The Muse Research 2U device announced in 2010 provides a workable alternative to what, for some, is a sometimes unreliable, cumbersome laptop-based host for virtual instruments. Fast forward to NAMM 2011, and the company has announced the Receptor 2+, featuring more of the same -- but a faster processor, more storage, more RAM.
Having completed a live performance requiring two computers in January myself, it's obvious that conventional workarounds aren't ideal for musicians, stage crew or computers. And what about video?
It's old news now, but after announcing in 2009 that the only national poetry festival would be cancelled, the organizers of the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival have found a way to stage a 2010 event. On sale August 16, ticket holders will convene in storied Newark, New Jersey's largest and, some might say, most notorious city. Evening programs will be held at the NJPAC Prudential Hall, which is, as the Foundation writes, "a world-class performance space" very different from the rural/suburban tent venues of years past.
The Dodge Poetry Festival is only held every other year, and the 2010 Festival takes place October 7-10.
Sadly, film critic Roger Ebert is now an off-air personality as are most critics, and even the passable sequel of the much loved Siskel & Ebert, the aspirationally named Ebert & Roeper went off the air in 2008. A new incarnation of the franchise is planned for the fall (featuring A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips) , but Ebert has continued -- perhaps elevated -- the quality of his critical writing during this period. In a profession where the pressure is great for a minimalist binary sound bite -- i.e., a thumbs up or down, or at the least, a hurried Friday or Saturday night filmgoer skim -- Ebert instead follows a high-minded, albeit brisk critical tradition. An excerpt from his recent discussion of writer-director Hirokazu Kore-Eda's Still Walking is not atypical. Sometimes his writing rises to the "pillow words" (or Makurakotoba) standard to which he refers here, and these well articulated affinities draw me closer to him than shared views of this or that film:
None of these films elevate the temperature with melodrama. They draw us inward with concern. Kore-Eda is a tender humanist, and that fits well with his elegant visual style. In "Still Walking," he shares something valuable with Ozu: What I call Ozu's "pillow shots," named after the "pillow words" in Japanese poetry, which separate passages with just a word of two, seemingly unconnected, for a pause in the rhythm. These shots may show passing trains (a favorite of both directors), or a detail of architecture or landscape. It isn't their subject that matters, it's their composure.
My weekend subscription to the New York Times is an outlier in what is a staid and predictable week by week routine. Mining the weekend Books section for words, phrases and advertisements (and sometimes books) can consume hours, or, as the unread Book Review sections pile up in the attic, hours of longing glances.
Today's experience disappointed. At the same time that NYT has raised prices for the weekend edition, the content volume has declined. And yes, the quantity of advertising inserts -- usually so voluminous that it's necessary to open the (unrecycleable?) bag-wrapped newspaper over the recycle bin, typified perhaps by glossy Epson, Canon or Nikon brochures along with color Best Buy and Target promotions --has also decreased.
In a certain way of thinking, this fate puts pressure on the remaining content to raise to a higher quality. Call it a less-must-be-more squeeze. This hasn't directly affected the Book Review section, but, perhaps coincidentally, the Book Review section is also weaker today. The advertisements seemed more compelling (see ads for Eva Hoffman's Apassionata, P. Miller's Human Landscapes, and, it must be admitted, one most likely to summon a tongue-lashing from Garrison Keeler, an ad for the Sewanee Writers' Conference).
The week's most memorable review, by the way, is by Robert Pinsky's take on Elmore Leonard'sRoad Dogs, though it did not tempt me to commit reading the book. Here's my weekend ore:
Having characters think about fine details of speech before engaging in sex or violence isn't merely a prank or indulgence. In a story about trust and betray, the hper-intense attention to nuances of dialogue not only fits: it's a matter of survival.
This post is for Tom Tucker. Tom was a high school cohort and friend (cousin of my sweetheart at the time, but that post would be much harder to write), and excellent French horn player. The high school orchestra that was definitely a cut above the rest. We tackled difficult pieces (I'll never forget sight reading the first violin part for Brahms' Academic Festival Overture). In retrospect, such challenges and the exhilaration of feeling we occasionally glimpsed the greatness of the masters, were the highlight of those troubled years.
