Obama on Roth, Roth on Obama

Funny what you find on a French web site: Le Magazine-Litteraire has an item that quotes from an interview that Barack Obama gave to Jerry Goldberg--an interview that I can't find on the web--in which he is quoted as saying (translating back into English from the French): "I often say in jest that my intellectual development came about, without my knowing it, through reading Jewish writers and scholars. From theologians to Philip Roth, they have helped me forge my sensibility." ("Je dis souvent en plaisantant que ma formation intellectuelle s’est faite à mon insu, à travers la lecture d’écrivains et d’universitaires juifs. Des théologiens à Philip Roth, ils m’ont aidé à forger ma sensibilité.")

The item then goes on to quote from an interview Roth gave Der Spiegel in which he says kind things about Obama before adding (translating back from the French, itself a translation of the German): "But don't write that I'm going to vote for him [Obama]! This is the kiss of death. I rarely vote for the winner." ("Mais n’écrivez surtout pas que je vais voter pour lui ! Ce serait le baiser de la mort : je vote rarement pour le gagnant.")

Five-Minute Record Review

Donizetti's Roberto Devereux is so well known as a sopranos' opera--thanks in no small part to Beverly Sills's traversal of the so-called "Three Queens," a ridiculous piece of marketing that would have baffled Donizetti--that it's easy to forget that the title role belongs to a tenor. Naxos's recording of a live performance from the Bergamo music festival makes a good case for the centrality of the tenor part. Massimiliano Pisapia's Roberto is beautifully sung, if a touch veristic. His voice may need some ripening--the upper register sometimes seems poorly blended with the rest of the voice--but the intonation is good and the overall tone is virile and lyric.

The rest of the cast is quite good, too. Dmitra Theodossiu's Elisabetta may not hurl thunderbolts like Gencer, and perhaps she doesn't pull off the floating pianissimi that some other singers perfected, but she has the notes and the temperament. Federica Bragaglia's lyric soprano hardens a little in the high notes but overall fits the role's character ably. The conductor Marcello Rota paces the performance intelligently. Worth checking out.

Bad Signage

I saw this ad for the French Toast line of clothes on the side of the M104 bus ... in "Manhatten." Doesn't anyone proofread anymore?

Upcoming Issue of Opera News

The September issue of Opera News is hitting newstands now, and it's really worth seeking out. (Its content is not yet up on the Opera News web site.) Just to point out a few highlights:

• Renee Fleming on current singers: "I just sang a gala last night in Montreal. ... It was Matthew Polenzani, Diana Damrau, Joyce DiDonato and me. And they were just spectacular. Spectacular. Those three artists have it all. Stage presence and beauty and charm and unbelievable virtuosity and charisma. There are probably fifteen singers about whom that could be said right now, and ten years ago, there ... three, maybe. The bar is very high right now." (from her cover-story interview with F. Paul Driscoll)
• A profile of the likeable, up-and-coming American tenor Lawrence Brownlee.
• Some perceptive comments on Leonard Bernstein's much-maligned Mass, from Nico Muhly. One sample: "I have always liked to think about Mass as a Christian appropriation of the pagan holiday that is West Side Story."
• And, in the fulfillment of a lifelong dream, yours truly has a signed article in the august pages of the world's pre-eminent opera magazine: a book review of a memoir by Michael Kaiser, who runs the Kennedy Center in Washington.

And, yes, I do work for the Metropolitan Opera Guild, publisher of Opera News, but I'm writing this of my own volition.

A Scorecard Might Help

Those of us who are fond of the music of France during the fin-de-siècle have our hands full keeping names straight. It’s not just about knowing your Chabrier from your Chausson. The great composer Gabriel Fauré had a dear friend named Gabriel Faure—no accent. Weirder still, Faure wrote a biography of Fauré—one that can presumably be shelved with equal usefulness by author or by subject.

But if that isn’t confusing enough, just think of the confusion that the Erlangers caused their local post offices. There’s Camille Erlanger, a Parisian, whose operas include Aphrodite, Saint Julien l’Hopitalier, and Le fils d’étoile, perhaps the only opera about Simon Bar-Kokhba. There’s Frédéric Erlanger, who was part German, part American, who held the title of Baron, lived in England, worked primarily as a banker, and wrote an opera called Tess, based on Hardy’s novel, to an Italian text by Puccini’s librettist Luigi Illica.

And then there’s Rodolphe Erlanger, also a Baron, resident of Tunisia, famous for his ethno-musicological investigations of the Arab world.

Camille was born in 1863; Frédéric in 1868; and Rodolphe in 1872. Three musical Erlangers born within nine years of each other, and none related!

You Read It Here First

The Times has noticed the kerfuffle involving Siné, blogged about below.

Siné: Quoi? Non!

Last year Tom Reiss wrote in The New Yorker about a French "comedian" named Dieudonné whose humor, if that's what it can be called, is unabashedly anti-semitic. It was sobering reading.
Earlier this month another one-named French humorist, Siné, made an anti-semitic crack in the pages of the satirical journal Charlie Hebdo, and an interesting and rather sorry brouhaha has ensued, according to Bernard-Henri Lévy's more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger essay about the controversy.

Siné, no doubt infected with that crazed anti-Sarkozy hysteria that I alluded to in an earlier post, was complaining that, to translate Lévy's paraphrase, "in Sarko's France, converting to Judaism is a form of upward mobility" ("la conversion au judaïsme est, dans la France de Sarkozy, un moyen de réussite sociale"). This led M. Siné to declare "that he prefers a Muslim woman in a chador to a shaved Jewess" ("qu'il préfère 'une musulmane en tchador' à 'une juive rasée'").

These kinds of words are so spiteful and irrational it's hard to know how to react. You'd really have to dig deep into the diseased literature of anti-semitism to find this kind of ordure.

Interestingly, as Lévy points out, the controversy that has ensued is less about Siné's remarks and more about the demand of Charlie Hebdo's editor, Philippe Val, that Siné retract and apologize for his statement or never write for the magazine again. The argument seems to be that Val's ultimatum is not in keeping with the magazine's championing of free speech, even if it is offensive: an enemy of cant and empty-headedness is falling prey to "political correctness."

Lévy's intriguing point is this: there's nothing particularly "free" or courageous or non-conformist or even original about humor that appeals to racism and anti-semitism. If anything, it's conforming to a rather old, and tired, rhetoric, "the same eternal return to the same humor of the cabaret that not even you, Siné, find funny" ("le même éternel retour du même humour de cabaret qui ne te fait, j'en suis sûr, plus rire toi-même").

Obviously there are echoes of debates here, but I am most fascinated by the anti-semitism that no doubt propels much of the extreme reaction to Sarko.

Bittersweet Off-Topic

My wife enjoys watching reruns of "Will and Grace," and once called me into the living room to show me a scene in which Will, at his first hockey game, starts chanting "Here we go Strangers, here we go!"

These days the team looks a lot more like Strangers than Rangers. I'm brokenhearted that Jagr is leaving, especially as the team is opening its season in Prague. To say he was my favorite player on the Rangers is something of an understatement. He was my favorite hockey player before he came to the Rangers.

Losing Avery is really hard to accept. This guy won hockey games, plain and simple. The future hall-of-famer and all around great guy Brendan Shanahan most likely will not return. Marty Straka, one of the few short-handed threats the Rangers had, is gone. Tyutin played hard all season long and was a great linemate with Girardi. Hollweg added a lot of heart and soul to the team, even if he took some knuckle-headed penalties.

Hard to figure out some of the new acquisitions; it seems like Redden's and Naslund's best years are behind them, and some of the younger guys they've traded for are unproven. A lot is riding on their big pick-ups from last season, Drury and Gomez.

And an oddity: the Rangers are only playing only one afternoon home game all next season! I don't get it. My soon-to-be eight-year-old son is going to be disappointed that with so many late games his chance to see them play at the Garden will be severely limited.

What Ethics Should Writers Have?

