Dove Sono?

Top Ten Lost Opera Characters 

Today at the grocery store a poor young lady had accidentally gotten separated from her mom and was in tears at the camera counter, while a sympathetic clerk called again and again for her mom to retrieve her. As the girl was still there a half hour later, I began to feel uneasy on her behalf. Fortunately, by the time I left, she had been reunited with her mother, who proceeded to berate the pathetically relieved young lady in no uncertain terms, and unfairly, I thought, because the girl’s lifeline, that indispensable icon of our age, the cellphone, was malfunctioning or out of power. I think kindness is the noblest human virtue, especially since we may share it with superior creatures like dogs and dolphins; nobler than love, or charity, or faith, pace St. Paul. Anyway, I got to thinking: What operatic characters get lost in their operas?  Maybe I should send the question to the Metropolitan Opera Quiz, and win their super-duper prize package, but such is my loyalty to Holdekunst readers that I offer it here first, gratis.

1. Obviously and of course, Humperdinck’s immortal Hansel and Gretel. I certainly hope there isn’t anyone left who doesn’t know enough to take this very great opera seriously. It’s sort of like Siegfried, except all fairy tale and no polemics. The pantomime of the fourteen angels can leave even the jaded listener in tears, even if he isn’t anxiously waiting for his mom at the camera counter.

2. Golaud and Melisande. The most delicate of metaphors, to the most delicate of musics, the first scene of Debussy’s greatest work is melancholy magic.  

3. The protagonist of Erwartung, again, like the previous two exemplars, lost in a metaphorical forest. Only this time, we are plunged into the nightmare hysteria of Dr. Caligari. 

4. Siegfried, in the first scene of the third act of Gotterdammerung. And who does he run into, but those not-so-agreeable substitutes for a Greek Chorus, the Rhine maidens. And thus, after he spills the beans, Brunnhilde has a chance to know everything, which endows her with truly awesome grandeur in opera’s greatest scene, her immolation. Certain uncharitable wives of mine might refer to the Rhine maidens as the Rhine “———s”. I don’t say yea or nay to that.

5. Keeping with the Wagnerian theme, Parsifal. He’s lost for the duration of his opera, basically. Could anyone be that stupid? At least the music is good. (talk about damning with faint praise)… Nietzsche thought Klingsor the only human character in the piece. As is so often the case, The Weimar Zarathustra hits the nail on the head.  

6. Can we count Tom Rakewell and his fellow madmen? Adonis and Venus…being lost in the thickets of madness is perhaps the cruelest way to be lost. Stravinsky finally proves that he’s human after all with Anne’s exquisitely sad lullaby. Take the rest of Stravinsky, please, but let me have Rake’s Progress. Now and then let me borrow Petrushka, however!

7.  Manon and Des Grieux in the last act of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut. I know it’s a commonplace to joke about the Louisiana “desert” but doesn’t this passage refer to the “Louisiana Purchase”? …I’m way too lazy to dig up an American history textbook to do some fact checking, so you, my humble reader, are hereby commissioned to do this for me.

8. Dido and Aeneas in the “Royal Hunt and Storm” music from Berlioz’s Les Troyens.  If your coupling doesn’t result in the founding of a great empire, you just ain’t trying hard enough. 

9. How about Michel, in Martinu’s wonderful Juliette, ou la Cle des Songes (Juliet, or the Key of Dreams)…like Dorothy in Wizard of Oz, he spends the whole work in a dream.

10. If I am allowed a sentimental metaphor, who is more lost than the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro? Dove sono…where are they? Those beautiful moments, those days of pleasure…maybe the agitated young lady from the grocery store will grow up to be an opera singer, and will have special insight into what John Berryman called “the epistemology of loss”… 

Nietzsche vs. Flaubert; Or, What to Listen to While Walking

Flaubert says somewhere that thinking and writing have to be done while sitting. Nietzsche vehemently contradicts him, saying that only ideas reached by walking have any value. Well, in this age of IPODs it is probable that large numbers of people routinely hear musical ideas while walking. The streets separating me from my workplace abode aren’t exactly impassable after our recent snow, but the narrowing caused by the combo of encroaching snow and two-sided parking made bicycling inadvisable. And if I drive, I’ll never work off those Pilsner Urquells. So, walking it was this week, an hour at a crack, twice a day, with my IPOD.

