Alex Ross's Blog, page 130

King

Gay Berlin

Berlin Story. The New Yorker, Jan. 26, 2014.

Noted

Leon Wieseltier: "Every technology is used before it is completely understood. There is always a lag between an innovation and the apprehension of its consequences. We are living in that lag, and it is a right time to keep our heads and reflect."

Nightafternight playlist

— Montage: works of Bruce Broughton, Don Davis, John Williams, Alexandre Desplat, Michael Giacchino, Randy Newman; Gloria Cheng, piano (Harmonia Mundi)

— Distance: works of Hindemith, Vasks, Carter, Bach, Krenek, Schumann; James Austin Smith, oboe, with Luís Magalhães, piano, and Bridget Kibbey, harp (TwoPianists)

— Saariaho, Quatre Instants, Terra Memoria, Émilie Suite; Karen Vourc'h, soprano, with Marko Letonja conducting the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg (Ondine)

— Stockhausen, Complete Early Percussion Works; Steven Schick, James Avery, red fish blue fish (Mode DVD)

— Simon Steen-Andersen, Black Box Music and Run Time Error; Håkan Stene conducting the Oslo Sinfonietta (Dacapo DVD)

— Harold Shapero, Piano Music; Sally Pinkas and Evan Hirsch (Toccata)

— Nielsen, Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3; Sakari Oramo conducting the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic (BIS)

The king of pop

I hardly know what to say in response to Sasha Frere-Jones's sweet and generous words in this farewell New Yorker blog post, so I will simply say thanks. By the way, this blog arose very directly from an envy of Sasha's.

Miscellany for the 47th birthday of "The Weight"

The 2015-16 season announcements have begun to trickle in. Of particular interest is Jake Heggie's Great Scott, at the Dallas Opera, next October. I mentioned this opera-about-opera in my profile of Joyce DiDonato; she will play the title character, an American diva returning home for the world première of a lost bel-canto work entitled Rosa Dolorosa, Daughter of Pompeii. Complications ensue... As Michael Cooper reports in the Times, a decision is pending on the assets of . Of the proposed plans for a "renaissance," only BAM's strikes me as plausible.... Kyle Gann has been posting previews of his hotly anticipated book about the Ives Concord Sonata. Congratulations to Kyle on the completion of his First Symphony, modestly subtitled the "Implausible." .... If your neighborhood falls strangely quiet this week, the reason may be that all the contemporary-music types have gone to San Francisco for the New Music Gathering at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Such luminaries as Claire Chase, Sarah Cahill, and the Kronos are taking lead roles in three days of performances, talks, discussions, and demonstrations  .... Ekmeles sings Johnston, Cage, Tenney, Evan Johnson, Matthew Ricketts, Andrew Waggoner, and Aaron Cassidy at NYC's DiMenna Center on Jan. 23.... Some tickets remain for late performances of Bora Yoon's Sunken Cathedral, part of this year's Prototype Festival. Most of the rest is, I believe, sold out.... The resurgent LA Opera, pursuing a Beaumarchais theme, presents ¡Figaro! (90210) Jan. 16-18 and then turns to Corigliano's Ghosts of Versailles, with The Barber of Seville and the full Figaro to follow later in the season.... The music department of The New Yorker is disconsolate at the departure of its pop-music magus, Sasha Frere-Jones. In a little over a decade, he revolutionized music coverage at the magazine. May he flourish at a site promisingly entitled Genius.

Wagner's dream

"Le Songe de Wagner," Henry de Groux.

Lorraine Hunt plays PDQ Bach

Yes, it's the future mezzo playing the Sonata for Viola Four Hands, S. 440, in conjunction with Robert Levine, who sent the picture along. Now the principal violist of the Milwaukee Symphony and also a contributor at Polyphonic, Robert often shared a stand with Lorraine during her viola-centric years, especially at George Cleve's Midsummer Mozart Festival. He remembers her as a gifted and generous player. Incidentally, the oddest of Bach's twenty-odd children is currently celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of his none-too-belated rediscovery.

Another (extended) Tubin moment

Eduard Tubin's Sixth Symphony, with Neeme Järvi conducting the Swedish Radio Symphony. Apropos of nothing, the opening and closing of the second movement served as theme music for my college-radio show, "Music Since 1900." Tubin also composed one of the most viscerally thrilling endings in the symphonic literature, the timpani-driven coda of his Fifth Symphony. Järvi conducted a tremendous New York Philharmonic performance of the Fifth in 1995.

Nine symphonies

The Los Angeles blogger CK Dexter Haven has devised an amusing game: pick your favorite numbered symphonies, one through nine. Brian Lauritzen has added his own entry, and there are sure to be others. I have decided to make the bold choice of omitting Beethoven — he gets enough publicity — and am offering this mildly eccentric list:

Nielsen, Symphony No. 1

Ives, Symphony No. 21

Lutosławski, Symphony No. 32

Brahms, Symphony No. 43

Ustvolskaya, Symphony No. 5

Vaughan Williams, Symphony No. 6

Sibelius, Symphony No. 7

Schubert, Symphony No. 8

Mahler, Symphony No. 9

It's painful to leave out Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Martinů, and my beloved Eduard Tubin, among many others, but so the chips fall in one neck of the woods.

NOTES:

1. These first two could easily have been reversed. Also, I was sorely tempted to include Popov's astounding First.

2. An agonizing number, with the Eroica and all the great American Thirds. But the Lutosławski enchants me so deeply every time I hear it.

3. Another agonizing number, with Sibelius, Nielsen, and Shostakovich at their most intense. But the finale of the Brahms obliterates all.