I'm working on some other posts, (hint - I saw Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk last night) but while I'm doing that, spend an hour and some watching this - I'll add part two later. Thanks to Google video and the downloader for providing this - it's not available on DVD in North America.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Thoughts for a Gouldian Morning
There is something magical, on a cold winter morning, to sit and pass Queen's Park listening to Glenn Gould play from the second book of the Well-Tempered Clavier. When it warms up, at least above freezing, I think I'll take a tour of Gould's old haunts and spots for this blog.
Gould loomed large in my turning away from popular music in my teens towards becoming a hard core classical musician and classical music lover. Feeling a touch nostalgic, I don my sword and helmet, and defend for our dear departed Glenn from, who else, but rapacious capitalists. (ooooohhhhh....)
***
A while back, Glenn Glould performed at his namesake studio here in Toronto.
He's dead you say? Not anymore, thanks to technology. And to those of you offended by the sight of Audrey Hepburn selling pants at the Gap, this should really get your goat.
For those of you perhaps unfamiliar with him, Glenn Gould was arguably one of the best pianists of the second half of the 20th Century, and certainly one of the most eccentric. He was also someone who thought about music - claiming him for mylsef, I'd happily call him a philosopher of music - and the ways in which performers and audience interact with each other, and how technology would transform the conditions under which music was performed and listened to.
He practiced what he preached, and, dissatisfied with what he could produce live, retired from the concert hall in 1964. That is, until a month ago.
The Star's music critic struggled to make this strange story into something interesting (I can no longer find the story on their site). I think he fails, but not for lack of trying. Rather, perhaps out of a fear of incurring the wrath of the Gould estate, he is unwilling to take on cult that has formed around Gould's music and writings since his death in 1982.
***
Full disclosure - I attended both Glenn Gould conferences, in 1992 and 1999. As I mentioned earlier, I was a big fan as a teenager, listening to the 1955 Goldberg Variations most mornings on the way to school, in a passive homage to Ralph Kirkpatrick's playing the Well-Tempered Clavier in its entirety every day - my pianistic skills at that point weren't up to the task!
Through providence, I was able to attend the first conference for the cost of my plane ticket, finding myself staying for free in the Annex with a wealthy lawyer and a patron of the arts. It was my first time in Toronto as an adult, and my impression of the city that week laid the foundation for my eventual relocation.
During my time here, I realised that, in the hierarchy of fandom, I was a pale shadow to some of the fascinating and sometimes creepy Gouldians out there.
These people were hardcore.
What I had half-consciously thought of as a pilgrimage became a revaluation of my own thoughts about Gould, a splash of water to my own marginally obsessive nature. This was a fan base whose devotion and intensity can only compared to that of Elvis Presley fans.
On the other side of the fans, you have Glenn Gould's estate, which aggressively goes after anything and anyone who dares whisper his name. Indeed, their FAQs inform you that if you draw a picture of him and attempt to make it public, you will need their permission, by which I take it that if you don't get their permission, they will sue you. These are the same people who felt it appropriate to his reclusive personality to plop a sculpture of him in front of the CBC building in Toronto. One wonders what will happen if I go and do some photoblogging...
The 1999 conference was even stranger. The 1992 one had the pretence of being about Gould's thinking on music and technology. The 1999 conference was hero worship.
The fans at this conference were vastly more disturbing than the first one. In one session, John Roberts, Gould's closest friend, spoke of Gould's torment and increasing paranoia as he aged. For this, he was assaulted verbally by "fans" who would brook no criticism of their Glenn. People who never knew him challenged the man who knew him better than anyone.
***
This brings me to this bizarre concert. That they used Gould as a model is unsurprising to me. Rather, what I found strange was that everyone compared it was a live performance.
Programming a piano to play a recording is much closer to pressing "play" on a CD player than it is to watching someone play the piece. Moreover, it appears to have escaped most people writing on the concert that the original recording was never live in any sense. Gould certainly recorded the variations in their entirety, but sections would have been spliced and variations re-recorded until things sounded right.
But given Gould's reputation as an extreme perfectionist, who's to say that the 1955 version played on that piano would have met his requirements? Who's to say he would have liked the sound? What are we saying here about the death of the performer? In other words, how can we say this was Glenn Gould performing live in a concert hall?
Indeed, it only makes sense to someone like Sony Classical and Zenph Studios, which John Terauds says is "a North Carolina firm devoted to improving on old piano recordings with the latest computer wizardry". This isn't an improvement though, it's an entirely new recording, but the really important thing is that it gives Sony Classical a way to sell another permutation of what is probably one of the most profitable classical recordings of all time.
