News & Events Bonnie Gibbons News & Events Bonnie Gibbons

Steinway Buys ArkivMusic

Steinway acquires ArkivMusic for $4.5 million.  

ArkivMusic is certainly the “little” store that could… coming fairly close to offering everything classical that’s buyable on CD. With opera DVDs galore and every classical CD in print (and many out of print through their on-demand ArkivCD program), they are the “Amazon killer” for the classical market. According to Steinway’s release, they will continue as a wholly owned subsidiary.

As a web producer I hope the cash brings improvements to their site search capability (why can’t I combine the various search parameters?). On the other hand, I hope they do nothing to compromise Arkiv’s ease of use compared to Amazon (littered as it is with business development opportunities).

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News & Events Bonnie Gibbons News & Events Bonnie Gibbons

In Praise of ALDaily.com

ald03.jpgArts & Letters Daily has been on our blogroll for awhile now and is always worth a visit for any elitist looking for a good read in the arts, humanities or social sciences. Several Holde Kunst posts and discussions have been kicked off by articles found there. (Yep, it’s so elitist that it’s a service of the Chronicle of Higher Ed.) I thought I’d spend a few minutes taking note of the classical music items currently gracing AL Daily. Among them are some topics I’d love to write about but don’t know when I’ll get the time.

ald03.jpg

ald03.jpg

Arts & Letters Daily has been on our blogroll for awhile now and is always worth a visit for any elitist looking for a good read in the arts, humanities or social sciences. Several Holde Kunst posts and discussions have been kicked off by articles found there. (Yep, it’s so elitist that it’s a service of the Chronicle of Higher Ed.)

I thought I’d spend a few minutes taking note of the classical music items currently gracing AL Daily.  Among them are some topics I’d love to write about but don’t know when I’ll get the time.

Alex Ross discusses the special form of March Madness that struck the Met’s star-crossed Tristan production. (Read our post here.)

Jonathan Yardley reviews and old book: Arthur Rubinstein’s My Young Years, an autobiography of the pianist’s first 30 years.

Tenor Ian Bostridge, in the Times Literary Supplement, reviews The Rest Is Noise with special attention to Alex Ross’s discussion of music under fascism.  

Owen Hatherly reviews the Prokofiev diaries

Hugh Wood, also in the TLS, reviews several books on Edward Elgar and discusses the changing critical reception of Elgar

Tim Black reviews Peter Gay’s book Modernism, in one of those reviews that’s itself an engaging read, clearly telling the reader what to expect while making his subject seem like a must-read:

As Gay makes clear in his opening chapter, ‘the manifestation of modernism’ ought to be treated as ‘a single historical epoch’. This, he says elsewhere, ‘dates roughly from Baudelaire and Flaubert to Beckett and beyond to Pop Art and other dangerous blessings’. What the artists, writers, composers and architects share is not only a ‘climate of thought, feeling and opinions’ but two principles in particular: ‘the lure of heresy that impelled their action as they confronted conventional sensibilities’ and a commitment to ‘principled self-scrutiny’.

With these two elements marshalling his interpretation of a vast array of cultural artefacts, Gay proceeds to present a narrative of modernism, tracing its history through periods of pugnacious self-confidence and impending defeat. Each artist, each grouping – be it Picasso, the disparagingly named Fauves, or the Hitler-worshipping, Nobel prize-winning Knut Hamsum – becomes a character, better still, a hero in Gay’s epic tale of modernist derring-do.

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Bonnie Gibbons Bonnie Gibbons

Art of the Fugue is iTunes Classical Chart-topper

B000ZGKBYE.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpgJan Swafford in Slate discusses the new solo piano recording by Pierre-Laurent Aimard of Bach’s Art of the Fugue (Read Wikipedia): “It’s as if you told a physicist that Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity was topping the best-seller list. It’s not supposed to happen. This is because the 14 fugues and four canons that make up The Art of Fugue constitute one of the most esoteric musical works ever written.”

