Classical Music

Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

Elmer Gantry was drunk.

Who’s going to see Elmer Gantry at Montclair later this week?  Want to write a review for us?  No money but an incredible amount of love, peace and understanding (and what’s so funny about that?) and the next 10 Mozart CDs companies send me by mistake.   

Marvin is doing the world premiere of the Alan Hovhaness concerto Shambala, for violin, sitar and orchestra, originally composed for Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar, on his Classical Discoveries radio program on January 30 during the 9 am EST hour.  As usual, you can listen to it on the web at WPRB in Princeton.

The broadcast marks the February 14th release of the OgreOgress DualDisc comprising three Hovhaness works, each featuring violinist/violist Christina Fong. Both Shambala and Janabar (1950) appear in world-premiere recordings, while the concerto Talin was last recorded in its original viola & strings format in 1957.

I had a real thing about Sinclair Lewis when I was 10 or 11 years old.  Read Arrowsmith, Dodsworth, Elmer Gantry, Babbitt, Main Street back to back.  Lewis created characters that were not so much flesh and blood as archetypes of American mendacity.  I soon moved on to Hemingway and Faulkner but Lewis–who was hardly in that league as a writer–was my first real exposure to concepts like satire and irony and skepticism and, for better or worse, far more influential in shaping my views of the world.    

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

Elias Tanenbaum, 1924-2008

Yet another one, via Carson Cooman:

Elias Tanenbaum, composer, teacher and long-time New Rochelle resident died on Thursday after a long illness. He composed over 140 works in all idioms, including music for concert, jazz, theater, television, ballet and electronic and computer music. His music has been performed extensively throughout this country, Europe and Japan and recordings of his music can be found on Albany, New World, MMC and other labels. Mr. Tanenbaum was the Founding Director of the Electronic Computer Music Studio at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, and he was a member of the composition faculty there for almost 30 years. Born in 1924 in Brooklyn, New York, Elias Tanenbaum studied trumpet at an early
age and played with many jazz bands. He volunteered for the U.S. Army in World War II, and lost his right leg above the knee in Southern France in 1944. After being awarded a Purple Heart, he received a Bachelor’s from the Juilliard School of Music in 1949, and an M.A. from Columbia University, all on the G.I. bill. Besides music, he loved art, movies, reading, cooking, politics and comedy. He lived in New Rochelle, New York from 1959. He is survived by his wife of 55 years, pianist Mary Tanenbaum, his brother Ray, two children, David and Jacob, and three grandchildren, Zachary, Simon and Nicky. 11 AM memorial gathering will be held on Sunday at the Funeral Home followed by a 12 PM service.

GEORGE T DAVIS FUNERAL HOME 14 Lecount Place New Rochelle, NY 914 632 0324

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Contemporary Classical

Sequenza21 2.0

Given the inexplicable stature of our little S21 community, it occurred to me a couple of weeks ago that we should do something useful.  I’ve chatted with a few of the regulars and gotten some good ideas but I thought I would open up the discussion to everybody.

Here’s what we have so far: 

1) another Sequenza21 concert like the very successful one we had a couple of years ago.  We’d raise a little money from readers and I would shake down…ur, trade a few record companies some free advertising for dollars.  My feeling is that if we go the concert route, we should have somebody prominent who is not a composer curate the program to avoid the unfortunate tendency of the selection committee to be overrepresented on the program.  Ideas?

2) a Sequenza21 virtual CD or CDs.  Steve Layton has some great thoughts on this that would keep the costs down and avoid the wrath of ASCAP.  Maybe, Steve could elaborate.

3) A modest Sequenza21 commissioning fund for composers and who contribute here regularly.  (We’ll have to define what contribute here regularly means).

4) Some sort of outreach to performers and musicians who are not composers.  We’d like to get more of them involved in S21.  Maybe a Performers Forum?

5) Something we haven’t thought of yet but you have.

The floor is now open.

