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!

AMS Midwest Chapter Conference

Another good regional conference. March 24-25, 2007. Miami University. Meeting location: Bystrom-Reid Room, on the Third floor of the Shriver Center, 701 East Spring Street, Oxford, Ohio, 45240

(on the MU campus map, it is building # 123, section 3D)

Sat. 9:45-11:45
Operatic Subjects: Effie Papanikolauo, Miami University, Chair

Heather Foote, University of Iowa
"A Bombastic Baritone and Scheming Soprano: Unconventional Characters in Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff"

Shinobu Yoshida, University of Michigan
"Puccini's Exotic Women?: Subverting Conventions of the Tragic Heroine"

Maria Cristina Fava, Eastman School of Music
"Transforming Text: Weill's Use of Circularity as a Framing Device"


Melinda Boyd, College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati
"Unmasking the Ballroom Scene in Thea Musgrave's Mary, Queen of Scots"

Sat. 12:00-2:00 Group Lunch

Sat. 2:15-4:15
Keynote Address and Panel
Dr. Charles Atkinson, The Ohio State University
President of the American Musicological Society
"Musicology Today and Tomorrow"

Panel TBA

Sat. 4:30 Business Meeting

Sun. 9:00-11:00
Reassessing Analysis

Lynn Kane, Wheaton College
"The Influence of Basso Continuo Practice on the Late Eighteenth-Century Lied"

Julie Hedges Brown, Oberlin Conservatory
"The style hongrois and Schumann's Formal Experiments of 1842"

Ryan Ross University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
"'Night and Day': New Thoughts on the Conclusion to Mahler's Seventh Symphony"

Sun. 11:15-12:45
Religious Topoi

Jessica A. Shelvik, University of IL, Urbana-Champaign
" 'Pagan-Religious Merry-Making:' The Program(s) of Rimsky-Korsakov's Svetlyi Prazdnik"

Christopher Urbiel
"A House Divided May Indeed Stand: Edward Elgar's Roman Catholic Motets and Anglican Anthems"

American Institutions

Jane Riegel Ferencz, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
"Music for Wisconsin: The WPA Federal Music Project in Madison"

Mark D. Porcaro, Muskegon, MI
"Beatlemania Magically Recreated: Hyperreality and Tribute Bands in the United States"

Press Release: Met regional finals

On Sunday, March 11 at 2pm, WGBH 89.7 FM will air the 48th annual New England Regional Finals of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. The auditions were held at New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall on Sunday, January 28. The broadcast of this popular competition, hosted by Ron Della Chiesa, will also stream worldwide on March 11 at 2pm at wgbh.org/classical.
This year's exceptionally strong field of fourteen young singers yielded three first place winners:

Michael Fabiano - Twenty-two-year-old tenor from Philadelphia.
Matthew Plenk - Twenty-four-year-old tenor from Lindenhurst, New York.
Faith Sherman - Twenty-five-year-old mezzo-soprano from Wilton, Connecticut

American Handel Festival

The American Handel Society and the Department of Music at Princeton University invites you to the 2007 American Handel Festival and Meeting of the American Handel Society to be held at Princeton University, April 19-21.

The conference portion of the festival includes an international and interdisciplinary roster of scholars who will consider a variety of issues concerning the music of Handel and his contemporaries, including Handel and Judaism, music, myth, and allegory, the reception of Handel, performance practice, Handel’s instrumental music, vocality, heroism, and masculinity. We are delighted to announce that the Howard Serwer Memorial Lecture will be given by Andrew Porter.

The Festival opens with “Britannia’s Invitation: The Life and Music Times of George Frederick Handel as seen through contemporary eyes," featuring the Richard Baroque Chamber Players, directed by Nancy Wilson, violin, with soprano Laura Heimes, countertenor Daniel Gundlach, bass Curtis Streitman, harpsichordist Gwendolyn Toch, narrated by Nathan Randall and Judith Pierce. Friday evening at 6 PM University organist Eric Plutz will present an organ recital at the University Chapel, and the Festival will conclude with a performance of Handel’s Hercules by the Princeton University Glee Club, directed by Richard Tang Yuk, with professional soloists and orchestra.

The Firestone Library will also be featuring a special exhibit of the James S. Hall Handel Collection, curated by Paula Matthews.

For more information on registration, concert tickets, and accommodations, please see the conference website.

We look forward to seeing you in Princeton in April!

Music and Politics

There is a new online music journal, which I have just added to the list on the left. Music and Politics has its first issue out, with article on teaching a class on music and politics, music in WW2 concentration camps, a comparison of William Byrd and Shostakovich in dealing with authoritarian criticsm, and the relationship between Gideon Klein's string trio and the photographs of D.J. Ruzicka mingled with Bohemian politics.