Since the 1992 conference, Sony has re-released the Goldberg Variations umpteen times, each with some new bit to ensure that the real fans feel compelled to buy the latest version. This enterprise is about making money, and not about Gould, beyond the fact that the Gould brand is a very profitable one. (Just to note, I have a single copy of the 1955 recording, which I bought in 1990.)
I guess as someone who would claim Gould as a formative influence in my own musical thinking, his crass commercialization by the various entities who own his legacy bothers me, especially because it seems so very opposite to anything I've ever heard about the man.
But what do I know, really? I am just a fan.
***
From the get go, Gawain's dislike of Beethoven unnerved me.
I know he has a nice, tidy, some would even say scientific, explanation for this dislike, but it still bothers me, mainly because I can't stop listening to Beethoven. And now that I have the piano, I can't stop playing him.
And I feel I owe Gawain for having brought me towards a greater appreciation of Shostakovich, via his string quartets. So I'd like to return the favour.
Is there an essence of Beethoven that precludes one's enjoyment? Beethoven's compositional range was vast - his manipulation of motive and structure was so masterful that my jaw still drops at his inventiveness, especially within the restricted (by our standards) tonal language and forms he used. His music really still sounds modern, in a way that Mozart's or Chopin's does not.
The guy wrote so much music in so many different ways, indeed, it's part of his greatness - how does one not like any of it?
I wonder if Gawain takes Beethoven too seriously. Or, like the cult of Glenn Gould out there, the much older and insidious cult of Beethoven has coloured his thoughts. We know the story - Beethoven was serious, deaf and deeply unhappy. Yes he was, but more importantly, he was a man, a man full of spirit and humour. He is someone worth going out of one's way to get to know.
How do we cure poor Gawain of his Beethovenitis? What work of his could mark the entry point to Elysium for our tired knight?
My suggestion, after careful deliberation, is Beethoven's 18th piano sonata, Op. 31 No. 3. Gawain, get yourself a good recording of this work - try the Richter, although the light heartedness of the work should come through on any decent recording.
Or better yet, try to get a hold of Viennese-Canadian pianist Anton Kuerti's magnificent recording. His Beethoven Sonata cycle is the best modern one out there. Beethoven is a slippery creature to Kuerti, and we are richer for it. No pigeon holes here!
I think this might do the trick - and I'd stick to this period of piano sonatas until you're ready for the next step!
Enjoy!
Gould loomed large in my turning away from popular music in my teens towards becoming a hard core classical musician and classical music lover. Feeling a touch nostalgic, I don my sword and helmet, and defend for our dear departed Glenn from, who else, but rapacious capitalists. (ooooohhhhh....)
***
A while back, Glenn Glould performed at his namesake studio here in Toronto.
He's dead you say? Not anymore, thanks to technology. And to those of you offended by the sight of Audrey Hepburn selling pants at the Gap, this should really get your goat.
For those of you perhaps unfamiliar with him, Glenn Gould was arguably one of the best pianists of the second half of the 20th Century, and certainly one of the most eccentric. He was also someone who thought about music - claiming him for mylsef, I'd happily call him a philosopher of music - and the ways in which performers and audience interact with each other, and how technology would transform the conditions under which music was performed and listened to.
He practiced what he preached, and, dissatisfied with what he could produce live, retired from the concert hall in 1964. That is, until a month ago.
The Star's music critic struggled to make this strange story into something interesting (I can no longer find the story on their site). I think he fails, but not for lack of trying. Rather, perhaps out of a fear of incurring the wrath of the Gould estate, he is unwilling to take on cult that has formed around Gould's music and writings since his death in 1982.
***
Full disclosure - I attended both Glenn Gould conferences, in 1992 and 1999. As I mentioned earlier, I was a big fan as a teenager, listening to the 1955 Goldberg Variations most mornings on the way to school, in a passive homage to Ralph Kirkpatrick's playing the Well-Tempered Clavier in its entirety every day - my pianistic skills at that point weren't up to the task!
Through providence, I was able to attend the first conference for the cost of my plane ticket, finding myself staying for free in the Annex with a wealthy lawyer and a patron of the arts. It was my first time in Toronto as an adult, and my impression of the city that week laid the foundation for my eventual relocation.
During my time here, I realised that, in the hierarchy of fandom, I was a pale shadow to some of the fascinating and sometimes creepy Gouldians out there.
These people were hardcore.
