aworks :: "new" american classical music

links for 2007-04-30

• if charlie parker was a gunslinger,
  there'd be a whole lot of dead copycats: Artists in Action #181
  "Marianne Faithful poses with a dalmation." In a tame way, that is.
• YouTube - picasso
  "Everyone wants to understand art. Why don't we try to understand the song of a bird?" -- Picasso"
• jesshorrible.com » happy birthday sir duke
  'I’m a big fan of his early “jungle” music, with all those slippery horn lines, reed instruments falling out the cracks between the parallel melodic lines, and pushed forward by a constant swing whether stately or driving.'

links for 2007-04-29

• My 99 Cents: Separated at Birth?
  "Is it me or is Leo DiCaprio looking more and more like Clark Gable these days?"
• Meme nominee: Banned Experimental Music « Startling Moniker
  "Any particular music that achieves market success can’t be called experimental anymore."

Songs, Drones, and Refrains of Death (1968). George Crumb /War...huh...yeah, what is it good for?/

Listening to George Crumb's Songs, Drones, and Refrains of Death, I wonder to what extent this evocative (although sometimes incomprehensible) work was explicitly influenced by the nightmare of the Viet Nam war. I suspect not so much; more likely it was a awakening-era prelude to the ugly years to follow (1968-70) and the composer's subsequent Black Angels.

I also wonder if any lasting art will be inspired by the Iraq War. Although, I suppose not even the interpretation of Shostakovich's "Leningrad" Symphony is as clear as it first seemed.

youtube: edwin starr - war. george crumb - black angel part 2. more cheerful video circa 1965 via roger bourland

links for 2007-04-28

• REVIEW / Wainwright takes command, with talent overflowing
  "his arrangements, once called pop-opera or neo-Weimar, have become Wagnerian, Britten-esque and, at times, evocative of late Beatles, Queen and mid-period Andrew Lloyd Webber, sometimes all in the same song." Also on the bill, Teddy Thompson!
• The Gender Genie
  "Female Score: 97. Male Score: 373. The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!" I blog male, apparently.
• Article - Entertainment - The lighter side of Mexico
  I suppose I've heard most of the major Mexican composers but overall, I would like to hear more contemporary Mexican music.
• YouTube - Glenwood Canyon with Philip Glass.
  More Philip Glass music from inside a car.
• Big Box Retailers Doing Not Quite As Crappily As The Rest Of The Industry--But They're Getting There - Idolator
  Big box stores are bad news for more than just classical music...
• Philip Glass' Exceptional Foray into Rock Music: NORTH STAR with MP3 Selections - ` - by Bill Courtney
  "A lot of what he does, of course, tends to sound the same after a few records and yet I seem to have developed a strange liking for it." Me too, why is that?
• Avant Music News » Blog Archive » Small Labels Saving Classical Music
  Links to a rebuttal to Lebrecht.
• Norman Lear: Pete Seeger: a True American Hero | The Huffington Post
  "Pete Seeger is the true mythic American hero."

links for 2007-04-27

• On a Pacific Aisle: News from the Big Apple
  'the "wiki model" of orchestra management'
• HurdAudio: Sounds Like Now
  'To my ears, "now" sounded like several fruitful collaborations with a healthy range of composers exploring different aesthetic avenues.'
• Glass Notes: Muppets/ Sesame Street 1977
  'According to Muppet Wiki: "In 1977, Glass wrote a series of short vocal and instrumental pieces for Sesame Street.'

links for 2007-04-26

• Dial "M" for Musicology: Nerdcore
  Phil: "Still, things have gotten to the point where aesthetic advocacy (i.e., saying something is awesome) is considered not only unprofessional but wrong."
• Iron Tongue of Midnight: Interruption
  "But I wish MTT would go back to the great programming on which he built his SFS reputation."

