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SEQUENZA21/
340 W. 57th Street, 12B, New York, NY 10019

Zookeeper:   
Jerry Bowles
(212) 582-3791

Managing Editor:
David Salvage

 Contributing Editors:
Galen H. Brown
Evan Johnson
Ian Moss
Lanier Sammons
Deborah Kravetz
(Philadelphia)
Eric C. Reda
(Chicago)
Christian Hertzog
(San Diego)
Jerry Zinser
(Los Angeles)

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Record companies, artists and publicists are invited to submit CDs to be considered for review. Send to: Jerry Bowles, Editor, Sequenza 21, 340 W. 57th Street, 12B, New York, NY 10019

Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Cheap Music

"Extraordinary how potent cheap music is," remarks Amanda in Noel Coward's Private Lives. The Rough Guide to Classical Music informs me of Shostakovich's Seventh that "the way the composer creates an atmosphere that is both cheap and exhilarating before having it subside into spare and elegiac is highly effective." The Nazis used Kurt Weill's use of cheap music to satirize a decadent society as an excuse to accuse him of writing cheap music.

All of which raises the question: what is cheap music? What does it sound like? How do you recognize it? What are its characteristics?

I'm a sucker for Broadway although I wouldn't be caught dead going without the cover of an out-of-towner who "just had to see it." I, personally, am way too cool. But, I love the formula--the over-the-top boy-girl duet ("The Song That Goes Like This," as they call it in Spamalot), the big rousing all-hands march to the footlights at the end of the first act. I love Patti and Audra and Bernedette and Marin and Betty and I'm not even gay. Is that cheap music?

Or, how about this? I think traditional Italian operas are sappy and silly but listening to Rolando Villazon sing those cheesy old arias gives me goosebumps.

Cheap music? Discuss.

UPDATE: Blackdogred weighs in on the cultural politics of Pere Ubu...the Composers Forum is considering whether there is a bias against writing choral music for women...S21 contributing editor Lanier Sammons has a piece called 2/3 Full being premiered by the Columbia New Music Orchestra Friday night at 8 pm at St. Paul�s Chapel at Columbia University (116th and Broadway, right off the 1/9 trains). They're also doing a piece by Lanier's classmate Paul Burkey and some stuff by a guy named Bach which (I'm taking a guess, here) is not new.
posted by Jerry Bowles 11/09/2005



 
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