musical commentary

[calimac]

Lisa Irontongue is passing along a meme of asking for pieces you never want to hear again and pieces you want to hear more often.

The concert music I most devoutly wish never to hear again consists almost entirely of bloated, self-indulgent and self-aggrandizing sludge from the gasbag Giganticist period of the turn of the 20th century, and a Top Ten might look like this.

1. Mahler, Symphony No. 5
2. Mahler, Symphony No. 6
3. Mahler, Symphony No. 7
4. Mahler, Symphony No. 8
5. Mahler, Symphony No. 9
6. Mahler, Symphony No. 10
7. Strauss, Death and Transfiguration
8. Strauss, Ein Heldenleben
9. Strauss, Also Sprach Zarathustra
10. Brian, Gothic Symphony

It only remains to be noted that the openings of the last two works are absolutely gripping, and it's a pity that they soon both devolve into acres of worthless crap.

Everybody's lists of "want to hear more often" seems to focus on early and recent music. I can still find some 18th and 19th century composers I'd like to hear more often. To name one I have heard in concert a couple times, how about Arriaga? One striking piece of his I have heard played is this.

The orchestral supposed warhorse that's the most underplayed these days compared to its deserts is the Franck Symphony. It has three movements, and here they are in the best recording I've ever heard, by Pierre Monteux and the Chicago Symphony: first, second, third.

Over at my workplace, it appears that reviews of the Kronos Quartet attract angry responses even when I don't write them. One of our newest reviewers got slammed in comments for a "hit job" when, it seemed to me, his only crime was daring to give a negative review for a piece the commenter liked. I've been there, so I stepped in for the defense - even though I'd heard the work at another venue and liked it more, though possibly the venue accounts for the difference. I also know and like another piece on the program better than he does, but he justifies his opinion well, so I have no complaints.

Comments

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Blush...........

I love the Mahler 8 (along with the second, the best of his work) but that may because I love choral music.

I suspect my list would be full of the works of people like Britten, Birtwhistle and the Russian 'party liners'.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Britten actually makes my top ten of 20C British composers, though I don't rank him at the top (that would be VW).

Of course there's literally hundreds of composers like Birtwistle whom I have no desire to hear again, but with them I'm not frequently asked to, and some of their works, certainly Birtwistle's, can be at least weirdly interesting in small doses, and they don't always insist on large ones.

I actually like a lot of Soviet crap, and have a bit of a weakness for camp-followers like Knipper and Shebalin. The worst symphony of that era I've ever heard is Khachaturian's Third (the first two are much better), which is pure fustian.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

We share a certain view of RVW :o)

I've tried to like Britten, but I just can't appreciate what he does- I much prefer Michael Tippett of that generation.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I know of nothing by Britten, not even the War Requiem, that can stand next to A Child of Our Time, I'll give you that.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

We agree on that one too then! :o)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I really like the Arriaga piece.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Like Schubert, he's a composer who heard a lot of brand-new Beethoven at an impressionable age.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

I have no beef with your disliking his music, but if Mahler is so bad, why is it that conductors such as Walter, Mengelberg, Bernstein, Abbaddo, Thomas, Horenstein, etc., etc. persist in performing and recording his music? Why do you think they are so bamboozled?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I didn't say they're bad. I said they're bloated, self-indulgent and self-aggrandizing sludge from the gasbag. Some people evidently like that sort of thing, and I've seen Mahler praised for exactly the qualities I dislike most.

To take it from the other side: I once saw a denunciation of chicken wings, my favorite piece of chicken. "They're just little bags of bones," said this person, and I thought, "Yes! That's exactly why I like them."

Why do you think that so many great conductors continue to program, and (in your opinion) over-program such well-trodden composers as Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, which you've been known to complain about repeatedly and bitterly? Unless you're prepared to condemn MTT as a charlatan who's feigning his passionate love for this music because he knows it's a box office draw, he genuinely thinks it's great stuff which deserves repeated and prominent front-line exposure. You don't.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

"Bloated, self-indulgent and self-aggrandizing sludge from the gasbag" sounds a lot to me like "bad."

My point about LvB, Tchaik, etc. is that they are OVERprogrammed, not that the music isn't great.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

... not that the music isn't great.

You could have fooled me. Music is a performing art. If a work is to live, it must be played. MTT et al think this music is sufficiently great that they're not overprogramming it. You think they are. Therefore, essentially my definition, you do not rank its greatness as high as they do.

My terminology is not a synonym for "bad." It explains what I dislike about the music. Those who don't dislike that, don't dislike it.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

Huh? I didn't say Beethoven and Tchaik shouldn't be played at all. I said they are overplayed. And they wouldn't cease to exist or "cease to live," whatever that means, if every orchestra in the world took a one-season break from programming them, either. Nobody would forget what they are or how to play them.

