Music-Related Things
My computer is back. Anyone care to place a bet on how long logic board number FOUR(!) is going to last? Phone is still in the shop, but today they gave me a loaner phone, so I'm not quite so dead-to-the-world. Everyone has chosen this weekend as the weekend to be in London, which is good.
But this is a post about music. First of all, I need advice. If you had to choose between going to see the Bang on a Can All-Stars with a Czech lady in a really tiny church, or going to see a concert performance of Dom Sebastián with some really good singers, which would you choose? On the one hand is an ensemble I idolize and yet have never seen. On the other is a work my advisor edited (and is she getting money for this?) and which might well prove useful for the half-completed paper I'm going to be reading in Oxford in six weeks or so. Oh fatal choice!
Second, Adès's new violin concerto... that shit is weird. Like, weirder than it seems, I think. You can listen to it for the next five days here (select "Prom 69"). And you all should. Y'all remember how RT called Adès a "musical surrealist," right? Well, I wasn't entirely convinced that was the best way to understand Asyla, but it seems exactly the right word to describe what's going on in this new piece. It has to do with structure more than anything -- the way that beginnings and endings and the introduction of new musical ideas aren't just surprising, but seem to be calculated to come at exactly the wrong time. Not at a random time, but the most wrong time. I can't quite explain why. Also: The first two movements begin with what sounds to me like an evocation of Walter Fähndrich. Also: The third movement begins with a hootchy-kootchy dance. What's that about?
Third... I'm not totally satisfied with my Vienna Phil post, but it's okay. It will be obvious to many of you how RT looms larger over my life and habits of though that one might have expected. I had a wee crisis of confindence right after I posted it, and made all the L'ist kids tell me it made sense.
The Vienna Phil concert itself (on Wednesday, conducted by Zubin Mehta) was actually sort of amazing. (I'm listening to the second of their two concerts on the radio as I type this. I sort of wish I were there -- could I possibly be beginning to like Bruckner?! -- although a certain correspondant was so vicious in his hatred of Eschenbach that I don't feel too bad.) Anyway, so the big news about Wednesday's concert was the first piece, the Haydn "Drumroll" Symphony. There's this spot in the second movement with a big violin solo -- actually a little string quartet forms. The violin solo is cute and charming... AND THE CONCERTMASTER OF THE VIENNA PHILHARMONIC FUCKED IT UP ROYALLY. Oh my god it was shocking. Apparently he was thrown by the extreme technical demands of shifting into second position. It was incredible. You can listen to this. If you go to here, select "Prom 71", and wait exactly 16:00 minutes in, you will hear shockingly shoddy playing. Vergogna!
The Berg Wozzeck Fragments were nice, and Dalayman is a credible dramatic soprano. Hated her sprechstimme, though...
And then there was this Rite I swear I heard inner voices, and structural divisions, that I had never heard. I'm not sure if this was a good thing or not. It was also, I think, the noisiest Rite I've ever heard (during the "Dance of the Earth" he had the guiro doubled up). At time there was more bow noise than pitch coming from the strings. This was great. At there was this moment, just before the "Sacrificial Dance, where the orchestra builds and builds, and then there's a few beats of vamp before the dance gets going, right? Well, when they arrived at the vamp, Mehta just straight-up stopped conducting altogether, and let the orchestra blast away for several seconds without him. It was as if he was gatehring his energy, before giving a huge cue for the melody to start. I can't express how awesome this was.
I should say something about the Vienna Phil itself, but what? I mean, really, I'm not a conoisseur of orchestras and recording in the least, but I'm pretty sure no other wind section sounds like that. No other brass section sounds like that. And yet, and yet...
(Oh and can any of you tell me if it's normal that horns 5 and 6 switch to Wagner tubas at the beginning of "Procession of the Sage," or is that just a werid thing that Mehta and the players decided to do? It was... good, I think? But weird.)
Last thing: my Klinghoffer review will be up at mundoclásico.com very very soon. Calm down, the sign telling you to subscribe disappears after 10 seconds. I think it will be posted in both Spanish and English, but Mr. Smearcase and Rachel are required to read the Spanish translation and tell me how it sounds.
But this is a post about music. First of all, I need advice. If you had to choose between going to see the Bang on a Can All-Stars with a Czech lady in a really tiny church, or going to see a concert performance of Dom Sebastián with some really good singers, which would you choose? On the one hand is an ensemble I idolize and yet have never seen. On the other is a work my advisor edited (and is she getting money for this?) and which might well prove useful for the half-completed paper I'm going to be reading in Oxford in six weeks or so. Oh fatal choice!