What’t the best classical music for walking?

All of the following is corroborated by recent experience. Number one, throw out Webern, throw out Debussy’s Pelleas et Melisande; you can’t hear the darn things even with excellent earphones. Also, operas with secco recitative are a bad choice. Secco recitative is never very exciting (that’s why Mozart farmed his out, at least some of the time), but it provides virtually no distraction while taking a lengthy and potentially boring walk. And this sort of recitative is likely followed by a da capo aria. Literal repeats (the da capo, of course) don’t suit the activity very well. Does it seem like coloristic music, say, Respighi or Rimsky-Korsakov would fit the bill nicely? Mais non, messieur, it’s not enough intellectual distraction, firstly, and secondly, this repertory sounds much better live or on a good stereo. I love all the above mentioned music, by the way, but it is not good walking music.

You might think especially rhythmic music would be good walking music, and here you would indeed be right. Can’t do much better than a driving Shostakovich scherzo. But these are his shortest movements, and one is about all you can take in any given hour. Oddly, profound adagios by Shosty or even Bruckner work well, possibly because the sort of music which may cause you to fidget when imprisoned in a chair is even more beautiful when you are physically liberated. The largo from Shostakovich Six and the slow movement from Bruckner Nine provided downright epiphanic experiences. And Shostakovich and Bruckner are perfect, because lots of their symphonies take about an hour. 

In general, exceptionally dissonant music worked poorly, perhaps because the ambient sounds and visual stimulation of a contemporary urban environment don’t provide the right sort of counterpoint for early Hindemith, or Varese, or Carter. Of course, it you are the sort of person who likes to put chocolate sauce on chocolate ice cream, this may be perfect. Lieder works poorly, as well, because it is hard to absorb the words and the meaning of words while dodging maniac drivers, intent on crippling you for life. And piano music sounds tinny, even with excellent earphones. 

What works best? Ballets and string quartets. But not the “Rasoumoffskys”…these are too densely argued, have too much continuity and complexity. Go with Beethoven’s op. 18…not just the perfect music, but the perfect walking music. Go with ballets by Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, and Stravinsky-the combination of brief formal structures coupled with robust physical energy is a winner. 

So there. Zarathustra has spoken. 

We Don't Have to Agree, But, "If It Doesn't Fit, You Must Acquit"-A Postscript to "Reporters, Boosters, and Critics"

One problem with generalizations is that they are, almost by nature, overbroad. A problem with citations of specific instances has the opposite problem; “Hard cases make bad law.” If one accepts the inherent limitations of daily press coverage of classical music, and is inclined to be sympathetic to its generators, my criticisms may seem petulant, or churlish, or unfair. I know this, and acknowleged in the article’s very first paragraph the patent unfairness of my criticism, at least when contextualized in the general devolution in the extent and depth of reporting on the arts; which implies a certain recognition of the difficulties the critic faces. But if one risks the path of generalizing, one is not obliged to specifically attack anyone. In fact, part of the point of the article is the helplessness of the individual critic to do an adequate  job; and attacking anonymously is the objectionable thing, not attacking the anonymous, that latter is just bluster, Buster! Not that it matters, as a voice alone can have as much legitimacy as the voice of many, but what I voiced in the article reflects viewpoints which I’ve heard time and again from students and musician acquaintances, both.

Now, there are those who don’t see much of a problem, and they very well might be right. I disagree, obviously, and have no real defense to a criticism along the lines or, “This Holdekunst snob makes these sweeping accusations, and then doesn’t give evidence to back them up!”…maybe so; I can, however, rebut the accusations that I eat children or poison the wells most authoritatively. (this is a technique I’ve learned from politicians. If you don’t feel like responding to some possibly pertinent criticism, make up something wild and pretend that that’s what you have been accused of)… I did comment specifically both positively and negatively on specific reviews in earlier posts, by the way.  And if one’s experience doesn’t corroborate my point of view, one really ought to reject what I say. But none of us should simply eat whatever happens to be put on our plate. Discontent is the mother of change.

For those who practice the noble and vital art of criticism effectively, I can only say, apropos my diatribe, “If it doesn’t fit, I must acquit.” 

