Alex Ross's Blog, page 72

Ojai 2018

From the Ashes. The New Yorker, July 2, 2018.

Thomas Mann returns to LA

A Cultural Comment on the New Yorker website, June 22, 2018.

A Cassandra Miller moment

Miscellany

On June 24, the New Opera Days Ostrava festival will give the belated world premiere of Thy Kingdom Come, by the pioneering Czech microtonal composer Alois Hába. Completed in 1942, the work draws inspiration from the Anthroposophical writings of Rudolf Steiner, intermingling mystical and socialist themes; Act II features a colloquy among Christ, Ariman, and Lucifer. The program also includes Salvatore Sciarrino’s Luci mie traditrici, new pieces by Daniel Ting-Cheung Lo and Rudolf Komorous, and a rendition of Julius Eastman's graphic score Macle.... Eamonn Quinn, the director of the Louth Contemporary Music Society in Ireland, has won the Belmont Prize for Contemporary Music. She will receive the prize at the outset of Louth's Book of Hours festival (June 22-23), which will include new works by Sciarrino, Michael Pisaro, Rebecca Saunders, and Karen Tanaka.... Earlier this season I wrote about Augustin Hadelich's striking performances of the Britten Violin Concerto with the Detroit Symphony. Marc Geelhoed, the ace director of Detroit's pioneering free webcasts, informs me that the video is online.... I wrote about last year's solstice celebrations at The Tank, in Rangely, Colorado.  This year's edition includes performances by Ryan Ruehlen and Ron Miles.... Also on the solstice, Make Music NY will offer its usual welter of sounds, including Mass Appeal concerts for banjos, buckets, French horns, guitars, harmonicas, mandolins, and ukuleles.... Ethan Iverson and Miranda Cuckson perform a striking program at Spectrum in NYC on June 24: music of Louise Talma, George Walker, Martino, the ubiquitous Sciarrino, and Josiah Catalan.... Ethan wrote a beautiful memorial to the great Lorraine Gordon, grande dame of the Village Vanguard.... Read Joshua Kosman and Lisa Hirsch on the latest iteration of the San Francisco Opera's Ring. I caught the Götterdämmerung, and was gripped throughout. I may have heard some parts better sung, but I've never seen the work acted with such verve and invention; Daniel Brenna's Siegfried was especially impressive in this regard.

For Gennady Rozhdestvensky

The formidable Russian conductor has died at the age of eighty-seven. One of his signal feats was leading the world première of Alfred Schnittke's First Symphony in 1974 — a venture that would have been daring in any context, but was particularly courageous in Brezhnev's Soviet Union. His Soviet-era recording of the Shostakovich Fourth, embedded above, remains incomparable; listen to the strings at 14:35.

Ustvolskaya speaks

Thought of the day

"It's astounding how easily everything collapses."

          —Victor Klemperer, March 10, 1933

Nightafternight playlist

New and recent releases of interest.

— James Tenney, Harmonium; Scordatura Ensemble (New World)

— Philip Venables, Below the Belt; David Hoyle, the London Sinfonietta, Phoenix Piano Trio, Ligeti Quartet, Leigh Melrose, Nick Blackburn, Melinda Maxwell, Richard Baker (NMC)

— Gillian Whitehead, Shadows Crossing Water; Stamic Quartet, Jindřích Pazdera, Vilém Veverka, Patricia Goodson (Rattle)

— Josh Modney, Engage: works of Kate Soper, Eric Wubbels, Sam Pluta, Taylor Brook, Anthony Braxton, Modney, and Bach (New Focus)

— Bethany Beardslee sings Schubert, Schumann, Brahms; with Richard Goode and Lois Shapiro (Bridge)

— Vaughan Williams, Symphonies Nos. 5 and 6; Andrew Manze conducting the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (Onyx)

— John Adams, Doctor Atomic; Gerald Finley, Julia Bullock, Brindley Sherratt, Jennifer Johnston, Aubrey Allicock, Samuel Sakker, Andrew Staples, Adams conducting the BBC Singers and BBC Symphony (Nonesuch, out June 29)

The Ustvolskaya Sonatas

Markus Hinterhäuser at the Ojai Festival 2018 — one of the more stupendous things I've witnessed in recent years.

In praise of Astrid Varnay

A Tale of Two Sopranos, New Yorker web site, June 6, 2018.