On Kurt Anderson's Studio 360 this week, WNYC returned to the subject of Jasper Rees' A Devil to Play: One Man's Year-Long Quest to Master the Orchestra's Most Difficult Instrument. In finding one's way through the perils of competence-seeking, those of us with modest plodding talent needed help -- unique ways of seeing the challenges. One method entails ordering instruments from the most to the least difficult. At the time, I was certain that violin was at the top of that list. Just look at this Paganini piece, I'd say. There was animated argument over this; the orchestra's oboeist Larry made a convincing case for that instrument.
Years later when I confidently suggested trumpet to my youngest son, I learned the hard way -- accompanying him to every lesson -- that trumpet was "up there" somewhere, despite our first trumpet Dean Wallraff's making it look easy years before, when he played the solo trumpet parts from Bizet's L'Arlésienne suite. I thought clarinet to be easier at the time, but John Snavely would be the first to say otherwise.
Even host Kurt Anderson reported trying to switch to French horn from trumpet and finding that difficult, a transition that Rees confirms both in the interview and book.
Tom went on to considerable success playing in top ensembles in Los Angeles and elsewhere before moving east. When I saw him last year, he rued the fact that he had not been mentored, or had not been lucky enough, to break through to the very top (i.e., the L.A. Phil). I was sympathetic, but, in truth, much more interested in what it was like to play in the brass section for the beginning of Janacek's Sinfonietta. I am probably one of a few people on the planet who has attempted to use a snip of the introduction as a ring tone. Which was my way of saying that I had become disenchanted with the notion of overcoming instrument difficulty as a measure of success. Even a mediocre composer can make any instrument into a monster of unplayability through tempo, register switches, range, selection of key.
Rees' treatise on this subject, which rightly should merit only a short essay in the New Yorker rather than than a book length project, is a reminder that Tom's (pictured here in the early 70's) achievements are not to be so easily overlooked.
WNYC aired an episode of NPR's "Mad About Music," featuring selections made by Ioan Holender, current director of the Vienna State Opera. One of his selections is also one of my favorites. I first heard it on the defunct British magazine-CD periodical, Classic CD, which introduced me to many works I would never have otherwise heard.
Wolfgang Korngold Die tote Stadt “Glück, das mir verblieb”. English Chamber Orchestra. Jeffrey Tate. Renée Fleming (Marietta). Decca B0001024-02.
Ioan Holender quotes musicologist Marcel Prawy as having said, “’Glück, das mir verblieb’ from Die tote Stadt is the last composed melody in our time.”
Gilbert Kaplan is the amateur conductor / Mahler specialist who has been the recipient of some complaints from perfectionists among the professionals he has conducted. In this episode of Mad About Music, Holender selects the Mahler Symphony No. 5 “Adagietto”, and we hear an excerpt of Kaplan's competent-enough version (London Symphony Orchestra. Gilbert Kaplan. Pickwick GKS 1001).
Terrance McNight of WNYC asked about the difficulty of the Tchaikovsky Vln concerto, a piece Terrance reckoned to be a bit outside his typical Evening Music repertoire. (Ah, but it’s all about juxtaposition in the program, which tonight Terrance had just right). Apart from the unmusical cadenzas, I love the piece. Tchaikovsky’s incredible gift for melody is on display right from the start. But as a young violinist, when I first saw the sheet music it pretty much confirmed an opinion that was already taking shape — and 40 years later, I still hold that belief. Namely, that, unlike the piano repertoire, which has very good music written for mid-level competencies, the best violin music is difficult and beyond what most players can aspire to. Count among these concerti the Brahms, Bruch, Mendelssohn, Bartok, or even the Barber (last movement http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQroKkaBBmc). Sadly, it’s an instrument of considerable difficulty for which the payoff seems in perpetual moto [sic] / out of reach — save for the most gifted among us. Complaining aside, take that as a challenge to composers everywhere.
Speaking of which, I was reminded, on listening to the aforementioned Ann Akiko Meyers' performance of the Barber Violin Concerto Presto in moto, how a small but perfect execution of technique can make all the difference. Her bowing technique is perfect at 1:38 min into the performance, pulling a timbral lever that couldn't be better performed by an audio technician or a rack of effects pedals.
Ritchie Blackmor's solo in "River Deep, Mountain High"
Strauss, R. Four Last Songs
Stravinsky Firebird Suite
Stravinsky Rite of Spring
About
"I turned as I neared a bend in the coast and saw him toss another star, skimming it skillfully far out over the ravening and tumultuous water. For a moment, in the changing light, the sower appeared magnified, as though casting larger stars upon some greater sea. He had, at any rate, the posture of a god." - Loren Eisley in The Star Thrower