Speaking of my reviews, I didn't post when, back in May, I reviewed Julie Salamon's Hospital. I was troubled by this book, and I have been wanting for some time to expand a little on what I touched on in my review.

Julie Salamon is a talented writer, one of those reporters whose powers of observation are nearly Holmes-ian. (Perhaps now we would say House-ian.) But I feel that she crossed a line in this book by bringing her megawatt powers of exposure to people whose lives could be harmed by this kind of attention. Although the director of the Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn gave Salamon full access and encouraged the staff to co-operate with her, it still does not seem fair for hard-working doctors to have details of their lives, or scraps of conversation and gossip, thrown into the open for no purpose other than Salamon's needing something to write about. Yes, it is interesting to know how a big-city hospital copes with its many challenges. Ultimtaely, though, the approach Salamon takes seems more appropriate for a scandalous subject, or truly bad-hearted people.

How can it possibly help the morale of the hospital or the giving of care for details about doctors' feuds over money to be published? How does it help matters to look for dirt on these skilled professionals? Of course there's always dirt: all human beings are bound to have failings--greed and egotism among them in the medical world.

But so what? The real question is whether the airing of those faults is useful information for the public. And in the case of Hospital, the answer is no. I very much doubt people will be able to make better choices about their care by reading her book, and I am certain that the reputations of some of the doctors she writes about will suffer.

Freelance writers do not need to subscribe to a code of ethics, but the same scruples that an honest journalist would take should apply: don't needlessly savage subjects' reputations; respect their privacy; understand the boundaries of their co-operation.

And speaking of ethics: I was at first delighted to see that another reviewer shared my point of view about this book. But when I read a little further, I found that the similarities went deeper. The Austin American-Statesman's review, which ran about a month after mine, uses some phrases that curiously echo my own. Whereas I say:

"Despite the fact that Brier is the successful leader of a competitive New York City hospital, where she contends with easily bruised egos, community tensions, runaway expenses and local politics (and with the aftereffects of injuries she sustained in an auto accident shortly before taking the job), Salamon wants us to see her as a bit of a nut case."

... the Statesman reviewer says:

"Salamon's intent, clearly, is to portray Brier as something of a freak."

"something of a freak" seems like a word-for-word substitution for "a bit of a nut case."

Or how about this. First, me:

"In meetings, Brier 'would get up while someone was talking, walk to a cabinet, pull out a bag of popcorn, and pour it into bowls.' Is that such a heinous offense? How about this one: 'During a telephone call with a fellow hospital president, she might make a truly odd pronouncement, like, "I want you to know I’m considered one of the great constipation experts in the borough of Brooklyn." ' Never mind that 200 pages later Salamon provides the context that makes this statement less an 'odd pronouncement' than a caring, if tongue-in-cheek, admonition to a hospitalized colleague."

Now, the Statesman reviewer:

"We also get physical descriptions and personality tics, especially the 'odd behaviors' of Maimonides President and CEO Pamela Brier, whom Salamon dings — unfairly, I think — for the unremarkable habit of rising during meetings to straighten curtains and pour popcorn into bowls while others are talking. Early in the book, Salamon offers, without context, this seemingly bizarre quote from Brier: 'I want you to know I'm considered one of the greatest constipation experts in the borough of Brooklyn.' [snip] Near the end of 'Hospital,' we're finally given the context for the offending quote: Brier is speaking to a doctor who is recovering from surgery and may, indeed, be in need of a constipation expert."

Coincidence? I wonder.

Me, Me, Me

For those who may want to catch up on all the reviews that I've written for the Los Angeles Times, the Times web site has handily created a page listing them all.

Black Holes

I'm proud to say that my review in last Sunday's Los Angeles Times of Leonard Susskind's brilliant new book, The Black Hole War, was the front-page review in the print version. That's a first for me!

Alberic Magnard

Today is the birthday of the great, underappreciated French composer Alberic Magnard (1865-1914). A good deal of his music has been recorded--there are no fewer than four complete sets of his four symphonies--and is available through the various online music retailers. It is well worth seeking out. Magnard's music has the reputation for being somewhat "learned," as he took a highly intellectual approach to composition; he was a champion of absolute music in a time when programmatic music was all the rage.

For all that, his music isn’t as bloodless as it may seem; it seems to come out of a deep and sincere font of emotion. An astute critic in the Figaro, writing of Magnard’s Fourth Symphony, said that, despite what the composer may have expressed in his pronouncements, the music was highly dramatic, and in some ways not unlike Bruckner’s Eighth. I’m not sure if I see the comparison, but I think the point is there is more of a human, and humane, element to the music than some may want to credit.

Bon anniversaire, Magnard!

Words of Wisdom

I grokked Lucy Ellmann's review of Chuck Palahniuk's new novel:

"What the hell is going on? The country that produced Melville, Twain and James now venerates King, Crichton, Grisham, Sebold and Palahniuk. Their subjects? Porn, crime, pop culture and an endless parade of out-of-body experiences. Their methods? Cliché, caricature and proto-Christian morality. Props? Corn chips, corpses, crucifixes. The agenda? Deceit: a dishonest throwing of the reader to the wolves. And the result? Readymade Hollywood scripts."

Well said, although, as she knows, Melville and James, at least, were not much "venerated" in their day. Still, the sentiment creates sympathetic vibrations chez moi.

Sad, but True

Maxim Vengerov is hanging up his fiddle, according to the Times of London, to focus on conducting. Actually, the decision isn't irreversible, thank goodness. I can well understand how a master such as Vengerov would want to get out of the rut of playing the same pieces again and again, and recharge his creativity. I'm sure when he returns to the violin, as no doubt he will, he will bring new insights and freshness to his playing.

Jennifer Wilson Scores a Triumph

Those of us who are waiting impatiently for Jennifer Wilson to appear in New York can only feel even more anticipation now that the soprano has received raves for her Senta in the Washington National Opera's Flying Dutchman. She is the consensus pick for next great Wagner soprano.

Why Blogging Has Been Light of Late

The Monday before last I took an amazing job at the Metropolitan Opera Guild, which has been keeping me awfully busy and not leaving me much time for blogging.

It's great to work at the Guild, right across the street from the Met, but I'm afraid that, except for uncontroversial comments, the Met is going to have to be off-limits as a blog subject for me.

As an example of what kind of Met-related post I might write: let me extend best-of-luck wishes to Gary Lehman, who is going to sing Tristan tomorrow night in place of the still-indisposed Ben Heppner. I've never heard him live, but his audio clips are enjoyable, and I hope he does a great job.

Many thanks to my loyal readers for their patience, and I hope to be back on the usual blog pace soon.

Giuseppe Di Stefano, 1921-2008

It's hard to be indifferent at the news of Di Stefano's passing, even if his health suffered an irreversible decline nearly four years ago. In an era in which great tenors abounded, he nevertheless stood out. Some say he pushed his voice too much to take on Verdi and Puccini, but at least we have such recorded treasures as his Cavaradossi, whose "E lucevan le stelle" was the most heartbreaking of all.

Nielsen Rating

I'm old enough to remember the tail-end of the Nielsen revival of the 1960s and 70s, so when Alex Ross recently opined that Nielsen was his choice for "most underrated composer of the twentieth century," I thought ... well, I won't say what I thought, except that I felt there might have been worthier candidates.

Thus you can imagine the jaundiced eye I gave Ross's recent New Yorker piece on Nielsen. But you know how it is with Ross: his brilliantly apt descriptions of the music get into your head, and you start hearing things differently. I just listened to a live performance of Nielsen's Violin Concerto with Leonidas Kavakos and the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra conducted by Nielsenist Paavo Järvi, informed by Ross's portrayal of Nielsen's aesthetic. The abrupt shifts of mood and rhythm, the echoes of folk music, the "blazing individuality"--they were all there, but I must thank Ross for allowing me to actually hear them, whereas before Nielsen's music only sounded like a very good example of the usual neo-Romantic sumptuosity.