St. Louis Blues (1914). W.C. Handy /twittering and tooting/

As I continue to explode aworks into micro-entries on twitter and del.icio.us, I'm realizing the flow works in the other direction as well. Or to phrase it differently, blogging requires some thought, unlike twitter. So in this post, I'll correct what I just twittered, after listening to a John Fahey version of a famous composition.

Yes in fact, W.C. Handy's St. Louis Blues is a famous composition. Wikipedia:

"St. Louis Blues" is a piece of American music composed by William Christopher Handy in the blues style. It remains a fundamental part of jazz musicians' repertoire. It was also one of the first blues songs to succeed as a pop song; it has been performed by numerous musicians of all styles from Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith to Glenn Miller and the Boston Pops Orchestra. It has been called "the jazzman's Hamlet". Published in September of 1914 by Handy's own company, it later gained such popularity that it inspired the dance step the "Foxtrot".

I also don't remember what Ken Burns had to say about the work although I see a version by Louis Armstrong included in the Ken Burns' Jazz CD set. I do remember how Armstrong's recording of West End Blues was seen as a momentous work, though...

YouTube with St. Louis Blues as soundtrack:

• rogerbourland.com » Blog Archive » Updating opinions
  'Perhaps I should not expect the LAPhil to be “state-ist.”' And why am I more a nationalist than a statist?
• A VC: FoxyTunes Planet & TwittyTunes
  "One thing that's becoming very clear with all these great music 2.0 services is that they are starting to connect to each other and the rest of the web in some very interesting ways." Agreed e.g. lasttv.net (last.fm to YouTube)
• Philip Glass - Music on FoxyTunes Planet
  Everything Philip Glass: from last.fm, pandora, hype machine, google, YouTube, ... all on one page.
• Author David Halberstam killed in Menlo Park
  "Halberstam, 73, of New York, was a passenger in a car that was broadsided as it was making a left turn off the Bayfront Expressway, the approach road to the Dumbarton Bridge, onto Willow Road about 10:35 a.m."
• James Fallows | Author and Journalist » Blog Archive » David Halberstam, R.I.P.
• calimac: music, music, music to my ears
  '"That must have been Webern's piano roll."'

• CRITICAL METRICS
  Site that streams the music most recommended by critics. Pop music, of course.
• Background Noise: Do we still need professional critics?
  "not simply aggregating the recommendations of a group of random people, but a group of people who are perceived to be experts at what they are reviewing"
• if charlie parker was a gunslinger,there'd be a whole lot of dead copycats: Artists in Action #178
  "George Bernard Shaw holds up a wooden plank" ???
• bit-tech.net | Can you hear me now?
  what RIAA wants re: surviving Internet stations: "the ones that played a low variety of songs and appealed to the widest audience for advertising dollars"

• Likewise, I've never heard a more precisely balanced, gorgeous version of the second movement than the one presented here. The sound world here runs from Debussy's impressionism toward Holst's outer Planets, with agonizing disturbances inspired by the Adagio of Mahler's Symphony No. 10.  Night After Night
• Adams' East/West fusion seems more brilliant than ever. He's not forgetting his roots, having named his 1985 Harmonielehre after Arnold Schoenberg's book on harmony (written in Vienna), but has such a California dreaminess as to be an ambassador for the minimalist movement, whose hypnotic, pulsing repetition arrived here within time-honored beginning-middle-and-end architecture. Philadelphia Inquirer
• Pero, su obra más representativa en el minimalismo es “Harmonielehre” (1.985), donde intenta seguir la música repetitiva basada en una armonía tradicional, utilizando la forma de una gran orquesta sinfónica. En El Aire
• The orchestra made all the wonderful big noises in John Adams's “Harmonielehre” on Saturday, but it was less successful at rhythms that must be sharp enough to cut. New York Times
• While not the most critically well received of Adams' works its [Road Movie's] overall feel has made it one of my favorites along side the highly exaulted Harmonielehre, Dharma at Big Sur, El Dorado and Short Ride in a Fast Machine. call me classical
• Last night I got to play John Adams’ Harmonielehre with the SLSO once again. Ahh. It was really a blast. I mean that almost literally. It rocks. My part includes mallets (all kinds) and my favorite moment, the bass drum blast at the end. Rubright.com
• If Bernstein once described Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique in terms of an LSD trip, then this too took us into fantastical realms. While the outer movements delivered bold pillars of chords with percussionists rushing from instrument to instrument, the middle movement made connections with Takemitsu's world in its floating Debussian harmonies. New Zealand Herald