Here Are Some More

I dreaded doing the shoveling today (we had a snowstorm here in Chicago), on account of a gouty elbow. (having a gouty elbow is the end of the world, by the way)…But wouldn’t you know it? I tottered out with my shovel grimly clutched in one hand to do my worst, and a good samaritan had already done the work for me! I’d like to meet him. To express my gratitude? Not on your life. To see if I can get the poor sap to do other tasks for me, like running the bathwater and making my lunch. And he who cooks should also clean. The innocent eater should get a pass. He didn’t make the mess!

In the spirit of the profoundly rational foregoing paragraph, I offer eight more maxims and arrows:

1. What’s up with these “ands”? Bach and Handel, Beethoven and Brahms, Chopin and Liszt, Shostakovich and Prokofiev. Do scientists vaguely refer to the sun and the moon?

2. People suffering from a midlife crisis like to say, “I just don’t know who I am anymore”…did Stravinsky suffer from a career-long midlife crisis? 

3. “Idleness is the Devil’s workshop”…But were Liszt and Scriabin particularly idle?

4. Hugo Wolf as critic and composer: A fire-breathing dragon who wrote gentle and kind music. This is disconcerting. If you’re mean, your music should be mean…you know, like Schoenberg!

5. “If it feels good, do it.”-Can this be the philosophy of a masochist? Or am I missing something? 

6. The holiday season is upon us. That means we can listen to Die Fledermaus “legally”. Is there anything better than that? Bring on Orlovsky and company!

7. We are lucky in our Christmas masterpieces. Some people tell me that they’re sick of Messiah and Nutcracker. Unless you’re a jobbing orchestral musician, get over it. And you can throw in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, as well; it’s  even better. But please, leave the period instruments at home.

8. And how ‘bout La Boheme? The first two acts take place on Christmas eve. If you know any whiny brats, tell ‘em Parpignol won’t give ‘em any toys unless they behave. And make Alcindoro pay, for heaven’s sake.

The Limitations of Nomenclature: Introductions by Beethoven and Brahms

In February I’m offering an all day seminar on the topic of “Introduction to Music Theory” and am beginning to look at materials I may wish to use. Pawing through a stack of standard theoretical texts, I was amused to note that certain chords which have variable functions are typically described in exactly the same terms, as if they always functioned identically. Well, have pity on the analyst, he cannot afford to invent new nomenclatures for every passage he analyzes. He has to look at a chord and ask: “Is you is, or is you ain’t, my Baby?” But some labels are downright misleading, and can lead to comical misunderstandings. I was nearly scarred for life as a kid by some lunatic’s analysis of the beginning of Beethoven’s First (C major) symphony which he described as opening in F major, as a charming feint, rather than giving the correct, if more prosaic analysis, which understands the opening salvo as part of the establishment, so to speak.  A witty student of mine imagined C Major in this passage as bragging, “I’m so strong, even my henchmen have henchmen.” But that’s just it about theory; it tries so hard to be systematic, that it all too frequently misses the forest for the trees. By far the greatest tonal theorist in history was Arnold Schoenberg. His magisterial tome, “Harmonielehre” is rightly a book of philosophy, essentially…less philopsophical paths don’t necessarily go to Aintree. But you can say this for standarized nomenclature: “When the mind is at sea, a word forms a raft.”

In the parlance of harmonic analysis, the Beethoven First Symphony and the Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem open with the same chord, known in the trade as  V/IV, (or the dominant of the  subdominant, for all you Poindexters out there)  you’d think they would make a similar effect. But they don’t. The Beethoven chord initiates a simple progression designed to promote the stability of the principal tone, or tonic, and the Brahms chord feels like a dissolution, or unravelling…which is an acutely beautiful metaphor when understood; a necessary precondition for a requiem is death, represented in the Brahms by joining a process of dissolution. And Brahms’ procedure allows one of the most awesomely moving passages in all music, the establishment of his principal key only at the words “…for they shall be comforted”- the second half of the opening line, “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted”. It’d be nice if the theorist could find a word for this magic.

Materials relevant to the upcoming seminar will be posted on this site sometime soon, available for download. 

Beginner's Luck?