The New York Philharmonic's conductor designate, Alan Gilbert, is, according to Ross, a Nielsen booster, so perhaps we New Yorkers have some exciting performances to look forward to.

I Play Assignment Editor

I'm just going to say it: Larissa MacFarquhar is the best profile-writer there is. No intellect is too forbidding, no cranky genius is too crazy, no idea is too recondite for her. Her recent profile of Louis Auchincloss--not online as far as I can tell--brought to life Auchincloss, his world, and his oeuvre, with subtlety and penetration.

So I began thinking ... whom I would like to see MacFarquhar profile next? And then I thought: Jaromir Jagr. OK, so you are thinking my hockey obsession has gotten the best of me. But hear me out. Jagr is the intellectual of hockey players. Who better than MacFarquhar to explain how he ticks, and, at the same time, illuminate the world of hockey?

It's late, and this could be one of those fevered ideas that will seem only embarrassing in the morning. But why not toss it out there into the noosphere and see what happens?

Vanishing Horizon?

The Horizon, Commentary's generally smart culture blog, is, according to a post on the site, on hiatus. I'm not sure whether that means it's taking a break or it's done. Readers are directed to Contentions, Commentary's more political-minded blog. Which is a pity. Political discussion, especially of the ideological variety, is so damned easy; everyone can do it, and everyone does do it, and we're all bored with it. But good culture writing is really hard, and, in the end, far more important than yet another take on some politician that will go stale quicker than a quart of milk. I'm sorry there is one less place for it.

Emendation

Last night I attended Otello at the Met, and I need to emend my earlier post, which was based on listening to the Sirius-cast two weeks ago. It was completely ridiculous of me to say that Botha's voice "coarsened" when he pushed it. Last night, in the house, it was clear that he could bring it with the best of them, his voice ringing out with real ping and resonance when he pushed it--as was clear from his confident, flawless "Esultate"; in the more tender moments he found a beautiful, expressive, effective mezza voce. As has been noted elsewhere, he really attended to Verdi's dynamic markings as best as any tenor can.

What I want to know: how soon can he sing Siegfried?

This Centenary We Should Celebrate

As has been noted, this is the centenary of Herbert von Karajan and Olivier Messiaen. But where is the hoopla for another centenarian, the legendary Jane Peters, better known as Carole Lombard, born October 6, 1908? She defined a genre, and an era--the depression-age screwball comedy--and is still used as a standard against which other comic actresses are judged.

While we are waiting, here is a fun blog-style site, generously illustrated, devoted just to her.

Memo to Slats: Keep Jagr

With the NHL trade deadline fast approaching, teams are scrambling to make deals, and much speculation has centered on the future of the Rangers’ captain, Jaromir Jagr. Whether it ends this month or after the playoffs, this may be Jagr’s last season as a Ranger.

Which would be a pity, and a mistake. Visitors to the Garden are now hearing Jagr booed, or the word “superstar” shouted derisively. It’s true that he’s not scoring, although scoring has not been a problem for the team this past month. It’s true that he’s probably too introverted to fill all the duties of a team captain, although the Rangers are lucky to have Brendan Shanahan as a spokesman. It’s true that he can be overly demanding of his teammates. It’s true that his style of play may not entirely mesh with the team’s current direction.

But his contributions to the team go beyond scoring goals, and anyone who wants any insight into Jagr should take a look at these pieces from the Times and News. Jagr may be the most intelligent player out there. He studies the game relentlessly. His work ethic is amazing. He is gracious towards younger players (look how his early-season faith in Brandon Dubinsky has paid off). He is candid with reporters and has a sly sense of humor. And he sincerely wants to bring the Cup back to New York.

So Mr. Sather: Keep Jagr. The team needs him.

(Photo of Jagr courtesy of the Daily News.)

Hear, Hear

"Galliano Masini is flat in 'Mia madre, la mia vecchia madre' (1947), yet redeems himself by being touching in 'Vedi, io piango' (1947). When Kiri Te Kanawa flats, I cannot pardon her. But when an expressive singer, Callas or Olivero, say, is out of tune, I forgive her. Such is an opera fanatic's duty."--the one and only Stefan Zucker, on Opera-L.

Symphony Hall

Last night I attended a concert at Boston's famous Symphony Hall. Despite having watched in my youth "Evenings at Pops" and telecasts of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (Seiji Ozawa, music director, as William Pierce always added) and thinking I had a pretty good idea of what the hall looked like, I was completely surprised to discover a gallery of statuary above the uppermost balcony. What a crazy thing! I was not sure whether the statues were meant to be listening in rapt attention, or whether they portrayed audience members petrified by boredom. (Above, the picture I took with the lousy camera of my cell phone.)

The hall lived up to its renowned reputation. It's a nice antidote to our overly bright New York halls, and that includes renovated Carnegie. The acoustic flatters the orchestra and hides blemishes such as lapses in ensemble or shrillness in violins or high winds.

We in New York City are so used to trumpeting our best-in-everythingness that we take on, despite all our cosmopolitanism, a kind of provincialism. So it is with some humility that I have to admit that the concert experience I had last night was superior in many ways to some recent concert outings of mine in New York City.

Let's start with the program book. Rather than the useless throwaways that litter our concert halls, the BSO's program is produced by the BSO itself. It features a long essay on the concert program, not a puff piece about upcoming events. Steven Ledbetter's program notes are extensive and well written and contain a guide to further reading (and listening). No where is there a presumption of cultural or musical illiteracy.

Levine, much to his credit, eschews "thematic" programming, although the pieces he chose for Thursday's concert had much in common: Mozart's Symphony No. 29 in A; Berg's Chamber Concerto for Piano and Violin with Thirteen Wind Instruments; and Brahms's Serenade No. 2, in A. All three pieces are for reduced forces; all of them are by composers who were resident in Vienna for much of their careers; and while the Berg is atonal, it is anchored, if not in the key, than on the note A.

Levine is a great conductor because he brings a forceful musical personality to everything he touches. (How deep that musical personality goes is another matter.) He is a master of dramatic momentum, and he knows how to unleash the fullness of an orchestra's sound without losing textural clarity. At their best, Levine's performances bring together intensity and richness of sound, while still maintaining enough flexibility to bring out a musical detail. (I write this as someone who has probably heard live more Levine performances than those of any other conductor--most of those performances at the Met).

The danger with this approach is that not every piece of music sustains dramatic momentum. A case in point is the Berg Chamber Concerto. The last movement, with its abrupt stoppages and whispered coda, resists the usual musical narrative. Levine really could not recover after an explosive first movement and a deeply felt, ruminative second; the last movement had nowhere left to go. Perhaps in future performances, Levine will solve this problem.

To the Mozart, Levine brought the zest and vigor that is his custom in such music; the Andante especially was beautifully played, marred only by too-loud horns towards the end. The central movement in the Brahms is its sublime Adagio, and Levine resisted the temptation to draw it out endlessly, instead eliciting ravishing playing from the orchestra and letting the music make its point.

I can attest to what has been said of Levine lately: that he has revitalized the BSO, and vice versa; that he has managed to keep off most of the weight he recently shed; and that he is bringing a new seriousness and a commitment to modern and contemporary works to these concerts. Bostonians are lucky to have music-making of such a high level, and such a great hall to hear it in.

I Love Alex Ross, but ...

I'm not buying what he's selling on Messiaen. By rights, I should be a Messiaen fan: he's French, he's avant-garde, he's a teacher and inspirer of Boulez and Stockhausen. But I've never been a fan. So I'm glad everyone had a good time at the St. Louis concert the other night; but I'm also glad that I missed it.

Iron Man of the Met

Marcello Giordani is on the cover of the March Opera News, and the article about him quotes him as saying that he's "old-fashioned"--in that he stays at one company for most of the season, as the pre-jet-age singers did. The company happens to be the Met, of course, who is no doubt glad to have him. Using the Met Archives, I've tallied his performances this season. As of February 16, 2008, he has sung 16 performances of four roles: Edgardo, a last-minute Romeo, a last-minute Pinkerton, and, currently, Des Grieux in Manon Lescaut. Coming up this season is Ernani, and any other role that might need a last-minute replacement.

