Category: Music

I’ve been sampling the Bach box and I pronounce it worth buying.  Compared to the available full-price recordings, I give it a 7 out of 10 and that is for 65 cents per disc.  The sound is generally quite good, the performances of the chamber music are excellent, the harpischord occasionally stale (I prefer Bach on piano), the masses and passions are above average, and most of the cantatas are "good enough."  It won’t displace my very favorite Bach recordings, but these make good second choices pretty much across the board.  To be frank, even among experienced classical music listeners, no more than one person in ten can tell the difference and yes that means you.

Yesterday Jane Galt asked "how much music is enough."  Ha!  But two days earlier, after receiving the new Amon Tobin CD, I vowed not to buy another CD for an entire year.  It’s not a question of money, rather I am looking for a new listening experience.

Let’s see how long I last, I’ll let you all know when I snap.

The complete Bach, 155 discs, the reviews I’ve read are quite positive on the recordings.  I’m ordering my set tonight.  Don’t neglect the English Suite in A minor, or the Cantata "Wachtet auf, ruft uns die Stimme."

The riveting music story of the moment is the Joyce Hatto hoax. Gramophone…has revealed that several recordings attributed to the late, cultishly admired British pianist are identical to discs previously issued on other labels – including, remarkably, Yefim Bronfman and Esa-Pekka Salonen’s well-regarded 1990 recording of the Rachmaninov Third Piano Concerto.  The Gracenote database on iTunes exposed the fraud.  The possibility arises that many or most of Hatto’s hundred-odd releases on her husband’s Concert Artist label are stolen property.  Not having heard any Hatto discs, I can’t begin to judge what’s real and what’s not, but it’s a safe guess that anything conducted by the elusive René Köhler (scroll down this page for Concert Artist’s unverified biography) is a fake; in one case he’s Salonen, in another he’s Bernard Haitink…Jessica Duchen links to an internet discussion where one piano expert is quoted as saying that Minoru Nojima’s Liszt playing is "too clinical" and expressing a preference for Hatto – not aware that he’s discussing the same performance!

Here is the link, which includes further references, and also this account.  It should be noted that Hatto’s discs had no real chance of making money and in fact cost some money to put out; her husband created an independent label for the music.  In any case, I have heard Ms. Hatto play (albeit under different names), and the results were very impressive.  She can play just about anything, and she has mastered many styles.  Here is an earlier and indeed glowing review of Ms. Hatto’s work.  She was sadly unable to play in public, citing an unpredictable illness.

Addendum: I’ve been told by credible sources that an economist once submitted a paper to the QJE which the journal already had published, albeit by the real author.  The journal at least had the good sense to accept and publish the work again.

I view Jerome Kern as the greatest of all show tune commposers, he is poorly represented on Amazon, maybe better luck on ebay or iTunes.

The McGlinn EMI recording of *Showboat*, his masterpiece, is essential but not on Amazon.

Here is the standard collection: http://www.amazon.com/Till-Clouds-Roll-Songs-Jerome/dp/B00005QITA/sr=8-1/qid=1171233144/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-8789422-8068066?ie=UTF8&s=music

It is worth getting but I have mixed feelings about it.

"Bill" is one of his best songs, the more stripped down the version the better, best is just piano and voice.  "Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man" is another, worth downloading several versions of it and listening to it endlessly.  "All the Things You Are" is another, "The Song is You," totally essential listening.  "Whipporwill."

Getting excellent Kern requires some work, it is not well anthologized, sadly.

For Rodgers and Hammerstein, this is a very good Oklahoma:
http://www.amazon.com/Oklahoma-Soundtrack-Rodgers-Hammerstein-Shirley/dp/B000GIS6XO/sr=1-7/qid=1171233345/ref=sr_1_7/002-8789422-8068066?ie=UTF8&s=music

This is the best Carousel, their most subtle show:
http://www.amazon.com/Carousel-1956-Soundtrack-Shirley-Jones/dp/B00005A7XD/sr=1-1/qid=1171233388/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-8789422-8068066?ie=UTF8&s=music

I find *South Pacific* pretty execrable.

