1. After years of tantalizing almost-appearances, the original text of Tolkien's translation of the Book of Jonah has been published, in a small venue called the Journal of Inklings Studies. Its differences from the edited version long available in the Jerusalem Bible are small but pervasive. Worth a little study time.
2. I have that, but what I don't have yet is the new annotated-and-drafts version of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil by Scull and Hammond. This volume pretty much completes the multi-handed project of providing such editions of all the literary books Tolkien published in his lifetime.
3. From the sublime to the ridiculous: Symphony Silicon Valley's announcement that it will be playing live the score along with two showings of Jackson's Lord of the Rings movie made front page headlines in the local paper. And this won't even be until April. Usually the Symphony is lucky if it makes the inside of the back section. This is supposed to be a big money-maker, and SSV management usually knows what it's doing, but I won't be there, for three reasons: 1) Not to have to see those crappy movies again. I've had more than enough. 2) Not to have to listen to Howard Shore's uninspired score. I've seen other movies he's scored, including Hugo, and he's a competent hack: You want N yards' worth of music that sounds like [this], he'll churn it out reliably and it'll do the job. It just won't be any good. 3) I've heard live symphonies play with silent films before, but the whole idea of doing it with a sound film strikes me as futile. The movie already has the music! Are you going to compete with the soundtrack, or turn the sound off and have the actors yammer away silently?
4. I first learned that John Cleese has written a memoir, So, Anyway ..., from a grumpy review that called it cranky and egotistic, and claimed for good riddance that Python isn't funny anyway and never was. Well, that's manifestly false, and so is the review. Cleese can be grumpy in interviews lately, but this is a delightful and compulsively readable memoir by a man whose life goal is to figure out what he's good at and do it as well as possible. Once he gets out of his horrid childhood, which he blames for his lifetime in therapy ("They f you up, your mum and dad," a poem he does not quote but should), it's very warmhearted about his colleagues and even the two years he spent as an elementary school teacher. I learned a lot about the shards of At Last the 1948 Show that I have on DVD, and the memoir drifts to a close with the founding of Python, which is actually about when his life stops being so interesting.
Kalimac's corner: a journal by DB
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Britteny
Most of the public programs at the criticism institute were held in the afternoons at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Lots of little concerts go on there too, in the evenings and weekends. I checked the boards and stuck around. I already mentioned the piano recital I attended half of on Wednesday; there was also a program of scenes from Britten operas, with piano accompaniment, presented twice with some variations in program. I got to the second half of Thursday's program and returned for the first half of Saturday's.
This was the first time I'd ever seen any Britten staged, and while I've encountered some on record and on TV, I'm not very familiar with his operatic output. I'm not planning on rushing out for more. Too much of the writing is in the category I call Menotti-nous:1 ceaselessly meandering melodically-null recitatives setting dull, pedestrian conversations, added points if delivered in a manner where you can't make out half the words anyway. The Turn of the Screw was the nadir in this department, an opera so bad even B. doesn't like it.2 A Midsummer Night's Dream, which has a good libretto (most of it taken straight from Shakespeare's play) if you can decipher it, is better because the four lovers get to sing in ensemble. I give more points to Peter Grimes for its ensemble work, and especially, based on this performance, to The Rape of Lucretia for some real dynamism of plot action.
Mind you, I find most of Britten's concert music for singers or chorus to be pretty good.
Some of the singers, even if halfway unintelligible, had powerful and carrying voices.
The class that put this on is aiming for a full production of Albert Herring in May. That's supposed to be the funny one, so I might go.
1. Say it aloud.
2. A couple of elderly men sitting behind me were grumbling that there wasn't anything from Death in Venice. I muttered, "Because this is supposed to be a highlights program," but not for them to hear.
This was the first time I'd ever seen any Britten staged, and while I've encountered some on record and on TV, I'm not very familiar with his operatic output. I'm not planning on rushing out for more. Too much of the writing is in the category I call Menotti-nous:1 ceaselessly meandering melodically-null recitatives setting dull, pedestrian conversations, added points if delivered in a manner where you can't make out half the words anyway. The Turn of the Screw was the nadir in this department, an opera so bad even B. doesn't like it.2 A Midsummer Night's Dream, which has a good libretto (most of it taken straight from Shakespeare's play) if you can decipher it, is better because the four lovers get to sing in ensemble. I give more points to Peter Grimes for its ensemble work, and especially, based on this performance, to The Rape of Lucretia for some real dynamism of plot action.
Mind you, I find most of Britten's concert music for singers or chorus to be pretty good.
Some of the singers, even if halfway unintelligible, had powerful and carrying voices.
The class that put this on is aiming for a full production of Albert Herring in May. That's supposed to be the funny one, so I might go.