Coleridge's Translation of Goethe's "Faust"

Apparently, Coleridge did indeed translate Goethe's play, and published it anonymously, in 1821. For years scholars had thought Coleridge had washed his hands of trying to translate it, but the evidence is compelling that this anonymous version is indeed the master's. Oxford University Press has just published a new edition, and it sounds as though it is the English translation to own.

Prescription for Valentine's Day

Find a recording of Magnard's Hymne a Venus (this is a good one) and play it, at full volume, preferably with the one you love. Magnard wrote it as a paean to his wife. But it's suitable for any "other of significance."

Bloggers Move Product

According to this article, blog mentions help drive album sales. Any record execs reading this blog: starting sending me promotional CDs!

(Via ArtsJournal.)

Met "Otello" Netcast

I just was listening to the Met's season premiere of Otello on Sirius and quite enjoyed it. Johan Botha did not have the forza of del Monaco, or the dramatic intensity of Vickers, or the heroic plangency of Domingo. But he sang beautifully and, what's more, sensitively--not a quality one usually associates with this role. He excelled in the lyric passages, particularly the love duet; when he tried to push his voice the tone coarsened, although that effect did add to his characterization of the role.

Renee Fleming was in great voice. Ravishing, creamy tone from top to bottom, evocative use of chest voice, never a shriek or a croon.

Best of all was Semyon Bychkov's conducting. The orchestra had proper Verdian crispness, but it also sounded "voiced" somewhat differently--deeper, somehow, with the center of gravity a little lower than we're used to, giving the score a kind of ballast. Bychkov's tempi seemed completely spot-on to me: brisk and unfussy, but flexible enough to follow the voices. He kept the tension from first note to last in the fourth act, not an easy trick. And the Met Orchestra played beautifully for him. Good for the Met for engaging him!

Osmo-sis

Osmo Vanska is getting a lot of attention these days for his revitalization of the Minnesota Orchestra. And why not? His performances are generating excitement, he's brought them into the recording studio, and he's a hockey fan (occasionally seen at Minnesota Wild games).

His Beethoven cycle, on the Bis label, with the Minnesotans has been celebrated, so I took the opportunity the other night to check out the Eroica. There's no doubt that he has worked wonders with the orchestra: they sound marvelous. As for Vanska's reading, he went for clarity and balance. From an architectonic point of view, it was impeccable. He essentially grouped the movements into three sections of roughly equal length (the scherzo and finale having the weight of a single unit, even if not performed that way).

That sense of proportion was evident within each movement as well; nothing was distended or distorted. But Vanska didn't apply a straitjacket to the rhythm either.

I thought, though, that the recording was a disappointment. Balance and proportion are nice in Mendelsohn. But this is Beethoven. There was too little edginess; the catharsis of the last movement failed to come off. I didn't hear any creative risks--or, for that matter, anything so new or unique as to justify yet another recording of this familiar music.

Bruges in the News

Isn't it odd how you don't think about or hear about something or someone or some place, and then, all of a sudden, that's all you're hearing about?

Opera lovers know the Belgian city of Bruges as the setting of Korngold's opera Die Tote Stadt. And on the day that the film In Bruges, a crime caper starring Colin Farrell, opens, I come across this story in Le Monde about this dead, and otherwise unremarked-upon, city.

According to the news account, an American man, Jewish, an Auschwitz survivor, was refused service at a Bruges establishment because he was wearing a yarmulke. His attempts to find redress were rebuffed at several turns. After finally being reported in a Dutch magazine, the incident is now being investigated by Bruges' tourist office.

If Korngold's opera hadn't turned me off to the possibility of visiting Bruges, this story certainly does.

Nico Muhly: Correction

A kind reader emails me that The New Yorker did indeed post Rebecca Mead's Nico Muhly article on their website--it's just not accessible from their contents page. Here is the link. My apologies to The New Yorker for my snarky comment.

The reader who let me know of my error has her own blog. It reports on new music and shows how far is the reach of Nico Muhly's "ecumenical" (Mead's word) appeal. She has some fun Muhly stuff as well.

Nico Muhly

The New Yorker's web site still feels there is something to be gained by withholding content, so Rebecca Mead's beautifully written profile of the young New York-based composer Nico Muhly can only be found in the print version. Seek it out; it's worth reading, not just for its introduction to the work of this prodigy, but for Mead's masterly (one is tempted to say Rossian) descriptions of just how his music sounds. (She speaks of one of the techniques employed in Muhly's concerto for orchestra and electrified violin as "bouncing the bow across the strings to create an aural ricochet.")

Muhly is part of that current--I don't think it's quite right to call it a movement, as its practitioners would no doubt object to such a term--that locates in the space otherwise known as "classical" an aesthetic that encompasses influences and associations from across a wide musical spectrum. (One could place Schlimé in that space as well.)

The New Yorker web site does at least post a generous selection of Muhly's works. The aforementioned violin concerto, complete with those "aural ricochets," is featured. It's a languid piece that always seems about to veer into sheer prettiness but manages not to. It is clear that Muhly truly is an inheritor of both minimalism and the American eclectic tradition, but those tendencies are so deeply assimilated that the music never sounds derivative or recherché.

Muhly also has a web site, where he muses in an engagingly overstimulated way. And there's a MySpace page, which I leave you to find for yourselves.

My Birth Opera

La Cieca has a great idea: check out what the Met was performing on the day you were born (assuming you were born during the Met season), using the indispensable Met archive. It turns out my birth opera is Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, one that has always held a place in my heart. The cast includes one famous debut:

Metropolitan Opera House
October 13, 1964
DER ROSENKAVALIER {191}
R. Strauss-Hofmannsthal
Octavian.....................Lisa Della Casa
Princess von Werdenberg......Elisabeth Schwarzkopf [Debut]
Baron Ochs...................Otto Edelmann
Sophie.......................Anneliese Rothenberger
Faninal......................Norman Mittelmann
Annina.......................Mignon Dunn
Valzacchi....................Andrea Velis
Italian Singer...............Sándor Kónya
[snip]
Conductor....................Thomas Schippers

It just so happens that I own a recorded excerpt from the Met broadcast of that run (December 19, same year), with Schwarzkopf in all her mannered glory.

Interestingly, Cieca's birth opera, Don Giovanni, shares with mine some notable cast members.

Growth Spurt

G&T is growing! The chart, from StatCounter, shows steady growth--helped along immeasurably in January by Gert's link to the Domingo post. Thank you devoted readers!

A Happy Sports Day in New York

So yesterday everyone in this great city was cheerful and excited. They were all talking about Sunday's game. And what a game! Down 3-0, the Rangers came back with five--count 'em, five--unanswered goals against le Tricouleur. And ...

Wait, what's that? Oh, there was a football game, too.

Francesco Tristano Schlimé at Weill Recital Hall, February 1, 2008

As promised, I attended Francesco Tristano Schlimé’s New York debut last night. He’s the real deal, although I’m not sure if he is going to be to everyone’s taste.

For the record, let me state that my preference in piano playing is for personality, even if it risks eccentricity. Technical mastery is all well and good, but I prefer touch, expression, sensibility. Schlimé is technically assured (although I wouldn’t want to account for the clarity of all of his passagework). More importantly, though, he brings a forceful presence to every piece he plays, an acute point of view that gives his readings uniqueness and power.

He started the program with Cinque variazioni, an early piece by Luciano Berio, and which he played from memory (not always a given with modern music). Schlimé is superb at bringing out contrasts, and this music, in which a lyrical tendency fights with percussive attacks, was tailor-made for him. In Schlimé’s hands it flowed with mesmerizing beauty.