Buy: ArkivMusic

Jan Swafford in Slate discusses the new solo piano recording by Pierre-Laurent Aimard of Bach’s Art of the Fugue (

Read Wikipedia

):

It’s as if you told a physicist that Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity was topping the best-seller list. It’s not supposed to happen. This is because the 14 fugues and four canons that make up The Art of Fugue constitute one of the most esoteric musical works ever written. Each fugue bears the severe title Contrapunctus followed by a number, and there is no indication of what instruments are supposed to play them. Every piece is in D minor; all are based on the same melodic theme. It’s as if Bach intended the AOF as a theoretical treatise, to be read and studied rather than performed, to demonstrate some of the more arcane things you can do with the idea of a fugue.

Along the way, in an effort to convey why he considers the album an “unlikely” success, Swafford offers a pretty usable definition of what a fugue actually is, complete with audio examples as he then provides a tour of the piece.

Swafford even compares the Aimard performance with the decades-old, scat-sung version by the Swingle Singers, to which he confesses a nostalgic attachment.

The Aimard recording doesn’t seem to be on Rhapsody, but the Glenn Gould recording is.

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Bonnie Gibbons Bonnie Gibbons

Wolfgang Wagner Decides Not to Decide

Wolfgang Wagner will step down on August 31, leaving Bayreuth in the hands of BOTH his daughters, Eva and Katharina.

Among other blogs, I checked The Rest Is Noise to see if Alex Ross had any thoughts on the appointment of Riccardo Muti as CSO Director, but he was too busy covering the announcement from Bayreuth that Wolfgang Wagner will step down on August 31, leaving Bayreuth in the hands of BOTH his daughters, Eva and Katharina.

The backstory: The festival is run by a joint government/private foundation these days. Wagners get dibs on the director’s job, provided there’s a qualified family member available. There are several family members with relevant experience:

  • Katharina Wagner (Wolfgang’s youngest daughter, and his choice for successor)

  • Eva Wagner-Pasquier (Wolfgang’s older daughter by first marriage; was chosen by the foundation but Wolfgang refused to step down unless they picked Katharina instead)

  • Nike Wagner (Wolfgang’s niece, Wieland Wagner’s daughter)

  • Gottfried Wagner (Wolfgang’s son; estranged from the family after mentioning the Nazi elephant in the room)

BUT, the foundation has veto power, and it selected Eva a few years ago. On the other hand, Wolfgang has had a lifetime directorship, allowing him, in turn, to veto the foundation’s choice by promising to hang in there till he got his choice: Katharina. According to the news items, the two sisters decided to end the standoff by collaborating, but officially it is an interim arrangement.

Recommended Book:

Bayreuth: A History of the Wagner Festival

by Frederic Spotts

A very gossipy history of the goings-on on the Green Hill from a detailed explanation of the unique acoustics and architecture of Bayreuth almost to the modern-day family dynastic squabbles.

Twilight of the Wagners: The Unveiling of a Family’s Legacy

by Gottfried Wagner, Della Couling

A highly personal insight from a black sheep of the Wagner clan, the musicologist and director Gottfried Wagner (Wolfgang’s son).

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News & Events John Gibbons News & Events John Gibbons

Muti Is New CSO Director

Newspapers reported Riccardo Muti as new CSO music director in a five yr. contract. I make the assumption tht they’ll be plenty of coverage on internet sites and message boards, etc. Personally, I’m bored stiff by accounts of musical politics, and am largely ignorant of the topic.

As for Muti as conductor? Well, his tenures at Philly and La Scala seem like a mixed bag to me. I’m hesitant to predict what’ll happen here, because when Barenboim began in Chicago, I thought his conducting was deeply problematical, and he evolved into a magnificent conductor right before my ears. Rumors of Muti not getting along with players? We heard this about Barenboim, as well. The conductor should be boss. He should tell the players what to do, and they darn well better try to do it. That’s the way it works…otherwise, you have chaos or mediocrity. There has been a prima donna syndrome affecting certain CSO players over the years, in my view…one of the CSO players once complained to me that Barenboim fired a player for making a wrong note, and was indignant about it. I say, right on! Look at the price on your ticket…a conductor is responsible to music, firstly, and to the patrons, secondly, just as a CEO is responsible to the shareholders, firstly, and anyone else secondly. Anything else is sentimentality.