1. Say it aloud.
2. A couple of elderly men sitting behind me were grumbling that there wasn't anything from Death in Venice. I muttered, "Because this is supposed to be a highlights program," but not for them to hear.
Monday, November 10, 2014
critical mass, day 4
I've gotten a few comments on these posts to the effect that criticism is some kind of excrescence on the soul of art. If the commenters really believe that, I have to wonder why they're reading me, because critical response to the art I read, see, or hear is what I'm all about. Nobody's ever complained here that I review the concerts I attend, nor that I've moved to selling my reviews professionally. But I attend a conference to learn from the masters of my profession, and out the tired old anti-critical cliches come.
They should have attended Sunday's session - moved over to UC Berkeley in the morning, as the faculty and students were to attend a concert there in the afternoon (I didn't) - and learned what criticism is for, and why writers about music should learn it.
Tim Page said that journalism is not the only use for critical training. His former students have found their learning useful in any writing they do about music: biographies of composers and performers, program notes, arts planning documents.
John Rockwell said that criticism will continue inexorably, regardless of the crises of journalism, though it needs a new economic model. (Bloggers, he points out, are freer to specialize than sole critics for major papers are.) Criticism's purpose is to mediate between the music and the listeners: not to instruct the performers, or function as program notes, but to help listeners to translate the experience of listening and to give new and different perspectives.
Stephen Rubin said that he sponsored this institute with the goal of giving young writers the training and discipline of excellence in succinct writing.
Anne Midgette said that criticism is a way of participating in a discussion about music, and that writing it is itself a creative act, as any good writing is. A critic can translate an unfamiliar work for an audience that otherwise might not know how to absorb it.
Heidi Waleson added that criticism chronicles what musical institutions do.
Alex Ross noted that this is particularly important with the recent flowering of new music concerts (especially in New York, where he works, but also elsewhere). Critics can give the audience knowledge of how music is made.
The critics also had advice for students. Anne Midgette encouraged them to seek out and publicize (without puffery) the new institutions and venues that are the most creative, because they often outstrip established ones in that respect. John Rockwell said that it's fun to discover someone new and great and make them known. Alex Ross pointed out that this isn't just the critic's self-promotion: it makes you constructive. John Rockwell cautioned that it's hard to shake a reputation once established, but Tim Page said that once you're past the stage where everything is either great or terrible, you should feel free to be enthusiastic (a point Alex Ross also endorsed). Anne Midgette also warned against inflexibility and never changing one's mind, to which Stephen Rubin added that the artists you review can change in style or ability.
And that was it, for this audience member. It's been informative.
They should have attended Sunday's session - moved over to UC Berkeley in the morning, as the faculty and students were to attend a concert there in the afternoon (I didn't) - and learned what criticism is for, and why writers about music should learn it.
Tim Page said that journalism is not the only use for critical training. His former students have found their learning useful in any writing they do about music: biographies of composers and performers, program notes, arts planning documents.
John Rockwell said that criticism will continue inexorably, regardless of the crises of journalism, though it needs a new economic model. (Bloggers, he points out, are freer to specialize than sole critics for major papers are.) Criticism's purpose is to mediate between the music and the listeners: not to instruct the performers, or function as program notes, but to help listeners to translate the experience of listening and to give new and different perspectives.
Stephen Rubin said that he sponsored this institute with the goal of giving young writers the training and discipline of excellence in succinct writing.
Anne Midgette said that criticism is a way of participating in a discussion about music, and that writing it is itself a creative act, as any good writing is. A critic can translate an unfamiliar work for an audience that otherwise might not know how to absorb it.
Heidi Waleson added that criticism chronicles what musical institutions do.
Alex Ross noted that this is particularly important with the recent flowering of new music concerts (especially in New York, where he works, but also elsewhere). Critics can give the audience knowledge of how music is made.
The critics also had advice for students. Anne Midgette encouraged them to seek out and publicize (without puffery) the new institutions and venues that are the most creative, because they often outstrip established ones in that respect. John Rockwell said that it's fun to discover someone new and great and make them known. Alex Ross pointed out that this isn't just the critic's self-promotion: it makes you constructive. John Rockwell cautioned that it's hard to shake a reputation once established, but Tim Page said that once you're past the stage where everything is either great or terrible, you should feel free to be enthusiastic (a point Alex Ross also endorsed). Anne Midgette also warned against inflexibility and never changing one's mind, to which Stephen Rubin added that the artists you review can change in style or ability.
And that was it, for this audience member. It's been informative.
Sunday, November 9, 2014
critical mass, day 3
I don't know why I didn't think of this form of title earlier.