What I had half-consciously thought of as a pilgrimage became a revaluation of my own thoughts about Gould, a splash of water to my own marginally obsessive nature. This was a fan base whose devotion and intensity can only compared to that of Elvis Presley fans.
On the other side of the fans, you have Glenn Gould's estate, which aggressively goes after anything and anyone who dares whisper his name. Indeed, their FAQs inform you that if you draw a picture of him and attempt to make it public, you will need their permission, by which I take it that if you don't get their permission, they will sue you. These are the same people who felt it appropriate to his reclusive personality to plop a sculpture of him in front of the CBC building in Toronto. One wonders what will happen if I go and do some photoblogging...
The 1999 conference was even stranger. The 1992 one had the pretence of being about Gould's thinking on music and technology. The 1999 conference was hero worship.
The fans at this conference were vastly more disturbing than the first one. In one session, John Roberts, Gould's closest friend, spoke of Gould's torment and increasing paranoia as he aged. For this, he was assaulted verbally by "fans" who would brook no criticism of their Glenn. People who never knew him challenged the man who knew him better than anyone.
***
This brings me to this bizarre concert. That they used Gould as a model is unsurprising to me. Rather, what I found strange was that everyone compared it was a live performance.
Programming a piano to play a recording is much closer to pressing "play" on a CD player than it is to watching someone play the piece. Moreover, it appears to have escaped most people writing on the concert that the original recording was never live in any sense. Gould certainly recorded the variations in their entirety, but sections would have been spliced and variations re-recorded until things sounded right.
But given Gould's reputation as an extreme perfectionist, who's to say that the 1955 version played on that piano would have met his requirements? Who's to say he would have liked the sound? What are we saying here about the death of the performer? In other words, how can we say this was Glenn Gould performing live in a concert hall?
Indeed, it only makes sense to someone like Sony Classical and Zenph Studios, which John Terauds says is "a North Carolina firm devoted to improving on old piano recordings with the latest computer wizardry". This isn't an improvement though, it's an entirely new recording, but the really important thing is that it gives Sony Classical a way to sell another permutation of what is probably one of the most profitable classical recordings of all time.
Since the 1992 conference, Sony has re-released the Goldberg Variations umpteen times, each with some new bit to ensure that the real fans feel compelled to buy the latest version. This enterprise is about making money, and not about Gould, beyond the fact that the Gould brand is a very profitable one. (Just to note, I have a single copy of the 1955 recording, which I bought in 1990.)
I guess as someone who would claim Gould as a formative influence in my own musical thinking, his crass commercialization by the various entities who own his legacy bothers me, especially because it seems so very opposite to anything I've ever heard about the man.
But what do I know, really? I am just a fan.
***
From the get go, Gawain's dislike of Beethoven unnerved me.
I know he has a nice, tidy, some would even say scientific, explanation for this dislike, but it still bothers me, mainly because I can't stop listening to Beethoven. And now that I have the piano, I can't stop playing him.
And I feel I owe Gawain for having brought me towards a greater appreciation of Shostakovich, via his string quartets. So I'd like to return the favour.
Is there an essence of Beethoven that precludes one's enjoyment? Beethoven's compositional range was vast - his manipulation of motive and structure was so masterful that my jaw still drops at his inventiveness, especially within the restricted (by our standards) tonal language and forms he used. His music really still sounds modern, in a way that Mozart's or Chopin's does not.
The guy wrote so much music in so many different ways, indeed, it's part of his greatness - how does one not like any of it?
I wonder if Gawain takes Beethoven too seriously. Or, like the cult of Glenn Gould out there, the much older and insidious cult of Beethoven has coloured his thoughts. We know the story - Beethoven was serious, deaf and deeply unhappy. Yes he was, but more importantly, he was a man, a man full of spirit and humour. He is someone worth going out of one's way to get to know.
How do we cure poor Gawain of his Beethovenitis? What work of his could mark the entry point to Elysium for our tired knight?
My suggestion, after careful deliberation, is Beethoven's 18th piano sonata, Op. 31 No. 3. Gawain, get yourself a good recording of this work - try the Richter, although the light heartedness of the work should come through on any decent recording.
Or better yet, try to get a hold of Viennese-Canadian pianist Anton Kuerti's magnificent recording. His Beethoven Sonata cycle is the best modern one out there. Beethoven is a slippery creature to Kuerti, and we are richer for it. No pigeon holes here!
I think this might do the trick - and I'd stick to this period of piano sonatas until you're ready for the next step!
Enjoy!
