Tending our gardens

"This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before." ~ Leonard Bernstein

In the wake of the events in Tucson, several of my friends posted this quote to their Facebook profiles, and it gave me pause, mostly because I felt rather uncomfortable. Part of me thought, “Yes, Gabby Giffords, you are in critical condition due to a bullet through your head, so I'm going to choir practice.” Then I batted snarky, cynical Rebecca off my left shoulder (or is it my right?), and listened to the more present Rebecca who teaches too many classes and is exhausted all the time, but holds back tears every time she plays the finale of Stravinky's Firebird or Josquin’s Ave Maria for her students.

Bernstein’s statement was made after Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 (and if anyone can give me the exact source I’ll be indebted), and I wouldn’t be surprised if non-musicians, entrenched in their grief, might have had a mixed reaction to the statement at the time. But I hope that they took some time to really mull it over, as I have, because it has forced me to think a lot about what I do and my place in the world.

Sometimes making music and teaching music history seems terribly self-indulgent. Yes, I happen to think teaching is a very “noble profession” but at the end of the day, whose life am I saving? I’m one of those people who cringe on the airplane when they ask, “Is there a doctor on board?” because I know I’m not the kind of doctor they need. Yes, I know I have an impact, and I’m not claiming that we all have to be rushing into burning buildings for a living to have our work be meaningful. I watch my students bloom and grow over the course of a semester in ways not even remotely related to the subject matter. But sometimes it is difficult to see the value of what I do in my little flower garden, when it is such a tiny part of a global landscape that is covered in thorns.

I do believe in responding to violence with beauty, rather than hate, of course. As one of my friends noted, it isn’t a solution, certainly, but it is a response. But I think it is Bernstein’s directive to make music more “intensely” that is important here. We’ve all heard performances that are “intense” (not “tense,” mind you)---maybe you had tears in your eyes, or found yourself at a loss for words. In a way, it is a rather vague word because “intense” can have very individualized meaning. One might even argue that the alleged gunman who claimed six lives on Saturday was “intense.” But the intensity of which Bernstein speaks is so potent precisely because it DOES have the power to be beautiful, to stand up against the violence of the world and say, “I’m still here.”

So, in the end, I think Bernstein asks us to engage with beauty in a way that reaffirms its presence in the world. And I don’t think this is limited to music, or even the arts. Violence claims not only lives, but it plants seeds of further violence—especially when we are focused on being angry. Anger is important, yes…but only as a means to an end. I’m terribly angry when I think about Christina Green, and how she will never grow up to live out her potential. I’m angry when I see how our political battlefield has consumed our lives to such a degree that while Gabby Giffords fights for her life, we are screaming at each other about whose rhetoric is to blame, rather than seeing how we are all responsible for rhetoric running our lives in the first place. But that anger is intensity and I have a choice of what to do with it. I have the choice to create beauty. I have the obligation to create beauty as a musical professional. I think we all have that obligation. Every day at work is an opportunity to be generous, one that we probably don’t take as often as we should. I consider myself very lucky that what I do for a living is, for me, a large part of what it means to live. So, I choose to maintain a healthy perspective—no, teaching music history isn’t going to stop a very sick man armed with a gun from opening fire on a crowd of people. And I’m certainly not going to cloister myself away from my rights and responsibilities as a citizen to speak out against injustices and what I regard as irresponsible legislation. I am, however, going to value the opportunities I have to be intensely devoted to creating beauty, because, to borrow from Bernstein, that is the way to make our garden grow.

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.

The Joy of Critical Thinking

Summer might seem like an odd time to blog about plagiarism, but it is a great opportunity for me to think about it, rather than react to it. At the end of the year I am inundated with plagiarized papers ranging from completely cut-and-paste jobs to citation infractions. I spend the first day of class reviewing plagiarism, how to cite, etc. and I pass out a "Guide to Citation," stressing that the attribution is more important to me than the format (at least for the classes where it is a large problem).

