Critiquing the Critic: The Don Rosenberg Ordeal

Let us say, for the sake of argument, that we agree that music criticism (and arts criticism, in general) is, in itself, an art. Certainly it takes a measure of creativity to mold “It stinks” into:

While we are enjoying the delight of so much science and melody, and eagerly anticipating its continuance, on a sudden, like the fleeting pleasures of life, or the spirited young adventurer, who would fly from ease and comfort at home to the inhospitable shores of New Zealand or Lake Ontario, we are snatched away from such eloquent music, to crude, wild and extraneous harmonies…(Review of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in the Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review, London, 1825—See Nicolas Slonimsky: Lexicon of Musical Invective, 44).

While we might chuckle at the historic evaluation of a Beethovenian masterpiece as “crude”, there is certainly no question that the reviewer is engaging in the act of music criticism. The critique is an expression of opinion---in the above example we learn, in addition to Beethoven’s Ninth, the writer is also not disposed toward the shores of New Zealand.

All of this is my opening salvo to, what I hope, is a springboard for further discussion and dialogue surrounding the Donald Rosenberg case. I will offer several links in this piece to people who have been covering this conflict from the beginning, but will give a quick snapshot from the New Yorker for those who may not be familiar with the case:

The Cleveland Plain Dealer created a scandal when it demoted its staff classical-music critic, Donald Rosenberg, to general arts-reporter status because of his overwhelmingly negative reviews of the Cleveland Orchestra-specifically its conductor, Franz Welser-Möst. Now Rosenberg is suing the conductor, the Plain Dealer, the orchestra, and specific staff members of both organizations, detailing a conspiracy in which the orchestra put massive pressure on the newspaper.”[1]

In a nutshell, the lawsuit happened, and Mr. Rosenberg lost. Read Anne Midgette's (Washington Post) take here. In an engaging and all-too-brief TweetChat last night, Peter Friedman (law professor at Case Western Reserve) commented on the frivolity of the lawsuit from a legal standpoint. The chat, conducted on the social networking site Twitter, formally featured Friedman, Tim Smith (classical music critic at the Baltimore Sun), and Janice Harayda (novelist and editor of One-Minute Book Reviews). Several other “tweeps,” including this writer, also chimed in. The discussion can be tracked/read on Twitter using the hashtag #DonR. Friedman has admirably covered the legal issues, or lack thereof, and has offered his opinions on the aforementioned at his blog.

While I tentatively concur, given my admitted lack of legal expertise, that Mr. Rosenberg did not have legal grounds to file suit against the Cleveland Orchestra and Plain Dealer, I do think the larger issue bears examination by anyone interested in arts criticism, either from the reader’s perspective, the writer’s perspective, or that of a performing organization. Mr. Rosenberg does indeed have the “right” to criticize Maestro Franz Welser-Möst’s conducting. The Cleveland Orchestra also has the “right” not to like it. No one questions the “right” to have opinions, or at least, I hope not. But what happens when your occupation is defined by your ability to give your opinion?

Let’s remove the sense of “art” from criticism and look at it as a bare bones employment issue. WANTED: Music Critic JOB DESCRIPTION: To give subjective and ‘informed’ evaluations of music and the performances thereof. This is an over-simplification, I realize. I also don’t know what the Cleveland Plain-Dealer’s job description looked like. But my point is this (and it has been made by others as well): Is the success of a critic based solely on giving good reviews? Certainly, if a critic seems to have an unreasonable axe to grind with a specific performer or organization, it might then be best to divide the criticism responsibilities, as Tim Smith suggested in the TweetChat last night: “I hate to second-guess an editor, but SG [Susan Goldberg] could have gone all Solomon and divvied up Franz reviews between Don and Zack [Lewis].” Barry Johnson, who has also blogged about the situation, offered another suggestion: “You could even [arrange] live encounters (Ali v. Frazier) and employed recordings of various versions of the music,” implying that even negative criticism can provide an opportunity to enlarge engagement with the arts.

The ramifications of this (and other similar cases) are frightening in an age where arts criticism is being cut from publications at an alarming rate. One point that did not get addressed in last night’s chat was the fact that the publisher of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer sits on the Board of the Cleveland Orchestra. This brings us to the next wrinkle: conflict of interest.

I am “connected” to multiple organizations in Boston: two conservatories, a chorus, and a handful of others in a less-direct way. I am sensitive to the conflict-of-interest issue, and I decline opportunities to review certain concerts because of it. However, the Boston-Musical Intelligencer, for which I write, and which has received initial support from the Harvard Musical Association, is ostensibly far more “connected” to myriad music organizations in the greater Boston area. I would venture less than six degrees of separation between most of the large organizations and our editor, Robert Levin. Does this mean we should avoid negative reviews of these organizations? Should we not review them at all? The Intelligencer’s goal, as stated on the website, is: “to review as many as possible, especially those deemed most important and unjustly neglected by our editors. Our reviewers are to be drawn from Boston’s most distinguished musicians and musical academics under the leadership of Robert Levin.” As with most journalistic publications, the editors make the decisions about what should be covered—no surprises there. That is the right of the publication. But does a publication have the right to control the nature of the reviews?

Don Rosenberg was not alone in his dislike of Franz Welser-Möst’s musical leadership. Two letters to the Editor of the CPD supported Rosenberg’s general assessment of Welser-Möst, claiming “When he conducts, the performances are below dull and boring on the classical music scale of excellence” and “[Welser-Möst] gave Debussy's "Iberia" an uninteresting, perfunctory, metronomic performance. He's out of synch when conducting the music of Debussy and Ravel.”[2] Rosenberg’s criticism, to be sure, was unflinching in its dislike of Welser-Möst’s “non-interventionist” approach in a review of a 2007 performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony:

When [Welser-Möst] wasn't pressing the orchestra toward ear-shattering harshness, [he] dropped dynamics to a whisper that sapped the music of all character. Even the serenity of the second movement was compromised as the ensemble toiled to maintain rhythmic unity. The third-movement Scherzo held no terror, and it was treated so rigidly that the marvelous trumpets had little space to sing.”[3]

I fail to see unsubstantiated invective in this particular review, although I do admit I am not a regular reader of Mr. Rosenberg’s work. It does lack any sugar-coating, that is for certain, but Rosenberg has also made sure to make his own expectations clear: “serenity” in the second movement and “terror” in the third.

Listening to music is such an extraordinary endeavor precisely because it can be such a contrasting experience for two different listeners. Music criticism, whether it is an art or a task, is not objective. If that were the case, the world would only need one über-critic to meet all our needs, and that would be that. A good review isn’t one with which you necessarily agree, but one that presents both an opinion and the subjective background for that opinion. Ostensibly, in the case of a professional music critic, the critic’s credentials testify to their own subjective background as well as their qualifications for the job. But the critic cannot give voice to the same sorts of artistic evaluation that so freely flows in letters to the editors, blog posts and comments, if he/she is going to be subject to “re-assignment” (or worse) over negative reviews. That is, in effect, impeding the ability of the critic to do his/her job.

So, we must decide, for ourselves, and as a supposedly “cultured” society, whether or not arts criticism is a valuable endeavor and component of the arts. The over-arching problem of politicization of the arts is a topic too large for this article, but I am aware that it lurks in the background, threatening to squash all my ideological naivete. If, as I wrote in the TweetChat last night, all we expect are “pandering, fluffy reviews,” then I think we are headed to a sorry place in our cultural history, where music performance and appreciation thereof will become the work of automatons whose ears receive musical input that is merely thrust back out, bypassing the heart and soul completely.

---

[1] http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/goingson/2008/12/cleveland-orche-1.html (accessed 10 August 2010)

[2] See letters by William Farragher and Roger Gilruth http://blog.cleveland.com/letters/2007/11/rosenberg_is_right_about_cleve.html (accessed 10 August 2010).

[3] Donald Rosenberg, Review of Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall, October 11, 2007. (Posted 12 October 2007). http://blog.cleveland.com/reviews/2007/10/cleveland_orchestra_welsermost.html (accessed 10 August 2010)

Note: A slightly revised/edited version of this post has been published at the Boston Musical Intelligencer

The Limits of Surprise

Credit: Mona Lisa Pictures

Earlier this month, Greg Sandow reported here and here on a new recording of Haydn’s Symphony No. 94 “Surprise”, wherein the so-called “surprise” fortissimo chord is left out of the second movement, creating a fresh “surprise” for the modern listener. As is often the case when reading Sandow’s posts, even the ones with which I don’t agree, I felt the familiar rumble of musicological mischief in the back of my mind (mischief on my part, that is). I regret that various writing assignments have kept me from blogging about this in a more timely manner, but I hope that the relevancy of the issue will outlast the month of July 2010.

Sandow writes:

A tired old issue: How dare we change the notes Haydn wrote? Isn't our job to realize his intentions? Even assuming that was true (and I think -- speaking as a composer myself -- that it's a very limited idea of what performance is), Haydn's most important intention here was the surprise. The notes are only his way of achieving it. So if the notes no longer can surprise us...do we really honor his intentions by stubbornly playing exactly what he wrote?

I don’t think the issue is tired at all, but is at the very crux of the continuing polemic dialogue between historically-informed performance, teaching of music history, “canonical” models, etc.

There are a few aspects here to consider. First and foremost is the issue of audience. It is true--I am no longer ‘surprised’ by the loud chord in the second movement, and yes, I’ve never seen a student jump out of their seat at a first hearing. I disagree with Sandow that Haydn’s most important intention was this one chord in the Andante. He was too good a composer to rest the success of a piece on an experience that can truly only be had once. I also don’t believe that Haydn was writing with the 2010 audience in mind, but instead was quite content to offer a surprise for his 1792 audience (as Griesinger confirms). As a musicologist and teacher, the success of the piece for me does not ride on that moment, but instead on the fact it exists at all. It is, as Steven Paul offered in 1975, “…a masterly surprise within a surprise, a practical joke, the musical equivalent of the punchline” ( Larsen/Serwer/Webster, eds. Haydn Studies, 452). Part of what defines Haydn is his contribution of wit to eighteenth century music. This is a fantastic example, but just one of many.

Sandow says of the recording:

For a while I listened with refreshed ears. But then I sank into the familiar non-expectation with which I listen to so many performances of standard repertoire. I know the music. The performance sounds fine, but it doesn't show me anything.

This opens up a second can of proverbial worms. I agree that every performance of any musical work should bring something new, but I probably disagree with Sandow about what that should be. Unlike traditional painting, for instance, music isn’t static and there is this dynamic aspect of performance that creates the work anew in some sense. One might offer that viewing the Mona Lisa would be a truly fresh experience if the painting were placed in a different frame, a different room, or with different lighting. But do we display the Mona Lisa upside down just to “show” something?

So this brings me back to the example at hand: Haydn’s “surprise.” I still smile knowing that Haydn is defying convention and throwing in a little laugh in the middle of a fairly trite theme and variations movement. The second movement is an entire package, not just that chord. Paul, with input from Walter Gerboth, calls the “surprise” a “gratuitous addition” and it is the gratuitousness of the chord that is the true surprise, rather than the force of Paukenschlag itself. Haydn’s point was just to insert a “novelty,” according to Griesinger, and while I think Minkowski’s recording offers a witty commentary on a brief moment in the piece, I also believe we should be careful about our expectations for performance. I may know every note of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, but that does not make the impassioned C Major affirmation of the fourth movement any less relevant to the piece than is the insistent four note motive. I don’t need grace notes added to the motive or a resounding C minor arpeggiation in the last movement as a postmodern commentary on what actually happened to Beethoven. While “as the composer intended” is indeed tricky terrain through which to navigate, there are limits to what we can “change” about a piece and still have it be a performance of THAT piece. The challenge of performing classical repertoire is that we maintain the preservation obligations of a museum, but the curatorial contexts are ever-changing and invite an unending dialogue between performer and listener.

Musical Icons

Yes, I'm going to do it, so let's just get it out of the way, shall we?

I apologize for silence on this blog.

Ok, there. Not so bad. (This is all in reference to the rule that you aren't supposed to apologize for lack of blogging). I'd like to tell you all that it was a Cagean experiment in blogging, but that would be untrue. What is a more likely culprit is much needed downtime from academia. And yes, I include my blogging (and reading of other blogs) in that.

I've been busy reading the messages and posts re: MJ's death, career, wackiness, rage, etc. and I've felt particularly grateful NOT to be famous. I find it sad that death should be the catalyst for a discussion of MJ's music on the blogosphere, Twitter, and the AMS-L. I do think, however, that death seems to give music new life. We listen to it with new ears (to borrow from Proust)...ears that resonate with nostalgia, yet filter out the noise of a very public life. I can't say a whole lot about MJ's music, except that I'm conscious now of how big a part it played in the scenery of my life. There have been several times in the last week or so when I've said, "THAT's Michael Jackson??" in response to hearing a song. I like this sense of uncovering a secret. I'm sorry that I paid his music little mind when he was alive, but perhaps that is a symptom of being trained in listening to the music of DWG (that's "Dead White Guys" for those of you following along at home). Of course, being that I specialize in 20th-21st century music, that claim doesn't really work.

I want to write about icons, actually. It is a word that is tossed around, particularly in regard to Michael Jackson, and I feel it is appropriate. If I was not struck by his music, I was very much taken by his iconic presence. On Friday morning, the day after Michael Jackson passed, I had a rather surreal experience while walking through Boston's South Station. In an almost uniform manner, almost every single person in the station was reading the Metro, which featured a large headline that said something like, "The King of Pop is Dead." I don't recall the actual headline, but I was struck by how this seemed to be a fiction, even though I knew it to be true. It was like walking through an episode of the Twilight Zone, where in a parallel world, Michael Jackson had died, and all the bizarre inhabitants of the world moved their unblinking eyes in tandem across the pages of the Boston Metro, and coordinated the turning of those pages.

Madeleine L'Engle, in a wonderful (though quirky) book entitled Penguins and Golden Calves: Icons and Idols, writes this about icons:

Our need for icons begins in early childhood when we hold on to the favourite little piece of blanket, or the beloved stuffed animal. The blanket is not a blanket, nor is the animal a mere animal; they are icons of all-rightness in a world that early shows itself to be not all right. They are icons of tender love in a society that daily becomes more brutal and violent.

Perhaps L'Engle's description does not exactly jive with our images of "Wacko Jacko," but like the blanket or the stuffed animal, MJ the icon was the "all-rightness", whereas MJ the person was definitely "not all right." Here was an icon who asked us to start with the man in the mirror...the icon could ask, the man could not.

To continue with L'Engle: "An icon is something I can look through and get a wider glimpse of God and God's demands on us..."

In watching the grief of thousands over MJ's death, I believe that this was probably very true for some of his most devoted fans. But the real tragedy of the human icon is that they are indeed looked through--basically a means to an end. For the blanket, it doesn't mean too much, but we might take a moment to examine the cost of using musicians in this way.

---

If you haven't already, I encourage you to take a look at the following posts regarding Michael Jackson:
The Musicological Michael Jackson (Musicology/Matters)
Rage in his Feet (2'23 and cross-posted at Musicology/Matters)
I Want You Back: A Musiceulogical Inquiry (Musicology/Matters)
Michael Jackson (Ryan at amusicology)
and an ongoing compendium here (once again, brought to you by the great bloggers at M/M).

On awards, books and the merits of You Tube

First off, I would like to add my congratulations to Alex Ross, for his well-deserved 2008 MacArthur Fellowship. I'm really leaning toward using his book for my non-music majors in next semester's course, Music of the Twentieth Century. If anyone has any other suggestions appropriate for the non-major, I'll be happy to consider them. I find that a lot of the standard textbooks are unsuitable as they get bogged down in musical details that will be meaningless to those without musical background, OR they make blatant (and erroneous) stylistic generalizations about the music of the 20th century. Nope, I'm not naming names.

Earlier this year, Ryan posted about the merits of YouTube as a research/teaching tool, and this resulted in a fascinating discussion. While I took sort of a hard line against the citation of YouTube clips as authoritative sources (since they can be heavily edited), I have found myself calling upon YouTube (in class) a whole lot this semester. We read a chapter in Stephen Marini's Sacred Song in America about the Sacred Harp tradition. Marini is wonderfully descriptive in his writing about the modern tradition, but I have a feeling this particular YouTube clip really helped my students "get it." Somehow, a homemade video of this Sacred Harp convention (they are singing from the Missouri Harmony) seemed appropriate...maybe even more than nuanced documentary footage.

Hello, again...Hello.

Well, I've been on quite a vacation, but believe me, the only vacation I have had has been in the virtual realm. My friends with whom I communicate via e-mail must think I've gone AWOL. I won't make any promises about the frequency of my posting, but let's just say I'm hoping to be more present, at least in my reading of wonderful musicological blogs. I devoted some time today to "catching up" with the blogging community, and discovered I missed this wonderful post by Phil Ford over at Dial M. I have watched my own writing develop, and can gladly say that I no longer feel it necessary to include the word "polemic" in every single piece of academic writing I produce. I'd like to think I use it with more discretion now. Writing, much like teaching, can always be better. Part of the "fun" is the revision process (although it is rarely fun in the moment) because you catch those entire paragraphs that probably made sense to your sleep-deprived brain at the time, but now read like a sermon in Swahili. Thank goodness for peer-reviewers and editors.

Before I tell you what has kept me from engaging with the blogosphere this summer, I have two bits of inconsequential but fun news to share.

First, I received my wonderful t-shirt from Soho The Dog. I'm wearing it proudly today as I'll be meeting with a musicologist colleague later. I prefer to think of it as "edgy coolness" rather than nerdiness.

And, this came in yesterday's mail. One down, one to go!

So what has Rebecca been up to? For the first summer in a long time, I have not left the state of my residence (and now that I live in Massachusetts, we will not be counting day trips to New Hampshire or Rhode Island). I did, however, receive a flurry of house guests all in the span of three weeks: friends, parents, and in-laws. I took a course in Marketing for Performing Arts Organizations. I've been organizing conferences, sitting on boards, doing some preliminary house-hunting, and trying to enjoy the summer offerings of Massachusetts.

Musicologically speaking, I'm working on several projects. One involves the Pittsburgh Symphony, but that is on hold until my dear friends move to Pittsburgh in a few weeks. M has just accepted a professorship at U Pitt (in physics), and he and his wife have bought a house...with plenty of room for guests. So, you see my strategy---free accommodations should never be rejected.

Secondly, it appears I'll be teaching a class entitled "Music in the United States" this fall. So, I'm going through the gratifying/frustrating process of constructing a syllabus. It is a general course for non-majors, and cross-registered with American Studies. I'll be using Richard Crawford's America's Musical Life, which I think will suit my class quite well. Of course I'm struggling with distribution and how much time to spend on the potpourri of musical styles I'll need to cover. I'm considering some overarching themes ( "Music and Religion," "Music and War," for example) to guide the course structure, rather than a strict chronological approach. I'd love to be able to talk about William Billings and William Schuman (New England Triptych) in the same class. Why does this feel so risky to me? (Not a rhetorical question---I'd like to hear your thoughts!)

It is my hope that my connections between ye olde American musicke and modernity will lend some kind of resonance to the subject matter. I don't think these students are taking this particular course so that they can recite some sort of canonized development of music in the United States. The timeline aspect is important, yes, but I think it is secondary to understanding the major interactions between society, culture, politics and music. Isn't that why I'm a musicologist in the first place? So, I'm going to continue to pull from the past and pull from the present, and hopefully the class will come to appreciate music history as part of a greater work in progress.

Two Memes in Less than 24 Hours...

means, what? Hey, I'm done grading my papers!

This one comes from Phil Jr., but then I was further inspired by Scott.

Step 1: I Put my MP3 player or whatever on random.
Step 2: I Post the first line from the first 25 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.
Step 3: YOU Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from.
Step 4: I Strike through when someone gets them right.

And because most of my readership is academic, I'm including foreign language numbers (especially if they are well-known works). I skipped the numerous selections that began "Kyrie eleison..." or "Sanctus, Sanctus"

I'll post the answers after a week or so.


1. O Lord, My God, I take refuge in you
2. Mit Staunen sieht das Wunderwerk HINT: 18th-c
3. De profundis clamavi ad te...(hint: it is from the 20th-c, and relevant to my dissertation work)
4. Da die Hirten ihre Herde
5. We met in the quiet of the meadow
6. My life goes on in endless song HINT: new age/Celtic
7. Adonai, Adonai... Lo gavah libi
8. Funny day, looking for laughter and finding it there
9. Give me one reason to stay here and I'll turn right back around.
10. I have spent nights with matches and knives
11. Can you hear the drums... HINT: the title of the song is the next word.
12. An old cowboy went riding out one dark and windy day HINT: country classic!
13. Half the people are stoned
14. Empty spaces, what are we living for HINT: classic rock
15. No more carefree laughter HINT: same performer(s) as another already guessed item on this list
16. I cannot ask you when exactly you plan to leave (you won't know the performer, but if you get the composer, extra bonus points!!)
17. Hello, darkness, my old friend
18. The sky may be starless... HINT: jazz standard, popular artist
19. Let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together
20. Won't you please let me go HINT: assoc. with Little Miss Sunshine
21. I've an unrest inside me HINT: showtune
22. Oh, play me some... HINT: classic 80s country
23. Goodnight my angel HINT: leave these questions for another day...
24. Barbare! Non, sans toi je ne puis vivre HINT: opera "reformer"
25. Where have all the good men gone (it is for the gym, OK?)


GOOD LUCK! Fabulous prizes for all, of course...

UPDATED 5/5 with HINTS!! I felt sure no. 2, 12 and 23 would be guessed long before no. 4!
UPDATED 5/7: updated hint to No. 15

Repressing the Resurrection of the Sphinx: A Meme

Well, the lofty musicological musings are going to have to wait. I have been tagged by Phil Ford.

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

I couldn't subject you to what is on p. 123 of The Resume Handbook, so here are the offerings from the next closest book: Sabine Prokhoris' The Witch's Kitchen: Freud, Faust, and the Transference.

"This now permits me to take the further step of identifying metapsychology as the precise articulation of thought with the transference. It follows that thinking in metapsychological terms means, within the reality of a practice, using analytic theory in such a way as to thwart the effects of the repression that necessarily presides over theory's elaboration. I have called this "resurrecting the Sphinx."

Hmm. I'm thinking extending my reach to grab Isak Dinesen's Babette's Feast might have been a more generous offering. I'm sure, however, that the excerpt from p. 123 of Prohkoris' book will make more sense when I've read the entire work.

Since Phil F. already tagged my usual suspects, I'm sending this on to other reputable blogging colleagues who have been neglected (by me) as of late (at least in terms of commenting!). So, I hereby tag:

Tim
Elaine
Emily

Looking for some Norwegian memeage from
Erik

And as a nudge...;-)
Sammee

And please, if you read this blog, consider yourself tagged.

A new lease on blogging

It has been a month since I've last written on this blog. I'm feeling sensitive about this given Phil Ford's recent post over at Dial M. I've given a little bit of thought to WHY I haven't been blogging and I've come up with several reasons:

• a recent stream of professional disappointments
• it is the end of the semester with finals to make, papers to grade, and complaints to be heard
• a general sense of WHY???

Well, once again, serendipity offered two wonderful answers to the final question (via the blogosphere).

The first, was a comment that appeared in response to my last post. What was a fun and silly little meme has now been set to music by composing colleague Chris. I take great joy in this "collaboration" (which was also a lovely surprise when I checked my e-mail at 6:30am yesterday). I've never met Chris in person (we've come close!) but here we are with a song: his music, my memeage. :-)

The second, was an analogy offered by Jonathan Bellman at the ever-wonderful Dial M. Blogging for him, he offers, is like "good, solid piano practice." This made me realize something important. Blogging offers an excellent forum to keep my musicological muscles in shape. It will only help as I endeavor to get more papers and articles accepted. Just as my voice has now improved as I am singing again, so shall my musicology. And yes, I care if you listen (read). I need and want the feedback...and blogging allows me to offer my thoughts for your feedback without any review process, political system, or sheer luck of the draw blocking the way. And that is fantastic.

So, in the coming weeks, I hope to be more substantive in my posting and look forward to jumping back into the musicological blogosphere with renewed enthusiasm.

Thank you Phil, Jonathan and Chris!

Ode to Benjaminas Zelkevičius

Alright, as I crawl out from under papers to be graded and articles to be drafted, I offer you...
yes, a meme. I know there will be more substantive offerings soon...just not now. But, as memes go, this one is fairly substantive, especially when subjected to the analysis of Phil Ford over at Dial M.

Phil got it from Brent over at Musikwissenbloggenschaft
which I added to the MMM blogroll yesterday.


1. your song is going to have a title, a chorus, and two verses . . . is that too conformist for you? too bad. deal.

2. song title is the first random wikipedia article you pull up.

3. the first verse is the mash up of the first four words of the first four quotes and the last four words of the last four quotes from here. pair the first quotes first words with the last quotes last words, and so on.

4. the second verse is a mash up like the first, but refresh for a new page o' quotes.

5. the chorus you ask? the title of your song, four times, of course!

6. if you are feeling grammariffic, add prepositions and make verbs make sense (if possible). or don't let the grammar-man tell you what to do and skip it.

7. post the lyrics or--if you are feeling rather adventurous--record the thing.


I wound up with a folk song about a Lithuanian football coach. I took one word out to make the butter line work (yes, I'm feeling grammariffic, even if it is eh, regional grammar). The first verse has a lot of topical resonance, I think. A little touch of Eleanor Rigby plus one part Arlo Guthrie? I don't know, you tell me:

Benjaminas Zelkevičius

There's no secret about backing a winning candidate
In mathematics you don't have absence of fear
All truths are easy and in the recent past
I think people have to face rejection.

Benjaminas Zelkevičius (x4)

When the character of talking is waiting
Without the aid can never be complete
I don't even butter them things
Stubborness is also determination. [It's] kind of lousy.

Benjaminas Zelkevičius (x4)

Metropolitan Opera Meme

I figure it has been awhile, so I'm entitled to some memeage. This one comes from Matthew over at Soho the Dog, via Wellsung, Parterre Box, and Steve Smith:

What did the Met perform on the day you were born? Or if you are a summer baby, the day you were conceived (if you prefer, as was Matthew's choice).

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg {363}
Metropolitan Opera House
Debut: Eva Marton

If we treat this like astrology, I suppose there should be some sort of significance. I'd love to write something witty about being the Abgesang to my parents Stollen, but that doesn't really make very much sense (and not just because I'm adopted). I did write my first "serious" college music paper on the medieval Meistersinger tradition as represented in Wagner's opera.

Synchronicity?

Carla Bruni had not registered on my radar screen before I read Matthew Guerrieri's post yesterday over at Soho the Dog. Today, I walk in to my favorite java haunt only to hear...yep, Carla Bruni's album. I realized that I heard this same album two days ago (same java haunt) and took note of nothing except that it was in French. Now I'm actually listening to it and I'm thinking it is the new "cafe" music, a spot held by Norah Jones "Come Away With Me" for a long time. That's not a criticism, but perhaps a valid subgenre?

The cashier told me: "I had never heard of Carla Bruni. But she's engaged to the French president and used to be a model." I should have asked her if she reads Soho the Dog!

Norwegian Blogging Colleague

Unfortunately, Jeg/eg snakker/snakkar ikke/ikkje norsk (completely unconjugated and gender neutral, courtesy of WikiTravel), but in the spirit of reciprocation, I'm adding Erik Steinskog's blog to the Music and More Blogroll. His blogroll is quite the reference! And his work looks intriguing. I look forward to reading some of it! Thanks for the listing, Erik!

Candidate Playlists

Ok, ok...I know it is lame to start the year off with a post that merely links to someone else's post, but I'm in the frantic process of finishing a syllabus (makes me rethink my admonishment to students regarding procrastination).

At any rate, Phil Ford offers the campaign trail playlists of the various candidates and some good food for thought (as usual). A couple of years back, James Deaville gave a paper at SAM (Society for American Music) about the impact of music used by CNN, Fox, etc to sell the news (specifically, the war). Music in the Media, is, in my opinion, one of the most relevant musicological endeavors.

Who knows, maybe the use of "Sweet Caroline" will win the hearts of all those Red Sox fans.

This campaign season, keep your eyes AND ears open.

Not So Guilty Pleasures (Cross-Post)

I was invited to guest blog over at Musicology/Matters, and was given permission to cross post. So for those of you who may not frequent musicology blogs, but for various and sundry reasons visit this one, I give you:

Not So Guilty Pleasures

Phil and Kariann have offered astute and engaging ideas about this business of "guilty pleasures" and their place in musicology. I will try to offer something fresh and original as a musicologist who specializes in music that is considered by many to be a true guilty pleasure (witness the confessional Facebook group: "I listen to sacred choral/organ music...AND I LIKE IT!").

At my first meeting of the Society for American Music (mmph years ago), I remember a certain musicologist imploring at the business meeting: "Don't do pop music because it is trendy, do it because it is what you love." (That's a paraphrase, actually.). This statement was greeted with defensive grumbles and nasty whispers as if he had insinuated that pop music scholars were just in it for the trendiness aspect.

That's not it at all, but clearly he exposed some people sitting in that room. I am not a pop music scholar, but his comment made me think about the music that I love. Even though "choral music" can include Haydn's Die Schöpfung, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, not to mention of a whole slew of medieval and Renaissance masterpieces, it also includes a plethora of short, two to three page cream puffs written for various church choirs and other choral ensembles. It is true that there is often little intellectual mileage to be found in Joe Smith's arrangement of Amazing Grace or Jane Brown's 16 measure introit written for the shoestring choir at St. Anne's-By-The-Lake.* Much of this is Gebrauchsmusik and the composers of said music couldn't care less what musicologists think of it (and rightfully so). Unfortunately, because the label "choral music" includes ALL of this, it often gets excluded from the list of acceptable areas for academic discourse. Medieval and Renaissance choral works get sheltered by the historical musicology crowd and the love for the old. Choral works of Bach, Mozart, and Haydn are extolled as works of Bach, Mozart and Haydn. Most of the choral music of the Romantic period is seen as an example of Romantic ideologies of excess (Berlioz, Verdi) or those occasional studies in harmonic adventure.

That brings us to my area of specialty: twentieth-century American sacred music. Truth be told, it is actually "twentieth and twenty-first- century," but when I tried the label "contemporary" I opened up a door I couldn't shut quickly enough. Rushing toward me came numerous requests to review "O Taste and See" for guitar and folk singer, or CDs by Jars of Clay, or questions about preferences for Amy Grant vs. Rebecca St. James. I could say "modern," but that also opens up its own can of worms. A rose is clearly not a rose when it comes to academic labels.

Not only do I specialize in such a loaded and quixotic category of music, I wrote my dissertation on the impact of the Second Vatican Council on the American Concert Mass. Sexy? No. Misunderstood? Yes. See the following dialogue:

Prof. X: Ah! So you do folk masses.
RM: No. I'm looking at traditional Latin Masses (or Latin-inspired masses) written for the concert hall as responses to Vatican II.
Prof: X: Oh. That's interesting. What composers? Any I might have heard of?
RM: Leonard Bernstein (a Jew), Paul Creston (a very eclectic Catholic) and Lou Harrison (a Buddhist)
Prof. X: (Stunned silence).

Which brings me to my point. We as musicologists need to define to what extent musicology involves musical advocacy. I thought it was important to show that there existed a strong aesthetic reaction to the post-Vatican II liturgical mass, by mainstream composers lying outside of the Church and its particular interests. Do I love sacred choral music? Yes. Do I feel at all guilty about it? No. Would I have been able to spend mmpph years working on a dissertation if I didn't love it? Absolutely not.

I don't think we should have to negotiate personal taste and intellectual duty to any degree that we might find ourselves writing about music for which we care little (either about the music itself or its historical context). Anyone who has ever taught music appreciation will tell you that half the trick is one's own enthusiasm for the music. What kind of artifice are we encouraging if we relegate entire categories of music to the musicological trash-heap? If I write about music, whether it be Steve Reich's Different Trains, Hildegard's Ordo Virtutum, or the Clash's album London Calling (to pull a few examples from the recent AMS conference), I had better believe that there's something there worth writing about and worth sharing with the community at large. That is both our personal duty and our intellectual duty. And while I'm not advocating a "Who Cares if you Listen?" approach to musicology, I am proposing that our own love for the music be enough, and the work we do will speak for itself.

Not everything we love as music listeners will have musicological value, and it is important to recognize that. (How we determine that value is worthy of a fresh round of blog posts.) However, as academicians, we should be defining academe, not the other way around. And in regard to this endeavor, I suggest that the sky be the limit. Let us welcome guilty pleasures and intellectual constructs alike, so that we can be true to what brought us here in the first place, rather than be enslaved to a limited canon.

Quick Plug: New Musicology Blog!

It is a concert weekend, so I'm running around, but I at the very least wanted to point out a new musicology blog!

Please visit and read the wonderful offerings at:

Musicology Matters

Blog Action Day: Credo

This post is my contribution to Blog Action Day. I am one of over 15,000 blogs participating in this year's action: the Environment.

Credo: Why I choose

I was struck by how difficult it was to come up with a topic on which to write for Blog Action Day. This is not because there is any lack of “environmental” issues that catch my interest, but because it seemed impossible to prioritize desertification over deforestation, pollution over procreation, or climate control over conservation. It is that sense of impossibility, of moral inclusiveness, that defines my own environmentalism.

At a party several weeks ago, a friend brought up his skepticism about global warming. His basic argument (and it was a good one) was to ask: Why is global warming any more important than fighting AIDS, or cancer, or working to make sure people have clean drinking water? The quick and easy answer? It’s not. If we are going to make the fight against climate change a moral endeavor, we can’t say it is more important than trying to fight hunger or poverty. But at the end of the day, we all have choices to make. And there are many. So why have I picked Global Warming?

First, a disclaimer. I’m operating under two assumptions. One: Global Warming exists and is a problem. Two: Only we can do something about it. Because I believe that the evidence overwhelmingly points to these truths, I make my choices accordingly. For this reason, I’m not interested in mudslinging, catfighting, or even bantering, with those that argue the veracity of climate change. Consider it a type of figurative energy conservation.

My approach is to consider the biggest picture possible. The truth is that many of us living in the US could likely adapt to some of the worst case scenarios of climate change. We have what I would call “the privilege of adaptation.”* But my own sense of morality obligates me to look at the rest of the world and consider it, to some extent, my responsibility. While I cannot simultaneously plant trees in Kenya and combat desertification in Sudan, I can embrace those regions of the world under a blanket of global humanity. I see the fight against global warming as a fight that will work from the top down. I’m not working against AIDS advocacy, or water purification, or the sustainability movement. I’m working for them. I’m making those efforts worthwhile by fighting to ensure that the better world they are trying to create will still be here when they reach their goals. I want to be a steward of the planet to honor the work of those who are stewards of humanity.

There are plenty of people who would take my “environmentalism” to task. I eat meat, for example. Those interested in running a hypocrisy check could probably find a few environmental no-nos in amongst my compact fluorescents, water-saving showerheads, and devotion to public transit. Most human beings are incapable of all-or-nothing, and I will not argue with zealots or purists. At the end of the day, my mere awareness of a horizon bigger than the Boston skyline entitles me to walk confidently amidst my own ideas of activism.

I will continue to advocate for better emissions standards, alternative forms of transportation, energy efficiency, etc. all to combat what I consider to be human-induced climate change. I have to do this for the people whose relationship with the earth is not buffered by layers of technology and man-made construction. I will endeavor to make my government listen and take the lead in promoting environmental responsibility. And in the end, if it turns out I was wrong and global warming really was just a hoax, I will have no regrets because the things for which I will have worked so hard have merit outside “An Inconvenient Truth” and IPCC reports. I will have sustained an idea of global citizenship, and for that, I will have no apologies.

*I’m indebted to HM for a discussion on this topic.

I will be including other interesting Blog Action Day posts in my "Posts of Note" box to the right. Check them out!

October 15th: Blog Action Day

I know I've fallen behind in my posting, and I apologize for that. But stay tuned for my Oct. 15th post as I take part in Blog Action Day.

Another Quiz from Soho the Dog

Matthew Guerrieri offers another musically-minded quiz to aid me in my procrastination.

1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
Quote from Haydn Symphony no. 94 in Die Jahreszeiten. It certainly isn't the "best" but it happened to just come up on the iPod.

2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
I don't know about best, but I'll cast another vote for Yo-Yo Ma's Soul of the Tango (sorry, Elaine). Also a big fan of the Swingle Singers.

3. Great piece with a terrible title.
This is a tough one. I'll have to modify it to great piece with terrible text. I'll go with Kirke Mechem's Five Centuries of Spring which requires singing the following text: "not only underground are the brains of men, eaten by maggots" courtesy of Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Ah...I know! Marais' Le Tableau de l'Opération de la Taille.

4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Britten

5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
It is a pity Alma is taken. I'll say Felicia Montealegre.

6. Terrible piece with a great title.
decline to state

7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
Again, "best" is perhaps not the word I'm looking for. Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra in 2001: A Space Odyssey deserves mention since most of the world knows it as "the 2001 theme."

8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
Worst? Probably something by Il Divo. I'll also submit Vanessa Mae's Storm.

9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Sam Cooke

10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
Milan Kundera (I'm still hoping). I don't know if he counts though, since he formally studied composition.

EXTRA CREDIT:

For early-music nerds: Name a completely and hopelessly historically uninformed recording that you nevertheless love.

I don't "love" this, but it is worthy of mention...the "lounge-chant" version of Haec Dies on the eighth edition of the Norton Recordings.

Ketchup (or "On the Value of Blogging")

Ok, so that should be "catch-up" but I'm sure you will forgive my jet-lagged version of wit.

While I deleted a few of my blog feeds, I still came home to over 200 posts and was reluctant to delete them indiscriminately. This was a concern I had voiced before I left and it proved to be true. I have a feeling my reluctance to delete without reading is akin to the need I had, as a child, to stay awake all hours whenever my parents had a dinner party. I would creep out into the upstairs hallway, with my face pressed against the staircase railing, and strain my ears to hear conversations which I never understood in the first place. In the case of blogging, comprehension is not an issue, but I do wonder why I am so scared to "miss out."

One of the more relevant discussions to take place while I was busy working on my German Latin and eating healthy dishes like Somlauer Nockerl and Eispalatschinken, was the discourse about the value of the blogosphere. Drew started it (at least this round) over at Amusicology, and Phil Ford (Dial M) and Barnet Bound picked it up. I posted a response over at Dial M, but realized the converse of my argument also applies.

My general advocacy of the blogosphere is based on the lack of censure and the speed at which information can be relayed. I realize now, that my general complaint about the blogosphere is based on the lack of censure and the speed at which information can be relayed. Occasionally, ignorance may be bliss. Of the several hundred blog posts I've sorted upon my return, I'm fairly certain my life would continue in its generally positive direction without them. I am, however, still plagued by the fear of being a Johnny-Come-Lately. Just as I wouldn't dream of attending a AMS conference without having read the latest issue of JAMS (well...I might dream of it), I'm reticent to jump back in to blogging without knowing what has happened while I was gaining umpteen pounds singing in the Haydnsaal.

All the same, like various other projects that have been on hold for the last two weeks (dissertation, articles, job-hunting), I'm diving back in. I'm going to be giving a lot of thought to the value/dangers/benefits of blogging (thanks to the aforementioned blog authors) and look forward to your thoughts.

Ah, yes...and one more link for those of you who are GTD-minded: Why GTD will allow you not to use GTD on your summer vacation (my title).

More on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Hopefully, the increased attention in the blogosphere will help convince the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to save their arts reviews.

See Jonathan Bellman and Elaine Fine's blogs for more.

Arts criticism (good arts criticism, that is) has always had a symbiotic relationship with the arts themselves. Critics are important for feedback, yes, but they also represent something even more important: critical thinking. This is a mode of mental operation that is becoming outdated in American classrooms. Many children are fed through a system that rewards them for memorizing state capitals rather than creative problem-solving. If our society begins to throw away the best examples of criticism, we condone the spoon-feeding model of education. Indeed, the arts are emblems of individual expression and criticism too, so one might wonder if we are not headed toward disaster here. If an orchestra is no longer worth writing about...why is it worth paying for a ticket? My point isn't to formulate great apocalyptic scenarious, but to offer that this is a very slippery slope.