links for 2007-04-24

• rogerbourland.com » Blog Archive » Updating opinions
  'Perhaps I should not expect the LAPhil to be “state-ist.”' And why am I more a nationalist than a statist?
• A VC: FoxyTunes Planet & TwittyTunes
  "One thing that's becoming very clear with all these great music 2.0 services is that they are starting to connect to each other and the rest of the web in some very interesting ways." Agreed e.g. lasttv.net (last.fm to YouTube)
• Philip Glass - Music on FoxyTunes Planet
  Everything Philip Glass: from last.fm, pandora, hype machine, google, YouTube, ... all on one page.
• Author David Halberstam killed in Menlo Park
  "Halberstam, 73, of New York, was a passenger in a car that was broadsided as it was making a left turn off the Bayfront Expressway, the approach road to the Dumbarton Bridge, onto Willow Road about 10:35 a.m."
• James Fallows | Author and Journalist » Blog Archive » David Halberstam, R.I.P.
• calimac: music, music, music to my ears
  '"That must have been Webern's piano roll."'

links for 2007-04-23

• CRITICAL METRICS
  Site that streams the music most recommended by critics. Pop music, of course.
• Background Noise: Do we still need professional critics?
  "not simply aggregating the recommendations of a group of random people, but a group of people who are perceived to be experts at what they are reviewing"
• if charlie parker was a gunslinger,there'd be a whole lot of dead copycats: Artists in Action #178
  "George Bernard Shaw holds up a wooden plank" ???
• bit-tech.net | Can you hear me now?
  what RIAA wants re: surviving Internet stations: "the ones that played a low variety of songs and appealed to the widest audience for advertising dollars"

Harmonielehre (1985). John Adams /recent comments/

• Likewise, I've never heard a more precisely balanced, gorgeous version of the second movement than the one presented here. The sound world here runs from Debussy's impressionism toward Holst's outer Planets, with agonizing disturbances inspired by the Adagio of Mahler's Symphony No. 10.  Night After Night
• Adams' East/West fusion seems more brilliant than ever. He's not forgetting his roots, having named his 1985 Harmonielehre after Arnold Schoenberg's book on harmony (written in Vienna), but has such a California dreaminess as to be an ambassador for the minimalist movement, whose hypnotic, pulsing repetition arrived here within time-honored beginning-middle-and-end architecture. Philadelphia Inquirer
• Pero, su obra más representativa en el minimalismo es “Harmonielehre” (1.985), donde intenta seguir la música repetitiva basada en una armonía tradicional, utilizando la forma de una gran orquesta sinfónica. En El Aire
• The orchestra made all the wonderful big noises in John Adams's “Harmonielehre” on Saturday, but it was less successful at rhythms that must be sharp enough to cut. New York Times
• While not the most critically well received of Adams' works its [Road Movie's] overall feel has made it one of my favorites along side the highly exaulted Harmonielehre, Dharma at Big Sur, El Dorado and Short Ride in a Fast Machine. call me classical
• Last night I got to play John Adams’ Harmonielehre with the SLSO once again. Ahh. It was really a blast. I mean that almost literally. It rocks. My part includes mallets (all kinds) and my favorite moment, the bass drum blast at the end. Rubright.com
• If Bernstein once described Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique in terms of an LSD trip, then this too took us into fantastical realms. While the outer movements delivered bold pillars of chords with percussionists rushing from instrument to instrument, the middle movement made connections with Takemitsu's world in its floating Debussian harmonies. New Zealand Herald