Because I teach music history to performers (primarily), I try to draw parallels between the plagiarism of musicological work and the Joyce Hatto scandal. Most of them find the idea of falsifying a recording fairly horrible, so I try to explain that plagiarism in their papers is no less offensive to me. The idealist in me supposes that this little speech does the trick, but then there it is again at the end of the semester: plagiarism everywhere.

A friend posted this intriguing article on his Facebook page, and it made me think more carefully about plagiarism and the assumptions I make. A lot of the plagiarism I encounter comes from students whose facility with written and spoken English is minimal. These are good students otherwise, who attend class regularly, turn in their assignments on time, and generally pass quizzes. There are, however, two major issues I have encountered that rise out of the same cultural conflict. The first is questioning authority figures. The second is fear of thinking critically.

I do not believe that students lack the ABILITY to think critically. I think, in the best cases, the ability simply hasn't been encouraged or cultivated, and in the worst cases, they have been taught to fear it. The language barrier, coupled with the cultural barrier, often means that when I say, "Is that clear?" it really isn't clear at all to them, but I'll never find out until it manifests in a plagiarized paper. A student once wrote in his/her evaluation: "Sometimes I have trouble understanding what we talk about in class, but I don't want to stop class to ask a question." Another student said she was worried about taking up my time with questions after class and felt it was disrespectful to make me read bad English.

So now I try to impart that I'd rather read their original thoughts in terrible English, than someone else's ideas and words in perfect prose. Most of them now write and rephrase in their own words, but I'm still struggling with getting them to use their own ideas, analyses, and reactions. I don't want to rule out the use of secondary sources completely, because I think they need to know how to use those as well (and sometimes that is all that is available). But how do I not only make them believe that I WANT to read their thoughts, but that their thoughts are also valuable to THEM?

I have various strategies (journals wherein they are graded on their own reaction to the music they hear, etc), but I'm eager to hear how the collective wisdom deals with these issues.

Bostonians v. WGBH/WCRB

On Tuesday night, I served as a respondent for the forum on the future of Classical Music radio in Boston. Organized by the Boston Musical Intelligencer, the forum saw an audience of roughly 400 people in Old South Church in Copley Square, some of whom arrived an hour early to “get a good seat.” The main attraction was billed as a panel comprised of broadcast journalist Chris Lydon; the fiery announcer and former general manager of WCRB, Dave MacNeill; music critic emeritus for the Boston Globe, Richard Dyer; and John Voci, general manager of WGBH radio. The gavel-wielder was none other than former Massachusetts Senate president and current president of the University of Massachusetts, William Bulger.

Long before questions were posed from the audience, the room was vibrating with the anger, frustration, and sense of injustice felt by a great many Bostonians who felt their music had been “taken away” by WGBH’s latest business decisions, most notably the cancellation of the Friday afternoon broadcasts of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the move of all classical programming to 99.5 WCRB, recently acquired by WGBH.

My question for Mr. Voci, which received encouraging applause, was in regard to a rumored 75-page document in WGBH’s possession, full of listener comments regarding the recent changes. I asked what percentage of those comments were positive, and to my surprise, Mr. Voci replied that he had not seen it. I was assigned this question by the BMInt and was originally uncomfortable asking a question about a document only rumored to exist. But now I’m glad the question was asked because it opened the door for two more: 1) if the document does exist, why HASN’T Mr. Voci, as general manager, seen it? And 2) if the document doesn’t exist, WHY NOT? As one audience member opined, there needs to be a better feedback mechanism on the WCRB and WGBH websites. Facebook pages, while a crucial and important venue for commentary, are exclusionary to a good portion of GBH/CRB listeners whose internet involvement may be limited and who don’t wish to join Facebook in order to comment. We know that people have written comments on their donation cards and I’d be willing to bet some people have even written…*gasp*…letters! “Listener-supported radio” needs to have…well, listener support. So, it does seem that the comments from said listeners would be the primary resource for assessing that level of support, much more so than the spurious Arbitron ratings.