In a provocative move, Schlimé launched into his next set of pieces, three toccatas by Frescobaldi, without a break. The effect was startling, but not in an ugly way; I was more impressed by how apposite the pairing was. Schlimé may have angered some purists by using some heavy pedal effects in these ancient pieces; to my ear, the pedal gave the music spaciousness and heft. The last of the three, in F major, from Frescobaldi’s second book of toccatas, is a contrapuntal tour-de-force that seems to have held no terrors for the young pianist.

The program continued with Bach’s French Suite No. 4 (BWV 815); Schlimé gave the dance-like rhythms real point and, in the final, hair-raising Gigue, once again showed off his technical flair. I did not detect his using the pedal in these pieces, but I could be wrong.

The first half finished with a remarkable piece, Technology, a realization (by Schlimé) of an electronic work by the techno-music composer Carl Craig, whom I am too ignorant in these matters to have heard of before. It started with a series of chime-like figures; this was followed by a transitional passage in which a repeated bass note was punctuated by some manipulation of the piano string by the pianist: Schlimé reached into the piano and produced a rising scale of eerie overtones by plucking the string, all the while sounding that bass note. By keeping his foot on the pedal, the resonance created an aural background, like the swooshing of traffic in the rain. This led to a jazzy ostinato in the bass that eventually grounded the triumphant return of the chime-like music of the opening.

The second half of the program opened with a work by a young composer, Justin Messina, called NYTectonics: 4 City Bridges. (The bridges are the Verrazano, the Queensborough, the Triboro, and the Brooklyn.) The four components do not need be played in any particular order, and the codas and introductory measures of each are meant to played in an overlapping way. I can’t say whether the bridges were being musically described, or whether they were simply used as evocative points of inspiration. Verrazano was characterized by a continuous drone of seconds; Queensborough was jazzy, with syncopated rhythms and blue notes. It was music by a promising young composer who managed to incorporate disparate elements without sounding easily eclectic.

It made me think, also, of Hart Crane. His bridge, like Schlimé’s piano (and aesthetic), is a living link between epochs, genres, cultures. There is a welcome idealism in this kind of time-and-space-bending enterprise.

Schlimé then performed Haydn’s sonata in C (Hob. XVI:48), a two-movement work that opens with a theme and variations marked “andante con espressione,” here played in a manner that I imagine many would consider all wrong—heavy and dramatic, rather than light of touch and “objective,” as is the custom these days with this kind of music. I liked his approach, though. How else to convey the chromatic richness of the variations, if not investing it with layers of feeling? He took the presto finale fiercely, ending with an exciting flourish.

Schlimé is also a composer, and he finished the scheduled program with a short, tonic work by Berio, Wasserklavier, and an improvisation on the same, in which, upon Berio’s harmonic platform, he built a veritable skyscraper, shimmering in intensity.

As though this wasn’t impressive enough, Schlimé gave as an encore a composition of his own, a short piece called Melody (I think), which rarely moved above middle C, and featured an insistent, tango-like ostinato in the bass.

Afterward, there was a complimentary reception, with an abundance of food and wine, at which Schlimé met with the audience. I overcame my habitual shyness and managed to shake his hand and utter some words of congratulation. (He also told me what the encore was, as he did not announce it from the stage.) He addressed his well wishers in several languages, and he seemed polite and not at all touched by the kind of pretentiousness that one might expect.

It’s rare to hear the piano played so expertly and intelligently, imbued with both grandeur and a keen intellect. They don’t always go together. It was also, musically, one of the most satisfying recitals I have heard, mixing music from different eras and avoiding overplayed concert staples. Let us hope for a speedy return of Francesco Tristano Schlimé to New York.

Music Keeps You Young

These two stories were side by side in the print edition of today's Times: Tony Martin still singing at 95 (and still married to the great Cyd Charisse), and Elliot Carter, still going at 100.

Le Pays-off

It may have taken a hundred years or so, but Joseph Guy Ropartz, Magnard's close friend and a man who seems not to have suffered from the egomania that afflicts so many creative artists, may be coming into his own. Le Pays, his only opera, has bowed in Tours, and the response has been enthusiastic--to judge from this review. I'm not getting my hopes up of its being performed here, but there is a recording.

Why the News about Statins Isn't News

With the latest brouhaha over the cholesterol-lowering statin drugs--summarized in today's Times--it might be instructive to return to a 2005 interview with Nortin Hadler that appeared in Discover. Hadler is a professor of medicine at Chapel Hill (and the author of The Last Well Person) whose sharp-eyed, statistical-based assessments lead him to hold contrarian opinions on conventional medical wisdom. Here is the part about statins:

"Discover: Surgery is obviously invasive, but why do you object to the widespread prescription of statins, the cholesterol-lowering drugs?

"H: In men with normal cholesterol levels, the risk of death for those between ages 45 and 65 over the course of the next five years is only a fraction of 1 percent lower than it is for men with high serum cholesterol in the same category. The most thorough study to date had some 3,000 men with 'high' cholesterol levels take a statin every day for five years, while 3,000 similar men took a placebo. When all was said and done, there was no difference in cardiovascular deaths between the two groups. Statins do reduce the risk of heart attack in those who have a strong family history of people in their family having heart attacks very young—but that’s a small percentage of the population. You could argue, looking at the data, that they’re helpful for people who’ve already had one heart attack. But for everyone else, the possible advantage is marginally and clinically insignificant.

"Discover: You’re 62—do you get your cholesterol checked?

"H: I don’t want to know. We have data that tell me if you stigmatize me by labeling me somehow, it will change my sense of well-being. I have nothing to gain from that in this case. I would be infuriated if any doctor checked my cholesterol without my asking and told me if it was up or down. I would think that would be an abuse of science that offered me a chance of feeling less well for no good reason."

The interview is worth reading in its entirety, especially for Hadler's comments on what's really behind prolonged life expectancy.

But the point is, this "news" about statins isn't really news. Statins lower cholesterol but don't prolong life. Should that not make everyone reconsider the relationship between cholesterol and health?

I'm a Mauvais Garcon!

Today I just found out--although it may well have been up for a while--that I am on the blogroll of none other than the great Vilaine Fille! As a fan of the blog, as well as its blogeuse, the smart, learned and magnamimous Marion Lignana Rosenberg, I can't say how delighted I am. I feel as though I've arrived.

Yo, Caroline, Whachu Got Against da Bronx?

Last week, in connection with some research I was conducting for a possible book, I took the IND up to the Bronx--specifically, to the corner of the Grand Concourse and Fordham Road. (Not my first time in that vicinity, by the way.)

That part of the Bronx is primarily African-American and Latino. It's a lower middle-class neighborhood with a lot of hard-working people. Not far from that intersection is Fordham University. A little further away is the old Italian enclave whose center is on Arthur Ave. To the west is Riverdale, where many of the borough's Jews live.

There's a lot of energy on the Grand Concourse: national chains as well as local enterprises along the storefronts; guys hawking things on the sidewalks; the bustle of thousands of people racing from one place to the next.

My point is that the Bronx is New York City through and through.

So I was somewhat startled to see that according to a recent post by Caroline Fourest, Nicolas Sarkozy's endorsement of the religious yearnings of the general public would result, five years hence, in the French president's being sworn in on the Bible, while "our suburbs will look like the Bronx."

I don't know if Caroline Fourest has been to the Bronx--I'd be delighted to take her to lunch on Arthur Avenue should she like to visit--but no doubt she is thinking of the urban blight of the South Bronx of decades past, symbolized by vacant lots and burning slums.

The Bronx of today, a place where people from different backgrounds, of different faiths and no faith, live and work together, more peacefully than not, might well be a model towards which the French banlieues should aspire. It is hardly the "social desert" that she thinks it is.

Never Mind

The Metropolitan Opera is not going to make its video transmissions available for pay-per-view as originally planned, according to the Times. Oh well. The broadcasts will still wind up on PBS and some on DVD, however.

Hotblooded (Check It and See)

The invaluable Mike Richter is posting at his web site excerpts from a privately recorded NYCO Faust from 1968, with a hotblooded cast led by the legendary Norman Treigle. Get there quickly, though, because Richter will take it down by Friday night.