[Correction: The Masur performances mentioned below are from Brilliant’s Complete Music of Beethoven collection. In the 100 symphony box, you have Blomstedt and the Staatskapelle Dresden, which I have not heard. Brilliant also has complete editions of Bach and Mozart, all for exceedingly inexpensive prices, well under two bucks a cd, closer to one, in fact. Maybe you don’t need all the esoterica. I do, however…next semester we’re going to look at Beethoven’s cantata, “The Glorious Moment”, for example. When was the last time you heard that? I recommend these boxes. The performances aren’t uniformly excellent, but do maintain a general level of high quality, and a considerable number of them feature truly great performers. Even if you never listen to them, just think: you can pile the boxes on the mantel place and be assured when you step in the room that if you want to hear anything by Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven, you can. Or you can carry the boxes around in your arms while chortling, “I have the complete works of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven in my arms.” How cool is that? Those guys were pretty good composers, after all.]

Largely for archival purposes, I recently acquired the record label Brilliant’s giant box of 100 symphonic cds, including the complete essays in the genre by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Mahler, Nielsen, and Shostakovich. Except for the more infrequently played of the Haydn pieces, I already had plently of records of these pieces, but the incredibly low price of the set and the opportunity of finally having all the Hadyn as well as the Barshai cycle of Shostakovich lured me in, and I’m glad it did.

So, I had a lot of listening to do. I decided to listen in the dining room, because if I listen in the living room I have a bad habit of running to the piano in the middle of the recording and playing my favorite passages over and over again, at least in familiar pieces, and I wanted to fairly evaluate some performances that were new to me. Well, I can recommend the Adam Fischer Haydn cycle (what I’ve heard of it) and the Barshai Shostakovich. A delightful bonus, if not surprise, was the exceedingly fine Beethoven cycle with Kurt Masur and the Leipzig Gewandhaus. Unless I’m hallucinating, this cycle is one of the very finest on record. Beethoven and Shostakovich’s respective first symphonies got me thinking. The Shostakovich is a well known teenage masterpiece, concocted by a wet behind the ears conservatory student, and is justly renowned for its elan and its orchestral vividness. But it also shows an uncannily prescient sense of irony and awareness of symphonic tradition, and constitutes a sort of in memoriam as well of the Russian musical nineteenth century. Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Mussorgsky, Balakirev, and even Rimsky (there are some allusions to his famous Kaschei harmonies, which appear to be derived from Glinka’s Chernomor, in Ruslan and Ludmilla) pass in ghostly retrospect. And there are clear allusions to cinema accompaniment (consider the role of the piano) and cafe music (consider the second subject of the first movement, the popular sounding waltz) to boot.  How improbable is this yoking of silent movie style with Russo-romanticism! And the piece benefits from Shostakovich’s mastery of pacing and timing as well. So, he hit the jackpot. Beginner’s luck? Not for me. The Second Symphony, “To October” is no “sophomore slump” despite its rather low reputation.

And Beethoven’s First appears much worthier of being a card-carrying member, in full standing, of Beethoven’s immortal series than I might have assumed since the last time I heard it. It flew off the page with Mazur and the Gewandhausers, the ribald humor and harmonic quirks were as delightful as ever. Perhaps it benefitted by being heard subsequent to the Shostakovich; one could be said to be primed for ribald humor and harmonic quirks, so to speak. 

And these works aren’t the only strikingly fine first symphonies. Consider the initial forays into the genre by Berlioz, Schumann, Brahms, Nielsen, Mahler and Schnittke…(and for me, Tchaikovsky), if not necessarily those by Borodin, Dvorak, Saint-Saens, Bruckner or Sibelius (which for my taste is a trifle too derivative of Liszt and the Russians, beautiful as it is…or maybe we should be talking about Kullervo, instead….hmmmm…). I don’t think there are as many comparable early masterpieces in most other genres. Especially opera, where it is almost axiomatic that one doesn’t succeed until Number Three (Nabucco, La Boheme, Salome). There is perhaps something special about Symphony Nr.1!

Boosters, Reporters, and Critics

It occurs to me that in my fairly frequent excoriation of the musical “critical” fraternity, I’ve been grossly unfair; I’ve been expecting oranges from an apple tree. It may be a devolution, indeed, that so-called classical music is served in the papers by reporters and boosters rather than by critics, but because authentic criticism is so rarely, and in any case only tangentially engaged in by the scrivening class, I need to revise my expectations.