Believe me, I want the CSO to be the greatest orchestra in the world, I live in Chicago. But I think the CSO needs to work to that goal, not just rely on its well-deserved high reputation. Look at the music, not in a mirror.

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John Gibbons John Gibbons

It's A Holde-Quiz! Time To Earn Your Mortarboard!

Today’s object is to match the composer with the profession he was either originally trained for or even pursued concurrently with his composing activities. So, for instance, if you see “Maurice Ravel” in the composer column, you would take an indelible marker and draw a line to “professional wrestler under the name “The Basque Bulldog” in the “alternate professions” column on your computer screen. Get it? Or do I have to draw you a picture?

Today’s object is to match the composer with the profession he was either originally trained for or even pursued concurrently with his composing activities. So, for instance, if you see “Maurice Ravel” in the composer column, you would take an indelible marker and draw a line to “professional wrestler under the name “The Basque Bulldog” in the “alternate professions” column on your computer screen. Get it? Or do I have to draw you a picture?

If you get ‘em all correct: Well la-di-freakin’-da. Why aren’t you in Sweden or Norway or wherever collecting your Nobel Prize, Genius?

If you get most of ‘em correct: What do you want, a medal?

If you get some of ‘em correct: Let’s just say that you’re “differently talented”

If you get none of ‘em correct: Go in the garden and eat all the worms.

Composers:

1. Berlioz

2. Borodin

3. Dvorak

4. Ives

5. Frederick the Great

6. Mussorgsky

7. Schumann

8. Smetana

9. Stravinsky

10. Vivaldi

Professions:

A. Publisher and Critic

B. Civil Servant

C. Lawyer

D. Butcher

E. Catholic Priest

F. King of Prussia

G. Brewer

H. Insurance Pioneer and Executive

I. Chemist

J. Medical Doctor  

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Culture John Gibbons Culture John Gibbons

The National and the Confessional in Smetana and Dvorak

How should we feel about avowedly “national” music? Remember, if you value “patriotism”, for instance, as all the presidential candidates are required to avow every hour, on the hour, you must respect patriotism in nations other than your own. Otherwise it’s not patriotism per se you value, but some kind of hegemony, cultural or political.

Is music universal? Maybe, but I have my doubts. Just as there are individual people who have no use for or response to music (consider the  famous cases of Sigmund Freud and Vladimir Nabokov, for instance), I rather suspect that there are probably nations or cultures that have no use for music. Nations of Ullyses Grants (“I know two tunes: one of ‘em’s “Yankee Doodle” and the other one ain’t.”). This mildly amusing Grant anecdote may be apocryphal for all I know, and it may be that a learned anthropologist would tell me that they’ve never encountered an amusical cuture. But this I know: if amusical cultures exist, the Czechs ain’t one of them.

How should we feel about avowedly “national” music? Remember, if you value “patriotism”, for instance, as all the presidential candidates are required to avow every hour, on the hour, you must respect patriotism in nations other than your own. Otherwise it’s not patriotism per se you value, but some kind of hegemony, cultural or political.

A few years ago I had an annoying incident at O’Hare airport, returning from Europe. I think it may have been from France or Germany, but let’s just say it was from Prague. I somehow got in the wrong line for passport control and an exasperated agent called me over to the appropriate line, the one for American citizens. (For better or worse, I’m always immediately recognizable as an American… hmm, maybe it’s due to the loud Hawaiian shirts, the loud voice, and the chic ensemble of plaid shorts with socks and sandals. On the other hand, if I tried to wear a leather jacket and an earring, I would be immediately perceived as an “ugly American” trying to be an “ugly European”)…

Anyway, the agent berated me thusly: “You shouldn’t have to wait in line, you belong here, not like those other people.” And his tone dripped contempt for “those other people”. Maybe he meant to show comraderie with me, or whatnot. But I didn’t like it, it stuck in my craw. Before the death of the dollar I went to Europe quite frequently, and I promise you, I sure wouldn’t want that jackass on the reception committee at the other end.