Same six distinguished panelists as Thursday, this time accompanied by the (anonymous) reviews that the student fellows had written of the concerts that the institute members (but not me) had been attending the previous two evenings. Three reviews judged as particularly discussion-worthy (and also good) were read aloud and projected on screen, and the prose and description analyzed. Over the session, the discussion devolved from analysis into anecdotage, particularly of awful concerts in the critics' past, but at least it was entertaining.
Topics discussed included:
*Strong language, and whether it's appropriate (John Rockwell, I think: "at least it's fresh"). I'm reminded on how far things have changed from the 1940s, when Virgil Thomson said of a new work, "It's a beaut," and his editors popped in fury and said it would be a firing offense if he put such slang into the New York Herald Tribune ever again.
*Body language of the performers, and whether it's appropriate to spend much of the review describing it. Anne Midgette said there's no quotas, and that if the performer is physically expressive that's part of the show, so sure. Though the review in question wasn't of the SFS concert, much discussion of how guest violinist Gil Shaham smiles a lot, and whether one should mention that he looks like he's enjoying himself. [I certainly have.] An audience member cautioned that physical description shouldn't be used as a crutch for not having anything to say about the music.
*Bringing oneself - your experience attending or your feelings about attending the concert or reviewing it - into the review. Tim Page: You can do this, but it's rarely necessary.
*Discussing encores. John Rockwell: Old-time critics on tight deadlines used to leave before the encore was played. Heidi Waleson: If you're going to mention the encore, at least say what it was; your readership might be attendees who'd like to know.
*Getting as much information as possible into a short space. These reviews were limited to 400 words. Heidi Waleson: If the concert has a lot of works, you need not mention them all. [I'm proud of getting something about all 19 items on the program into this review, though it took me 950 words to do it.] Anne Midgette: The art is to conceal the tightness of your word-count limitation.
*Terminology for identifying performers. Alex Ross: Don't pile up position titles before the person's name like the adjectives in the old Time magazine style. [Which arose, by the way, because Time's founding editor Briton Hadden - there, I did it too - had read the Iliad at an impressionable age.] Tim Page: Don't use "MTT"; it sounds like the name of a gasoline company. Page subsided on being told that everyone calls him that around here, even his own publicity people, and that at least it sidesteps arguments over whether his surname is "Thomas" or "Tilson Thomas". (SFCV's house rules call for the latter.)
*Leads and "kicker" endings. Anne Midgette praised clever endings. Tim Page: Always provide a "kicker"; it's what I glance for first, right after reading the opening.
*A reviewer's comment, "You could hear Mozart smile." John Rockwell: "Hear" instead of "see" is a nice touch. Audience member: Some people make unpleasant noises when they smile; "Mozart's smile" would have been better. I tied this in to Gil Shaham's smile, since he was playing the Mozart, though this reviewer didn't mention his smile.
*Reviewing new music. Tim Page: Do research and listen to the piece or the composer's other works beforehand, but at the concert put that on hold and just have an aesthetic experience.
*Quotability. Everyone: Never either try to be quotable nor try to avoid it.
*Mentioning if a performer is ill. Not if it doesn't affect the performance.
This led to anecdotage on interrupting and stopping performances. Heidi Waleson told of a singer who omitted a song from her recital because she had a cold, and then sang it anyway. Anne Midgette told of a conductor who stopped a piece when a cell phone rang: the phone was on the stage, so he had particular cause for fury. John Rockwell suggested that concert-goers should change their ring-tone to a cough. Tim Page, I think, told a story of a nervous student pianist making her debut who lifted her hands to begin the challenging opening work and then vomited all over the keyboard. He didn't submit a review of that one.
Same six distinguished panelists as Thursday, this time accompanied by the (anonymous) reviews that the student fellows had written of the concerts that the institute members (but not me) had been attending the previous two evenings. Three reviews judged as particularly discussion-worthy (and also good) were read aloud and projected on screen, and the prose and description analyzed. Over the session, the discussion devolved from analysis into anecdotage, particularly of awful concerts in the critics' past, but at least it was entertaining.
Topics discussed included:
*Strong language, and whether it's appropriate (John Rockwell, I think: "at least it's fresh"). I'm reminded on how far things have changed from the 1940s, when Virgil Thomson said of a new work, "It's a beaut," and his editors popped in fury and said it would be a firing offense if he put such slang into the New York Herald Tribune ever again.
*Body language of the performers, and whether it's appropriate to spend much of the review describing it. Anne Midgette said there's no quotas, and that if the performer is physically expressive that's part of the show, so sure. Though the review in question wasn't of the SFS concert, much discussion of how guest violinist Gil Shaham smiles a lot, and whether one should mention that he looks like he's enjoying himself. [I certainly have.] An audience member cautioned that physical description shouldn't be used as a crutch for not having anything to say about the music.