“Only the facts, Ma’am”… that’s where we are. But I question the notion that a concert is essentially an “event”. You can go online and find the pertinent schedules and performers for just about any musical organization in a jiffy. And we know that Daniel Barenboim or Martha Argerich or Maurizio Pollini aren’t going to crumple into a fetal position on stage and protest that they’ve forgotten how to play. Now that would be newsworthy! That scenario does, however, figure in a musician’s dreams (about once every couple of months I myself experience the old-hat nightmare that I go on stage to play a concert and have totally forgotten what notes to play).

So, if conventional reportage of musical events is not really necessary, perhaps the role the “critic” ought to play is that of booster. Lord knows it’s a difficult world out there for musicians and musical organizations trying to make a living. And show some civic pride, you! Our orchestra is the bestest in the whole wide world!

This is parochial and condescending. Sort of like the recent Youtube presidential debates.

We know the people and institutions the reporter and booster serve. But whom does the critic serve? To whom does the critic owe something?  Naturally, to his readers and only his readers. He owes nothing except fairness and reasonable good will to anybody else. A critic should be a philosophical presence, which necessitates subjectivity. And a critic better know how to read a score. I regret to say that I’m pretty sure a plurality of critics are lacking in this respect. And because a critic uses the medium of words, he should have some literary flair. You know, I don’t think I’ve read a joke or humorous metaphor or allusion from any music critic in years. And it’s too bad. Look at the writings of great critics like G.B. Shaw, Romain Rolland, or Robert Schumann.  Puns, allusions, metaphors, and whimsy of all sorts characterize their writings.

Here is a passage about program notes, but equally applicable to music reporters, from the internet commentator Ivan Katz: “It is not merely that I object to being treated like an idiot. I object to the patronizing tone of these annotations. I object to the general lack of research that such notes usually display, and I object to the steadfast refusal of the annotator to say anything even remotely “controversial” let alone “unflattering”…perhaps it is thought that jargon and high sounding mumbo-jumbo will impress the readers. It doesn’t. It merely bores those who it does not insult, and it helps no one.” Blunt words, maybe, but there is some justice to them. Music criticism can be a noble, and in my view, should be an essential, part of a genuinely musical culture; I only wish we had critics, and not mere reporters or boosters. In addition to Shaw and Schumann, I recommend the relevant essays in Schoenberg’s “Style and Idea” and the first volume of the newly released complete writings of Aldous Huxley. A wonderful collection of musical criticism is to be had in Paul Rosenfeld’s “Discoveries of a Music Critc”. Here is a sample from the latter book, concerning Richard Strauss’s Elektra (1908) and its character as a sort of harbinger of WW1: 

“These deadly forces are not the inhabitants exclusively of opera houses or of the private worlds of two artists. [Strauss and his librettist, Hoffmansthal] They are the essences which actualized themselves in the World War. This, before us, already is the World War, the machine guns, the TNT, the mass murder. This is its crater. Red and black, the stage with its plethora of shrieks, screams, groans, and the sounds of dragged bodies and laboring whips, epitomizes a period, the one immediately preceding the inception ot the catastrophe, around 1907, permitting us to revisit it in thorough awareness. It is an overloaded, hysterical one, immense in technical prowess, but luxurious, crass, fat, materialistic, satiated, incapable of sublimation, stewing with explosives that wear the steel caps of projectiles. ..and, crater of this crater of the festering energies of the civilized man craving release in deadly expansion, we recognize, alas, the home…”

Beautifully extravagant, eminently disputable, splendidly literary, this is the sort of thing I’d like to see today. But of course, what we’re stuck with is “Ms. Lehman showed total command of her taxing part, and even when the orchestra was at it biggest fortes, could be heard with ease. The orchestra acquitted its role with considerable aplomb,” etc. etc.  

A Brief Postscript to "Evasions...Definitions" And Some New Maxims and Arrows

Yesterday I talked again with the same gentleman whose innocent query as to what classical music is inspired my last column. He said something interesting: “Labels are how we make sense of the world.”  Now, this was simply a casual comment, not intended to be some deeply penetrating observation. The efficacy of tidy labels or definitions may be less useful than the hipper eschewing of labels that might be summarized as “Label, Schmabel!”…but who would even remember the name, “Louis Durey” if not for the label, “Les Six”?; who would remember Cesar Cui  if not for his inclusion in the Russian “Kuchka”? But come to think of it, who wants to remember Durey and Cui? …Oh, come on, can’t you take a joke, you legion of Durey and Cui fans! In order to tempt fate, which is always a wise policy among free thinkers, I offer thirteen new maxims and arrows:

1. I’ve been told that Ellington opined, “If it sounds good, it is good”; and “Wagner’s music is better than it sounds” is a venerated, if feeble joke. But what music is advocated by these bon mots?