Which brings us to the case of Smetana, a composer who explicitly stated that he valued the “national” more than the “universal”; this view even caused a rift with a friend. Now, Smetana’s experience abroad, in Sweden primarily, but Germany as well, cemented his narrowly Czech outlook… he had a rough time getting his career going as well as he wanted it to go, he was homesick and estranged from his family. Also, the fate of the Czech lands for much of its history has been to be a victim of Austrian and German control, and of course this pattern continued in the generations after Smetana’s death, with the Soviet Union added to the list of offenders against Czech sovereignty most recently.

So Smetana’s view is understandable, to say the least. But does it limit his appeal? Does knowing that a composer isn’t writing for you cause you any qualms? Do you prefer Beethoven, who is writing for you? In his aspirations Smetana is more Czech than Schubert is Viennese, more Czech than Tchaikovsky is Russian, more Czech than Ives is American. Is this a problem?

No, because music is abstract, and a composer cannot control the intrinsic meaning of an abstraction, only its outward semblance. It’s out of his hands. Case in point, “From Bohemia’s Woods and Valleys” uses a polka as the symbol of nationhood, the people, which is then combined with music representing nature in a mystical epiphany. If Gershwin were to use a fox-trot in “From America’s Woods and Valleys” should polka dancers feel left out? Nietzsche had it right, it’s neither the best nor the worst that is lost in translation. And don’t ever let a Russian tell you that you can’t “really understand” Mussorgsky, or a Norwegian tell you that you can’t “really understand” Grieg. But when it comes to non-Western cultures, I’m mute. I just don’t know enough.

Dvorak was a staunch Catholic as well as a staunch nationalist. His frustration with the publisher Simrock ignoring his pleas to publish his name in the Czech manner, as well as providing Czech texts in his scores is well known. And I’d go so far to say that a fair minded person would be almost obliged to respect the nationalism of a Czech vis a vis. the dominant and foreign German influence and control, politically and culturally, in the Czech lands at the time.

Dvorak’s confessionalism might be more palateable than the nationalism of Smetana for non-Czechs, partly because Dvorak didn’t hesitate to include Hussite themes in for instance, his “The Hussites” overture, although the Hussites were completely opposed to Catholocism. Dvorak thought that the Hussites nevertheless represented important and admirable traits. And confessionalism is often trans-national; Catholocism certainly is. But is confessional exclusivity any better than national exclusivity, especially since typically in the former case those left out are thought to be denied salvation?

Once again, music itself provides an elegant rebuttal to the exclusiveness crowd. Consider the case of William Byrd, or Bach himself, who signed some document condemning the beliefs of the prince of Anhalt-Coethen, and then memorably eulogized him with movements from a (Catholic!) mass setting. Consider the poignant and instructive case of Shostakovich, who wrote thrilling and moving music for the Soviet ideology, that so many people insist on appropriating for very different ideologies! Consider the anti-ecclesiast Verdi in his “Four Sacred Pieces” and Requiem. 

Great composers have often expressed ugly jingoistic credos. But their own works as often as not belie their ideological intentions. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. This applies to Wagner as well, by the way, although you need several strong men to dump out the unusually deep tubs of bathwater.

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John Gibbons John Gibbons

Carelessness? Classical "Orthodoxy"? Manufactured Coherence? -Some Thoughts on Dvorak's D Minor Quartet

Johannes Brahms may have accepted the dedication of Dvorak’s String Quartet in d minor, op. 34 (1877), but (in rather gentle manner for Brahms, when in a critical mood) wrote to Dvorak that when filling in the sharps and flats in his music he should take another look at the notes themselves, and noted (with implicit criticism) how quickly Dvorak composed. Is this criticism fair?

Johannes Brahms may have accepted the dedication of Dvorak’s String Quartet in d minor, op. 34 (1877), but (in rather gentle manner for Brahms, when in a critical mood) wrote to Dvorak that when filling in the sharps and flats in his music he should take another look at the notes themselves, and noted (with implicit criticism) how quickly Dvorak composed.

Is this criticism fair?

Yes. Brahms is presumably not talking about typos, nor about egregiously wrong notes, but instead about the fact that Dvorak (and this discussion will be limited to the quartet) is willing to accept the plausible, the obvious, in place of the truly organic.