After asking my question, I sat back and watched and listened. Unlike many of those present, I’m a fairly recent transplant to Boston. I don’t listen to the radio much as I don’t drive very often and I listen to music for a living (class prep, program notes, pre-concert lectures), which leaves very little time to tune in to the radio. But I lived in a place for ten years where Vivaldi and Massenet’s "Meditation from Thaïs" (two of Tuesday night's audience’s favorite signifiers of mediocrity in programming) were popular programming choices for the local classical music radio station. In that city, relative populations aside, it would be hard for me to imagine that 40 people would have shown up to “defend” classical music radio, much less 400. Chris Lydon did attempt to drive home the point that Boston is a “wildly interesting” place, culturally and intellectually, and that “we should demand the best from our public institutions.” And on Tuesday night, those demands were made, with varying levels of eloquence, but almost uniform sincerity. That those demands were not MET on the spot, should come as no surprise. But a gathering of 400 people is hard to ignore.

From some of the comments I’ve read at various other fora, I gather there was definitely a wide range of expectations for the evening. Laments that the hour and a half event “solved nothing” seem to me to have missed the greater point. Some Bostonians, armed with the heritage of the Boston Tea Party, expected too much (from Mr. Voci, in particular). While I am not interested in defending the actions of WGBH, Mr. Voci behaved exactly in the manner I expected. He is but one person in an organization—he responded to questions with businesslike diplomacy, dutifully took notes, and made no promises. What many of these commenters fail to see is that the evening was not really meant to be about Mr. Voci or any of the other panelists. Nor was it about the reviewers from the Intelligencer who served as respondents. It was in fact about the four hundred people who filled the seats of that church.

There is great cause for concern here because the issues at hand are indicative of a growing trend in dismissing classical music from the cultural scene. Unlike painting, sculpture and many of the visual arts, music is not static art. Classical music radio is a museum of ever-changing and completely temporal exhibits…it should never be satisfied with a limited permanent collection. Unlike the Louvre, which has the luxury of having people come to it in order to see the Mona Lisa, classical music radio must bring its museum to the people. As an FM broadcaster, WGBH has signed on to that mode of transport. Telling people to listen in HD, or to use the internet, or to buy new stereo equipment, is tantamount to blocking off the ramps and stairways to the museum and asking folks to rappel through the skylights. If WGBH had started an internet radio station in addition to current offerings, this would be a completely different situation. But the fact of the matter is that people feel robbed. Bruce Mittman, president of Mittcom, and member of WGBH Coporate Executive Council, used the word “offload” in referring to moving the classical music programming to 99.5, going on to say that the move would “make the station [WGBH] more pure.” (1) If purity is what we are after in the way we establish cultural and artistic legacies, then the situation is more dire than I imagine.

What Tuesday night’s forum DID accomplish, is that WGBH has been put on notice. People ARE listening and watching. I’m an optimist so I’d like to believe that there will be more changes to come that will put this situation back on track, and I’m even willing to wait a bit. I don’t envy WGBH one bit. Arbitrating aesthetics is awfully difficult. There are a great many people whose idea of good classical music IS Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini, Meditation from Thais, etc and they shouldn’t be excluded from this conversation either. I’m sure many who sat in the church would be aghast at my personal idea of “good” classical music (which is why the internet is my listening source of choice). But what WGBH must realize is that IS the task before them. It isn’t just about business decisions…art never is. As a business, WGBH made a decision. How much that decision will compromise the organization’s role as a guardian of culture will be measured in the coming months.

(1) Greater Boston, September 21, 2009

READ/HEAR/SEE MORE (Links included below represent a variety of opinions and do not necessarily reflect those of this blogger :-)):

• Greater Boston (Wednesday, January 6, 2010) segment on Tuesday night's event, including conversation with John Voci, Bettina Norton (Boston Musical Intelligencer), and Richard Dyer
• WGBH/WCRB go the way of WNYC/WQXR (Doc Searls Blog)
• "Dead Blogging the 'GBH Classical Radio Rumpus" (Campaign Outsider)
• Various thoughts by 'Romy the Cat' and friends (Good Sound Club)
  

New Hat!

I've now joined the reviewing "staff" at the Boston Musical Intelligencer. I've long admired their goal "to list every classical music concert in greater Boston." They also "intend to review as many as possible, especially those deemed most important and unjustly neglected by our editors."