Rodgers and Hart are excellent, but no single CD is a good anthology, try downloading "Have You Met Miss Jones?" but get the song, not a jazz treatment of it.

In general I don’t like Ella Fitzgerald versions of this stuff, though they are all over iTunes.

Gershwin is by far the best served on disc of these composers.  I prefer the two-disc Sony set but there are many many good Gershwin recordings, here is the Sony, truly wonderful and fairly comprehensive:

http://www.amazon.com/Gershwins-Time-Original-Gershwin-1920-1945/dp/B00000FCKN/sr=1-2/qid=1171233566/ref=sr_1_2/002-8789422-8068066?ie=UTF8&s=music

His best show as a whole is Oh, Kay
http://www.amazon.com/Oh-Kay-1994-Studio-Recording/dp/B000005J3C/sr=1-1/qid=1171233610/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-8789422-8068066?ie=UTF8&s=music

Oddly this is still not so well known, I don’t know why not, download "Do, do do" from this show even if you don’t buy the whole thing.

I don’t consider *Porgy and Bess* "show tunes" but it is still excellent, even try the Miles Davis recording of it or many other jazz renditions.  Simon Rattle does the best version of the opera.

Sondheim is a genius, here is the best CD of his, Side by Side, stripped down to piano and voice, I have listened to this so many times:

http://www.amazon.com/Side-Sondheim-1976-Original-London/dp/B000002W29/sr=1-30/qid=1171233691/ref=sr_1_30/002-8789422-8068066?ie=UTF8&s=music

Most recordings of his shows are muddy and murky, disappointing.  *Company* might be the best show as a whole but I keep coming back to that two-disc set.

Lloyd Webber has taken many whackings, but JCS is still wonderful, there is however only one worthwhile version, the original theater company, now only on expensive import but worth it, no more than 2x the price of a normal CD:
http://www.amazon.com/Broadway-Original-Jesus-Christ-Superstar/dp/B0002J502M/sr=1-14/qid=1171233789/ref=sr_1_14/002-8789422-8068066?ie=UTF8&s=music

After that he is good only in bits and pieces, the shows get worse and worse.

That’s what comes to mind offhand.

Tyler

Addendum: Tyler the Blogger might add songs like "How High the Moon," and "Cherokee," plus some Harold Arlen.  Art Tatum interprets show tunes better than just about anybody.  Cole Porter I do not love but he should not be neglected.  Adam Guettel intrigues me, but he cannot light a candle to Magnetic Fields (Stephen Merritt), 69 Love Songs, volume one, essential listening for all.

Steve Jobs claims to think so, and EMI might abolish it.  It could be said that the music companies never adopted the idea in full, recall the compact disc?  Burning compact discs is remarkably easy, and that practice remains the biggest copyright problem, not illegal downloads.  Someone who burns a whole disc is more likely to otherwise have bought it, compared to someone snatching songs off the web.  Of course, for all the complaints, the era of compact discs has been entirely acceptable for music companies.

DRM is a tax on digital consumers, compared to the low de facto restrictions put on CD buyers.  So why not equalize that margin, especially since digital sales have lower overhead?  Admittedly piracy is easier over the web, although for teenagers the difference is smaller than you might think.  I believe that at this point a person is either an illegal downloader or not.

The deeper question is whether the move away from DRM might cause the dominant position of iTunes to unravel.

I’ve been trawling YouTube for amazing guitar clips – Reverend Gary Davis, John McLaughlin, Julian Bream, that sort of thing.  I’ll nominate this Bola Sete clip as my pick, what is yours?  You get one nomination, amplified guitar is fine but electric rock guitar is out.  Hollow body jazz guitar, maybe.  Go ahead, make my day.

A press release making the rounds on the web (here and here, for instance) claims that a conceptual artist named Jonathon Keats has made Cage’s 4’33" into a ringtone.

