Alex Ross's Blog, page 162

Les Noces

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the highest-ranking classical-music fan in the federal government of the United States, will preside tonight at the wedding of Michael Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and the economist John Roberts — not to be confused with the Supreme Court Justice of the same name, who believes that the Defense of Marriage Act reflected "interests in uniformity and stability." This is not, of course, the first time that a member of the Supreme Court has officiated at a high-profile wedding. In 1994, Justice Clarence Thomas presided at the third marriage of the rabidly right-wing talk-show host Rush Limbaugh; it ended in divorce.

The ageing audience

At Bruce Springsteen shows, that is. A Salon columnist wonders why more young people aren't showing up at the great man's performances. She blames "postmodern irony."

Late-summer miscellany

Maulina steps cautiously into the Wagner zone.

There are few signs of progress in the Minnesota Orchestra crisis. Yesterday, the orchestra management announced what it described as a new offer; this proposal turned out to be more or less the same as one the players had rejected some weeks before. Drew McManus is skeptical of the latest management move.... Anne Midgette takes note of the prominence of women in Washington DC's classical-music scene; meanwhile, Vasily Petrenko has made repulsively sexist comments on the subject of female conductors. (He has since ventured a not very coherent apology.) ... The Banff International String Quartet Competition is moving into its final rounds — large quantities of streaming audio and video are available on the Banff website.... David Weininger previews the new-music season in Boston.... A starry array of new-music specialists — Steven Schick, the Calder Quartet, Claire Chase, Roomful of Teeth — will assemble for the Carlsbad Music Festival, Sept. 20-22.... Resonant Bodies, a new festival of contemporary vocal music, opens in Brooklyn on Sept. 5.... Trinity Wall Street's monumental Britten series begins on Sept. 5 with a lunchtime concert of the Sinfonietta, Nocturne, and Phaedra; Nicholas Phan and Virginia Warnken are the soloists. Here's a calendar of Trinity's Britten offerings — notice the special Phan event on Sept. 21. The tenor will also be singing Britten in Chicago, as part of the Collaborative Works Festival in mid-September.

Video of the day

From Matthias Kranebitter's Concerto for Saxophone and Midi Orchestra in D Major, with Gordon Tudor as soloist.

Flashback

Classical performers in Jet magazine, 1952: Dean Dixon has a two-hour conversation with Sibelius, "personality girl Mary Leontyne Price" draws attention at Juilliard.

O King

Vauhini Vara: "Fifty years later, that gulf hasn’t changed much. By some measures it has widened."

Britten discoveries

Michael Cooper, the New York Times's new classical-music reporter, investigates Britten's lost orchestration of Les Sylphides. Evidence of Britten's American period is still turning up here and there. Back in 2006, I was browsing the Britten shelves at the New York Public Library when I came across a very curious score of Les Illuminations: it appeared to be proofs of the first edition, with scattered corrections in a hand that looked very much like Britten's. Evidently, Boosey had donated the proofs to the NYPL, and they had been bound together as a circulating score. I called attention to the item, and authorities in the manuscripts division confirmed my suspicions. The score is no longer part of the circulating collection.

So it goes

Michiko Kakutani's front-page New York Times piece on "I have a dream," a survey of the sources and aims of King's great speech, makes no mention of Marian Anderson's role, while giving spurious credit to Woody Guthrie. King's image of freedom ringing from various mountainsides was borrowed not from Guthrie but from Archibald Carey's 1952 speech to the Republican Convention (go to 16:30 here). It should also be noted that back in 1893 the pioneering feminist and civil-rights crusader Ida B. Wells transformed the lyrics of "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" into a prophecy of future equality.

Previously: Voice of the Century.

Mezzo summit

Joyce DiDonato speaks with Janet Baker on the occasion of the latter's eightieth birthday. Baker made so many extraordinary recordings; the one that I could not possibly live without is her Kindertotenlieder and Rückert Lieder.

Wagner of the day

The Meistersinger quintet, with Elisabeth Schumann, Lauritz Melchior, Friedrich Schorr, Gladys Parr, Ben Williams, and John Barbirolli conducting the London Symphony, 1931.