A good day

Yesterday was a good day. I got to see my daughter sing in her choir robes for the first time. I took part in an interesting Bible study. I watched the Colts win a squeaker against the Texans with excellent clock management, which then switched over quite nicely to the Packers-Chargers game so I could watch Brett clinch that win. I took my wife out for a good meal and good conversation. And I got to see eighth blackbird perform the opening concert of their residency here at DePauw. I had never heard De Mey's Tafelmusik (literally performed on a table, really a dance of six hands), which was a great opening. The ending of Rzewski's Pocket Symphony was like giant wood blocks pounding out chimes that rattle the soul before moving away. The recited poetry of Bresnick's In the Twentieth Century was not amplified well for most of the speakers, but the piece had some incredible shifts of musical space, especially through timbre. And Higdon's Zaka was a virtuoso finish, even if lacking in deep emotional content.

WedPod: America

Inspired by Chad Orzel's list, I've decided to bump the FriPod up to today's holiday.

1. Fantasy on 'America the Beautiful,' by Dave Hanson, performed by the Aries Brass Quintet.

2. American in Paris, by George Gershwin, performed by the International Symphony Orchestra.

3. North American Ballads: Dreadful Memories, Which Side Are You On? Down By The River, and Winnsboro Cotton Blues; by Frederic Rzewski.

4. "Tu Vuo' Fa L'Americano," by Renato Carosone and Nicola Salerno, on the Talented Mr. Ripley soundtrack.

5. Variations on "America" by Charles Ives, orchestrated by William Schuman, performed by Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony.

6. New England Triptych: 1. "Be Glad Then, America" by William Schuman, performed by Schwarz and Seattle.

Moving to album names:
7. American Brass Quintet - Music Of Renaissance, Baroque American Brass Quintet
8. American Music For Winds, the Lawrence University Wind Ensemble, directed by Robert Levy.
9. American String Quartets 1950 - 1970, The Concord String Quartet
10. Arleen Auger, American Soprano.
11. Music Of The Americas, Lawrence University Concert Choir.
12. New American Brass, American Brass Quintet.

FriPod: Sunday edition! Memorial Day

I had ten four and five year-olds over for a birthday party yesterday, which ate up all of last week and yesterday. Thus the lateness of this week's FriPod and the lack of blogging this week. This week's FriPod is devoted to Memorial Day weekend.

1. "Memories," by Charles Ives. I have two versions, by Thomas Hampson and Susan Graham. This song is in two halves: Very Pleasant and Rather Sad. The Very Pleasant portion is about waiting for a show at the opera house, rather manic in anticipation of the curtain rising. The Rather Sad part is the bittersweet part of nostalgia, regretting how some things have become old and worn over the years, perhaps to fade away completely. I think this sort of nostalgia is dangerous, leading to an idolatry of permanent things over changing people.

2. "Old Photos. New Memories," from James Horner's soundtrack to House of Sand And Fog. A provocative mix of solo piano with synthesized sounds that shifts to strings. A minimalist presentation, with an oscillating chordal progression. The movie is devastating, as each character neglects ways of connecting with each other, leading to sorrow for everyone. Another form of that dangerous nostalgia.

3. Elegy in Memory of Serge Koussevitsky, by Howard Hanson, performed by Gerard Schwartz and the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. Similar to Hanson's Romantic Symphony in some ways, this memorial to the great conductor and bass virtuoso pays tribute to SK's roots in romanticism. Hanson himself was also rooted in this backwards-looking movement, to the detriment of the Eastman students' educations on 20th century music during his tenure.

4. Tres Lent (In Memoriam Olivier Messiaen), by Joan Tower, performed by André Emelianoff on cello with Joan Tower on piano. This homage is almost creepy in its imitation of Quartet for the End of Time. There is passion, sorrow, respect. Why do these memorials avoid expressing joy for the great things these artists made?

5. "Hope and Memory," from Howard Shore's soundtrack to LOTR - The Return of the King. This clip starts very anxious sounding, but transitions to the hope from the Shire mixed with the Heroes' motive. These memories are nostalgic but full of joy for past accomplishments and hope for the future, rather than dreading any change (at least in the music, the books are a different story).

