Post recording industry

It's time to ask the question: What will a post-recording industry world be like? There is collapse all around, not merely in classical music which has been collapsing for decades. We should all try to remind ourselves that most if not possibly all of the great music that was created in western society was created pre-recording industry. It is possible that it is the recording industry itself that has created our world, a world in which ancient monuments recreated ad nauseum and modern crap are all we get to hear.

What if music weren't merely produced, but was instead created?

There isn't really much room for comfort, I'm afraid. It is proposed to replace the recording industry with endlessly repeating arena concerts. Much as I might wish it, it is doubtful that this bodes well for creativity. When Bryn Terfel proposed reorganizing his career in this way, I gave him shit for it. I repeat my previous proposal: if that's where they are going, we should boycott. Vow today never to attend an arena concert. In my case I would have to vow not to buy the DVD either.

I think the recording industry is looking in the wrong places to find where its problems lie. I think they should consider the possibility that the problem lies in the product and not the distribution methods. And other hand wringing.

Wait. We aren't to consider Cecilia Bartoli's concerts in the arena concert category, are we? I can't vow not to go to those. She generally appears in normal classical concert venues.

My boy

What should I say about Jonas Kaufmann's Romantic Arias? I love it as much as I hoped I would. The rendition of the Prize Song is very unusual.

I am able to see both sides of the controversy concerning Jonas. For me he is the real thing--an artist of great gifts and great originality. The chief attraction for me is the amazing beauty of his voice. I simply adore it.

His style is also fascinating to me. At various times on this blog I have encouraged performers to find their own way to expression, their own personal approach to the tools of expression. For my ears Jonas does this. He isn't doing mere imitations of other singers. He doesn't scoop and slide as much as a real Italian would in Italian repertoire, but does that mean he should? He projects as a German singer in all repertoire, one of the reasons I predicted he would evolve gradually into a Heldentenor. Expression must come from the heart and not be imposed from the outside from the performances of other singers. IMHO.

I hear true feeing in his voice. He successfully makes me hear the music again.
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Solti's Ring

Ever since I posted this as a review of Life and Death, I have wondered how it could be that a recording of Wagner's Ring, even one by so great a conductor as Georg Solti, could possibly sell so many records, 25 million as I recall. Perhaps they are counting each disk one at a time. Even if you buy it now on CD, it's 14 discs. Maybe one purchase counts as 14.

It's a great recording. Where else could you hear Kirsten Flagstad and Birgit Nilsson on the same recording? And Hans Hotter as Wotan. And James King. And Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. And Christa Ludwig. And Regine Crespin? Have we missed anyone? Even the Rhine maidens include Lucia Popp and Gwyneth Jones.

One of the Amazon comments notes that it has been released in various media, so maybe the number is real. It's just hard to believe.
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All I have to show for trip

...is this sort of funny movie.

This is the first time I've tried this.

This refers to my quasi-trip to Cleveland to see Jonas Kaufmann, discussed here.  There was a bad storm in Cleveland, the airport was closed and the concert was cancelled.  At least I didn't miss anything.  The price of my concert ticket was refunded.

Zurich Der Rosenkavalier

I am comforting myself with this DVD of Der Rosenkavalier from the Zurich Opera.

The second act is completely incongruous. We are expected to believe that Herr von Faninal is so completely middle class that he entertains the Count Rofrano and the Baron Ochs in his kitchen. No one is that middle class. And von Faninal uses the kitchen appliances? How are we possibly to believe this? Octavian stabs the Baron with a kitchen knife.

At the inn in the third act Octavian and the Baron sway back and forth in time to the waltz music. This Rosenkavalier is a fairy tale of no particular time and place.

The best bit in this whole production comes when the plot is unraveling and Sophie sees the relationship between Octavian and the Marschallin, she unselfconsciously walks over and puts her hand on the Baron's shoulder.

I have long suspected that I needed to see Vesselina Kasarova as Octavian. I could not have been more right. It is her masterpiece. She dominates the action as no one I have seen before. And I've seen a few of these.

Each actor is bringing us new insights. The unusual production makes this possible. Rosenkavalier is almost always choreographed with extreme precision according to ancient tradition, but not here. Without violating the meaning of the piece, each scene is not what we are used to. For instance, I have never seen it begin with the Marschallin and Octavian already out of bed.