Paul Griffiths writes in his “The String Quartet-A History”:

“There were…features of Dvorak’s style that made the quartet an appropriate medium, notably his liking for presenting a melody first in one instrument then in another with a counter-melody added. But in writing quartets he must have been helped too by his long years of experience as a viola player, experience to which all his mature quartets bear witness in making the viola-not the cello as in Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Schumann-the second soloist of the ensemble.”

Griffiths is literally correct about Dvorak’s relationship to the medium, but his comments betray too great a respect for facility and idiomatic style for my taste. But he is consistent. His criticism of Brahms’s quartets centers on the seeming textural inadequacy of the medium to realize Brahms’s (presumably orchestral) musical thought. I like Griffiths’s book, but I disagree somewhat with his assessment of the appositeness of the respective styles of Brahms and Dvorak for the quartet medium. I also think he terribly underestimates Schumann’s op. 41 quartets, for similar reasons, but that’s another story. In any case, Wienawski or Sarasate or even Vivaldi weren’t the greatest composers of violin music, although Liszt may have been the greatest composer of piano music, per se.  Perhaps we should have the greatest respect for works that transcend the perceived physical limitations of their medium, like Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge, to stay with quartet literature. 

Dvorak’s d minor quartet is a good, not a great work, precisely and exactly and assuredly because Brahms was right both in his general enthusiasm for Dvorak as well as in his gentle reproach. This quartet suffers in its outer movements from what I might call “manufactured coherence”. Case in point, the second subject of the first movement, whose first phrase is literally the second half of the first subject’s opening phrase, reharmonized in F Major.  Now there are critics who would congratulate themselves on discovering this, and congratulate Dvorak on his “organicism”.  I don’t buy it. It’s obvious, and therefore dull. Repetition is as overrated in musical form as consensus is in committee meetings. Another obvious and therefore dull bit of pseudo-organicism is the use of the triplet obligato that accompanies the main theme in its big structural repetition in the exposition as the decisive element in the coda. Plausible, certainly. Effective? Sure. Organic? Not really, because real development and transformation (which would be organic) doesn’t occur.

Another thing: it is well known that Dvorak loved Schubert and enjoys using Schubertian mediant chords, whether as modulatory levers or even as subsidary theme areas. So the development of the first movement begins in B Major. That’s alright, as far as it goes, it was about time to get out of the d minor/F Major orbit, but why B? Why not D-flat, for instance? Once again, plausible, reasonably effective, but not terribly organic. Consider by contrast Beethoven’s us of f-sharp minor in his Eighth Symphony, or F-Sharp Major in his Second. Or Schubert’s use of E-Flat Major in his String Quintet. And these are works Dvorak knew, presumably, and there are many other examples in any case. One rhythmic aspect in which Dvorak really missed the boat in this opening movement is failing to grasp that the turn subject in eighth notes in the principal themes (a-b-flat-a) lends itself superbly to hemiola. Turn the turn from straight eighth notes into a triplet, phrase in two beats within the 3/4 meter, and I think you’ve really got something, something akin to what Brahms achieves in the first movement of his rhytmically magisterial Second Symphony.  Another annoying thing about Dvorak’s movement (which it would be patently unfair to leave at Dvorak’s doorstep alone, because so many Romantics made the same mistake) is that he is apparently trying to “play by the book”; to impress Brahms, as Griffiths suggests, by composing an “orthodox” Classical sonata form. Since when are Haydn and Beethoven othodox! The idea that sonata form can be, or was, codified into a recipe is a big problem for some movements in Dvorak, as well as Schumann and even, occasionally, the later works of Mendelssohn.

The second and third movements are much, much better.  The second movement, a charming polka, is exactly the right replacement for Classical minuet or scherzo in the context of Dvorak’s style, and the slow movement (a big binary form with coda) is a marvelous study in textural variation, from the multiple stopping with mutes on, through the almost a la Hongroise repetition that even anticipates slightly the magnificent central episode of the slow movement in Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet, to the wonderfully spacious octave oscillations that inform the coda.