Press Release: Barbara Monk Feldman

Monday, March 5, 2007, 7:30 p.m.
Arraymusic Studio, 60 Atlantic Ave., Suite 218, Toronto

Arraymusic is pleased to present composer Barbara Monk Feldman as part of our ongoing "Composer Talks" series at the Arraymusic Studio on Monday, March 5th, 2007, at 7:30 p.m.. Ms. Monk Feldman's talk, entitled "The Chaco Wilderness", will elucidate the compositional ideas and techniques in her most recent work.

Please join us at the Arraymusic studio for Barabara's lecture, which includes recordings of her work, as well as a post-lecture discussion. The composer's two compositions, Verses and Glockenspiel, are featured on Arraymusic percussionist Rick Sack's new CD, which is being released at Rick's solo concert at the Music Room, Hart House, University of Toronto, on March 9th at 8 p.m.. Rick will perform "Glockenspiel" at this event. Both Arraymusic's "Composer Talks" and Rick's solo concert are free-admission public events.

Barbara Monk Feldman is a Canadian composer of mostly chamber works which have been performed in Asia, Europe and North America.

Ms. Monk Feldman studied composition with Bengt Hambræus at McGill University in Montréal from 1980-83, where she earned her MMus. She then studied with Morton Feldman, whom she later married, at the State University of New York in Buffalo from 1984-87. There she earned her PhD on the Edgard Varèse Fellowship.

Numerous performers have played Ms. Monk Feldman's works, including the Arditti String Quartet, clarinetist Roger Heaton, pianists Yvar Mikhashoff, Ursula Oppens, Frederic Rzewski, and Aki Takahashi, percussionists Steven Schick, Robyn Schulkowsky and Jan Williams and cellist Frances-Marie Uitti.

Her music has been premiered at Darmstadt and the festivals Inventionen in Berlin, Nieuwe Muziek in Middelburg, Other Minds in San Francisco and Toronto New Music and in the Rotunda in Tokyo. BBC, BRT, CBC, HR, and WDR have recorded her works. She served on the faculty at Darmstadt in 1988, 1990 and 1994 and has guest-lectured at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin and has lectured and taught at universities in Canada and the USA.

Her research in music and the visual arts has led to collaborations with numerous artists, including Stan Brakhage, whose hand-painted film "Three Homerics" was created specifically for use with her piece "Infinite Other".

She founded the "Time Shards Music Series" at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe in 2001 and has since served as its artistic director. Ms. Monk Feldman's article "Music and the Picture Plane" has appeared in the RES Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics (1997) and Contemporary Music Review (1998).

The Canadian Music Centre and Frog Peak Music distribute her music.

ARRAYMUSIC RECEIVES FINANCIAL SUPPORT FROM CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS, THE ONTARIO ARTS COUNCIL, THE TORONTO ARTS COUNCIL, THE ONTARIO TRILLIUM FOUNDATION, THE SOCAN FOUNDATION and CANADIAN HERITAGE

Upcoming conferences update

The list of conference notices has built up during my absence. Here are the latest.

Renaissance Society of America, Miami, March 23-25 2007. There are many papers on Renaissance music at this conference by Nicole Bensoussan, Anna Maria Busse Berger, Benjamin Brand, Mauro Calcagno, Lorenzo Calendario, Philippe Canguilhem, Seth Coluzzi, Marlene Eberhart, Don Harran, Aaron Kunin, Stefano Lorenzetti, Patrick Macey, Anne MacNeil, Anthony Newcomb, Mary Paquette-Abt, and Paul Schleuse.

MUSIC AND CRISIS, a graduate student conference. March 10, 9:30 to 5:30, Harvard University's Dudley House.

Program:

9:30 am Dudley House Common Room: Registration and Opening Remarks

10:00 am Morning Session I

-Instruments of War: The Impact of World War II on the American Music Industry
Sarah Deters Richardson, University of South Dakota
-Janacek's Makropulos and the Case of the Silent Diva
Jennifer Sheppard, University of California, Berkeley

11:30 am Morning Session II

-Korsakov's Complaint: The Forging of an Unlikely Musical Rebel
Leah Goldman, University of Chicago (Department of Russian History)
-Haydn's "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser": The Composer as Architect of Imperial Unity
Karen Hiles, Columbia University

2:20 pm Afternoon Session

-A Question of Home: The Search for the Armenian Musical Voice
Sylvia Alajaji, Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester
-Redesigning for Multiple Publics: Taste, Community and the Classical Music Landscape
Byron Sartain, University of Wisconsin, Madison

4:10 pm Keynote Address by Christoph Wolff, Adams University Professor at Harvard University: "Grappling with Consequences of Political Troubles: Professional Experiences and Personal Reflections"

A Study Day on the Music of Johannes Regis, July 18th, 2007, Cambridge University, Faculty of Music, West Rd

Papers will include studies of Regis's two mass cycles and his motet texts; The Clerks' Group will be in residence to provide live illustrations.

The day will conclude with a concert in Emmanuel College Chapel by The Clerks' Group.