2. In politics, idealogy is a justification for taking more than one’s fair share. Is this true of musical idealogy as well? Idealogy as nihilism.

3. “Schubert’s sonatas go on too long.” Where do you have to be in such an all-fired hurry, Buster?  Sit down. They aren’t long enough.

4.  What would you listen to if told you had one day to live? Beethoven’s Ninth? Bach’s B minor Mass? Gotterdammerung? My advice: listen to an uncut Handel opera. Then it would seem that you still had weeks left on this fair planet.

5. When alphabetizing your cds, don’t bother separating Johann from Richard Strauss. Whatever you grab, it’ll all be the same in the end!

6. Cavalleria Rusticana is The Bartered Bride gone bad.

7. Has any composer ever engaged the sense of smell like Debussy? No, no, no!… if you’re talking about that smell, you must mean Max Reger. 

8.  If Wagner’s operas are sins, are Stravinsky’s works peccadillos?

9. John Mortimer’s Rumpole says “Life is too short for Wagner”…we say, life is too short either way. Claude Erskine-Brown for the first and only time in his life had it right. But he shouldn’t have named his kids “Tristan” and “Isolde”. That’s just asking for trouble, now isn’t it? 

10. Why are there car horns in Gershwin, sirens in Varese, and ondes martinot in Messiaen? To annoy us? It’s just possible you could have achieved that goal without these expedients, messieurs!

11.  I’ve never heard a wind serenade I didn’t like. I’ve never heard a wind serenade I did like, however. (urgent advice to Mozart fans: learn to take a joke!)

12. I’ve never heard a piece by Grieg I didn’t like. I’ve never heard a…wait a minute! I’ve heard lots of pieces by Grieg I liked very much indeed! ‘Tis the season. Get out your snowflake sweater, light a fire, turn down the lights, grab an agreeably potent libation…there. Aren’t you feeling better? 

13. They say that Arnold was more “berg” than “schoen”; but are mountains not beautiful? (in honor of Schoenberg’s phobia concerning the number thirteen). 

Evasions May Be Maddening, But Definitions May Be Limiting

Recent books and articles by writers such as Richard Taruskin, Alex Ross and Lawrence Kramer, and a simple survey of contemporary trends in “serious” music composition, provoke some thoughts relating to fundamental assessments of what “classical” or “serious” or “art” music really is. An acquaintance asked me recently, “How do you define classical music, and when did it begin?” Sounds like an easy question? Try answering it without a load of prevarications and caveats. Heck, try answering it without descending into gibberish.

I evaded the question.

Oh, initially I took a stab at it, mentioning a sort of potential historical distinction between “functional” musics and “aesthetic” musics, and talked about the codification of the repertory in a discrete body of works that one might imagine European and American music consumers to commonly accept as “classical” music, and I talked about the relationship of patrons, commercial issues, and the concept of artistic integrity, but then had to stop in a confused daze. So my interlocuter interjected, “Do you think Philip Glass is a ‘classical’ composer? I do.” I instinctively think my friend is right, but if I try to explain why, I lapse into incoherence.  I know this, however: the difference between so-called popular and so-called classical categories is not determined by the sort of formal education a composer has received (consider Weill’s study with Busoni or Cage’s with Schoenberg) nor by the sort of instumental guise the music adopts, nor, increasingly, by the sort of venue the music is played at. It is tempting for someone like myself, lacking a clean record in the snobbery sweepstakes as I am, to point to commercial ambitions as a sort of demarcating barrier. But I’d be wrong if I posited such a distinction. Charles Ives could afford to be quixotic, and Elliott Carter can afford to be irredeemably complex, for reasons that are obvious…the lack of necessity on relying on income from their musical compositions to make a living. Do you think Mozart wanted to write every last Contre-dance, Serenade, or Divertimento that he did write? Of course not. And Ross points out the pathetic spectacle of Arnold Schoenberg imagining that his opera Von Heute auf Morgen would be a runaway hit. It wasn’t. But let me mention here, apropos Schoenberg, that for my money he out-Weilled Weill in the cabaret genre with his magnificent “Brettl” Lieder. I have the sneaking suspicion that Schoenberg could outplay anyone at their own game any time he chose, but the inexplicable thing about him for so many people is why he chose to do what he did. It would be amusing to compile a Schoenberg program of nothing but widely attractive pieces, not all of which would need to be culled from his early years.