Our Marschallin is not so brave. In moments of crisis she faints. Nina Stemme is not the best singing Marschallin I've seen, but she is the most tragic and emotional. She does not quite believe how well she has predicted this day. Today or tomorrow or the next day.... In the action she actively blesses the union of Octavian and Sophie, something I have never seen before.

Malin Hartelius is perfect for Sophie, serious and only a little bit arrogant. When she finally marries, it will be as a grown woman with her eyes open.

How can I possibly describe the Ochs of Alfred Muff? If he were not precisely this big a pig, we would surely love him. Life moves only forward. Sophie knows that she may have made a mistake. (There is no way I could possibly have gotten to Cleveland.) She pulls herself together for the happy ending, and briefly we hear the theme for "when was I ever this happy" from the presentation scene. When she sings "It's a dream, can't be real," we somehow know that she is right.

The magic flows together at the end, as indeed it must for a truly successful Rosenkavalier. When it comes time to wail, they do. If you can bear the unusual bits, it is a truly beautiful Rosenkavalier.
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Cleveland

Or not Cleveland. To Cleveland or not to Cleveland? That is the question. The Cleveland airport was closed. So I sat in O'Hare and got drunk and ate Caesar salad and talked to a very nice man from Austria. I tried out my German which is still remarkably good. And came home.

I'm not very lucky. I was going to Cleveland to see Jonas Kaufmann sing Das Lied von der Erde, a piece of which I am quite fond. I was even going to forgive them for casting a baritone instead of a mezzo. Sigh.

John Cage

For those nostalgic about John Cage we reference this.

Rolando

This is an important interview with Rolando Villazon about his vocal crisis.

The Voice of Now

I attended a Cal Performances concert last night at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley that featured three pieces performed by Orquesta Los Pelegrinos, orchestra of pilgrims, one with Dawn Upshaw. All three were fascinating, probably in ascending order. Ms Upshaw and the orchestra are touring these pieces around the country.

All three works involve electronic music in one form or another. The audience experienced the electronics through the auditorium's sound system, but the musicians were aided by speakers that pointed back toward them. Clearly we are in the realm of today.

There are unusual features galore. The first two works featured a prepared Steinway grand piano, an idea invented / popularized by John Cage that involves making physical changes to the piano that alters the sound. In Meanwhile the sound was muffled by padding the hammers. The prepared piano in the second piece was a more traditional mixture of distorted sounds and strumming on the strings. Imagine--John Cage now represents a tradition. This is a sign that one has lived too long. The player was a young woman named Lisa Kaplan who came attired in jeans, a black blouse and high heel boots.

First is Meanwhile (2007) by Stephen Hartke.

Is there anything else I can say about Meanwhile besides that it used prepared piano? The piece is described as incidental music to imaginary puppet plays. Imagine any play you like. The viola is tuned a half step lower than normal.

Percussion is vital to this sound scape work. The flautist and clarinetist eventually turned into percussionists by the end. The percussion ensemble included a lot of wood tones and an invented electronic instrument. The sound ideal seems derived from gamelan. It was fun.

Second is Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale, 1971) by George Crumb.

Have you heard whale songs? Judy Collins once had a song that included them. They are eerie and mysterious. When you were listening to them, did you imagine these sounds could be produced by electronic flute, cello and prepared piano? In the presentation of the theme the flautist, Timothy Munro, played and sang through his flute to produce some pretty bizarre sounds. The tunes clearly come from the whales themselves, but it is the phrasing that makes you actually feel whale songs. I would not have thought this possible. There were no recordings of whales included in the performance.

This piece was played with the lights dimmed and the players blindfolded. One is to imagine oneself deep in the ocean. They walked off with their blindfolds still on, though I think the pianist may have been cheating. The masks and dim lighting are suggested by the composer. Nothing is said about any possible role for extemporization, so I assume they memorized their parts.

The most curious sentence in the program says that "George Crumb is one of the most famous composers of out time." I am even more out of the loop than I thought.

Last is Ayre (2004) by Osvaldo Golijov.

If they'd said Osvaldo Golijov is one of the most famous composers of our time, I would have believed it.

