Alex Ross's Blog, page 164

Burying the lede

"Scheherazade and 1812 Overture!" is the headline for an upcoming Baltimore Symphony program, one that happens to include the American premiere of John Adams's new Saxophone Concerto. If you're going to feature American and contemporary music — and Marin Alsop's orchestra is no slouch in this department — why not take pride in it? I have complained about such headlines before, to no effect.

Bayreuth 2013

Wagner Summer. The New Yorker, Aug. 26, 2013.

Photo: Bayreuther Festspiele / Enrico Nawrath.

Telling

Rob Deemer, at NewMusicBox, notices that the U.S. government, in the form of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, does not recognize the occupation "composer" as a category distinct from other ways of making music.

Noted

Michael Feingold: "I found it ironic (albeit slightly flattering) to be classed as a luxury, by an executive whose salary was probably triple mine..."

Casals on film

In Lee Daniels's new film The Butler, a chronicle of African-Americans in service at the White House, there is a brief re-creation of Pablo Casals's 1961 concert for the Kennedys. Three musicians are seen playing Mendelssohn's D-Minor Trio; the man portraying Casals looks more like Rudolf Serkin than the Catalan master, but I had the impression he's a real cellist. (I missed his name in the credits, if it was there.) Afterward, one of the butlers comments admiringly on Casals's refusal to perform in any country that recognizes Franco's regime.

Wagner of the day

Pop snobbery

This interesting discussion in the New York Times provokes a thought: there's nothing more pretentious than pretending to be dumber than you actually are. By that measure, American pop culture is pretentious in the extreme. Fittingly, its immense profits further enrich an economic elite.

Drum-corps update

Carolina Crown have won the 2013 Drum Corps International championship with their Einstein on the Beach program. DCI has supplied a video of Carolina Crown's encore performance, recorded on a camera affixed to one of the players' heads. This is almost more avant-garde than I can handle.

Noted

Ginia Bellafante on Mayor Bloomberg's "tireless coddling of the overclass." Not to mention Fran Lebowitz: "I would rather see Citibank give us back our money, and then I would buy them a bicycle."

Previously: Bloomberg's masterpiece.

Penn station

It's an honor to retain a place on Penn Jillette's long-term reading list.