In Memoriam: Sarah Pettit, 1966-2003

Sarah Pettit died five years ago today. Those who spoke at her memorial service attested to her vibrance, her quick wit, her strength. And to this: they had all fallen in love with her.

As had I. When I met her, nearly 20 years ago—it doesn’t seem possible that it was that long ago, but it also doesn’t seem possible that she is gone—she had just been hired as an editorial assistant at St. Martin’s Press. She had to get by my space, in a small open area around the corner from reception, to get to her office, really more of an office suite that was walled off from the rest of the 18th floor, since her boss and his senior assistant, Keith Kahla, were smokers.

I’ll never forget how she took in my little area—the cluttered desk, the hinky filing cabinets, the typing table with the IBM Selectric on it, the shelves upon shelves of manuscripts, books, and other such things—her first day. Although I had been working there for two years, the look she gave suggested she had seen it all; her eyes flashed with intelligence, her half-smile was ironic and knowing. She was no doubt judging me. Not coldly, though. Sympathetically, kindly even.

We were all smitten. None of us had ever met anyone like her. Her language was different, for one thing. She was the first person I knew how added “from hell” to her conversation. Soon we were all doing it. Reading the newspaper could make her “head explode.” People who were particularly anal or nerdy were “pointy-headed freaks.” Gay men were “ponces.” “Hello ponces!” she greeted Keith and me one morning. It thrilled me to be included, just to be a part of her world.

If she liked you, you got a nickname. Keith was “Keithly Keith.” I was Jessela. To be perfectly honest, “Jessela” would not have been my first pick. Which no doubt she knew. She was wise about people’s defenses. But it was funny, too. And she would pronounce it with such affection that it was irresistible.

We became fast friends. We lunched together, went out together, gossiped, sat together at company functions. There were rumors that we were having a romance, which shows how far people will allow romantic fantasy to re-organize their apprehension of the most fundamental facts.

After she left St. Martin’s we stayed close. She was always good for a reality check. Sarah was addicted to truth. Like Pamina in Zauberflöte, she would have said, “Die Wahrheit! Die Wahrheit! Wär sie auch Verbrechen!” (“The truth! The truth! Even if it were a crime!”) Sometimes her candor could be bracing. It was never unkind.

It never occurred to me to ask anyone else to be my son’s godmother. She took the responsibility seriously. She visited shortly after he was born. She babysat. It amazes me still that she babysat. She had an important job at the time, at Newsweek.

It was when she babysat that turned out to be the last time I saw her before her illness. She wanted to know what heartburn medication I was on, as she had been having pains in her chest. She was in some discomfort. None of us could have guessed it was a tumor.

A little over a year later, she was dead. I still cannot believe it. She is still the most remarkable person I have ever met.

I think about her every day. Every day I miss her. She set a high standard for herself, and for those of us fortunate enough to be counted as her friends. It is a standard I have yet to meet. Five years later, I am still trying to be worthy of her love, of the gift of her friendship, of her courage and honesty. Compared to Sarah, though, we all must be found wanting.

Astrid and Birgit and Martha

Intrigued by Alex Ross's post on the prank played by Astrid Varnay on Birgit Nilsson? Then check out this transcription of a televised discussion with Varnay, Birgit and the great Martha Modl. Here's one gem, Nilsson on her testy relationship with Karajan:

"Making music with him was marvelous. But doing theater with him wasn't so marvelous. He was a lighting technician. We walked around like blind pilgrims looking for some light, with our faces tilted up to catch some if we found it. If you liked his lighting everything was fine! Everyone was so reverent about him. I didn't see why you had to be more reverent about Karajan than about anyone else. I said what I thought. Once he said, 'Frau Nilsson, do that again, but this time with heart. You know your heart, it is there where your wallet is.' 'Then we have at least one thing in common, Herr von Karajan' I replied."

Double Threat

At a recent concert in Frankfurt, violin phenom Julia Fischer dazzled the audience with Saint-Saens's Third Violin Concerto. Then she returned after the intermission and, in the words of the report on Sign and Sight, "sat herself down at the concert grand and launched into the probably even more difficult Piano Concerto in A-minor, Op. 16, by Edvard Grieg." Talk about an overachiever!

Liberté. Égalité. Fraternité. Diversité?

I have been observing with some amusement, and not a little confusion, the reactions among the French intelligentsia to Nicolas Sarkozy. No matter what he says or does, he invites an avalanche of hostility. I don’t have a dog in this fight, as the saying goes. But I am struck by the incoherence of much of the criticism.

As is well known, France, like several other countries in western Europe—dare I say “old Europe”?—suffers from declining population and the rising cost of entitlements. It’s the same demographic trap that has ensnared many of the members of the European Community. The only possible solution is some kind of retrenchment, which Sarkozy has attempted to pursue—already at the cost of strikes and other demonstrations.

At the same time, the government has to deal with the social and cultural challenge posed by their Muslim population. Muslims find themselves discriminated against and ghettoized. But the non-assimilationist tendency of some Muslim communities feels like a threat to the secularism of the French state.

It’s a tall order, and Sarkozy has approached it with an amplitude of bravado, inelegance, and the kind of hard-line rhetoric that is easy to pronounce but hard to enforce. His message on both fronts—economic and social—is to call for a cultural shift in France.

This is what seems to infuriate the intellectual class. Sarkozy has not hidden his admiration for the “Anglo-Saxon” model, as it’s known in France. This seemingly quaint term—it reminds me that Israelis like to call Jews from English-speaking countries “Anglo-Saxim”—conjures up a variety of French nightmares: America, for one; England, for another; unfettered capitalism of the Reagan-Thatcher variety, for yet another.

For Sarkozy, I imagine, the “Anglo-Saxon” model is a way to try to goad the French to being more productive and less entitled—as well as to create a public sphere that is more open to divergent cultural traditions.

All of this smacks of anti-intellecualism to the French noosphere. Bernard-Henri Lévy, who, one would think, would be making common cause with Sarkozy (they share a Jewish heritage, fondness for America, and the urge to shake up conventions), twisted himself into a pretzel explaining why he won’t, in a recent review-essay in the New York Times Book Review. Sarkozy’s drawing his cabinet from all parties, for instance, is neither an attempt to create unity nor a shrewd political ploy; it’s a sign of intellectual bankruptcy. “Sarkozy is the first French president willing to listen to all ideas, because for him they are indistinguishable,” he writes. Better for Sarko be close-minded, I suppose.

The eminent—and eminently hot—Caroline Fourest has found in anti-Sarkozism a ticket to ride. I don’t want to come down hard on Fourest, who is in many ways a penetrating critic of much of French society. But her distaste for Sarko does not make much sense to me. Surely a feminist like Fourest should respect the fact that seven of the fifteen posts in Sarkozy’s cabinet are taken by women—the most in French history?

This week in Le Monde, Fourest published a bitter riposte to an attempt by Sarkozy to insert into the preamble of the French constitution the concept of “diversity.” She accused him of fomenting a “counter-revolution.”

Why the fuss? In Fourest’s view, altering the constitution to allow for considerations of “diversity” would give a legal foundation for the government’s attempts to ameliorate social inequalities through discrimination positive. The color of one’s skin, rather than the facts of one’s economic situation, would entitle someone to a remediating benefit. It’s what we would call affirmative action.

This is a horrible thought to an ardent secularist like Fourest. (French secularism, unlike the American kind, is really in-your-face and bolshy. It seems to view anyone who avows a religious sentiment as an out-and-out de Maistre.)

I am overstating Fourest’s case a little. She has elsewhere made the persuasive argument that Sarkozy’s stated intolerance of xenophobia actually provides cover for the most separatist and anti-social Muslim groups. She genuinely believes in diversity as well. Nonetheless, is it not astonishing to see a member of the left oppose affirmative action?

All of these outbursts seem overly reactive. It’s not unlike all this discussion of Sarko’s personal life. As has been widely reported, his wife left him, and he has taken up with a former model. All of which is hurting his image and providing fodder for all sorts of smart-aleckiness.