I'm not sure what constitutes an "important" classical music concert, but neglected ones are not hard to find. Music criticism is fast becoming a lost art, with budget cuts at major papers. As musicologists, this should be cause for great concern because it is the critics who really end up being the chroniclers of concert life (if such a thing exists). Slonimsky's Lexicon of Musical Invective is a humorous read and supplement to any music history course, but it also provides some invaluable snapshots of reception history, context, and occasionally the music itself (!) I am not advocating invective as a norm, of course (in fact I hope the occasion that warrants it is rare), but when it comes to art and music, in particular, it cannot be separated from the aesthetic viewpoint (errant or otherwise). As a musicologist, it is easy enough to be critical of music on a recording, or by a composer long since dead. But I'd like to encourage my colleagues to get out there---put the book down, go to a concert---keep this tradition alive. Blog about the concerts you go to. Start your version of the Boston Musical Intelligencer in your own city. And really, it all comes down to basic economics ( a course in which I received the worst grade of my college career, incidentally)--supply and DEMAND. It doesn't have to be the BSO, or the LA or NY Phil. I bet you've got a community chorus in your area that worked long and hard on some amazing repertoire and could really use some constructive feedback. It is the subtext of many a choral song: anyone out there? Are you listening?

And speaking of choruses, a shameless plug for my own: Spectrum Singers. 30th Anniversary. 30 years, yes...in Boston. We've got an amazing concert coming up on November 21st. I'd really like for you to be there. Bach Magnificat, Schutz's Deutsches Magnificat, the third and sixth cantatas of Bach's Christmas Oratorio with orchestra members from Emmanuel Music. I've got discounted tickets. Leave a comment and I'll find you!

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.

On Journeys and Cacophony

Well, it has begun. Once again we mark our year by due dates, concerts and conferences. I'm in a new place, both literally and figuratively. I'm teaching at a new institution and I'm teaching "Music in the United States" for the first time. My students are smart and ready to go. We packed our suitcases full of "fundamentals" this week, and I assured them we'd be pulling them out again at appropriate places in the journey. We'll make an interesting bunch. I have one student who clearly knows more about the British Invasion than I ever will. Another is a Bob Dylan fan who sees Dylan as a distinctively "American" voice. One student wants to learn about sacred music and jazz. I played a clip of Run DMC and I think they were relatively insulted when I suggested they might not know Run DMC (HEY...I teach students who haven't seen E.T!!).

So, we loaded the bus and determined our windy path through Music in the United States. Well, actually, I guess I'm driving the bus, but I think I'll have a whole lot of back seat drivers. I'm looking forward to it. :-)

--------------

On an additional note, I teach in a very new music building. The classes all have internet/computer access, reasonably good pianos, etc. One thing everyone complains about is the lack of soundproofing (guess someone forgot that detail). However, as I sat in my office yesterday, hearing a trumpet on one side, a harp on the other, and a vocalist across the hall...I thought, yes. THIS is what a music department sounds like. I welcomed the cacophony. I have been at other institutions that have been all too silent.

Oh, and the photograph? Just a shot I took last weekend at a local pond. A little reminder that summer will end...soon.

My two cents...eh, in this market, maybe only one.

I will be the first to admit that there are topics discussed on the AMS-List that interest me less than they probably should. Some topics stimulate such voluminous discussion that I feel more overwhelmed than inspired. But the joy of email is that it can be deleted with one click of a mouse. Gone. Forever.

Occasionally, however, when I can invest the time, I do like the check in with the list, which is why it is so disappointing when I see the list used as a forum for self-promotion and ad hominem attacks. And by self-promotion, I do NOT mean calling our attention to your new book on a musicological subject.

I rarely participate in the discussions because I don't care to get into debates that amount to "my Ph.D. is bigger than your Ph.D." (not a direct quote, thank goodness). Yes, yes...I know...part of it is just academia. But I don't have to like it. If, at the end of the day I don't gain notoriety and acceptance from the entire musicological community, but I still have a little bit of healthy idealism intact, I'd say I've stayed true to myself, my students, and my profession.