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
This Sounds About Right
The funniest thing is the way I expound all this to my hired servant, because when you're full of a thing, you can't stop talking about it, and you keep looking for some new angle from which to show how wonderful it is.
A quote by Goethe from The Perfect House, a book by the architect Witold Rybczynski on Andrea Palladio's country villas. Good light reading for the bus - I highly recommend it.
I have not read much Goethe. Instead, I have always spent more time with his morose walking companion, Louis van, who was really a Schiller man at heart.
Nevertheless, many of my blogging chums are talking about Goethe, so I thought I'd lazily toss my hat in the ring, given this quote appears to sum up nicely the kind of community I've elected to hang around in, and it appears in a breezily written book about a subject I know nearly nothing about.
***
A quick note - BBC3's Early Music Show has an hour this week on Pietro Francesco Caletti-Bruni, better known as Franceso Cavalli, and his most famous opera, La Calisto. This has long been a favourite of mine, and it seems to me as though late 17th Centruy italian opera is really the only remaining patch of land unreclaimed by the major opera houses. Is it too much to ask the COC to do a mainstage production of these works?
Cavalli's work shows the fragmentation of form that occured after Monteverdi, setting the stage for the much maligned, little understood, and immensely popular Baroque opera we see before us. Nevertheless, there's a freedom in Cavalli, a playfulness, that I find absent in the later French and Italian works of the period. Cavalli was writing when opera was the big thing, but it was still pretty fresh.
Indeed, I wonder if the resurgence in baroque opera has something to do with its realignment with our own mass tastes - the carving apart of music, action and emotion suits us better than the pre-Freudian psychologizing of Wagner, his development of the musical practice of motivic development to dramatically represent psychological progression simply too much for us to take in all at once these days.
I can't get enough Wagner - I'm odd that way. But I can't get enough Cavalli either. Go check out the Early Music Show this week and let me know what you think of him. If you like him, then let's keep talking about him.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Faust at the Canadian Opera Company
I attended last night’s COC production of Faust by Charles Gounod. The omnipresent JohnTerauds of the Toronto Star, who appears to be the last of the classical music review dinosaurs in a major Canadian newspaper, reviewed it unfavourably.
I too was disappointed by the production, although I disagree with him about the production getting in the way – if anything, Nicholas Muni’s production was the only bright spot in an otherwise mediocre effort by the COC. Moreover, I found the balance, both within the orchestra and between the orchestra and the singers, very poor.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin got some fire out of the orchestra, especially during the use of Gounod’s ballet music for Faust as entr'actes, but even then, much of the punch was lost because the lines were not always clear.
As I mentioned, the production itself was very good, with what I would call a kind of burlesque feel, taking burlesque in its historical sense and not its current incarnation. The singers and chorus were costumed firmly in the 19th Century, but the set itself was spartan and effieciently deployed to support what is a dramatically weak opera.
Can it be that the COC still can’t do two really strong productions at the same time? Seems so, because the reviews for Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk appear to be very positive (I won’t see it until the 15th).
Let's hope I'm wrong.
***
One of the odd things about seeing Faust is the fact that it was not too long ago when Faust dominated the operatic stage. Why did it fall from favour? Why does something as awful as Tosca or Il Trovatore seem to pack them in but many other fine works are never seen again? Why was Faust so popular to begin with?
These are some of the kinds of questions that preoccupy me, and hopefully you. That is, if I can make reading about them compelling enough. I know I'm not there yet, but I'm looking forward to the task!
I too was disappointed by the production, although I disagree with him about the production getting in the way – if anything, Nicholas Muni’s production was the only bright spot in an otherwise mediocre effort by the COC. Moreover, I found the balance, both within the orchestra and between the orchestra and the singers, very poor.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin got some fire out of the orchestra, especially during the use of Gounod’s ballet music for Faust as entr'actes, but even then, much of the punch was lost because the lines were not always clear.
As I mentioned, the production itself was very good, with what I would call a kind of burlesque feel, taking burlesque in its historical sense and not its current incarnation. The singers and chorus were costumed firmly in the 19th Century, but the set itself was spartan and effieciently deployed to support what is a dramatically weak opera.
Can it be that the COC still can’t do two really strong productions at the same time? Seems so, because the reviews for Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk appear to be very positive (I won’t see it until the 15th).
Let's hope I'm wrong.
***
One of the odd things about seeing Faust is the fact that it was not too long ago when Faust dominated the operatic stage. Why did it fall from favour? Why does something as awful as Tosca or Il Trovatore seem to pack them in but many other fine works are never seen again? Why was Faust so popular to begin with?