*Bringing oneself - your experience attending or your feelings about attending the concert or reviewing it - into the review. Tim Page: You can do this, but it's rarely necessary.
*Discussing encores. John Rockwell: Old-time critics on tight deadlines used to leave before the encore was played. Heidi Waleson: If you're going to mention the encore, at least say what it was; your readership might be attendees who'd like to know.
*Getting as much information as possible into a short space. These reviews were limited to 400 words. Heidi Waleson: If the concert has a lot of works, you need not mention them all. [I'm proud of getting something about all 19 items on the program into this review, though it took me 950 words to do it.] Anne Midgette: The art is to conceal the tightness of your word-count limitation.
*Terminology for identifying performers. Alex Ross: Don't pile up position titles before the person's name like the adjectives in the old Time magazine style. [Which arose, by the way, because Time's founding editor Briton Hadden - there, I did it too - had read the Iliad at an impressionable age.] Tim Page: Don't use "MTT"; it sounds like the name of a gasoline company. Page subsided on being told that everyone calls him that around here, even his own publicity people, and that at least it sidesteps arguments over whether his surname is "Thomas" or "Tilson Thomas". (SFCV's house rules call for the latter.)
*Leads and "kicker" endings. Anne Midgette praised clever endings. Tim Page: Always provide a "kicker"; it's what I glance for first, right after reading the opening.
*A reviewer's comment, "You could hear Mozart smile." John Rockwell: "Hear" instead of "see" is a nice touch. Audience member: Some people make unpleasant noises when they smile; "Mozart's smile" would have been better. I tied this in to Gil Shaham's smile, since he was playing the Mozart, though this reviewer didn't mention his smile.
*Reviewing new music. Tim Page: Do research and listen to the piece or the composer's other works beforehand, but at the concert put that on hold and just have an aesthetic experience.
*Quotability. Everyone: Never either try to be quotable nor try to avoid it.
*Mentioning if a performer is ill. Not if it doesn't affect the performance.
This led to anecdotage on interrupting and stopping performances. Heidi Waleson told of a singer who omitted a song from her recital because she had a cold, and then sang it anyway. Anne Midgette told of a conductor who stopped a piece when a cell phone rang: the phone was on the stage, so he had particular cause for fury. John Rockwell suggested that concert-goers should change their ring-tone to a cough. Tim Page, I think, told a story of a nervous student pianist making her debut who lifted her hands to begin the challenging opening work and then vomited all over the keyboard. He didn't submit a review of that one.
Saturday, November 8, 2014
trailer critic: Hobbit part 3, no. 2
I have little to say about this one that Mike Glyer hasn't said already. This isn't The Hobbit or even The Lord of the Rings. It's The Silmarillion.
Westlake from beyond the grave
A post from Arthur Hlavaty alerted me that a collection of the late Donald E. Westlake's nonfiction has been published, under the title The Getaway Car. I meandered down to my local independent bookstore to see if they had it. They didn't, but they could easily get it from their distributor, and, while I was at it, I asked for the two posthumous Westlake novels I'd never gotten around to buying or reading, which we found in the system even though I hadn't been prepared to ask and didn't recall the titles offhand (ironically, as one of them is called Memory). They all went in with the next day's orders and arrived the day after that.
I've now read all three, and for good measure re-read a couple other books I'd forgotten everything about when I compiled my annotated Westlake bibliography, and updated it.
Neither of these posthumous novels is humorous, and I suspect that if Westlake had published them, he would have used one of the pseudonyms that he kept around for most, though not all, of his grimmer material. Much of that material is not to my taste, insofar as I've tried it, so I just left the pseudonyms out of the bibliography, but as I've included everything else originally published under his own name, I covered these.
I actually liked them both; they're tough and searingly memorable, even the one about the man who's losing his memory. Westlake withdrew The Comedy Is Finished from potential publication because of the release of the movie The King of Comedy, which is also about the kidnapping of a TV comedian. Why he never published Memory, which had been written much earlier, I don't know, but by the same token he would certainly have withdrawn it if it had been in the pipeline when Memento was released.
In both cases, though, they're very different. The King of Comedy is kidnapped by a wanna-be comedian who wants a spot on his show. In The Comedy Is Finished, the kidnapping is by a small gang of leftover 60s revolutionaries who wish to use him as a bargaining chip to get their comrades out of jail. That he's a celebrity is strongly relevant to the plot; that he's specifically a comedian is somewhat less so, though he does have to be quick-witted.