Vacation Shots only a Musicologist Will Appreciate

When visiting the Grand Canyon two years ago, I was surprised to come upon this statue:
Not a great photo, I know. For those of you who may not be able to recognize "The Swedish Nightingale," that is Jenny Lind, the Swedish opera singer who toured the United States with PT Barnum in the 19th century. Now, Jenny gets her due--there is a Jenny Lind, California (an unincorporated community in Calaveras County); she is honored during a Barnum festival in Bridgeport, Connecticut, etc. But I wasn't expecting her to turn up at the Grand Canyon (her tour was on the East Coast), nor was I expecting to see this:
This past weekend, on our way back down to Boston from Cape Cod, we made an obligatory stop to see a lighthouse (The Highland Light in Truro, MA). Off in the distance, I see this mini-turret in the shrubbery. That is the Jenny Lind Tower. Well, of course, it is! Originally from the Fitchburg Train Depot, it was moved to this bizarre location in 1927. Legend has it that Jenny Lind sang on top of the tower to calm the angry crowd unable to get in to see her actual concert. Now immortalized in the fields next to a national lighthouse, golf course, and air force base, the tower is supposedly off-limits (due to the air force base). However, according to this site one can hike to the tower without getting shot (on my to-do list for our next visit).

I'm thinking a Jenny Lind Tour might be in order...any takers?

I'm still here...

Apropos of nothing:
This definitely falls under the "Miscellaneous" category. This is our annual visitor. This year he/she brought a friend and the two of them have been hanging out on our grape arbor and entertaining this guy (through the window):

I'm sorry I've been an absent blogger. I've been busy organizing conferences, serving on boards, contemplating summer hail, and very occasionally, doing research! I'd like to switch these priorities around (especially the summer hail part), but I fear the first two are only going to take up more time in the coming year. But we shall see.

But, in the meantime, while I plan to remedy my absence from the blogosphere, I offer some musicologically miscellaneous humor. You have to love the connections only Amazon can make between these two works:

"We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated A History of Music in Western Culture by Mark Evan Bonds...have also purchased Mel Bay presents All-American Concertina Album by Alan Lochhead. For this reason, you might like to know that Mel Bay presents All-American Concertina Album is now available. You can order yours for just $9.95 by following the link below."

I suddenly find myself wanting to transcribe the Bonds anthology for concertina. A good summer project, to be sure.

NOW PLAYING: Veljo Tormis, North Russian Bylina (Estonian National Male Choir, Olev Oja)

Summer Plans for MMM!

Well, just as the guys over at Dial M are taking a vacation, I'm thinking it is high time I got back to blogging! Fortunately, Ralph Locke and Brent Reidy are filling the vacancy at Dial M.

Upon my graduation from college, a wise mentor of mine counseled me to "listen to as much music as possible." This has stayed with me over the past decade, but I have failed to heed it. So, this summer, I plan to rectify that. I'd love to say I could do a new piece every day, but that may not be realistic (we musicologists have to read too and I find that I cannot do both at the same time). Real listening is a time investment for me. So, I'm going to aim for at least twice a week (let's hope this goes better than my exercise goals...).

In the meantime, remember this? For those of you who have been dying to know the answers, here they are:


1. O Lord, My God, I take refuge in you

"O Sing unto the Lord" by Phyllis E. Zimmerman. Ok, so it was a loooooooooong shot. A really loooooooooooooooooooong shot.

2. Mit Staunen sieht das Wunderwerk HINT: 18th-c

I was surprised this one had no takers! Haydn, Die Schöpfung (No. 4 for soprano solo and chorus)

3. De profundis clamavi ad te...(hint: it is from the 20th-c, and relevant to my dissertation work)

Like I said, the sacred music texts were a little unfair. But, this would be from Bernstein's Mass.

4. Da die Hirten ihre Herde

Mark got this one! Schoenberg's Friede auf Erden, Op. 13

5. We met in the quiet of the meadow

Another obscurity. A song called "The Other Side of the Wood" by a former lawyer-turned folk singer-now Unitarian minister named Fred Small.