6. "Lammon tells how Pan saved Chloé in memory of his love for the nymph Syrinx. Daphnis and Chloé act out the story," from Daphnis et Chloé by Maurice Ravel, performed by Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Lush and romantic, this memory is not locked in the past, but willing to interact with the present to affect the future. Impressionistic candy, full of timbral colors through parallel chords and orchestration, and avoidances of cadences.

7. North American Ballads. 1. Dreadful Memories, by Frederic Rzewski, performed by the composer. This ballad starts very cheery, a lilting sea chanty. But a deceptive cadence leads to an abstract deconstruction of the ballad, revealing painful feelings hidden in the pleasant exterior of the melody. There is rage, confusion, sorrow, and regret.

FriPod: Heavy lifters

After missing the FriPod for the last two weeks, I thought I'd make up for it by listing the longest tracks on my iTunes.

1. Bach's Mass in B minor, Gloria, performed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra with Robert Shaw conducting. 37:15. I got to experience the entire mass performed in Bach's own church, St. Thomas in Leipzig. The whole orchestra was in the balcony and my seat was directly underneath, so the only visual connection I had with the performers was seeing the conductor's shadow moving around and then at the end when I moved out to the aisle to applaud them. I took this opportunity to reflect on the space, though I wasn't yet far enough on my spiritual journey to truly appreciate that aspect. I also paid attention to the immediacy of the live performance, divorced from the visual distractions.

1a. Bach's Mass in B minor, Symbolum Nicenum. This Lutheran Credo has no violas. I'm not sure what Bach was trying to say about violists and their beliefs. The trumpets, however, get the last word on the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

2. Pahi Sri Sundhara Raja, performed by Chitravina N. Ravikiran. 33:11. I purchased this CD after hearing M. Ravikiran perform at the SMT conference in Boston. I know I still don't hear many of the subtle nuances of classical Indian music, but I find this track soothing on occasion.

3. Mahler's Symphony No. 3 in D minor, I. Kraftig; Entschieden, performed by Levine with the CSO. 32:46. I also purchased this CD in Boston, but back in 1990. My theory professor, Allen Gimbel, was leading us through a massive Schenkerian analysis of the entire symphony, which inspired me to purchase this recording while visiting my brother during spring break. There is a charming or frustrating moment in this movement where the trombone soloist (Jay Friedman) really blats a note. I'm sure he wishes a different take had been chosen, but the imperfection makes the performance more alive.

4. Frederic Rzewski's De Profundis, performed by Rzewski. 32:42. I took my kids to see Lisa Moore perform this work, which was quite the experience for all of us. Based upon Oscar Wilde's letter from prison to his homosexual lover, the pianist makes gasps at various points that my kids found very amusing. Fortunately they are young enough to not ask what the gasps were for.

5. Peter Maxwell Davies' Trumpet Concerto, performed by Hakan Hardenberger. 31:16. When I got this CD in college (Endless Parade) I didn't listen to it much because the two concerti were so long, with no break between movements. I've slowly lost some of my impatience for long continuous works, though I still don't listen to this concerto nearly as much as others.

6. Toru Takemitsu's "From me flows what you call Time" (1993), performed by the BBC Orchestra with Andrew Davis. 30:47. To be honest, I haven't listened to this one since I ripped this CD, so I can't offer any immediate reactions. I have it playing at this moment, but I don't have time (heh) to listen to the whole work right now. It is full of exotic timbres, very spacious and transparent.

7. Sir Maxwell Davies is in this spot as well, with his Eight Songs for a Mad King, performed by the Fires of London. 30:12. This is somewhat cheating, as all eight songs are on a single track. I wish I had a DVD of this work. I have not had a chance to see the theatrical aspects connected with the music, except for some still photos. Though now that I revisit the composer's website I see that two video clips have been put up.

8. Mahler's Symphony No. 9 in D major, I. Andante Comodo, performed by Pierre Boulez with the CSO. 29:27. Mahler is somewhat like Philip Glass. Both composers need large swathes of time to lay out their musical ideas. In Glass' case, it is (was, mostly) so he could make subtle changes at any given time and yet still travel far enough to be satisfying. Mahler needs all of this room because he has so many ideas that he needs to juxtapose. Interestingly, my Bruno Walter recording of this movement is five minutes shorter.

9. Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, "Der Abschied," performed by Christa Ludwg with the Philharmonia and New Philharmonic Orchestras (Fritz Wunderlich, cond.) 29:25. The final movement of this quasi song-cycle/quasi symphony is very long, but it needs this time to adequately paint the text. The last line, ending with "eternally... eternally..." requires us to travel a long musical road to truly feel this mix of sadness and hope.

10. Michael Blake Watkins' Trumpet Concerto, performed by Hakan Hardenberger. 28:16. This is the other really long concerto on Hardenberger's Endless Parade CD. The title track by Birtwhistle is shorter, a mere nineteen minutes long, one that I listened to far more than the others. I don't know much about Watkins, other than that he is Welsh. The concerto is lush, with a certain insistence in its mood. There is a lot of continuous variation of kernel motives, mostly diatonic.

So, what are your longest tracks, and how long is too long for an uninterrupted piece? Next week I'll talk about the shortest tracks. Be prepared for lots of recitatives!

Artistic Discourse

I just found this weeks-old post by Fernando Téson through Chris Bertram. Fernando objects to political art because it doesn't allow for rational disagreement.

However, political art is a special form of discourse failure. Art is a type of concrete imagery, and as such it evokes a “fact” that may activate default theories in the audience. Those willing to challenge the political stances represented by the artifact have to overcome the suggestive power of beauty.

Thus art isn't playing fair by being emotional and beautiful. (Or funny, as he complains about satire.) Yet what effort at political discourse doesn't appeal to our emotions? Many of the commenters to Fernando's post point out the rhetorical efforts as old as Cicero. But what I think Fernando is really missing is the fact that most political art doesn't evoke concrete facts. The point of art is that it doesn't have the same type of logic as rational dialog. Thus, it can evince contradictory positions at the same time, forcing the audience to see things from two or more perspectives. The audience will not agree with all those perspectives, but may have more understanding and more nuance regarding their own positions. John Scalzi made another point about this, the approach that the political artist makes:

To the extent that one decides to get into politics in one's science fictional work -- and the question of whether this is a good idea at all is a discussion so immense and knotty and exhausting that I'm not even going to bother with it at the moment -- there are primarily two ways to go about it: You can build a monument or you can build a room (yes, these are metaphors. Work with me). If you build a monument, what you're doing is putting your politics and polemics in the center of your reader's attention and basically making him or her deal with them on your terms. The politics aren't accessible and aren't debatable; as a reader you deal with them or you don't.

If you build a room, what you're doing is inviting people in -- with all their baggage, political or otherwise -- and inviting them to unpack and stay awhile. And they unpack, putting all their stuff on the shelves and tables and walls and floors, all of which (to stretch the metaphor to its absolute breaking point) are your underlying political and social views. As a writer, you make the points you want to make, and because you've let your readers bring something into the book as well, I think you've got a better chance of them being receptive to your points.

Fernando seems to think that all political artists are monument builders, when I can think of many room builders. Even an incredibly political work like Rzewski's The People United Will Never Be Defeated is a room in which one can confront Marxism rather than an unyielding monument. The music is lovely, and convoluted, and simple in various spots of the 36 variations, none of which explicitly perform the words of the Chilean song. The title gets across the idea that "The People" should unite together. But who are the people, how should they unite, and what is defeat? The lyrics are more explicit, yet still open to interpretation. And Rzewski did decide to not include any text, unlike other works he wrote for speaking pianist (such as De Profundis). This decision opens up more options for close reading. Is Rzewski rehabilitating a political artwork into a work of absolute art? Or is the political effect meant to be subliminal?

Finally, Fernando completely disregards any potential for discourse between different artworks. Woody Guthrie composed "This Land is My Land" as a protest against Irving Berlin's "God Bless America." In this kind of discourse, the audience gets the option to pay attention to the art, the politics, or both. Either way some kind of enlightenment will be gained.

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.