Memory is actually sadder and bleaker than the movie Memento, because this guy is losing not only his post-accident memories but his pre-accident ones as well, so instead of having a base to stand on (however mistakenly), he's sinking into the mire. Also, where Lenny in Memento loses his new memories within minutes, contributing to a frantic, goofy tone to the movie, for Cole in Memory they slowly fade away over a period of weeks, leaving ghosts of themselves behind, so he sinks more slowly and finds himself more lost. There's a couple points in the story where he tries to act on the basis of what he does remember, or of what he's left himself a note to do even though he no longer remembers why, and those are particularly bleak and, well, memorable.
I've now read all three, and for good measure re-read a couple other books I'd forgotten everything about when I compiled my annotated Westlake bibliography, and updated it.
Neither of these posthumous novels is humorous, and I suspect that if Westlake had published them, he would have used one of the pseudonyms that he kept around for most, though not all, of his grimmer material. Much of that material is not to my taste, insofar as I've tried it, so I just left the pseudonyms out of the bibliography, but as I've included everything else originally published under his own name, I covered these.
I actually liked them both; they're tough and searingly memorable, even the one about the man who's losing his memory. Westlake withdrew The Comedy Is Finished from potential publication because of the release of the movie The King of Comedy, which is also about the kidnapping of a TV comedian. Why he never published Memory, which had been written much earlier, I don't know, but by the same token he would certainly have withdrawn it if it had been in the pipeline when Memento was released.
In both cases, though, they're very different. The King of Comedy is kidnapped by a wanna-be comedian who wants a spot on his show. In The Comedy Is Finished, the kidnapping is by a small gang of leftover 60s revolutionaries who wish to use him as a bargaining chip to get their comrades out of jail. That he's a celebrity is strongly relevant to the plot; that he's specifically a comedian is somewhat less so, though he does have to be quick-witted.
Memory is actually sadder and bleaker than the movie Memento, because this guy is losing not only his post-accident memories but his pre-accident ones as well, so instead of having a base to stand on (however mistakenly), he's sinking into the mire. Also, where Lenny in Memento loses his new memories within minutes, contributing to a frantic, goofy tone to the movie, for Cole in Memory they slowly fade away over a period of weeks, leaving ghosts of themselves behind, so he sinks more slowly and finds himself more lost. There's a couple points in the story where he tries to act on the basis of what he does remember, or of what he's left himself a note to do even though he no longer remembers why, and those are particularly bleak and, well, memorable.
Friday, November 7, 2014
criticism institute: day 2
Thursday's feature was a high-powered panel, with writers whose books I am proud to own (John Rockwell, Tim Page, and especially Alex Ross), plus other distinguished names: Anne Midgette (Washington Post), Heidi Waleson (Wall Street Journal), and Stephen Rubin (formerly of the New York Times). They talked about the profession of criticism and their own roles in it.
Career paths: Some of them had always wanted to be critics. Others (Ross and Midgette) aimed more generally at being writers of some sort (Midgette wanted to be a novelist), loved music on the side, and happened to fall into criticism. All of them emphasized their early careers as freelancers and doing other work than criticism. That they eventually nabbed regular staff jobs was just their good fortune. (Of course they're good writers, but so are others who didn't have that luck.) So the "entrepreneurial" notion, in today's collapse of journalism, of careers made by patching together bits and pieces of jobs is hardly a new thing. It's what they did, and what their students in criticism, like the student fellows at this institute, can expect.
After this, it was flooring when when the first audience comment, from Gil French of American Record Guide, protested that they're training their students for jobs that no longer exist. We're not, they all responded. "I'm just going on what you said," French insisted, but that's only true if he has an opposite switch in his head, which translates what you said into the opposite of what you said.
At least the comment generated some useful elaborations. Midgette forcefully warned us not to confuse the decline of the journalistic institutions with the continuing usefulness of the critical tools. Page, who is now a professor at USC, noted that his students apply what they've learned in a variety of jobs. (Thus following examples like Waleson, who began her career as a publicist.)
Blogging: Except for Rockwell, who quit blogging because he didn't see why he should do for free what he'd been being paid for, all spoke well of blogging and bloggers. Ross gave Lisa Hirsch as a good example ("Is she here? No? Oh well"). There's a great amount of talent out there, the good ones rise in prominence (and sometimes move into paid work) while the ones with "verbal diarrhea" (Rubin's phrase) just don't get read, and the whole milieu keeps the professionals on their toes.
Editing: Only Ross said that his editors have really helped shape and train his writing. Rockwell said the editorial function is to catch stupid mistakes. Others said they learned to write by doing it. Midgette defied us to see any difference between her edited newspaper and unedited online pieces.