Wanting performing organizations to give certain works a break also isn't a comment on their greatness. It's a comment on how often I want to hear them. Taking a break from La Traviata or Rigoletto or Nozze di Figaro doesn't mean I don't think they are great works. Most often it means I want to hear music that is new to me - that is the primary driver of how I decide what concerts to attend. I don't re-read Moby-Dick annually, either, even though I consider it one of the greatest novels ever written, because I could be reading, say, a Trollope novel I haven't read yet, or anything else new to me.

"Bloated, self-indulgent and self-aggrandizing sludge from the gasbag": those of us who like those works don't regard them as "bloated etc." Don't think I know many people who would argue with you about the Gothic, though.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Re first two paragraphs, that is why I phrased my previous comment as I did. I didn't say that you object to their programming it. I said you object to what you see as overprogramming it. I didn't say "you do not rank it as great." I said "you do not rank its greatness as high as they do." You have shot your fusilage into an unoccupied position, and consequently I can't respond any further to it.

those of us who like those works don't regard them as "bloated etc."

Oh, yes you do. Maybe not you personally, but generally those who admire it. They just use different ways of saying it, like for instance "world-spanning giganticism" (a phrase I just pulled from a favorable Mahler CD review), which is the same phrase as "bloated gasbag," just translated into I-Like-It language.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

My lack of mind-reading abilities prevents me from commenting on whether I regard any composer as greater than another person or institution, especially when that institution wants to sell 2500 tickets or so per concert.

If LiveJournal or your browser supported auto-correct, I would guess that was the reason for "fusilage" where I suspect you mean "fusillade."

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Compare your comments on these composers with MTT's, and I for one have no trouble figuring out which of you ranks them more highly.

especially when that institution wants to sell 2500 tickets or so per concert.

But throwing that in suggests that you are, as I wrote earlier, "prepared to condemn MTT as a charlatan who's feigning his passionate love for this music because he knows it's a box office draw." Otherwise the comment has no possible relevance.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

No, I think you can't read my mind, or MTT's. The desire to hear composer X a particular number of times vs. a different composer is separate from how one ranks them, at least for me. If I'd rather hear more Schuetz or Birtwistle than Beethoven this year, it doesn't mean I rank them as greater than Beethoven, although I consider them both among the great composers of their respective times. It means I've had fewer opportunities to hear them in concert (and on record, too) than Beethoven.

Beethoven: arguably the greatest and most influential composer ever. I would never make such a statement about either Schuetz or Birtwistle, and yet: I traveled to London for five concerts focussed on Birtwistle, because when will I hear his music, especially his operas, in the Bay Area? I would seriously consider attending a Schuetz festival.

And no, I am not prepared to condemn MTT as a charlatan. Of course he isn't.

I'm prepared to say 1) MTT loves Beethoven exactly as much as he says he does (and apparently, from his programming, this is the point in his career where he wants to put a lot of time and effort into conducting LvB) and 2) SFS programming is influenced by a number of factors including, but not limited to:

* What the music director cares about and wants to conduct, both this season and for the long term.
* What the MD and artistic administrator think will make good programming over the course of a season
* The availability and interests of soloists (See, for example, Andsnes's current tour of the LvB piano concertos)
* The availability and interests of guest conductors, which tend to complement/supplement those of the MD (I've heard two RVW symphonies at SFS, conducted by Vanska and Tortelier)
* Commissions delivered to the orchestra
* The ability to sell tickets
* The funds available for programming. (Some works are just more expensive to perform than others, because of rehearsal time, number of extra orchestra players required, number of soloists. For semi-staged opera, add in the cost of sets, costumes, lighting and stage directors, projections, makeup artists, vocal coaches, etc.)

Do you disagree with the above bullet points as factors in symphonic and other classical music programming?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

By your own accounting, then, you do not rank Beethoven that highly. I, too, seek out concerts of music by composers whom my ranking exceeds their popularity, but I don't write about how Beethoven is crowding them out. And I note further - we've discussed this before - that you don't complain about Mahler crowding them out, which at SFS he does as much as Beethoven does. That's another indication that it's not the overplaying, but the composer.

Again: music is a performing art. If a work is to live, it must be performed. And past performances don't substitute for present ones. That is why I don't complain about too much Beethoven, even if I'm disinclined to hear him again, and why I phrase my wishes for more X without tying it to less Y. Every time you opine that an orchestra ought to be playing something else instead of Beethoven, you're wishing him a little deader.

And furthermore, every time I do hear Beethoven again, I'm glad I did. With the one tiny exception that for a while I felt overdosed on the Pastorale, his music never palls for me. That's because he's that great. That's how highly I rate him. You don't.

The other factors that might go into SFS programming a lot of Beethoven are not the point. The point is that MTT talks as if he's delighted to be playing it that much; that this was his specific plan for purely artistic reasons. If he's telling the truth, then the other factors don't matter for this discussion; they merely happily coincide with MTT's intentions. If they don't coincide, and he's letting the other factors influence his programming decisions (beyond just taking note that they're taken care of), then he's lying.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, I actually do not understand what you mean by "By your own accounting, then, you do not rank Beethoven that highly," since I just termed him "arguably the greatest and most influential composer ever."