The orchestra expands to eleven players, including Jeremy Flower on laptop computer who adds recorded elements when they become necessary. This is a very tricky job which he pulled off expertly. His part included Dawn Upshaw singing with herself. Percussion is also vital to Ayre, and it is curious that the percussionist hid on the floor behind the double-bass player. Was this to prevent us from knowing how much of the rhythm came from him and how much came from the laptop?

Ayre is deeply middle-eastern, fundamentally monophonic with several players providing the same melody, rather like Turkish music with a much more high tempo, driving rhythm. In my CD review of this piece I compared it to Klezmer, and this still feels right.

It was wonderful to see and hear Dawn Upshaw. She stands in the middle and leads her ensemble in a way that can only remind one of La Bartoli. I'm glad she figured out a way to present this cycle to the public. It's very exciting. It is her ability to immerse herself in the style that makes this work. All is done without compromising classical vocal technique. Best wishes.

I'm going on and on. And I haven't said anything about the hyper-accordion. The entire concert was completely fascinating. I have a feeling that this is what passes as classical music in the twenty-first century. There are apparent connections to whales, klezmer and gamelan, but connections to classical music as we know it were not there.

Bitter, disappointed old women

On the back page of the March Opera News is an essay titled “The Jury is Out” in which the author, Brian Kellow, explains why he no longer wants to serve as a judge for singing competitions. He cites in particular an unnamed fellow judge who once criticized Renée Fleming’s Italian R. Renée is now referred to as “Your Miss Fleming” by the other judges.

I am taking this personally. It seems an essay about bitter, disappointed old women, something I sometimes wonder I might be. I definitely think it is what Cecilia decided I was. When I criticized Bryn, his partisans quickly leaped to that conclusion. [I was criticizing his career plans, not his voice or performance standards.] There can be no disputing the old part or the woman part.

It's true I criticize people and suggest they should do various things. My intentions are that they should improve and do better. If Renée Fleming's Italian R stank, I would probably suggest she acquire one, exactly like the bitter old woman in the essay. The intent would be that she then acquired a proper Italian R and was the better for it (I note on YouTube that Renée's Italian R is fine now). The intention would not be that she should then feel humiliated and cry. If you feel intensely humiliated any time anyone criticizes you--as I myself often did--you are probably not cut out for the tough world of the opera. My first bit of advice would be to get tougher.

After a great deal of miserable, hateful, deeply loathed auditioning, I came to resent the fact that no one told me the truth. A lot of time was wasted trying to do something for which I was not suited. No one told me this. If your Italian R stinks, why isn't it better to know? If your voice is too light for opera, why isn't it better to know?

I am probably much more guilty of the things he criticizes than the woman he is attacking. After all, I wrote an entire 300 page book criticizing the worshiped and adored Italian singer. When I look back at my technique book, I don't see bitterness or even arrogance. I was genuinely surprised by how much I knew about singing. The pages just flowed out. My intentions were honorable, though in certain respects misguided. Or possibly insane. Humiliation was not the goal. In fact it was the very real possibility of humiliation that made me return it to its box in the closet. In the end I didn't publish it, and she didn't read it. It was pointless.

As one grows older, possibilities begin to close. Choices that were made earlier are called into question. If one regrets ones choices, bitterness can be the result. I blog because there is a lot of information in my head about music, information I would like to put to use. Music is what I was trained to do. I had virtually no training at all for systems analysis.

I always look back to see how much I might have been helped by honesty. If people love you, they don't hesitate to tell you. If they think you lack certain essential gifts, they gossip about it amongst themselves while smiling woodenly at you. Yes, I probably would have cried.

I advised Yvonne Kenny to pitch her pop songs higher. I advised Thomas Glenn to work on his coloratura technique. I advised Cecilia Bartoli to practice the messa di voce. I advised Measha Brueggergosman to look for the passion in French as she so easily found it in English. I advised Tracie Luck to "Reach into my heart and give it a little squeeze." I advised Rolando Villazon that he was a lyric tenor. I hope I didn't send any of them into a crying jag. I worry that I might advise someone to do something they actually shouldn't do.

I honestly don't know if I am a bitter, disappointed old woman. I hope not.