These are some of the kinds of questions that preoccupy me, and hopefully you. That is, if I can make reading about them compelling enough. I know I'm not there yet, but I'm looking forward to the task!
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
van Karajanstein reads von Doderer - Prologue
I discovered this towering figure of Austrian modernism as I discover most things that come to interest me - entirely by happenstance.
Planning for a now cancelled trip to Vienna, I was re-reading the introduction to J. Sydney Jones' Viennawalks, a well-written, highly detailed guide to traipsing through Vienna. (Gawain, there is a Venicewalks - if it's like Viennawalks, it's worth picking up) .
While mentioning the attractions in Vienna's ninth district, he mentions the Strudlhofsteige, and in doing so, mentions "that great Austrian novelist Heimito von Doderer, something of a Viennese interwar James Joyce." lived nearby. Indeed, he wrote a novel entitled Die Strudlhofsteige.
An Austrian interwar James Joyce? Jonesy, you had me at Heimito.
***
I shall refer you, dear reader, to this for the details of Heimito von Doderer's life. Better yet, like most Austro-Germanic figures of even minor renown, he has his own society, from whose site you can download some of his short stories.
But I'm not here to read his short stories. Nein nein, nein nein - I'm here to read The Demons, Doderer's epic tome, which beats the blind pervert's Ulysses in a page count by a solid 396 leaves. It's all about size.
Why am I doing this? Well, "Why does anyone blog at all?", I answer.
If nothing else, I'm hoping that I finish the book, and perhaps along the way make a minor contribution to raising Doderer's profile. And by trying something off the beaten track, I'm able to take some liberties that reading Finnegans Wake or À la recherche du temps perdu wouldn't allow.
In other words, no one's going to try to write a term paper off the potentially facile hack job I'm about to perform. And that my friends, is reason enough.
Planning for a now cancelled trip to Vienna, I was re-reading the introduction to J. Sydney Jones' Viennawalks, a well-written, highly detailed guide to traipsing through Vienna. (Gawain, there is a Venicewalks - if it's like Viennawalks, it's worth picking up) .
While mentioning the attractions in Vienna's ninth district, he mentions the Strudlhofsteige, and in doing so, mentions "that great Austrian novelist Heimito von Doderer, something of a Viennese interwar James Joyce." lived nearby. Indeed, he wrote a novel entitled Die Strudlhofsteige.
An Austrian interwar James Joyce? Jonesy, you had me at Heimito.
***
I shall refer you, dear reader, to this for the details of Heimito von Doderer's life. Better yet, like most Austro-Germanic figures of even minor renown, he has his own society, from whose site you can download some of his short stories.
But I'm not here to read his short stories. Nein nein, nein nein - I'm here to read The Demons, Doderer's epic tome, which beats the blind pervert's Ulysses in a page count by a solid 396 leaves. It's all about size.
Why am I doing this? Well, "Why does anyone blog at all?", I answer.
If nothing else, I'm hoping that I finish the book, and perhaps along the way make a minor contribution to raising Doderer's profile. And by trying something off the beaten track, I'm able to take some liberties that reading Finnegans Wake or À la recherche du temps perdu wouldn't allow.
In other words, no one's going to try to write a term paper off the potentially facile hack job I'm about to perform. And that my friends, is reason enough.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Why the Transcontinental?
A number of reasons. The other blogs went off the rails fairly quickly, but I'm hoping this one will make it.
So, why the Transcontinental?
I'm hoping to evoke the gentle spirit of the late playwright and broadcaster Otto Lowy, host of the well-loved CBC Radio series of the same name. We can rest assured that CBC will never broadcast a show like it again.
Every week he told us stories from Mitteleuropa - mainly his native Austria, through which he evoked the Austo-Hungarian Empire in all its decadent glory.
This is what I shall humbly attempt to do. And as we are just beginning this journey, I shall say little else.
So, why the Transcontinental?
I'm hoping to evoke the gentle spirit of the late playwright and broadcaster Otto Lowy, host of the well-loved CBC Radio series of the same name. We can rest assured that CBC will never broadcast a show like it again.
Every week he told us stories from Mitteleuropa - mainly his native Austria, through which he evoked the Austo-Hungarian Empire in all its decadent glory.
This is what I shall humbly attempt to do. And as we are just beginning this journey, I shall say little else.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
The Next Nail in CBC Radio Two's Coffin
CBC has decided to completely abandon any pretense of cultural sophistication and will turn my once beloved CBC Radio Two into an adult contemporary station.
