The Eagles

Here's a clip from the Eagles' "When Hell Freezes Over Tours". Don Henley's song of coming to terms with the end of a relationship may come off as a little cheesy to some hipper musical tastes, but I think the band's musicianship is undeniable. Not only is Henley's voice still intact, but the backing vocals by the rest of the band are simply staggering. Even though their use of vibrato and non-vibrato voice might seem a little forced, these guys bring so much more emotional weight than the throngs of country-rock band they spawned that it's not hard to think of them as one of the best groups America ever produced. Anyone know the next time Hell might freeze over? =)

The Boulez Problem

A few weeks ago a friend of mine in Toronto asked me what my thoughts were on Boulez. Below you'll find my response.


The case of Boulez if very sad. At 23, he arguable wrote a work, his Piano Sonata No.2, which shows a technical mastery that only Brahms had at a similar age. Let me be clear about this, Brahms and Boulez, in their very early 20s, surpassed the technical achievements of their day, and deployed that technique with a sense of poetry that rivaled all other composers. Not Bach, not Mozart, not Beethoven, not Wagner, not even Schoenberg and Stravinsky could do with these men did before the age of 25. Brahms spent the rest of his career slightly modifying and refining his command of the language whereas most music aficionados can't tell the difference between early and late works.

The tragedy of Boulez is that his particular artistic gift only led in one direction, the destruction of everything that came before him. The Boulez Sonata takes Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata as point of departure, and uses it to thwart everything that western music should do. It's not just harmony that is assaulted in this twelve-tone work, but form, meter, and generally-help modes of expression are setup as if they are going to behave in expected ways, only to undergo a merciless and savage destruction.

But just like the punks of the 70s, what do you do next after you ripped to shreds what came before you? What do you do next? There's only so many times the public will tolerate the same act over an over again. How many times can we see Johnny Rotten act cheeky without it becoming expected, even boring? Stravinsky found a way out by working through neo-classicism, where the general public can hear enough of what they expect to feel their having a genuine musical experience, while all of us musical cognoscenti smile with every broken rule or inside joke that Stravinsky throws our way.

Boulez instead took it upon himself to be a phoenix-like character, who would create all the new rules and set things straight after had cleared the air of all of the past's hypocrisies and incongruencies. The problem was, there was nothing in his character to suggest that he would be capable of doing this. His early biographies are filed with his outbursts, his cursing in church, smashing furniture, and skewering his enemies. And his music was filled with this kind of passion. His way forward would be in direct opposition to his true nature, and what's even more tragic, Boulez knew this. And slowly his music grew more lifeless, his wrote less and less, and he avoided writing by conducting. And he did this to himself to ensure a lifelong career. Yes, he did invent some techniques that are interesting to anyone interested in late-20th century music, but the price of that is he's a shell of his former self who betrayed the young, brilliant composer that he was when we was a kid. I often deride Boulez in public, but I've studies many of his scores, and the Sonata No.2 is one of the reasons I devoted my life to music.

Yes, that Schoenberg is Dead article is terrible, and he is right about most concerning Schoenberg's historical position, but now it seems inelegant and distasteful. At this point, he's like a young Muhammad Ali, trash talking and doing what he does best: destroying the enemy. But while Ali went on fighting too long and is even more a hero to us now, Boulez is now an also-ran, appearing on the equivalent of sports talk shows (symposiums, pre-concert lectures, film) on the strengths of those early fights he fought so long ago. Boulez est mort. Vive Boulez!!

Labi Siffre

Old poets, what's to become of them? While digging around on YouTube for Madness' "It Must Be Love", I found an alternate version of the song from some British TV variety show. The performance was by the song's composer, Labi Siffre, and everything from the clothes to the multi-ethnic cast to presentation of the song in a medley with Siffre other hit "There's Nothing in the World like Love" reflected the glow of optimism and hope that so much of the earlier 1970 seemed to espouse.

After a quick Wikipedia search on Siffre I learned that he was one of Britain first openly gay public figures, and that he was a poet of note and had concerned himself with matter of social justice over the intervening years.