Is classical music criticism unique among arts criticisms? Most said yes. Rockwell called non-programmatic concert music the most abstract of arts, with only abstract painting matching it. Waleson cited the technical language and the lack of shared knowledge among the readership that exists in, e.g., film. Ross disagreed: every art form has its technical language and is fundamentally inscrutable in words. Even writing about poetry is hard: you can quote Wallace Stevens, but what is he saying? I forget if it was Ross or Page who dismissed the maxim "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture."
Taking notes during concerts: All of them do it, though Midgette quit because the details she was noting overwhelmed her reviews. (I have that concern about my own reviewing, and try to use the details as examples of what I mean generally.) Several confessed that they can't read their own notes afterwards, but said that the mere act of writing them helps. Page noted that when he was on tight deadlines, he tried saving time by writing the parts about the work, rather than the performance, beforehand, but he gave that up because they turned out not to fit into the thrust of his reviews. (I've had that experience.)
Most fundamental question: What do you most value in criticism? Rubin: immediacy, the sense that the critic is taking you to the concert. (This is why he likes Virgil Thomson.) Page: as a teacher, he's interested in the process by which you reach your opinion than what the opinion is. As a reader, he likes good prose. Rockwell: yes, but the prose shouldn't be too flashy and distracting. Ross: the ideas that the critic can introduce him to. Midgette: the variety of opinions. She loathes the idea of everyone agreeing with her all the time.
Career paths: Some of them had always wanted to be critics. Others (Ross and Midgette) aimed more generally at being writers of some sort (Midgette wanted to be a novelist), loved music on the side, and happened to fall into criticism. All of them emphasized their early careers as freelancers and doing other work than criticism. That they eventually nabbed regular staff jobs was just their good fortune. (Of course they're good writers, but so are others who didn't have that luck.) So the "entrepreneurial" notion, in today's collapse of journalism, of careers made by patching together bits and pieces of jobs is hardly a new thing. It's what they did, and what their students in criticism, like the student fellows at this institute, can expect.
After this, it was flooring when when the first audience comment, from Gil French of American Record Guide, protested that they're training their students for jobs that no longer exist. We're not, they all responded. "I'm just going on what you said," French insisted, but that's only true if he has an opposite switch in his head, which translates what you said into the opposite of what you said.
At least the comment generated some useful elaborations. Midgette forcefully warned us not to confuse the decline of the journalistic institutions with the continuing usefulness of the critical tools. Page, who is now a professor at USC, noted that his students apply what they've learned in a variety of jobs. (Thus following examples like Waleson, who began her career as a publicist.)
Blogging: Except for Rockwell, who quit blogging because he didn't see why he should do for free what he'd been being paid for, all spoke well of blogging and bloggers. Ross gave Lisa Hirsch as a good example ("Is she here? No? Oh well"). There's a great amount of talent out there, the good ones rise in prominence (and sometimes move into paid work) while the ones with "verbal diarrhea" (Rubin's phrase) just don't get read, and the whole milieu keeps the professionals on their toes.
Editing: Only Ross said that his editors have really helped shape and train his writing. Rockwell said the editorial function is to catch stupid mistakes. Others said they learned to write by doing it. Midgette defied us to see any difference between her edited newspaper and unedited online pieces.
Is classical music criticism unique among arts criticisms? Most said yes. Rockwell called non-programmatic concert music the most abstract of arts, with only abstract painting matching it. Waleson cited the technical language and the lack of shared knowledge among the readership that exists in, e.g., film. Ross disagreed: every art form has its technical language and is fundamentally inscrutable in words. Even writing about poetry is hard: you can quote Wallace Stevens, but what is he saying? I forget if it was Ross or Page who dismissed the maxim "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture."
Taking notes during concerts: All of them do it, though Midgette quit because the details she was noting overwhelmed her reviews. (I have that concern about my own reviewing, and try to use the details as examples of what I mean generally.) Several confessed that they can't read their own notes afterwards, but said that the mere act of writing them helps. Page noted that when he was on tight deadlines, he tried saving time by writing the parts about the work, rather than the performance, beforehand, but he gave that up because they turned out not to fit into the thrust of his reviews. (I've had that experience.)
Most fundamental question: What do you most value in criticism? Rubin: immediacy, the sense that the critic is taking you to the concert. (This is why he likes Virgil Thomson.) Page: as a teacher, he's interested in the process by which you reach your opinion than what the opinion is. As a reader, he likes good prose. Rockwell: yes, but the prose shouldn't be too flashy and distracting. Ross: the ideas that the critic can introduce him to. Midgette: the variety of opinions. She loathes the idea of everyone agreeing with her all the time.
concert review
I didn't mention this earlier. I went to hear the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra - first time I'd ever seen them live. Executive summary of my review: great stuff, wowza.
Thursday, November 6, 2014
criticism institute: day 1
The institute on classical music criticism began on Wednesday with an introductory lecture - or talk, really - by Anthony Tommasini, chief critic for the New York Times.