From the CBC press release, er, I mean, "CBC News":
Their audience is mainly older people - so freaking what? Given Canada's population is aging, wouldn't this be a plus? And trying to attract younger listeners? Uh, this is what CBC has been doing to Radio Two for 15 years. It hasn't worked. It won't work.
CBC Radio Two will never have the broad appeal of popular music rad- hey, wait, according to the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement ratings report, CBC Radio Two's ratings are up! More people are listening to the opera than ever before!!
Over on the official CBC blog, younger people are voicing their displeasure at the realisation that those 20 somethings who wish to rise a bit above the mass produced confections of the corporate music industry are to be shut out of CBC Radio Two's search for a "younger" demographic.
Why? Because the really great things Radio Two had going in terms of building a younger audience, via Radio 3 and Brave New Waves, well, guess what? They're moving them to satellite radio!! Hey, way to make things more accessible, CBC.
Let's face it. The CBC execs don't appear to be able to look past their front door and recognize that courting the Classical 96.3 audience (Toronto's private classical music station) isn't really in the um, national interest of the nation's public broadcaster. I think this is a big part of what's motivating this shift, and that's really, really depressing.
And why this (30-40 year old) demographic? Why them? What makes this group the target audience for your station? Why not target children?
I guess we'll see how it goes, but if it's anything like the change to Radio Canada's Espace Musique, it will be a big disappointment.
At least there's still Espace 2 and BBC Radio 3...
From the CBC press release, er, I mean, "CBC News":
"While the revamped Radio Two will retain classical music at its core, there is a plan to expand its playlist — and, the network hopes, attract slightly younger listeners — with more jazz and contemporary music. Boosting the service's Canadian content by about 20 per cent is also a priority...
"More than half of the current Radio Two audience is over 65, said Jane
Chalmers, the vice-president of CBC English Radio."
Their audience is mainly older people - so freaking what? Given Canada's population is aging, wouldn't this be a plus? And trying to attract younger listeners? Uh, this is what CBC has been doing to Radio Two for 15 years. It hasn't worked. It won't work.
CBC Radio Two will never have the broad appeal of popular music rad- hey, wait, according to the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement ratings report, CBC Radio Two's ratings are up! More people are listening to the opera than ever before!!
Over on the official CBC blog, younger people are voicing their displeasure at the realisation that those 20 somethings who wish to rise a bit above the mass produced confections of the corporate music industry are to be shut out of CBC Radio Two's search for a "younger" demographic.
Why? Because the really great things Radio Two had going in terms of building a younger audience, via Radio 3 and Brave New Waves, well, guess what? They're moving them to satellite radio!! Hey, way to make things more accessible, CBC.
Let's face it. The CBC execs don't appear to be able to look past their front door and recognize that courting the Classical 96.3 audience (Toronto's private classical music station) isn't really in the um, national interest of the nation's public broadcaster. I think this is a big part of what's motivating this shift, and that's really, really depressing.
And why this (30-40 year old) demographic? Why them? What makes this group the target audience for your station? Why not target children?
I guess we'll see how it goes, but if it's anything like the change to Radio Canada's Espace Musique, it will be a big disappointment.
At least there's still Espace 2 and BBC Radio 3...
Friday, December 29, 2006
The Metropolitan Opera at the Movies
This really has been a wonderful year for the opera lover.
To cap it off, tomorrow, theatres across Canada (and the UK, the USA, Norway, Denmark and Japan) will be presenting a live, Saturday afternoon at the opera (in the theatre!) broadcast of Mozart's The Magic Flute, from the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
According to Alex Ross of the New Yorker, many theatres have already sold out in the US ( tickets are still available at the Paramount in Toronto!). Unfortunately, it seems that the Maritimes and Newfoundland have been completely shut out of this (perhaps owing to their theatres not having the technology), but west of New Brunswick, 28 theatres will be showing Julie Taymor's production of this Mozart masterpiece.
If you read this page often, you'll know that I'm a firm optimist when it comes to believing that there are a whole bunch of people out there who would like to go to an opera, but for a variety of reasons, can't. I can't think of a better opera to go to for the first time than the Magic Flute. This is your chance!
And one could argue that watching it live at a cineplex isn't the same thing as really going to the opera, but who cares? It's the Met Opera in Ste Foy and Victoria all at the same time, a kind of giant touring production. To boot, your seats to the opera come with cup holders!