What no one seems to be saying, however, is that, had she been elected president, something quite similar would have befallen Ségolène Royal. Her long-time partner has left her, and I am sure that if she were now occupying the Élysée, much of the same speculation about her love life would be rampant in the media.

And none of this helps France conquer its problems. I hope for France’s sake that a way forward can be found, that France’s public intellectuals can get beyond these criticisms of style and foster a productive conversation about how to recharge the French economy and make all of its citizens feel as though they count. Otherwise, France will result to short cuts, like offering nuclear expertise for sale to dodgy gulf states, to bolster its accounts, and become a locus for the kind of resentment and dissatisfaction that leads to acts of violence, within its borders and out.

A Pavlovian Top Ten List

Russell Platt's top-ten classical recordings of 2007 list in this week's New Yorker has got me salivating--every one of them is one I am keenly interested in hearing (or seeing). Somehow I'm going to have to find the scratch--and the room in my overcrowded apartment--for these.

Amazing News

My grandfather died of pancreatic cancer, nearly 40 years ago. I was barely five at the time, so I never got to know him. About 15 years ago or so a close friend of our family died of the same disease. And, of course, Pavarotti was a pancreatic-cancer victim, too.

It's a diagnosis that comes as a death sentence. But that may be changing. Marilyn Horne has apparently finished a course of experimental treatments for pancreatic cancer, and she now declares herself cancer-free. It's obviously wonderful to have Horne back. But even more wonderful is that this new treatment, a vaccine, works.

Steamboats

I subscribe to the motto that it's never too late to be behind the times, so I have no shame in saying that I've just caught up with Caleb Crain's superb blog, Steamboats Are Ruining Everything. In addition to updating readers on Crain's publications, it is also an acute running commentary on those literary and historical areas Crain knows so well. It's probably the best written blog I think I've ever come across; each post is meticulous. And don't miss the incredibly touching tribute, with photos, to his late dog, Lota.

I'm Sick of Seeing New York City Destroyed

Before 9/11, I, like many other people, was not immune to the fantasy thrill of seeing New York City "destroyed" in movies such as Independence Day. But now I'm more than just tired of it. I think it's sick, cruel, and insensitive. Not to mention cynical. Filmmakers can hide behind the excuse of fantasy, but they know that they're playing on the residual horror of 9/11. Since that dreadful day in 2001 we've had The Day After Tomorrow and War of the Worlds and most recently I Am Legend and the upcoming Cloverfield. I'm sure I'm leaving a lot more out.

If the wound weren't still so raw, these films would simply be recycling a visual cliché. Instead it's offensive. I'm tired of feeling beat up. Find another city to pick on.

Self-Promotion

My review of Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish is up at the Los Angeles Times web site.

Horowitz on Dvorak

The Chronicle of Education has a terrific article on Dvorak and African-American music by Joseph Horowtiz, who knows this period in American musical history better than just about anybody. Horowitz writes of Dvorak's interest in black music and his encouragement of black composers--themes touched on in Alex Ross's The Rest is Noise. It's worth reading the article in its entirety--as well as Ross's book, of course. One point Horowitz makes cogently:

"Dvorak's prophecy that 'negro melodies' would foster an 'American school of music' came true, but in ways he could not have predicted. Dvorak had in mind symphonies and operas audibly infused with the black vernacular — but there is only one Porgy and Bess. Rather, the black tunes Dvorak adored fostered popular genres to which American classical music ceded leadership."

I don't want to oversimply, but let's face it: American music is black music. It's impossible to think of American music without spirituals, ragtime, jazz, rhythm and blues, and countless other African-American folk sources. And not just in popular music: spirtiuals and ragtime make their way into Ives, jazz was plundered by many composers, and contemporary composers are trying their best to work rock (derived from R&B after all) into their music, generally in the form of pulse or beat.

Horowitz's article puts all of this in the broader cultural context of the late 19th- and early 20th centuries, where American musical life was turbulent and fast-changing. It's not the staid Victorian world we imagine. But one thing that was true was the virulence of racism, and it is what forced Dvorak's prophecy to turn out as it did--bequeathing a strict divergence between "popular" and "serious" traditions that we are still reckoning with today.

(Via A&L Daily)

Where to Download Classical Music

Le Journal de Papageno has a useful list, with ratings, of the best classical download sites. Even if you can't understrand French, the rating system uses stars so it's easy to comprehend.

I'm in AM New York

The free daily AM New York has a piece today on annual anthologies, with prominent attention given to The Best American Science Writing 2007 and yours truly. You can find it on page 26 of the PDF edition of the paper.

Dress for the Met (Since They Don't Have a Dress Code)

Inspired by positive responses to an earlier post on this topic in which I lamented the lack of a dress code at the Met, I thought I would offer my tips on how to dress for a visit to the Metropolitan Opera. Most of these tips are addressed to men.

You don’t have to wear white tie, or black tie, or any tie at all, so long as you are neat and well dressed. I do think that if you are not going to do the business-suit look, you should wear at the very minimum a well tended sports jacket or blazer, pressed trousers, and a clean dress shirt. Having said all of that, I would definitely go for the tie. These days, with the tie-less look an office cliché, the right tie shows flair, not conformity.

If there is one thing to remember, it’s this: the Met is not a rodeo. So that means leather, jeans, sneakers, work boots, and so on, are out. And I mean it about the leather. Leather jackets are great if you want to look like an Eastern-European gangster. Leather pants, let’s face it, just don’t look good on anybody. So unless you are a recognizable rock star, leather should be left for your next “80s Night”-themed benefit.

Another thing to bear in mind: the 70s are dead, over, finished, done. So attend to your grooming. The bushy look just isn’t doing it any more. (This applies to the world outside the Met, too. Or it should.)

Try to keep in mind that it should be a special occasion. It is an excuse to get gussied up. So much of the world today has made accomodations to casual dress. Can’t there be some places, some occasions, for which some kind of formality is required?

Inertive Reactance

A few months ago, seeking to understand what was meant by such terms as "placing the voice," or "placing the voice in the mask," terms that are often used to describe singers' techniques, I came across an online discussion group in which a fierce debate on this very topic was raging.

One passionate poster, a singer and teacher, claimed that "placing the voice," in the mask, eyes, forehead, or any other so-called "resonating cavity," is a bunch of baloney. That intrigued me.

The January issue of Scientific American has an article on the human voice by Ingo Titze, physicist, singer, singing teacher, professor at the University of Iowa and director of the National Center for Voice and Speech. (Reading the article online requires payment. It's worth buying the magazine. Much of what it summarizes can be found throughout the excellent NCVS site.)

If I understand the article correctly, the human singing voice--whether operatic or otherwise--is produced when air from the lungs stimulates our inner sound source (in our case, the vocal cords, or vocal folds of the larynx); this sound goes through a resonator, the airway right above the larynx, and is emitted through the radiator of our mouth.

And that's it.

In other words, all we have to work with is the air from our lungs, our vocal tracts, and our mouths. No resonating cavities can create greater or lesser resonance. It may seem as though they do, but physically speaking, and physiologically speaking, they have nothing to do with the process. So this talk of "singing in the mask" or any other part of the face is, indeed, hooey.

How do we create resonance? It's a complex process that involves a kind of feedback exchange between the air flowing from our lungs and the vocal tract's various maneuverings. The term that gets used is "inertive reactance," which signifies a kind of push-pull action. Initially the vocal folds open and air from the lungs rushes through them; but then they snap back, creating a kind of vacuum right above the larynx--a vacuum that has the effect of shooting whatever air remains through the vocal tract.

On the NCVS site I learned some more interesting things. One is that lowering the larynx's position--as happens when you try to yawn, for instance--darkens the sound. (This may be the reason why speakers do a kind of yawn excercise before a speech, to keep their sound from edging up in brightness as it does when a person sounds nervous.) In this instance, science and vocal pedagogy are as one. Franco Corelli is no doubt the most famous exponent of the "lowered-larynx" style of singing, and here is the scientific explanation for the ravishing darkness of his sound. As for his peerless squillo, it has nothing to do with anything in his face: it's all in how he managed that mobile column of air going through his vocal tract.