Tommasini is a mousy-looking man with mousy opinions. He said he would speak on the social and cultural responsibilities and influence of classical critics, but he doesn't think he has any influence. He described his work in a flailing manner as if he were an amateur at it. He doesn't like to speak his mind negatively forthrightly in his reviews because he's intimidated by carrying the megaphone of the New York Times. He favors fuller coverage of management and labor issues in classical ensembles and opera companies, but thinks that's a job better left to business reporters than to critics. He thinks that if the protesters against The Death of Klinghoffer would just go and see the opera, they'd like it and realize it isn't anti-Semitic,* and then we could have an honest debate. (On what? There's no debate if everyone agrees.) He says that Adams and Goodman, the opera's authors, aren't anti-Semitic "in their hearts," as if that excuses any offenses of that kind they did inadvertently commit.
However, he wasn't the only person being mousy. Tommasini remarked that he doesn't like to use technical terms in his reviews for fear that most of his readers won't understand them. His example was "chromatic". (Oh dear: I use that word in my reviews all the time.) As we were packing up to leave, I heard one of the institute's student fellows say scornfully to another, "How difficult can it be to look up 'chromatic' in a dictionary?"
So I did, just to see what you'd get. Chromatic: Of, pertaining to, or based on the chromatic scale. Great, so what's the ... Chromatic scale: A scale consisting of 12 semitones. Of course I understand this, and so would anyone with musical training, but an untrained reader might well think either a) "So what does that mean?" and set off on a wild-goose chase through the dictionary which, sure enough, leads you back to "chromatic" within two steps; or b) "I know what that means, but what does it sound like?" You see the problem?
On the entrance wall of the conservatory there are postings of upcoming performances. There was a piano recital that evening, so why not stick around? So I had dinner at Lers Ros around the corner - which is to Thai food roughly what Bartók is to music - and returned for the recital. Student pianists played a Bach partita as if Robert Moog had written it and an early Beethoven sonata as if mid-period Beethoven had written it. The latter made the most amazing facial expressions while playing, alternately popping her eyes out and retracting them into her head. I left after intermission, my interest in hearing the entirety of Brahms' Paganini Variations being outweighed by my desire to get home and see what my dictionary said about chromaticism.
*I've seen it, in the 1992 San Francisco Opera production. I wouldn't join a protest line against its performance - there was one then - but my opinion of the opera's political expressions was neither favorable nor forgiving. (I didn't like it as much musically as Nixon in China, either.) "Anti-Semitic" is a loaded word these days, and if you use it of someone they react as if you called them "genocidal", but the kind of subtle "oh, just shaft the Jews" kind of anti-Semitism - it's there. It's definitely there. You can only say it isn't by defining that out of the meaning of the word. On the other hand, the St. Matthew Passion is flagrantly and openly anti-Semitic, and we perform that. The issue isn't a dead letter, either: churches were still professing Biblically-based anti-Semitism just a few decades ago.
Tommasini is a mousy-looking man with mousy opinions. He said he would speak on the social and cultural responsibilities and influence of classical critics, but he doesn't think he has any influence. He described his work in a flailing manner as if he were an amateur at it. He doesn't like to speak his mind negatively forthrightly in his reviews because he's intimidated by carrying the megaphone of the New York Times. He favors fuller coverage of management and labor issues in classical ensembles and opera companies, but thinks that's a job better left to business reporters than to critics. He thinks that if the protesters against The Death of Klinghoffer would just go and see the opera, they'd like it and realize it isn't anti-Semitic,* and then we could have an honest debate. (On what? There's no debate if everyone agrees.) He says that Adams and Goodman, the opera's authors, aren't anti-Semitic "in their hearts," as if that excuses any offenses of that kind they did inadvertently commit.
However, he wasn't the only person being mousy. Tommasini remarked that he doesn't like to use technical terms in his reviews for fear that most of his readers won't understand them. His example was "chromatic". (Oh dear: I use that word in my reviews all the time.) As we were packing up to leave, I heard one of the institute's student fellows say scornfully to another, "How difficult can it be to look up 'chromatic' in a dictionary?"
So I did, just to see what you'd get. Chromatic: Of, pertaining to, or based on the chromatic scale. Great, so what's the ... Chromatic scale: A scale consisting of 12 semitones. Of course I understand this, and so would anyone with musical training, but an untrained reader might well think either a) "So what does that mean?" and set off on a wild-goose chase through the dictionary which, sure enough, leads you back to "chromatic" within two steps; or b) "I know what that means, but what does it sound like?" You see the problem?