Here is more.

I was flattered that Los Lobos sent me their latest CD.  It is a song cycle about Mexican immigration to the United States.  I followed their early work and then lost track of them.  The new recording is excellent, I’m not just saying that because they seem to like MR.  You can buy it here.  Here are some reviews.

1. Classical music: Villa-Lobos for sure, his guitar music most of all.  Hector Miolin and Joseph Bacon made excellent recordings.

2. Acoustic guitar: We all know the jazz and bossa nova player Baden Powell, but John Fahey was rightly obsessed with Bola Sete, an acoustic blues player with licks from another planet.  Even many well-informed "guitar specialists" don’t know his work.

3. MPB: There are so many wonderful figures, buy Brazil Classics 1, 2, and 3 for the best overviews; all the cuts are selected by David Byrne.  Brazil Classics 1 would be one of my ten desert island discs and sometimes I feel it is my favorite CD period.  Beleza Tropical 2 is a good follow-up disc.  Contrary to popular opinion, I don’t think many of the MPB albums stand on their own, but the best cuts are unforgettable.

4. Copied by Beck: Os Mutantes ["We are Mutants"] is one of the best groups of the 1960s.  When it comes to putting together a song in the studio, they rate just behind the Beatles and Brian Wilson.  The "Best of" CD is a good place to start; Beck will never ever sound the same again.

5. Brazilian electronica: Start with Suba’s Sao Paulo Confessions, one of the subtlest techno albums.  For a good collection of the music he inspired, try The Now Sound of Brazil, which includes cuts by Cibelle, Bebel Gilberto, Zuco 103, and others.  This is a growing and vital genre.

6. Drum music: First prize goes to Olodum, they are best live, preferably late at night in the town square in Salvador, Bahia, which I have yet to experience.  They play on Paul Simon’s "The Obvious Child," which can be downloaded on iTunes.  Honorable mention to Timbalada and Ile Aiye.

7. Forro: To call it "jaunty and infectious accordion music" does not do it justice; Music for Maids and Taxi Drivers is one good introduction, plus anything by Luis Gonzaga.

8. Classical pianist: Nelson Freire remains underrated, here is a Chopin recital, better than Rubinstein.

There is more, and more, and more.  Most of it I don’t even know.  Here are some different recommendations.

The bottom line: Very few countries have better music than Brazil.  If you take away the United States, Brazil might have the world lead.  If you don’t know this stuff, you have much to live for.  Please do put your further recommendations in the comments.

First I assume we are talking about recorded opera (most opera on DVD bores me, too static, though many swear by it), but of course go live when you can.  My core view is that people "do well" with culture when they feel they are in control, and tune out otherwise.  So pick one area and master it, or at least get intrigued, rather than trying to survey all of opera.  Those "introductory" books are probably counterproductive, if only because they let you know how much ground there is to cover.  Who could possibly master five different recordings of Parsifal?

Here are a few areas to start with:

1. Mozart: Get Abbado’s Magic Flute (a new recording, truly splendid, one of the best of 2006 or any year), the Rene Jacobs Figaro, and the Colin Davis Don Giovanni.  If you love those, move on to Cosi Fan Tutte and then Beethoven’s Fidelio.

The Ingmar Bergman film of Magic Flute is perhaps the single most inspiring introduction to opera, even if they are singing in Swedish.  It is cinematic in conception, rather than a mere film of a performance, thus avoiding the DVD problem.

2. Italian opera: Start with Rossini’s Barber of Seville, Gobbi/Callas, then either Verdi or Puccini, in the former case La Traviata (many good versions) or Aida (Karajan), in the latter case start with La Boheme (Beecham).  Move out into Donizetti (The Elixir of Love, bubbling and playful erotic fun) and the rest of Verdi, culminating in Otello and Falstaff, his greatest and deepest works, no organ grinder music there.

