Alex Ross's Blog, page 275

Babbitt dance party, for real

Back in 2007 I joined the jazz composer-pianist Ethan Iverson for an Evening of Scary Modern Music at the Paris Bar. It went over pretty well, to the point that Lou Reed was inspired to buy my book. Ethan's playlist included Milton Babbitt's Semi-Simple Variations, with a little extra emphasis on the composer's innately jazzy vibe. While practicing the piece on the road with his trio, The Bad Plus, Ethan found that his bandmates, Dave King and Reid Anderson, enjoyed playing along. They got the

The Tully tizzy

Sound Check. The New Yorker, March 16, 2009.

Renée v. Maria

Courtesy of the fertile mind of Michael Monroe, a tempo canon involving Renée Fleming and Maria Callas's differently paced interpretations of "O mio babbino caro."

A tempo canon is a canon in which the same music unfolds in several voices at different speeds. The classic example in Renaissance polyphony is the Agnus Dei 2 of Josquin's Missa l'homme armé Super voces musicales (1502), in which the lowest voice moves twice as fast as the middle voice and the top voice moves three times as fas

Paper noise

The Rest Is Noise is now out in paperback in the British Isles, with a jazzy new cover and a kind blurb from Colin Greenwood of Radiohead. This version includes a new twelve-page supplementary section titled Suggested Listening and Reading. The same material can be found in the latest printing of the paperback in the US; here's a pdf. The American edition has now sold 100,000 copies. Once more I have to express my bewildered gratitude for the unlikely success of this obscure venture. Please don'

I say Sibelius, you say Sebelius

Breaking news: Obama taps Sebelius for health secretary.

"All the doctors who wanted to forbid me to smoke and to drink are dead." — Jean Sibelius

Previously: Sibelius in 2008, Obama-Sibelius.

Amiscellany

Happy eightieth birthday (tomorrow) to Frank Gehry, architect of the greatest concert hall of the modern era.... Norman Lebrecht gets an exclusive on the hot new mezzo-soprano Tutula Bartley.... The LA Times has a promising piece on Obama and the arts; Soho the Dog deconstructs the phrase "the arts count".... The Rocky Mountain News is no more; condolences to Marc Shulgold.... A fond farewell to Kyle Gann's PostClassic Radio.... The indomitable Alan Rich has a new home at the LA City Beat....

Dessay v. Salieri

Rebecca Mead's profile of Natalie Dessay appears in this week's New Yorker (online for subscribers). In one scene, Dessay talks to Roland Geyer, the Intendant of the Theater an der Wien, about the possibility of singing in a revival of Falstaff — not the Verdi masterpiece but the 1799 version by Antonio Salieri:

A member of Geyer's staff went backstage and gave Dessay a copy of the Falstaff. During intermission, she paged through it, scanning the staves to see if the role rose to vocal heights su

Lisa Bielawa in brief

Playtime. The New Yorker, March 2, 2009.

Miss Tully's revenge

Alice Tully Hall reopens on Sunday, and Lincoln Center has assembled an impressive lineup of artists for a two-week renovation festival: Jordi Savall and Hespèrion XXI, the Emerson and Belcea Quartets, violinist Daniel Hope, tenor Mark Padmore, David Robertson and the Juilliard Orchestra (Messiaen's From the Canyons to the Stars, which Tully commissioned), Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic, Philippe Herreweghe and the Collegium Vocale Gent (the Mass in B Minor), Paavo Järvi and the

Mendelssohn abides

The Youngest Master. The New Yorker, Feb. 23, 2009.

Claudio Abbado conducting the London Symphony, DG 471467.