On the entrance wall of the conservatory there are postings of upcoming performances. There was a piano recital that evening, so why not stick around? So I had dinner at Lers Ros around the corner - which is to Thai food roughly what Bartók is to music - and returned for the recital. Student pianists played a Bach partita as if Robert Moog had written it and an early Beethoven sonata as if mid-period Beethoven had written it. The latter made the most amazing facial expressions while playing, alternately popping her eyes out and retracting them into her head. I left after intermission, my interest in hearing the entirety of Brahms' Paganini Variations being outweighed by my desire to get home and see what my dictionary said about chromaticism.
*I've seen it, in the 1992 San Francisco Opera production. I wouldn't join a protest line against its performance - there was one then - but my opinion of the opera's political expressions was neither favorable nor forgiving. (I didn't like it as much musically as Nixon in China, either.) "Anti-Semitic" is a loaded word these days, and if you use it of someone they react as if you called them "genocidal", but the kind of subtle "oh, just shaft the Jews" kind of anti-Semitism - it's there. It's definitely there. You can only say it isn't by defining that out of the meaning of the word. On the other hand, the St. Matthew Passion is flagrantly and openly anti-Semitic, and we perform that. The issue isn't a dead letter, either: churches were still professing Biblically-based anti-Semitism just a few decades ago.
Saturday, November 1, 2014
concert review: Mission Chamber Orchestra
The little mid-range amateur orchestra-that-could put on a Halloween-themed concert at le petit Trianon. No Danse Macabre, no Night on Bald Mountain! Their choice of scary or creepy music included Beethoven's scariest overture, Coriolan; de Falla's Ritual Fire Dance, which conductor Emily Ray described as "basically movie music"; and Gounod's Funeral March of a Marionette, a piece I doubt I'd ever heard in concert before.
Works by two local composers filled out the half. David Holmes has set the lyrics to the spooky 19C English play Death's Jest-Book by Thomas Lovell Beddoes,* strophic stuff that, judging from tonight's excerpts, should work terrifically in a stage production; it's that kind of music. The songs were sung loudly and clearly, but with a heavy Korean accent, by tenor Woojeong Lee.
Then there were two seasonal pieces for strings by Durwynne Hsieh: "Midnight Ride" (as in the Headless Horseman rather than Paul Revere) and "March of the Candidates" - for yes, it's that season too. Of their juxtaposition, Hsieh remarked in his introduction that "both involve people dressing up in costumes and pretending to be someone they're not."
He also remarked that he likes writing for strings alone because it gives the same effect as a black-and-white film: the contrasts are starker and the shadows deeper. I wish I'd had a chance to meet him and tell him that this is pretty much the same reason Bernard Herrmann wrote the score for Psycho for strings. And, indeed, "Midnight Ride" sounded a lot like Herrmann's music, though not like Psycho in particular. "March of the Candidates" was an offbeat jaunt more like Henry Cowell meets Charles Ives, two composers who in life met frequently, so it's no oddity to have them meet again.
The second half included Schumann's Piano Concerto with a really fine young pianist named Soheil Nasseri. He was utterly professional. The orchestra managed pretty well in the outer movements, but wandered off on intonations of their own in the Intermezzo.
*I thought for a bit that I'd heard of him before, but I was thinking of Thomas Love Peacock.
Works by two local composers filled out the half. David Holmes has set the lyrics to the spooky 19C English play Death's Jest-Book by Thomas Lovell Beddoes,* strophic stuff that, judging from tonight's excerpts, should work terrifically in a stage production; it's that kind of music. The songs were sung loudly and clearly, but with a heavy Korean accent, by tenor Woojeong Lee.
Then there were two seasonal pieces for strings by Durwynne Hsieh: "Midnight Ride" (as in the Headless Horseman rather than Paul Revere) and "March of the Candidates" - for yes, it's that season too. Of their juxtaposition, Hsieh remarked in his introduction that "both involve people dressing up in costumes and pretending to be someone they're not."
He also remarked that he likes writing for strings alone because it gives the same effect as a black-and-white film: the contrasts are starker and the shadows deeper. I wish I'd had a chance to meet him and tell him that this is pretty much the same reason Bernard Herrmann wrote the score for Psycho for strings. And, indeed, "Midnight Ride" sounded a lot like Herrmann's music, though not like Psycho in particular. "March of the Candidates" was an offbeat jaunt more like Henry Cowell meets Charles Ives, two composers who in life met frequently, so it's no oddity to have them meet again.
The second half included Schumann's Piano Concerto with a really fine young pianist named Soheil Nasseri. He was utterly professional. The orchestra managed pretty well in the outer movements, but wandered off on intonations of their own in the Intermezzo.
*I thought for a bit that I'd heard of him before, but I was thinking of Thomas Love Peacock.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)