3. Wagner: Go for some extended excerpts, most notably Kempe’s one-disc condensation of Das Rheingold (better than the full-length version), this four-disc set of scenes, or Act One of Tristan und Isolde, by either Karl Boehm or James Levine.  Work up to Parsifal or Valkyries, but in my view Act One of Tristan was his peak and this remains music’s greatest erotic/death-wish experience, so good it is dangerous, maybe you should just stop reading this blog.

If you are putting on four discs of Flying Dutchman, Tannhaeuser, or Goetterdaemmerung, and hoping to make sense of it, your planning has gone badly wrong.

4. Twentieth century: Start with the fun, accessible works, like Glass’s Einstein on the Beach, Robert Ashley’s Improvement, or Michael Nyman’s The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.  Over time head to Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Ligeti, Messiaen, Lachenmann, Mercury/May and many others.

If you want to leap into the unique and the complex, consider Monteverdi’s Orfeo, Tchaikosvky’s Queen of Spades, Strauss’s Capriccio, or Debussy’s Pelleas and Melisande.  Liszt fantasies and transcriptions are a good entry point into opera, that is how I got my start, his Robert de Diable Meyerbeer transcription (played by Earl Wild, among others) has to be heard to be believed, same with his Norma fantasy, after Bellini.

Arguably Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion is the greatest opera of them all, but that is another story.

By the way, few of the libretti are worth knowing beyond a plot overview; Don Giovanni is a notable exception, Der Rosenkavalier is another.  Keep in mind that a lot of opera simply isn’t very good.  The biggest problem is too much filler, even in the true classics.  Don’t let these boredom traps keep you away from some of music’s highest peaks.

Spurred on by a growing number of offbeat performance venues and enterprising young classical musicians, New York is experiencing a boom in small, largely below-the-radar concert series.  There are opera nights at a Lower East Side dive bar, chamber music concerts at a boxing gym beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, contemporary music at a cabaret in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and avant-garde fare in a silo on the banks of an industrial canal.

The rise of an alternative classical scene recalls the 1960s and 70s, when downtown lofts and art galleries helped give rise to minimalism and performance art.  The current crop of classical series resembles a similar trend happening in jazz and world-music circles, as the club epicenter has spread from Manhattan to Brooklyn.  Classical musicians often say they are drawn to simpler, less pretentious encounters with audiences.

“It’s just like going to see a band,” says Anne Ricci, a soprano in describing Opera on Tap, an opera recital series that she co-founded in June 2005 at Freddy’s Bar and Backroom, a former bowling alley and cop bar in Park Slope, Brooklyn, that now presents live music.

“Audiences are allowed to be loud, they’re allowed to talk, get up and re-fill their beers.  It helps the singers recover a sense of spontaneity that can easily be lost in the classical repertoire.”

Here is more.

In the last quarter, Nokia sold 88.5 million phones to Apple’s 8.7
million iPods.  If the Finns can convince just a fraction of buyers to
spring for music phones rather than iPods, they’ll trounce Steve Jobs
and co.

Read more here.  "Trounce," of course, is a tricky word.  Is the mark-up on cell phones as high?  Would they cut into the iPod market or appeal to different buyers?  Would content suppliers leave iTunes or just sell to both markets?  Here is a good, short piece on the roots of the iPod appeal.

You’ve all heard by now that Google might buy YouTube.  That means deeper pockets, and of course greater fear of copyright litigation.

It is time for intertemporal substitution.

Here are YouTube recommendations from Michael, at www.2blowhards.com; here is the best from that list.

There is a long and wonderful list of YouTube music videos, from all genres, on Terry Teachout’s page, scroll down all the way to the right.  And no, that video of Gyorgy Cziffra playing Liszt was not speeded up!  Art Tatum was pretty fast too.  On the guitar, Julian Bream was no slouch.

Too good to be true.  I wish to rebel against the Staffan Linder theorem; maybe I’ll have my head frozen after all.  Note: the downloads are not quick.