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Contemporary Classical

That’s Earle, Brother

I missed this little diatribe from Bernard Holland in the Times.  Thanks to Carmen Tellez for bringing it to my attention:

Unpleasant truths were another topic brought back forcefully by a concert at the Kitchen in September, by the fine young group Either/Or. Here was a program of 1960s arrogance and self-absorption, with people like Cornelius Cardew, Christian Wolff and Earle Brown as the main offenders. Listening to a collection of composers sharing inside jokes and private messages in music that reeked of contempt for the public made me get down on my knees and give thanks that an era so damaging to music was over. It didn’t drive an intelligent public away from classical music by itself, but it helped.

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, Critics

“What’s the problem?”

Gavin BorchertGavin Borchert, composer and the Seattle Weekly‘s classical music critic, has an interesting take in this week’s rag, on current calls for jazzing-up or otherwise “slumming” the concert experience. A couple cogent paragraphs:

A couple of things puzzle me. First, the classical concert experience is, in all essentials, identical to that of dance, theater, literary events, or for that matter—barring the munching of popcorn and cheering the fireball deaths of villains—movies. Go to the performance space, buy a ticket, sit down in rows, watch and listen, try not to disturb your fellow audience members. Yet it’s only in conjunction with concerts that you hear complaints about what a crushing burden this all is. Second, why is sitting quietly considered such an unendurable ordeal? Millions of people do it every night in front of their televisions.

[….]

So what have we learned? Well, maybe people behave the way they do at concerts not because it’s an artificial standard imposed by ironclad tradition but because the music sounds better that way. Maybe listeners feel classical music most deeply when they pay quiet attention to it. Maybe sometimes not clapping is OK, and we don’t need to rush in and obliterate every silence. Maybe true innovations in concert presentation—new ways of getting music and music lovers together—will be concerned not with questions of formal vs. informal, loose vs. uptight, but with what setting best allows music to work its magic.

by Steve Layton
Classical Music, Contemporary Classical

Bad Vibes From Benaroya

The New York Times leads off its Sunday Arts Section tomorrow with one of those double-bylined investigative reports that spell trouble for somebody. It appears that all is not well with the Seattle Symphony. The article is not up online yet but here’s the lede:

Any dictionary will tell you that a symphony orchestra trades in harmony. Anyone who has spent much time around orchestras will tell you that the harmony often stops at the music’s edge; that tensions abound in a body of 100 or so high-strung thoroughbreds as a music director seeks to impose a single vision.

And to judge from alarmist reports coming from here over a dozen years or so, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra has carried disharmony to new heights, lurching from crisis to crisis…

That’s the good part. I’ll put up a link as soon as I find it.

UPDATE:  See comments for link.

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

Marvin’s Excellent 24-Hour New Music Marathon

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Our gaucho amigo Marvin Rosen is the most innovative and knowledgeable music programmer in the universe but who knew that he aspired to become the new music world’s Jerry Lewis? 

Marvin is hosting a special 24-hour marathon edition of his terrific radio program Classical Discoveries titled “Viva 21st century,” which will air on WPRB out of Princeton, NJ beginning at 6:00 pm on Thursday, December 27 and will conclude at 6:00 pm on Friday, December 28.

Sympathizers and fellow travelers who don’t live in the Princeton area can listen to the show online at www.wprb.com The program includes works from only the 21st century from all over the world.  (Got that, only works from the last seven years.)

If you’d like to submit selections for possible airplay on the show please email Marvin at marvinrosen@classicaldiscoveries.org  

Here are the Marvin rules:  The selections must be on a regular CD with all tracks and notes on the music in a traycard.  Submitting a CD does not guarantee the music will be aired.  In addition no CDs will be returned. All CDs for consideration for this program must be received by Saturday, December 22.

Can Marvin stay awake?  Will he explain why he is doing such a silly thing?  Will Frank and Jerry show up in a misguided display of solidarity?  You’ll just have to tune in and find out.   

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

Andrew Imbrie, 86

I was late getting to the Times today and just noticed that Andrew Imbrie has died.     Joshua Kosman’s obituary is here.  Robert P. Commanday remembers him here.

Imbrie wasn’t nearly as spectacular or well-known a musical figure as Stockhausen but through his prolific and quietly impeccable body of work, his teaching, and his singular, unique voice, he may have been just as influential.  You can listen to his magnificent Requiem, written in 1984 after the death of his son, free at Art of the States.  I’m listening to it now.

by Jerry Bowles