I believe if you look at orchestral statistics you'll find Mahler, overall, played a lot less by American orchestras than Beethoven. The crowding-out effect is much less.

I would be complaining equally about a three-week Mozart or Tchaikowsky fest, would not complain at all about a three-week Haydn fest. That's not because I think Haydn is a better or greater composer than M or T or LvB.

I have already said what I can say about works needing to be performed to live. I've never heard a Dufay mass in person and I have seen them programmed a tiny number of times: are you saying his masses are less alive than the Pastoral? Not to me, they're not.

That's a very black & white view of how programming works. We do not know whether MTT wanted something entirely different and couldn't get it because of costs - and he could still be completely thrilled to have three weeks of Beethoven.

I doubt that is the case, by the way, because of the upcoming third appearance of the Missa Solemnis: you have to plan something like that. I'm just saying that we don't know what we don't know.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

I need to mention, also, that the SFS PR machine has successfully positioned MTT as a bold and innovative programmer. Anthony Tommasini mentioned MTT's programming in today's Times, in fact, as he does more or less annually. This season is specifically claimed to be another season of "risk taking." This is part of the reason for my bile.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Don't take your anger at the publicity out on the programming. They're not the same thing, Gort.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

"Influential", so what? I cheerfully acknowledge that Mahler was influential. Doesn't mean I like him.

"Arguably the greatest" - "arguably" is what one says if one isn't reporting one's own opinion, but trying to discern the general opinion.

By attaching those two words, "arguably" and "influential", to that "greatest", you're hedging around your own opinion. It's what I would expect.

Even if you were to go around, like Schroeder, carrying a sign reading "Beethoven is the greatest!" the cognitive mismatch with your other statements on the subject would be painfully obvious.

Re Mahler, I was referring to SFS, not to orchestras in general. Even if MTT had an equal obsession with, say, the earlier symphonies of Brian, or Gliere, or somebody else who wrote equally long and empty epics but whom nobody plays, it would be worth noting how much space that's taking away from everybody else.

And it's not true that Mahler is played a lot less than Beethoven, except insofar as everybody is played less than Beethoven, even Mozart or Tchaikovsky, whom you are claiming are equally overplayed. I've compiled the statistics for symphonies from the League of American Orchestras website, and Mahler is the 6th most played symphonist, after only Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Mozart and Haydn - and the last two wrote many more than others, no single one of which is as popular as Mahler's First. More played than Schubert. More played than Dvorak. Let alone Shostakovich, Sibelius, or anyone else.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

I'm not hedging around my own opinion so much as I am unwilling to play the "who is the greatest" game. I think nothing is gained from trying to rank great composers that way. I'm not going to call anyone the greatest.

I can't figure out how you'd choose between Beethoven and Bach, for example. (And why would you? Who cares?) There are people who would argue Brahms or Mozart or Schubert or Stravinsky. I can make cases for the greatness of each of these composers, but I'm not going to argue that one of them is the greatest.

I don't know what the reasonable grounds are for comparing any great symphonic composer to Josquin, whose contemporaries regarded and most modern scholars regard as the greatest composer of his time. Comparing Beethoven to Josquin: utterly meaningless. They are both great composers. I wish as many people knew the works of Josquin as know the works of Beethoven.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

When I brought up greatness, I phrased it as absolute greatness of a given composer, not as "greatest." That brings up these comparisons which I agree are invidious and unhelpful.

It is possible to say one composer is truly or monumentally great, without having to bring up the question of who else might be equally great or greater. That is the language I was speaking.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

I'm going to throw in something that exemplifies several of my bullet points: Robin Holloway's Fourth Concerto for Orchestra, an SFS commission.

I went to one of the performances, and MTT made a speech at the beginning that was...rueful...but also as close to exasperation as I have heard him in public. The orchestra was expecting a 45-minute piece. Holloway delivered 90 minutes. The performances they gave were incomplete; SFS omitted one or two movements to get it down to something like 70 or 75 minutes.

I take it that the orchestra could not learn the whole thing to their standards in the rehearsal time allotted for the piece, and for whatever reasons, decided against spending the money for orchestral overtime.

So: contractual commitment to playing the piece, not enough money to play the whole thing. Of course, it may be that they did have some overtime, and even that wasn't enough. They still have not performed the whole thing.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

[MTT was] as close to exasperation as I have heard him in public.

Precisely! His artistic desires were in conflict with what he was forced to program for contractual reasons. He was unhappy about it, and it showed.

But when he schedules yet another Beethoven festival, he doesn't complain, he isn't exasperated, he doesn't give off an air of "I wish I didn't have to play so much Beethoven, but the market demands it." No! He's enthusiastic. He wants to do this. He talks as if the whole thing was his idea. It's nothing to do with contracts or the markets, even if they coincide with his desires. Either that, or he's feigning his level of enthusiasm.