Alex Ross's Blog, page 108

A century of Orson Welles

The Shadow. The New Yorker, Dec. 7, 2015.

In memory of Andrew Patner.

Miscellany for the coming of winter

Winter is coming.

On Dec. 10, the New York Philharmonic and Jeffrey Kahane will give the première of Split, a piano concerto by Andrew Norman, one of the most significant American composers in the younger age bracket. Will Robin has profiled Norman for the New York Times; I interviewed him for my Hopscotch piece.... Two days earlier, as part of the LA Phil's Green Umbrella series, three Southern California quartets — the Calder, the Formalist, and the Lyris — will play works of Cage, Johnston, Wolff, Reich, and George Brecht, alongside premières of John Luther Adams and Tristan Perich....  Two days before that, Ensemble Dal Niente, of Chicago, kicks off its Neue Musik tour with a program of Poppe, Andre, Lachenmann, Spahlinger, Johannes Kreidler, and Carola Bauckholt. Dates in Boston and New York follow.... Counterbalancing the maleness of the above, a Women, Music, Power symposium, in honor of the musicologist Suzanne G. Cusick, will unfold at Columbia on Dec. 11 and 12. A related concert by the International Contemporary Ensemble will feature music of Zosha Di Castri and David Adamcyk (writing in tandem), Natacha Diels, and Maria Stankova. Cusick is also the focus of a special issue of Women & Music.... Congratulations to the Cedar Park High School Timberwolf Band— mentioned in this post — for their victory in the UIL 5A State Marching Competition, a big Texas contest. They did it with a vibrant sequence of Mozart, Rossini, Grieg, Beethoven, and Puccini.... Hans Abrahamsen has won the 2016 Grawemeyer Award for his voice-and-orchestra piece let me tell you. As it happens, Winter & Winter will release a recording in early January, with Barbara Hannigan, Andris Nelsons, and the Bavarian Radio Symphony; and Hannigan will sing the work with the Cleveland Orchestra in the middle of the month (two dates at Severance, one at Carnegie Hall).

Schoenberg spricht

Randol Schoenberg, grandson of Arnold Schoenberg and president of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, speaking to the Los Angeles Times: "Obviously, many Americans in 1943 felt the same as many do today — that we cannot risk admitting enemy agents among the throng of refugees. During World War II, this type of fear meant that millions of honest, innocent people were unable to escape their murderers. I hope we don't make the same mistake again."

Final Hopscotch

The theatrical wonder that is Hopscotch has its final performances on Saturday and Sunday. (I've begun pondering my year-end best-of list, and am tempted to list the three routes of Hopscotch as separate events.) Tickets are long gone, but the folks at the Industry have assembled a list of locations where Angelenos can watch performances on site. The obvious move is to go to the Bradbury Building and watch Veronika Krausas's wild jazz cantata-ballet from the ground floor. I'd also recommend making the trip up to Angel's Point, in Elysian Park, to witness Andrew McIntosh's crystalline music for ambulatory saxophones. If you happen to be on the bike path that goes along the LA River east of Silver Lake, you might catch a glimpse of the strange doings of David Rosenboom's "Hades," Jeep included. And if you're walking around the Arts District you will may well hear wind-borne bits of the antiphonal trumpet-trombone duet that crowns Ellen Reid's "Rooftops." Performances last from 11am-1230pm, 1-230pm, and 3-430pm. Anyone can, of course, go to the Hub and watch live feeds there; Andrew Norman's Finale begins at around 430pm.

Previously: Opera on Location, slide show, photojournal.

Wedekind, Spring Awakening, Lulu

Desperadoes. Nov. 23, 2015.

Nightafternight playlist

New and recent releases of interest.

— Stravinsky: Complete Edition (DG)

— Bach, Goldberg Variations, Beethoven Diabelli Variations, Rzewski The People United Will Never Be Defeated; Igor Levit (Sony)

— Bach, Goldberg Variations; Alexandre Tharaud (Erato)

— Handel, Partenope; Karina Gauvin, Philippe Jaroussky, Teresa Iervolino, Emöke Baráth, John Mark Ainsley, Luco Tittoto, Riccardo Minasi leading Il pomo d'oro (Erato)

— Michael Pisaro, A mist is a collection of points; Philip Bush, Greg Stuart (New World)

— Brahms, Symphony No. 4, Hungarian Dances; Iván Fischer conducting the Budapest Festival Orchestra (Channel Classics)

— Ravel, Piano Concerto in G and Concerto for the Left Hand, Fauré Ballade in F-sharp; Yuja Wang, with Lionel Bringuier conducting the Tonhalle Orchestra (DG)

— Liszt Inspections: music of John Adams, Berio, Cerha, Feldman, Kurtág, Ligeti, Murail, Pesson, Rihm, Sciarrino, Stockhausen, Ustvolskaya, and Liszt; Marino Formenti (Kairos)

— Shostakovich, Symphonies Nos. 1-15; Vasily Petrenko conducting the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic (Naxos)

Dancing to Ligeti

For Robert Craft

The conductor and author Robert Craft, who played a singular role in twentieth-century music history through his association with Igor Stravinsky, has died at the age of ninety-two. (This strangely curt obituary has been confirmed by several of Craft's friends and colleagues.) The degree to which Craft influenced Stravinsky and became his public voice has not ceased to cause controversy, and even in the past few years Craft stirred new turmoil with startling claims about Stravinsky's personal life. But this is not the occasion to carry on the debate. Craft can remembered now as a formidable early American advocate for the Second Viennese School; as a pioneering interpreter of Renaissance music, including Gesualdo; as an essential and assiduous witness of Stravinsky's final decades; as a feisty critic and essayist; and, above all, as a vital force in the creative process of a twentieth-century master. To have helped bring Requiem Canticles into the world is achievement enough.

Les ténèbres

In memory of those murdered in Paris.

Hopscotch photojournal

In this week's issue of The New Yorker I have an article about Hopscotch, the Industry's car-borne multi-composer opera. I'll soon add a few more thoughts on the New Yorker website, alongside a slide show of Angie Smith's photographs of one of the Hopscotch routes. Here are some of my own photos and videos, inevitably of much lower quality. They should, however, give a bit of the flavor of this astonishing event. Having been a music critic for almost twenty-five years, I sometimes find myself thinking that there is nothing new under the sun. Hopscotch put a stop to that.

The daredevil trumpter Jonah Levy, a student of Markus Stockhausen and Marco Blaauw, begins his climb up the ETO Doors tower.

Video of part of Jonah's solo, with Tony Rinaldi answering him from the roof of the National Biscuit Company building. At some performances, the trombone part is taken by Matt Barbier, an L.A. new-music stalwart.

Video of Rebekah Barton going back and forth along an L.A. River access road.

From a rehearsal along the L.A. River, doubling, not implausibly, as the River Styx.

Yuval Sharon repels down the embankment.

A scene under the North Broadway Viaduct.

A scene in Chinatown Central Plaza.

Corinne DeWitt, a student at USC, has been documenting Hopscotch for months, and has gathered materials at Ampersand, a website associated with the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism.