Category: Music

Carrying around my iPhone, I listen more to an iPod than before and I’ve upgraded the music collection on my iPod.

I suspect that iPods encourage musical nuggets which are short, to the point, and complementary to adrenalin.  I’ve heard the ? and the Mysterians song "99 Teardrops" more often in the last week than in the preceding last year.

The iPod means we listen more on the go, and with background noise, so the music should have energy.  iPod listening also brings more frequent interruptions, which discriminates against longer pieces.  Unlike with a CD player there is no particular reason to listen to a whole album straight through and what’s an album anymore anyway?

The curmudgeonly side of me worries a little.  What about slowly enfolding, architectonically subtle musical structures?  I love LaMonte Young, Pandit Kumar, and Andrew Violette, but thery’re not on my iPod.  I also resent that now my brain is more likely to expect music to be fun, though often I would rather hear music that is good for me.

I’ve read that classical music is more popular on iTunes than in music stores; I wonder if the preference is for arias and energetic movements of snappy symphonies, or if the iTunes purchase doesn’t end up very active on the iPod.

A loyal MR reader asked for mbaqanga recommendations for iPod; start with The Indestructible Beat of Soweto, Mahlathini (best without the Mahotella Queens), and Township Jazz n’ Jive; the last is not exactly mbqanga but you will love it anyway.

My Danish host, Nicolai Foss, has a blog on archtop jazz guitar.  Here are his posts on the best of jazz guitar.  I’ll nominate Joe Pass’s Virtuoso album, any number of Django Reinhardt collections, the Jim Hall-Sonny Rollins album, and the Wes Montgomery live album Smokin’ at the Half Note as my top picks.  George van Eps and the old Kress and McDonough recordings are particular favorites as well.  John McLaughlin is not to be neglected, and there is also the incomparable Bola Sete from Brazil.

Here is Nicolai’s home page, with many papers on management and also Austrian economics.  Nicolai, of course, also blogs at Organizations and Markets, which has been on our blog roll for some time.  Here is my other host, Mark Lorenzen.

Bryan Caplan has been lending me CDs from the splendid series Lebendige Vergangenheit (and here), so I’ve been hearing or rehearing the best opera singers from the past.  I’m no cultural pessimist, but I share the common opinion that opera singing has declined since, say, 1935.  Why might this be?

1. Opera is less culturally central, and so the best voices do something else, or they are more likely to be narrow technicians rather than inspired musical creators and interpreters. 

2. The best voices grow up watching TV, rather than reading Romain Rolland and Thomas Mann.  The Zeitgeist makes them dull.

3. The average voice is much better, there is simply less individuality in approach and thus lower peaks.  This sort of culturally mysterious process also seems to be governing fiction.

4. The best voices came from Germany and Italy and Austria, and World War II destroyed the musical and vocal training networks of those countries.

5. Conservatories and agents choke off musical individuality in the interests of technique and conformity.

6. Opera is now more heavily subsidized and more organizationally bureaucratic.  The programs, while still excellent, are biased against individualistic, crowd-pleasing singers and biased toward singers who don’t make many identifiable mistakes.  It’s a bit like the advent of peer review in economics.

Your thoughts?

My Eddie Cumberbatch CD came today (markets in everything, indeed), courtesy of Amazon.de.  Eddie sings tenor and lead role on Samuel Felsted’s 18th century Jamaican oratorio Jonah.  I’m not crazy; although the music is not to my taste Eddie is as good as I had remembered him.

Here are also some MP3s, truly brief, stirring at times, but shakier in quality and sound; thanks to the ingenious Chug for the pointer.  Here is my previous post on Edward Cumberbatch.

Eddie wants to continue improving the quality of his performances but does not envision himself as a full-time professional singer.  A life on the road, a continuity of auditions for roles do not fit his preferred ordered lifestyle.  However, should an opportunity arise to work with a famed Music Company he would welcome the experience.

Edward Cumberbatch is a national treasure of Trinidad.  I heard Eddie in concert about ten years ago, in a high school auditorium in Port of Spain.  His sister played piano.  I was blown away by Eddie’s voice and his stage presence.  He could sing anything from gospel (his origins) to classical to swing.  His creole version of the love duet in Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love remains one of the musical highlights of my life.  At the time, Eddie seemed like a more compelling artist than Domingo, Bryn Terfel, or any of the other voices I have heard in concert.  But mostly he sings in his church choir for no remuneration or even fame.

Joshua Bell’s Washington Metro performance has got me thinking more about Eddie.  Is Eddie an undiscovered vocal genius?  An unreliable charismatic who swindles the ears of lesser mortals?  An eccentric who simply refuses to step into his rightful place on the global stage?  A beneficiary from low expectations, who would choke if given a recital at the Met?  A wise man who knows where true happiness lies?  Here is more on Eddie.

I was shocked when I read in the program notes that Eddie also has a Ph.d. in Physics from Indiana University.

I continue to believe in him.  Can I go through life not doing more about Eddie?

Addendum: Read this article on how social forces influence our evaluation of music.

Looking for the perfect Mother’s Day gift for that mom who loves Schoenberg?  The Schoenberg Center in Vienna can cover your needs.  The Schoenberg Shop is offering Schoenberg T-shirts (mit Aphorismen), pencils, mousepads, and postcards.  Also check out Schoenberg on YouTube.  And, of course, Schoenberg Webradio and Schoenberg Jukebox are still going strong.

Here is the link.

You may remember that a month or so ago I pledged, as an experiment in innovative consumption, not to buy a new CD for an entire year.  Some of you — agnotheists I suppose — said I wouldn’t last three weeks but you were wrong.  I lasted three weeks and two days.  As I carried my CD up to the counter at Borders, the sales clerk smiled gently.  He then announced that he was a loyal MR reader who visits the blog twice a day.  I didn’t even have to agonize over whether I was obliged to report my weakness to you all.   

I haven’t unwrapped it yet.

Never have I had so many reader requests for commentary on a current topic.  In case you didn’t know, violin maestro Joshua Bell pulled out his $3.5 million violin in the Metro and started playing world class, beautiful music (reader comments here).  Hardly anyone noticed and he pulled in about $37 in donations; here is commentary from Levitt.

The first lesson is that most people are ninnies, with little or no taste in randomly presented cultural fields.  But that’s OK, I can’t tell a good computer game from a bad one, or even figure out how to turn them on. 

The second lesson is that most people don’t actually like the violin.  The register is simply too high for them.  Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin (get Milstein) are among the most splendid pieces of classical music ever composed and they repay many repeated listenings without growing stale or tired.  They are underheard, even among Bach lovers.

Most people also don’t like the squawking of John Coltrane; for a treat, try Ascension.  I am convinced these are matters of cognition rather than of taste.

For the pointer, thanks to um..almost all of you.

Addendum: A fellow blogger and I once wondered if James Joyce were blogging today, without benefit of celebrity, and producing prose of the highest order, how many hits would he get a day?

Conservation organisations say that St Mark’s Square in Venice could be damaged by two concerts to be staged there on 5 and 6 June by British pop star Elton John. The concerts are part of Sir Elton’s Red Piano tour and will coincide with the opening of the Venice Biennale.  Although the City of Venice has not yet granted official permission for the concerts to take place, tickets for the events are already for sale online.  Prices start at 200 euros with the top advertised price set at 1,000 euros.  Around 5,000 tickets are available for each event.

Note it is the crowd which would damage the square, not the concert itself.  Here is the story.  Venice was splendid, and Yana, who came along, enjoyed it as well.  I learned you have to walk, from the square, about twenty minutes to arrive in any part of town which could at least vaguely be considered "real."  Thirty minutes, if you take away the quotation marks and demand the actual real.

First comes a quotation from the lyrics, then an analysis, for instance:

"From the Monongaleh valley
To the Mesabi iron range
To the coal mines of Appalacchia
The story’s always the same
Seven-hundred tons of metal a day
Now sir you tell me the world’s changed
Once I made you rich enough
Rich enough to forget my name"

This excerpt from Bruce Springsteen’s song "Youngstown" suggests that
he is owed something for making the plant owners rich. According to
economists Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert,
labor’s share of value-added in the nonfinancial corporate sector is
around 74%. Are these perspectives at odds with one another? Please
explain.

Here is the blog, an offshoot from Division of Labor.  Here is a discussion of "Rock Island Line."  Here is George Harrison’s "Taxman."  Thanks to Dan Klein for the pointer.

How can the most erotic major composer also be the most underrated major composer?  (Could it be that people are ninnies?)  Constructing a basic Monteverdi library is simple, you should start with the following:

1. Vespers, his masterpiece.  Opt for Andrew Parrott (first choice) or Pearlman (budget label, excellent recording).

2. The Books of Madrigals.  The clear first choice is to get the discs by Rinaldo Alessandrini, start with Book Eight, noting the set is incomplete.  Second choice would be the collection by Brit Anthony Rooley, beautiful but lacking comparable flourish and diction.

