losing the fine narrative focus of the other sections. But in the last three sections much more social context is given, especially on the interactions of the composers and society.

Forms and structures are described by their emotional or dramatic effects, such as "Sonata as comedy" (chapter 11) or the development of basso continuo to offer flexibility in both instrumentation and tempo as a means of allowing the singer to portray joy and pain in Italian madrigals. (p. 84)

At the end of the book Griffiths includes recommendations for further reading and listening, organized by chapter. The listening recommendations are particularly useful, as I think the primary audience for this book will be listeners looking to expand their repertoires. Students could find it handy when preparing for graduate entrance exams, and I appreciated getting a review of topics that had grown dusty in my noggin. There is also a glossary of terms for the layperson and an index.

Overall, this is a very good book. I will leave any critiques of the musicological research to those more qualified, like Charles T. Downey or Dial 'M', and leave it that I found no glaring errors from my own understandings and found many good insights on connections between composers or genres. It is much better than the Concise Oxford History of Music, which I used to prepare for grad school, and less intimidating than the Grout/Palisca/Burkholder/hut hut hike.

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.

Down to the River to Pray

I surprised my wife by announcing that I really liked this song from the O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack. This was in response to her professed admiration for Alison Krauss' song. She was surprised because of the conflict between the religious text and my agnostic beliefs, since the lyrics were a large part of what she liked.

My admiration stems from several intriguing characteristics of the music itself. First is the asymmetric phrase structure. There is an ametric pause after each refrain, and each stanza includes one 5/4 measure among the regular 4/4 beats. This causes the conscious to listen closely, without necessarily knowing why it needs to pay attention. Some might regard the asymmetry as a type of primitivism, but I don't hear it that way. The 5/4 measure adds a level of sophistication, and the pause keeps you guessing as to when the next stanza begins, another attention-getter. The 5/4 measure also throws the poetry into confusion (see the lyrics at the bottom of the post). "And who shall wherewear" is added to the previous line with the extra beat, so the rest of that line is combined with the final line of the verse.

The second interesting characteristic is the lack of closure to the primary melodic line. Each stanza, including the last, finishes with Do - La - Sol. The Do does not sound final, coming on a weak beat and leading to the final Sol. It could be a modal finish, but the harmonies don't support that interpretation. This does create some sense of primitivism, at least to my Schenker-biased ears, though it also seems to fit the lyrics well. The river keeps rolling along without ending, just as the tonality of this song does.

The harmonies, beautifully realized by human voices alone, also deny closure and create a sense of both sophistication and "old-time" aesthetics. There are many 6/4 chords (triads with the fifth in the bass) in structurally important places, destabilizing the harmonic progression and therefore the sense of tonality. The bass line tends to follow the melody in similar motion, rather than create any sense of root motion from chord to chord. The avoidance of roots even as more and more harmonic strands are added is both frustrating and intriguing. In the end of the last stanza, all voices move to unison/octaves mostly (some embellishments), so all the voices end on Sol.

As I went down to the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the starry crown
Good Lord show me the way
Oh sisters let's go down
Let's go down come on down
Oh sisters let's go down
Down to the river to pray

As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the robe and crown
Good Lord show me the way
Oh brothers let's go down
etcetera

As I went down to the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the starry crown
Good Lord show me the way
Oh fathers let's go down
etcetera

As I went down to the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the robe and crown
Good Lord show me the way
Oh mothers let's go down
etcetera

As I went down to the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the starry crown
Good Lord show me the way
Oh sinners let's go down
etcetera

As I went down to the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the robe and crown
Good Lord show me the way