Alex Ross's Blog, page 127

Adorno/Thomson

The scholar James Schmidt has made a fascinating discovery: the lost mansucript of Theodor W. Adorno's own translation of his Philosophie der neuen Musik has turned up in the papers of Virgil Thomson, at Yale. Adorno and Thomson occasionally exchanged letters; as I commented in a blog post last fall, they had certain ideological concerns in common. In The Rest Is Noise, I mentioned that at one point Adorno attempted to interest Thomson in his writings on Sibelius, provoking the immortal reply, "The tone is more apt to create antagonism toward yourself than toward Sibelius." (That letter appeared in Tim Page and Vanessa Weeks Page's Selected Letters of Virgil Thomson.) Apparently, Adorno also hoped to draw Thomson's attention to his Philosophy. As Schmidt observes, the translation reveals that Adorno had no more idea of how to render his adamantine prose in English than did later translators. Indeed, Adorno's uncertain command of English placed him at something of a disadvantage. Nonetheless, Adornians are sure to learn much from this notable find. I look forward to reading more of Schmidt's musings on the Adorno-Thomson relationship.

Philharmonie de Paris

Surround Sound. The New Yorker, April 20, 2015.

Image: John Singer Sargent, "Rehearsal of the Pasdeloup Orchestra at the Cirque d'Hiver."

Notes on Symphomania

Listen to the Future, New Yorker website.

Miscellany for the reign of silence

A sign from Bruges.

Next week the MATA Festival returns to NYC, with finely varied programs ranging from Sweden (Malin Bång) to Iran (Idin Samimi Mofakham). Ensembles include the Curious Chamber Players, the Momenta Quartet, and the brawny boys of Bearthoven, giving the première of Adam de la Cour's Corporate Talent Factor’s Next Top Idol! ... The sublime Laurie Anderson is curating and performing in a Live Ideas festival at New York Live Arts. Included in the expectedly eclectic lineup are several events focused on Arvo Pärt, including a panel discussion with Anderson and Will Robin.... The album of the week on Q2 is an excellent new Hyperion disc, with the Royal String Quartet, of works by two major Polish composers, Paweł Szymański and Paweł Mykietyn. As Doyle Armbrust observes, the Royal Quartet deserves an American tour.... The News, a "multimedia reality opera" by Jacob TV, plays at the Met Museum April 17-18.... Tomorrow night at LA's Zipper Hall, the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet gives the première of Andrew McIntosh's I Hold the Lion's Paw and also offers works of Joseph Pereira, Nicholas Deyoe, and the late Shaun Naidoo.... The Before Bach series is under way at Carnegie. In this week's New Yorker I have a preview of an obvious highlight, Jordi Savall's solo viol recital. Sonnambula, a superb NYC-based viol consort that might well have been featured in Carnegie's lineup (as Jim Oestreich has noted, the hall seems fixated on British performers), play tonight at the Museum of Biblical Art and will delve into the gorgeous world of William Lawes in May.... Noted with great interest: a biography of the conductor Dean Dixon. The Overgrown Path has more.

Bookshelf

New titles of interest.

— Philip Glass, Words without Music (Norton)

— Sarah Barbedette, ed., Pierre Boulez (Actes Sud)

— Gary Tomlinson, A Million Years of Music: The Emergence of Human Modernity (Zone)

— Nigel Simeone and John Tyrrell, eds., Charles Mackerras (Boydell Press)

— Vincent Giroud, Nicolas Nabokov (Oxford)

— Oliver Hilmes, Malevolent Muse: The Life of Alma Mahler (Northeastern)

— Robert Raines, Composition in the Digital World: Conversations with 21-Century American Composers (Oxford)

— Zofia Posmysz, The Christ from Auschwitz (IYMC Foundation / Konrad Adenauer Foundation)

For Andrew Porter

Postscript, on the New Yorker website.

General Bernheim and the accordionist

Postcards from Brussels.

Birth of a nation

Quatuor Ébène

An oblique view, at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées.

Boulez, Slonimsky, Raksin

This Betty Freeman image, taken in 1992, appears in an online collection of Los Angeles Philharmonic photos. One senses that the conversation is off to an awkward start; perhaps it will warm up shortly. All three men had associations with Frank Zappa, incidentally. In 1989, Raksin moderated a discussion between Boulez and Zappa; the LA Times account of the event is amusing.

Previously: For David Raksin, Do not laugh at Faery.