Snap up those tickets! And remember, there will be five more operas after this one. Next up will be Bellini's I Puritani with Anna Netrebko.
Go ahead gentlemen, click on the link, and wonder why watching hockey is manly and wathcing opera is for sissys. Look what you've been missing! Shameless, I know, but this is opera we're talking about, not hockey or politics.
By the way, would anyone mind looking to see if this has been publicized at all in their area? I've checked a number of Canadian locations and there are still tickets available. Has the media picked up on this at all? I find nothing in the Toronto Star nor the Globe and Mail.
Just curious, so that if they pull the plug in Canada due to low ticket sales, and it's taken as a sign that no one wants to go to the opera, I can point out the fact that the major newspapers couldn't squeeze a Paris Hilton story out of the entertainment section for this.
***
And Richard Bradshaw, take note. Now that the opera house is done, and everyone here in the arts media loves you, why not capitalize on this and do a production next year of Harry Somer's Louis Riel for its 30th anniversary and broadcast it live across Canada via the theatres?
And your excuse that it should be a national co-production doesn't wash, and I have only two words in response to it - Calgary Opera. More on that later.
Happy Holidays and have a wonderful New Year!
To cap it off, tomorrow, theatres across Canada (and the UK, the USA, Norway, Denmark and Japan) will be presenting a live, Saturday afternoon at the opera (in the theatre!) broadcast of Mozart's The Magic Flute, from the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
According to Alex Ross of the New Yorker, many theatres have already sold out in the US ( tickets are still available at the Paramount in Toronto!). Unfortunately, it seems that the Maritimes and Newfoundland have been completely shut out of this (perhaps owing to their theatres not having the technology), but west of New Brunswick, 28 theatres will be showing Julie Taymor's production of this Mozart masterpiece.
If you read this page often, you'll know that I'm a firm optimist when it comes to believing that there are a whole bunch of people out there who would like to go to an opera, but for a variety of reasons, can't. I can't think of a better opera to go to for the first time than the Magic Flute. This is your chance!
And one could argue that watching it live at a cineplex isn't the same thing as really going to the opera, but who cares? It's the Met Opera in Ste Foy and Victoria all at the same time, a kind of giant touring production. To boot, your seats to the opera come with cup holders!
Snap up those tickets! And remember, there will be five more operas after this one. Next up will be Bellini's I Puritani with Anna Netrebko.
Go ahead gentlemen, click on the link, and wonder why watching hockey is manly and wathcing opera is for sissys. Look what you've been missing! Shameless, I know, but this is opera we're talking about, not hockey or politics.
By the way, would anyone mind looking to see if this has been publicized at all in their area? I've checked a number of Canadian locations and there are still tickets available. Has the media picked up on this at all? I find nothing in the Toronto Star nor the Globe and Mail.
Just curious, so that if they pull the plug in Canada due to low ticket sales, and it's taken as a sign that no one wants to go to the opera, I can point out the fact that the major newspapers couldn't squeeze a Paris Hilton story out of the entertainment section for this.
***
And Richard Bradshaw, take note. Now that the opera house is done, and everyone here in the arts media loves you, why not capitalize on this and do a production next year of Harry Somer's Louis Riel for its 30th anniversary and broadcast it live across Canada via the theatres?
And your excuse that it should be a national co-production doesn't wash, and I have only two words in response to it - Calgary Opera. More on that later.
Happy Holidays and have a wonderful New Year!
Thursday, November 30, 2006
The Problem of Shostakovich
I decided recently I was going to see what all the fuss was about, and immerse myself in the works of Dmitri Shostakovich.
If you don't already know by now but Shostakovich would have been 100 this year. His music has been everywhere, and most major orchestras, opera companies, radio stations and record companies have done something to commemorate this.
There is a strange quality to all of this. For years, the classical music industry, ever valorizing the glorious past, has taken to commemorating every kind of birth or death anniversary of our pantheon of great composers, usually singling out one in particular for special treatment, usually in the form of a boxed set of recordings with a woodcut or bronze of the composer's visage.
Most of us realise this is kind of absurd - is the 150th anniversary of Schumann's death less important than Shostakovich's 100th birthday, given their both quite dead? Nonetheless, as a way of focussing the mind, and the pocketbook, it's probably not a bad strategy, and it certainly makes the planning of orchestra seasons and recording sessions easier.
***
So, what about Shostakovich? I listened to his symphonies, his string quartets, his jazz suites, is piano concertos and some of his music for solo piano (all courtesy of the Naxos Music Library), so I feel I got a good sense of the man and his work. I had heard much of this before, I'd just never really paid attention.
Truth be told, I don't know what to make of him. I enjoyed the 15th symphony and 1st piano concerto, and I found the jazz suites a delightful surprise. The string quartets seem, to my ear, to be as close to Beethoven's accomplishment as anything can or will be - they are works of intense power.
Here's the problem. I cannot separate Shostakovich from his political environment. Indeed, I'm not sure anyone can.
When I listen to the 7th symphony, and find it wanting, my old musicology teacher whispers "Stalin" into my mind's ear and it acts as a balm for the aesthetic aches Shostakovich arouses in me.
Do we grant Shostakovich his greatness because of Stalin or despite him? It's hard to say, but the incessant repetition of his works, coupled with constant reminders of STALIN, over the past year has dulled my ability to think clearly about him. Indeed, some very skillful and prominent classical music bloggers have felt the same way about this, although they have more of a handle on the aesthetic issues than I do.
That I seemed to enjoy what would be considered some of his lighter works strikes me as telling - is this the real Shostakovich, the one unencumbered by Stalinism. Was his seriousness unnatural?
I just don't know what to think of him now. So that's where I will have to leave it until later. The COC performs Lady Macbeth in a few months, and I'll update my thoughts then.
If you don't already know by now but Shostakovich would have been 100 this year. His music has been everywhere, and most major orchestras, opera companies, radio stations and record companies have done something to commemorate this.
There is a strange quality to all of this. For years, the classical music industry, ever valorizing the glorious past, has taken to commemorating every kind of birth or death anniversary of our pantheon of great composers, usually singling out one in particular for special treatment, usually in the form of a boxed set of recordings with a woodcut or bronze of the composer's visage.
Most of us realise this is kind of absurd - is the 150th anniversary of Schumann's death less important than Shostakovich's 100th birthday, given their both quite dead? Nonetheless, as a way of focussing the mind, and the pocketbook, it's probably not a bad strategy, and it certainly makes the planning of orchestra seasons and recording sessions easier.
***
So, what about Shostakovich? I listened to his symphonies, his string quartets, his jazz suites, is piano concertos and some of his music for solo piano (all courtesy of the Naxos Music Library), so I feel I got a good sense of the man and his work. I had heard much of this before, I'd just never really paid attention.
Truth be told, I don't know what to make of him. I enjoyed the 15th symphony and 1st piano concerto, and I found the jazz suites a delightful surprise. The string quartets seem, to my ear, to be as close to Beethoven's accomplishment as anything can or will be - they are works of intense power.
Here's the problem. I cannot separate Shostakovich from his political environment. Indeed, I'm not sure anyone can.
When I listen to the 7th symphony, and find it wanting, my old musicology teacher whispers "Stalin" into my mind's ear and it acts as a balm for the aesthetic aches Shostakovich arouses in me.
Do we grant Shostakovich his greatness because of Stalin or despite him? It's hard to say, but the incessant repetition of his works, coupled with constant reminders of STALIN, over the past year has dulled my ability to think clearly about him. Indeed, some very skillful and prominent classical music bloggers have felt the same way about this, although they have more of a handle on the aesthetic issues than I do.
That I seemed to enjoy what would be considered some of his lighter works strikes me as telling - is this the real Shostakovich, the one unencumbered by Stalinism. Was his seriousness unnatural?
I just don't know what to think of him now. So that's where I will have to leave it until later. The COC performs Lady Macbeth in a few months, and I'll update my thoughts then.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Shostakovich at 100
Never one to be on top of a trend, I have largely ignored, missed, or marked with disinterest the celebrations surrounding the commemoration of what would have been Dmitri Shostakovich's 100th birthday.
Why? No particular reason.
Classical music is a big pond, and I've never really bonded with him. So to rectify that, I've been listening to all of his symphonies via my good pals at the Naxos Music Library. I listened to 1-6 yesterday, and I'm hoping to polish them off by tonight.
Coincidentally, CBC happens to be putting on a little Shostakovich celebration of their own this month, and have a site up. Check it out.
However, Leningrad awaits. More thoughts to come!
Why? No particular reason.
Classical music is a big pond, and I've never really bonded with him. So to rectify that, I've been listening to all of his symphonies via my good pals at the Naxos Music Library. I listened to 1-6 yesterday, and I'm hoping to polish them off by tonight.
Coincidentally, CBC happens to be putting on a little Shostakovich celebration of their own this month, and have a site up. Check it out.
However, Leningrad awaits. More thoughts to come!
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