Almost every composer wants to be loved by a a large audience, and wants or needs to generate income from his work. Of course there are exceptions. There are exceptions to every single generalization you can make in this world. But the exceptions are not, by definition, characteristic, so you can throw out the pecuniary aspect as a reliable dividing line. Handel and Rossini did pretty well, eh? And here in Chicago, to my certain knowledge, there are excellent musicians working in unambiguously “popular” genres who struggle to make a decent living, despite highly honed musical skills and plently of intelligence and energy. Music is a hard profession. No, please don’t say, “every profession is hard”, there are some professions that require less dedication. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. 

Complexity? Please; this is a canard: Compare Ellington with Clementi. But, it is true, and not merely coincidentally true, that much of the music called “classical” is more conventionally complex then so-called popular music, but nowhere near to point of ubiquity where we can comfortably designate complexity as the dividing line. And complex in what way? Harmonically? Alright, the Classics have Chopin. Rythmically? Traditionally the Classics have lagged here. It amuses me that permutations of odd units of beats, and the juxtaposition of these units in larger segments, as practiced by Stravinsky, is accepted as rhythmic complexity. Complex indeed, compared to Haydn’s “London” symphonies, but there are myriad musics from ethnic and often non-Western sources that do the same thing, only naturally, not contrived. I’ve heard these musics. But here I have to acknowledge unambiguously that I’d rather hear Le Sacre, which is absolutely not on my personal top ten list, or top hundred list, even, than any of these other musics. That’s just because I’m attuned to European cultural values, and it is a perfectly legitimate preference, one for which there is no need to apologise. I admit to considerable skepticism regarding the deliberate appropriation of non-Western elements in musics as diverse as the Beatles, John Cage, and Philip Glass. George Harrison wrote charming songs, which I value. Then, he apparently went to India to sit at the feet of the Groovy Guru, came back, and continued to write charming songs, only this time with sitar. If my facts arn’t exactly right, if Harrison had an Indian grandmother or used sitar before going to India, that doesn’t invalidate my point about the dubiousness of attempted absorption of alien musical cultures. Nothing wrong with it, as long as you don’t pass it off as the real McCoy, which I’m pretty sure the Beatles didn’t, anyway.  I think it was in Ross’s fine book that he quotes someone to the effect that the best way to express a culture is to be from that culture. But in these confessionally violent and fragmented times, the sort of attempted cross-cultural synthesis represented by the examples above are most likely a good thing, in any case, but the sort of person who values more or less exclusively Western style and content needn’t apologise. No one person can be all people, although I suspect that this is a sort of ambition for a number of post-modern Western composers, Schnittke, for instance.

Can Personal Taste Be A Potential Arbiter Of The Classical And the Popular? 

What I cannot understand: Years ago, a colleague and I were discussing our shared love for the music of Tchaikovsky. The conversation veered into a consideration of Tchaikovsky’s legitimate successors, (Rachmaninov and yes indeedy, Prokofiev, for example) and then we discussed Shostakovich. Specifically, Shostakovich’s marked antipathy for the music of Scriabine. Well, I love to play Scriabine on the piano because somehow his figurations fit my hand exceedingly well, so I can execute virtuoso passages in Scriabine which execution is denied me in certain other repertories. Scriabine is a sort of utopian mystic (a catergorization he paradoxially could be said to share with Webern, queerly enough) and Shostakovich is so-called “down to earth.” Somehow I mentioned that for my view, Shostakovich and Schoenberg were likely my personal favorite composers of the Twentieth century, while Scriabine was a sort of Wagnerian personality, with a weirdly myopic ego, and Stravinsky was already showing signs of wear. This stopped the conversation dead, and actually offended my colleague. She rebuked me with inconsistency; how could any intelligent person who loves Tchaikovsky’s “imperial” music and Shostakovich’s searingly human, if not always humane, works also prize a worthless stinker like Schoenberg, whose appalling music had done so much harm?  If you like Shosty’s magnificent (first) violin concerto, you cannot possibly like Schoenberg’s essay in the same genre. You must be lying, or confused; it’s a certaintly that you are inconsistent in a way that disqualifies your viewpoint. But it’s not important what I like, or what you like, relative to some generalized conceit of properly adjudicated taste, and consistency isn’t necessarily a virtue; in fact, one of the cleverest things about being human is a sort of innate sense of a need for balance; my idiotic cats will eat their favorite treats to a surfeit, foregoing all else, whereas the human table includes Yorkshire pudding and a salad with the roast beef. If you’re going to a desert island, and are given two records, don’t take one by Mahler and one by Berg, choose one of those, and complement it with something else. I’m influenced by Taruskin here, but I can say: Shostakovich exemplifies the value of engagement, and Schoenberg exemplifies the value of super-cultural inner exploration, which also has its value, but for fewer people.