So the next time you feel intimidated by an opera "expert" who tells you this or that singer is placing his or her voice "in the mask" or anywhere else, don't pay any attention!

Karajan Checklist

This being the centenary of Herbert von Karajan's birth, there will be commemorations aplenty, starting today in his hometown, Salzburg, with a concert by the Berlin Philharmonic. Here is my highly subjective list of the Karajan recordings I could not live without (unless otherwise noted, the orchestra is the Berlin Philharmonic):

1) Tristan und Isolde, Wagner (Orfeo). This is the live Bayreuth festival performance from July 23, 1952. The intensity of the performance--and of the performers, notably Modl's incandescent Isolde and Vinay's wrenching Tristan--is completely shattering.

2) Der Rosenkavalier, Strauss (Gala). This isn't the justly famous studio recording with Schwarzkopf. It is, rather, a live recording of a 1960 Salzburg performance with the dream trio of Lisa Della Casa as the Marschallin, Sena Jurinac as Octavian, and Hilde Guden as Sophie. Karajan's conducting here is, if anything, better than on the studio recording: better proportioned for one, less feverish and rushed, and in this performance he is the only conductor I've ever heard to make sense of the third-act prelude. Plus he is a remarkably sensitive accompanist to his singers.

3) Symphony No. 6, Mahler (DG). This is from his series, with the Berlin Philharmonic, of Mahler's symphonies. His reading is relentless and precise, an overwhelming combination. I've yet to hear a live performance this convincing.

4) Symphony No. 7, Bruckner (DG). This is his "last recording," made with the Vienna Philharmonic. It's somewhat lighter in texture than his earlier Bruckner-cycle recording with the Berlin Philharmonic, but it feels more passionate, more inspired by genuine human feeling.

5) Symphony No. 8, Bruckner (DG). This is from his Berlin Philharmonic Bruckner cycle, and it is not only fittingly grand in scale and conception, but it makes a powerful case that Bruckner's thoughts when composing it were of life passing and the unknown beyond.

6) Fidelio, Beethoven (Walhall). A concert performance from Vienna in 1953; Karajan was conducting the Vienna Symphony at the time and was waging a kind of war with the Vienna State Opera, so he put this on as a show of strength. Modl, Windgassen, Metternich and Edelmann are the leads; the Marzelline and Jacquino are none other than Schwarzkopf and Schock. There are many fine recordings of this opera, but this is the one that comes closest to how I hear the music in my head: vivid, rich, but not over-lush on the one hand or overly pared down on the other, with a gripping sense of momentum and real catharsis at the end. (And I don't think anyone ever conducted the "Fidelio" overture better.)

7) Symphony No. 8, Dvorak (DG). No one conducts the finale of this symphony as excitingly--those trilling horns sound as though they're exploding, but the ensemble never breaks.

8 and 9) Symphonies 4 and 6, Symphonies 5 and 7, Sibelius (DG). Sibelius's music, like Bruckner's, was a good fit for Karajan's esthetic--tonal and lush but also ascetic and emotionally cryptic. In Karajan's hands the orchestra glows and shimmers, and he lets the music speak for its eloquent self.

10) Symphony in D Minor, Franck (EMI). I believe this was Karajan's first recording with L'Orchestre de Paris. Not only do they sound world-class; he manages to conduct this music with a real sense of French style. No other performance that I have heard brings out the pealing brass in the finale of the coda, a testament to the remarkable clarity Karajan was able to achieve.

11) Organ Symphony, Saint-Saens (DG). Karajan pulls out every perfumed color, every effect, large or small, and brings it all to a pulse-racing ending--once again showing off his ability to bring the orchestra right to the edge but maintain ensemble to the very last note.

12) Sympony No. 2, Brahms (EMI). Many of Karajan's recordings with the Philharmonia are legendary, and rightly so; this one may be my favorite. The strings are plush but with just the right amount of bite to keep them from sounding overly honeyed. The tempi, the musical argument, the architectonics are all exactly right.

13) Symphony No. 9, Schubert (EMI). Karajan recorded a complete set of Schubert's symphonies with the Berlin Philharmonic. All of the recordings are excellent (although I think the tempi in his earlier recording, with the Philharmonia, of the "Unfinished" are less ponderous and more effective). Schubert's Ninth is a hard symphony to pull off. I like Karajan's approach--generous, large-scale, but that precise ensemble and textural clarity keep it from becoming heavy; if anything, it soars.

14) "Ein heldenleben," Strauss (DG). Karajan was a great Straussian, although, to be honest, I prefer Fritz Reiner in much of this music, especially the orchestral works. But this recording may give Reiner a run for the money; the overall arch and thrust of the music is more, well, heroic, more inspired--yes, it's less ironic, perhaps more earnest, but he sells it.

DG has set up a special Karajan web site to mark this anniversary; it looks as though they'll be putting out all sorts of special CDs and DVDs. And of course I must commend Richard Osborne's biography; it is more objective than one might expect from Osborne, a Karajanite par excellence. There are many anecdotes that show a side of Karajan that is endearing and vulnerable; Osborne does not shy away from the less-endearing parts of Karajan's personality, either.

Whosungit?

Melomanes who are also mystery lovers will no doubt want to flock to Paris where an enterprising troupe is reviving an "operette policiere" based on the famous character of Arsene Lupin. The French review I found called the evening "two hours of happiness." It was written in 1930, and the music is by Marcel Lattes, the nephew of Lupin's creator (and a victim of Auschwitz).

You can hear excerpts from the show on Benoit Duteurtre's loads-of-fun Radio France program, "Etonnez-moi, Benoit."

Thank You, Gert, Wherever You Are

G&T has seen a spike in visitors the past couple of days, thanks to a link on a blog that was hitherto unknown to me--Mad Musings of Me, written by one Gert who lives in the UK. My take on Placido Domingo's performance in Iphigenie was the attraction. So thank you, Gert, and welcome Mad Musings readers--hope you'll want to stick around here at G&T.

Where Did They Go?

Listening to a 1977 Met broadcast of Madama Butterfly last night on Sirius was somewhat nostalgic for me. The Sharpless was the American baritone Ryan Edwards. I had heard him the previous season when he sang Enrico to Beverly Sills's Lucia. He had a capacious instrument, strong and steady, and his Sharpless showed me that my memory wasn't playing tricks. He sang only 40-odd performances at the Met, mostly in the late '70s. I'm not sure what happened after that, although he maintains a web site that fills in some of the details.

Pinkerton was Giacomo Aragall, who had been singing at the Met for nearly a decade. He was in truly good voice. I never heard him in the house, but this performance really makes you wonder why he only sang 38 performances at the Met. His tenor was firm and elegant, although perhaps lacking somewhat in squillante and the kind of Italianate ring that some long for in these kinds of roles. Perhaps in the house it sounded washed out, although I'd find that hard to believe.

In those days, European opera houses, flooded with state subsidies, could offer singers more money than the Met, which was facing its own budgetary woes during a period when the United States was suffering through an economic downturn. Singers with big recording contracts needed the Met for promotional purposes, but a whole tier of excellent singers, like Aragall, may have felt that they could make more money in Europe.

As for the Butterfly, it was Renata Scotto in her justly famous portrayal. The wobble had started to creep into her singing, but overall her performance was heartbreaking, progressing from innocence to defiance and, finally, to tragic resolution. I missed some of these elements in Racette's recent characterization.

The only disappointing element was Giuseppe Patane's conducting. I always liked Patane--he never went for cheap effects and maintained good old-fashioned ensemble. In this performance he was perhaps a little too deferential to his singers; at times the momentum sagged to the point of stasis.

You never know what you're going to get in those '70s Met broadcasts--some performances were truly forgettable. Not this one.