3. L’Orfeo, the opera.  Try the Rene Jacobs or John Eliot Gardiner recordings.  The Coronation of Poppea has its virtues but it takes much longer to love.

4. Most enjoyable single disc: Monteverdi: Duets and Solos; fewer CDs capture the ecstasy of music and love better than this one.

5. Best way to expand the Monteverdi collection at the margin: Buy more books of madrigals.

Yes Monteverdi is from Mantua but he counts as Venice also.  He is a composer I never grow tired of.

1. Music: Riches galore, most of all gamelan music.  My favorite CD of the soft, dreamy Javanese gamelan is Javanese Court Gamelan, on Nonesuch.  Most gamelan music is from Bali.  Golden Rain is one good pick of many, but virtually any gamelan CD without a half-naked woman on the cover will be excellent.  Look for the French and Japanese labels in this area.  For other areas of Indonesian music, there is a very good Smithsonian set of 20 CDs; the acoustic guitar music is especially interesting.  Here is a one-CD sampler from that set.

2. Novel: Pramoedya Toer’s Buru Quartet (four volumes, but quite readable) is perhaps the least read great novel of the 20th century.  On the surface it concerns imperialism but it is actually about what a life really consists of and how that life is defined.  Reading each volume redefines the one that came before it.  Like gamelan music, very highly recommended.  The author "wrote" most of it during his 14-year stint in Buru prison, but most of the time without the benefit of pen or paper.

3. Food dish: This is a no brainer, Beef Rendang.  In general the food from Sumatra is spicier.  Get Sumatran Rijstafel when you can, it is better than Javanese though both are wonderful.

4. Textiles: A rich area, but the subtle colors and textures of Sumatra are tops.  The early twentieth century is an especially strong time but the quality continues to be high.  Textiles from Timor are not to be overlooked, although of course now they are independent.  Here is one Sumatran image.  Here is another nice piece.  Try this one too.

5. Film: I have never seen an Indonesian movie, though in my defense I have never turned down an opportunity to see one either.  Nia Dinata is currently a renowned Indonesian filmmaker.  The reasonably good Year of Living Dangerously is the only movie I know set in Indonesia.  Can you all help out here?

6. Painter: I like the Naive Art of Bali, so how about Nyoman Lesug?  Sadly he is not well represented on the web.  Dewa Putu Bedi is perhaps better known.  Anak Agung Gede Sobrat is another option.  Here are some other names to start with.  But it is increasingly difficult to run across the better stuff.

The bottom line: Most people underexplore tthe culture of this region, relative to the quality of their best offerings.  I am not yet sure, however, whether we should call it a "country."

One reader requested "My Favorite Things German" for weeks (possible, but yikes), instead he’ll get selected tidbits, today is J.S. Bach.

1. Organ music: I favor the Trio Sonatas, most of all by Christopher Herrick.  After that, buy any collection by Herrick or Peter Hurford.

2. Brandenburg Concerti: I don’t like most recordings of these; they either sound like sewing machines or they are whiny.  But both Felix Prohaska or Otto Klemperer are supremely musical with these pieces.

3. Keyboard music: Go for piano not harpischord.  For Well-Tempered Klavier get the dreamy Samuel Feinberg or Richter, for the English Suite in A Minor get Glenn Gould, for the Partitas get Glenn Gould, for the Goldbergs get both Gould recordings.  Best of all is the Art of the Fugue, for piano, by Grigory Sokolov.

4. B Minor Mass: Gardiner or Herreweghe.

5. St. Matthew’s Passion: Klemperer (the best voices), Suzuki (all-Japanese, and fantastic), or Herreweghe.

6. Solo Violin music: Get the second Nathan Milstein set, the stereo recording.  Perlman’s version is technically perfect but doesn’t sound like a real violin.

7. Solo Cello Suites: Rostropovich is romantic, Starker is analytical, and Navarra is underrated.

That, in my view, is the truly essential Bach.  I’ve never developed the same love for his Cantatas, too many of them were churned out or recycled.  They were better to buy on LP, when you could get one excellent cantata on each side.  Most of the available CD cantata collections contain a fair amount of chaff.

#33 out of 50.

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."