Second, Adès's new violin concerto... that shit is weird. Like, weirder than it seems, I think. You can listen to it for the next five days here (select "Prom 69"). And you all should. Y'all remember how RT called Adès a "musical surrealist," right? Well, I wasn't entirely convinced that was the best way to understand Asyla, but it seems exactly the right word to describe what's going on in this new piece. It has to do with structure more than anything -- the way that beginnings and endings and the introduction of new musical ideas aren't just surprising, but seem to be calculated to come at exactly the wrong time. Not at a random time, but the most wrong time. I can't quite explain why. Also: The first two movements begin with what sounds to me like an evocation of Walter Fähndrich. Also: The third movement begins with a hootchy-kootchy dance. What's that about?
Third... I'm not totally satisfied with my Vienna Phil post, but it's okay. It will be obvious to many of you how RT looms larger over my life and habits of though that one might have expected. I had a wee crisis of confindence right after I posted it, and made all the L'ist kids tell me it made sense.
The Vienna Phil concert itself (on Wednesday, conducted by Zubin Mehta) was actually sort of amazing. (I'm listening to the second of their two concerts on the radio as I type this. I sort of wish I were there -- could I possibly be beginning to like Bruckner?! -- although a certain correspondant was so vicious in his hatred of Eschenbach that I don't feel too bad.) Anyway, so the big news about Wednesday's concert was the first piece, the Haydn "Drumroll" Symphony. There's this spot in the second movement with a big violin solo -- actually a little string quartet forms. The violin solo is cute and charming... AND THE CONCERTMASTER OF THE VIENNA PHILHARMONIC FUCKED IT UP ROYALLY. Oh my god it was shocking. Apparently he was thrown by the extreme technical demands of shifting into second position. It was incredible. You can listen to this. If you go to here, select "Prom 71", and wait exactly 16:00 minutes in, you will hear shockingly shoddy playing. Vergogna!
The Berg Wozzeck Fragments were nice, and Dalayman is a credible dramatic soprano. Hated her sprechstimme, though...
And then there was this Rite I swear I heard inner voices, and structural divisions, that I had never heard. I'm not sure if this was a good thing or not. It was also, I think, the noisiest Rite I've ever heard (during the "Dance of the Earth" he had the guiro doubled up). At time there was more bow noise than pitch coming from the strings. This was great. At there was this moment, just before the "Sacrificial Dance, where the orchestra builds and builds, and then there's a few beats of vamp before the dance gets going, right? Well, when they arrived at the vamp, Mehta just straight-up stopped conducting altogether, and let the orchestra blast away for several seconds without him. It was as if he was gatehring his energy, before giving a huge cue for the melody to start. I can't express how awesome this was.
I should say something about the Vienna Phil itself, but what? I mean, really, I'm not a conoisseur of orchestras and recording in the least, but I'm pretty sure no other wind section sounds like that. No other brass section sounds like that. And yet, and yet...
(Oh and can any of you tell me if it's normal that horns 5 and 6 switch to Wagner tubas at the beginning of "Procession of the Sage," or is that just a werid thing that Mehta and the players decided to do? It was... good, I think? But weird.)
Last thing: my Klinghoffer review will be up at mundoclásico.com very very soon. Calm down, the sign telling you to subscribe disappears after 10 seconds. I think it will be posted in both Spanish and English, but Mr. Smearcase and Rachel are required to read the Spanish translation and tell me how it sounds.
posted by Grrg at 7:49 PM
3 Comments:
That was a very confusing spam comment you just received (and I got nervous because for a brief moment I thought it included my last name).
Anyway, I don't recall horns 5 and 6 switching to Wagner tubas at that point, but then again, I have larger, bigger issues to worry about with that piece--you know?
All that spam now gone, although I did like the sound of ultra porn stars. How do they differ from regular porn stars, do ya suppose?
As for "larger, bigger issues," oh my god I know. I forgot to mention: I may have heard a recording in which the beginning was taken very slowly, but still, Mehta's tempo at the start almost gave me a panic attack. You can listen in the dumb streaming thing, although I now realize that you can't fast-forward, so you'd have to listen to all of the bad Haydn and okay Berg...
ok, so i read the review on Mundo Clasico. they had it in English and Spanish and I read both. I liked your observations of the concert hall, audience, performance etc.
and the Spanish sounded fine to me!
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