So which is “classical”? We can redefine our terms and say Shostakovich is a “popular” composer, but I make the (possibly) unwarranted assumption that educated consumers intuitively accept both as “classical”. So, I’m back to square one, agreeing with my friend from the first paragraph that Glass belongs in the classical bin without being able to say exactly why.  

Aside from the fact that attempting to artificially segregate musical styles is like running across the ice rink in your socks, there is no burning need to resolve the issue, but I must say that people do ask the question…as a music teacher, I know they do.  Frequently. If it’s a naive question, it at least appears to be the sort of question that has relevance for the supposed crisis in classical music addressed by Kramer and analyzed by Taruskin. Words change their meanings over time and some words lose their meaning. Popular and classical are examples of such words in the field of (What can I call it now? Ecoledenotredamepalestrinabachhaydnmozartbeethovenrossiniwagnerchopindebussystravinskyschoenbergbeatlesglassadams music)…I do know what popular is, however. It is that which a lot of people like. Wait a minute, a lot of people relative to the number of people who like music as a whole? A lot of people relative to those who like Schoenberg? A lot of people who are willing to pay money for it?   

Not Every Composer Has Everything: Some Half Hearted Provocations

Amidst the plethora of plaudits for Dmitri Shostakovich over the last couple of decades, you sometimes encounter a dissenting voice, as these pages encountered a dissenting voice in connection to Shostakovich 11. This piece is indeed open to criticism in its melodic aspect. And if you persist in evaluating harmony on a purely vertical basis, as opposed to a long range linear conception, it can be criticized there, as well. And it is full of violence.

But not every viable or even great piece succeeds in all musical dimensions. I’ve noted the grasp of long range structure in Shosty 11, which allows the piece to succeed as a cumultive experience. Here are some very arguable points, not every one of which I personally subscribe to:

Potential weaknesses in the masters:

1. For Schubert’s purely instrumental works, a relative lack of counterpoint. (There are exceptions! I know all about the inner strings in the intro to the Ninth, for instance.)

2. For Schumann and Bruckner, changing persistent rythmic patterns elegantly, or sometimes even competently.

3. For Mahler: There is too much about the composer, himself, personally. Also, occasional formal arbitrariness. His greatest score, Das Lied von der Erde, is not coincidentally the one piece that entirely avoids these potential pitfalls.

4. For Haydn, if we really have to find something: Not all his minuets are equally charming.

5. For Vivaldi: an inability to develop themes rather than to simply sequence them.

6. For Berlioz, Ravel, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Schnittke: Too great a reliance on picquaint instrumental sonority. (I would include Respighi, Milhaud, and Villa-Lobos, but I’m trying to restrict myself to the obvious heavy hitters. Yes, R-Korsakov, Ravel and Schnittke are heavy hitters.

7. For Schoenberg: A tendency to hysteria.

8. For Liszt, Prokofiev, and Tchaikovsky: An unusually pronounced gap in inspiration between the successful pieces and the also-rans. Maybe this is unfair, however…even the greatest composers can’t command inspiration.

9. For Stravinsky: Spiritual coldness. This is a heavy charge, and one I’m not particularly desirous of maintaining, Stravinsky is so resourceful and intelligent, and yet… 

10. For Handel: A marked tendency for the too simply grandiose or schematic.

I can’t find anything I’d be willing to even suggest laying at the doorsteps of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Wagner, or Berg…Brahms? He wrote Ein Deutsches Requiem, so he gets a one-time only pass. Strauss? Which one? The one with the waltzes or the one with the Super-man Waltzes?