The finale, alas, is again merely adequate. Apparently modelled on Schubert’s masterpiece, “Gretchen am Spinnrade”, this movement falls into a Schumann like rhythmic rut rather than achieving the halluncinatory intensity of Schubert’s terrifying tarantellas of death, in his d minor and G major quartets as well as in the c minor piano sonata.

“Natural” affinity for a medium is a gift that cuts both ways.

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Class: American Masters John Gibbons Class: American Masters John Gibbons

Sanskrit or English? Oddly, It Doesn't Much Matter-A Postscript to My Satyagraha Post

The Met’s study guide for Satyagraha asked the reader to consider Glass’s decision to set the original Sanskrit, rather than an English translation. I think it is a sound decision, despite the fact that it would appear to be motivated by essentially the same factors which prompted Stravinsky to set Oedipus Rex in Latin. Latin, not Greek!

By any measure, the libretto for Satyagraha is extraordinary. For one thing, my printout is two pages long, for an opera that takes almost three hours to perform. For another thing, it completely disdains all theatrical and operatic conventions. It is also unrelentingly philosophical. The fact that it is adapted from the Bhagavad-Gita is perhaps somewhat less extraordinary-after all, Shakespeare, Dante, Tolstoy, and the Bible have been adapted operatically.

The Met’s study guide asked the reader to consider Glass’s decision to set the original Sanskrit, rather than an English translation. I think it is a sound decision, despite the fact that it would appear to be motivated by essentially the same factors which prompted Stravinsky to set Oedipus Rex in Latin. Latin, not Greek!

I am somewhat sympathetic to the argument that operatic libretti are at the very least, less important than the music, and even sometimes close to irrelevant. But I’d like to make two caveats: firstly, irrelevant or not, the listener better know what the words mean, because despite the patent lack of literary interest in most libretti, the words do motivate the type of music a composer writes, usually. There are some exceptions; and when I say motivate, I’m not excluding the possibility of ironic or counter-intuitive settings…magnificent operas such as L’Incornazione di Poppea and The Rake’s Progress indulge in considerable irony, for instance. And, secondly, a minority of operas do really elevate the libretto to a similar status to the music. No, not Verdi’s Otello and Falstaff…again I’m thinking of Monteverdi.

Even if the language an opera is sung in is the listener’s own, this doesn’t mean the words are going to be comprehensible! So why value comprehensibility at all? Why not take if off the table entirely, as in Satyagraha, and allow the listener to absorb the full impact of words and music in their pure state? Of course you can’t have a really dramatic piece this way, although the burning of the registration cards was sufficiently dramatic for me. Glass’s opera gives you time to meditate on the words; in fact, the opera felt like an accompaniment to the listener’s spiritual or philosophical meditation, which is provoked by the meaning of the words. So Sanskrit is the better choice of language, the lines of meditation and music are not crossed. 

The use of text in Satyagraha may be unusual in the opera house, but it is de rigeur in sacred music; have you ever noticed how much music and how few words in the second half of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis? Nevertheless, Satyagraha is an opera, not an oratorio. Please do not underestimate the importance of the pantomimic dimension; like the music itself, this guides and focusses the listener’s meditation.

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Class: American Masters John Gibbons Class: American Masters John Gibbons

Satyagraha-Pro and Contra

For the first time in my life I listened today, with undivided attention, to Philip Glass’s Satyagraha, in an admirable performance from the Met. I carefully read the quite helpful study materials available from the Met’s website. My point of view is likely to be less valuable than that of a Glass aficionado, since love is a prerequisite for understanding. Furthermore, my comments may either seem like a betrayal to those who agree with my customary aesthetic agendae, or insufficiently laudatory to those who already esteem this work. This post is likely to please no one, more’s the pity.

For the first time in my life I listened today, carefully, with full and undivided attention, to Philip Glass’s Satyagraha, in an admirable performance from the Met on its weekly Saturday broadcast. I read carefully the Met’s quite helpful materials published on its website, and followed the libretto from beginning to end. I neither had nor needed a score, because the musical matter per se was eminently graspable without the notes in front of me.