A link at the bottom of the page took me to Siffre own site, and I have to say I was quite saddened by what I saw. Not the smiling, exuberant face of years gone by greets you at the top of his web page, but an older, sullen face of a man who had fought many battles in his life, possibly robbing him of the will to write such perfect pieces of pop.

He did produce other songs that were hits in England, such as the protest song, "Something Inside So Strong", but I began to wonder the sacrifice was too much for people like Siffre, while we benefited from his activism and strength, did it also rob them of some of the simple, light pleasures of being human. Is it too hard to look away, once your eyes have been open to the tyranny of the world, or is there guilt in having fun when you know others are suffering? I'd love to know what Siffre has to say on these matters, and I'd like to know if the weight of these things might also extinguish the light of my own eyes as the years progress.

The Good Shepherd

i just watched The Good Shepherd last night and I'm struck by the amount of music that accompany the film. I'd have to take a second look, but it felt like there were very few moments in De Niro's CIA flick that weren't accompanied by some kind of orchestral music. of the score also appear to be the product of a very fine sample library, similar to the current offerings by East-West and Vienna Instruments. I'm not saying that the score we hear is of an entirely of virtual nature (although that is certainly within the realm of possibilities with today's software), anyone who is familiar with these orchestral libraries will recognize the kinds of dynamics and articulation, or rather the absence of certain kinds dynamics and articulation. This isn't a criticism of the score, in fact I quite enjoyed the harmonic and timbrel variety of the soundtrack, I fear that it may be the beginning of a narrowing in the kinds of soundtracks one is likely hear in film. I suppose the trade-off is that even though a homogenization of orchestral scores may occur, more filmmakers will be able to afford these kind of soundtracks due to the cost associated with digital audio and music. Soundtrack aside, I thought The Good Shepard was a great movie and I highly recommended it for anyone interested in them American postwar politics.

Getting your music on iTunes

For all of my friends who want to make it to the big time, Tunecore has come to the rescue. With recording technology available to almost anyone with a computer, now you can distribute your files through most online retailers. including iTunes and Rhapsody. Best of all, Tunecore doesn't take a percentage of the sales. All the money comes to you. There are setup and posting fees, but from the company's own figures, it costs less that $20 bucks to upload 5 tracks to several online stores. Hopefully my classical colleagues will take advantage of this service, since most of their repertoire is in the public domain. But you say you don't have studio-grade mics and preamps at home to do this kind of stuff? I think the public would like to hear rougher quality "basement tapes" of most artists, classical or otherwise, for the appearance of intimacy might trump what these recordings lack in audio fidelity. And if the public takes to you, they might seek out your public performances for a higher quality listening experience. A strange thing to say post-Beatles and Glenn Gould, but true nonetheless.

György Ligeti - documentary 1993 - part 4 of 4

Thanks to French TV for making the best documentary on a composer I've ever seen. This hour long portrait of Ligeti includes information about his childhood, life in post-Stalin Hungary and covers most of his life as a composer in Western Europe. I've included the last part here not only for it's cameos of Aimard and The King's Singers, but as an added bonus, the only film footage I've ever seen of Nancarrow with his player piano. Ligeti's french is not very complex, so anyone with some high school exposure to the language should be able to follow along. Finane, are you listening? Special thanks to Tibor Torontali for bringing this to my attention, as well as making some thoughtful comments on my earlier Ligeti post.

Mitsuko Uchida on Schoenberg's Piano Concerto

Another great find by the Arnold Schoenberg Center! In their continuing quest to bring all things Schoenberg to the online community (including all of his works thorough streaming MP3), they've uploaded quite a bit of video to YouTube, including this great clip of Mitsuko Uchida talking about Schoenberg's Piano Concerto.

What continually amazes me about Schoenberg is that despite his many personal failings (friends and allies were frequently the target of his caustic wit if he felt that their devotion was suspect), I can think of no other figure in music history other that Richard Wagner to garner such fanatic support amongst his enthusiasts. Uchida is simply bursting with her love and passion for the work, and hopefully some of that enthusiasm with garner the work some more (sorely) needed fans.

As an added bonus you can hear Uchida perform part of the work in concert below.