My point of view is likely to be less valuable than that of a Glass aficionado, since love is a prerequisite for understanding.  Furthermore, my comments may either seem like a betrayal to those who agree with my customary aesthetic agendae, or insufficiently laudatory to those who already esteem this work. This post is likely to please no one, more’s the pity. I have found it convenient to alter the order of the pro and contra positions depending on the issue addressed.

  1. Pro: The tripartite organization of the work in (relative to Gandhi’s era) legendary past, present, and future, coupled with associations of morning, noon, and night is elegant and dramatically effective, and gives a certain welcome narrative dimension to a work which is otherwise patently static.

  2. Contra: I have no effective counter-argument.

  3. Contra: The harmonies are exasperatingly simple. For three hours of music.

  4. Pro: They have to be. It is well known that the more piquaint the spice, the more sparingly it must be used. The sequence of tonic, V/III, VI, and V presented at the beginning of the work, for instance, justifies Sam Lipman’s complaint that the harmony is the sort one learns in first year harmony, but, given the textural and durational conception of the piece, which involves lengthy non-dramatic meditations on essential philosphical themes, delievered via arpeggio and ostinato, anything fancy would quickly become unendurable. Rice, bread or beans can be taken every day. It is basic sustenance, consonant with the communal message of the piece as well as Gandhi’s specific character.

  5. Contra: It ain’t an opera. It’s a ritual.

  6. Pro: Alright. Tell me your objections to Mozart’s Magic Flute, your beloved Smetana’s Libuse, Tippett’s Midsummer Marriage, or even the outer acts of Wagner’s Parsifal!

  7. Contra: I thought tu quoque arguments were out of bounds!

  8. Pro: It has social relevance.

  9. Contra: Yeah, so? Does Cosi fan tutte have to justify itself with a better score than Le Nozze di Figaro?

  10. Contra: There are way too many arpeggios, and the orchestral schemes are all too similar, scene to scene. It wouldn’t hurt to have some vertical organization time to time, or to utilize the registral dimension, which is strangely absent from a work that, for better or worse, is “process” or “permutation” or “additive” music; which technique leaves the field open for registral variation, of which there is nowhere near enough. And don’t invoke the merits of “homogeneity of style”; You can achieve that while providing variety.

  11. Pro: I have to go to the bathroom.

  12. Pro: I’m back. And I really did have to go to the bathroom, you! What a relief it is not to have chunks of recitative, or stupid filler, or contrived arias to show off this or that singer, or a patently meaningless plot. This opera invites mediation on essential issues. And the libretto, what there is of it, is first rate. (the libretto is derived from the Bhagavad-Gita).

  13. Contra: No opera has ever survived in the long run on the strength of its libretto, and plenty of great musical operas have survived despite, to put it charitably, defective libretti.

  14. Pro: But this isn’t a traditional opera! That’s the whole point! Dimensions that aren’t strictly musical assume considerable importance! And compare the status of this work within its operatic orbit with certain works in the legitimate theatre. Shaw, Ibsen, and Brecht, for instance, survive nicely although none of these writers have the poetry of a Shakespeare!

  15. Contra: That’s a weird argument. We’re not even talking about that stuff. And there is no “a Shakespeare”; there’s only one.

  16. Pro: Let’s not get into that.

  17. MODERATOR: Back to the topic, Gentlemen. This isn’t a political debate!

  18. Contra: The individual parts aren’t terribly interesting; neither the singers nor the orchestral players have enough to engage them in terms of purely musical nuance, and this may mean that the finest singers, at least, (orchestral players do what they’re told, most of the time) will eschew these roles.

  19. Pro: Who is opera for! What is it supposed to be! Do you want a return to Bel Canto! Give me a break.

  20. Contra: Gladly. Which limb?

  21. MODERATOR: Enough, Enough! Patricians and Populace, Peace I cry!

  22. Pro: The “printing press” sequence is physically exhiliarating; the Phrgian scales Gandhi sings at the end, whether because of text, music, or established context, is quite moving. Unforgettable, in fact.

  23. Contra: I agree, for today. Will I be exhiliarated and moved the next time I hear the piece? Will there be a next time? Time will tell. And let me tell you, this thing requires a lot of time!

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