6. My life goes on in endless song HINT: new age/Celtic

Enya, "How Can I Keep From Singing?" I was hoping someone would recognize the words of the hymn.

7. Adonai, Adonai... Lo gavah libi

I gave Scott half-credit for this one since he guessed Bernstein's Kaddish Symphony. It was from the third mvt of Chichester Psalms.

8. Funny day, looking for laughter and finding it there

Again, this one went to Mark: Joni Mitchell's "I Don't Where I Stand" from the Clouds album.

9. Give me one reason to stay here and I'll turn right back around.

My friend "the Unhipster" identified Tracy Chapman's "Gimme one Reason"
10. I have spent nights with matches and knives

This one went to Svenn: Indigo Girls, "Blood and Fire"

11. Can you hear the drums... HINT: the title of the song is the next word.

I thought this one would be one of the first to go, but no dice. Dan B. finally got it: ABBA, "Fernando."

12. An old cowboy went riding out one dark and windy day HINT: country classic!

Another surprise, although I suppose an old cowboy riding on a dark and windy day isn't exactly the most unique musical experience. Johnny Cash, "Ghost Riders in the Sky"

13. Half the people are stoned
Phil, my brother in Bernstein, got this one...the famous lines written by Paul Simon and given to Lenny which he used in Mass.
14. Empty spaces, what are we living for HINT: classic rock

Queen, "The Show Must Go On"

15. No more carefree laughter HINT: same performer(s) as another already guessed item on this list

ABBA, "Knowing Me, Knowing You"

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!!)

Really tough one but not as obscure as No. 1. Stephen Paulus, Songs of Love and Longing "From This World"

17. Hello, darkness, my old friend

Unhipster knew this one: Simon and Garfunkel, "The Sound of Silence"

18. The sky may be starless... HINT: jazz standard, popular artist

Diana Krall, "Love Letters"


19. Let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together

Again, the Unhipster: Simon and Garfunkel, "America"

20. Won't you please let me go HINT: assoc. with Little Miss Sunshine

New Order, "Age of Consent." I must apologize. I think the song was used with the movie Marie Antoinette, NOT Little Miss Sunshine.


21. I've an unrest inside me HINT: showtune

Dan B. should get the top prize for correctly guessing Blitzstein's "I Wish it So," sung by Dawn Upshaw on the album of the same name.

22. Oh, play me some... HINT: classic 80s country

Alright. So I'm the only one who listens to Alabama? ("Mountain Music")

23. Goodnight my angel HINT: leave these questions for another day...

Billy Joel, "Lullaby" aka "Goodnight My Angel"


24. Barbare! Non, sans toi je ne puis vivre HINT: opera "reformer"

This one went to Deetie: Gluck's Alceste. If my students read this blog, which they do not (at least to my knowledge), they would have guessed that one...I hope.

25. Where have all the good men gone (it is for the gym, OK?)

Svenn came through with Bonnie Tyler's "I Need a Hero"

THANKS FOR PLAYING!

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!

Swimming with Mozart and Haydn

I suppose it isn't a bad thing to feel torn between two different areas of academic interest. I missed my American music friends in San Antonio, but did meet a whole new network of 18th-c music friends in California. An excellent paper on the 18th-century American Symphony and its influence on national identity managed to pull together both interests.

What struck me most, however, is the sense of camaraderie and collegiality that permeates SECM* (and the Society for American Music, I might add). Academically speaking I was a fish out of water at this particular conference, given that I specialize in twentieth-century American music. However, it didn't seem to matter. These scholars of Haydn, Stamitz, Mozart, etc., seemed ready to discourse about the 20th-century concert Mass no matter their own areas of research. There was a general sense that the common link was music, and that was most important.

Oddly, I felt that the blurring of "specialist" distinctions was far more obvious at this "specialized" conference than at AMS** conferences, where one is supposed to find a peaceful co-existence of varied academic interests all under the same roof. It didn't matter if I had demonstrated 18th-c music as a legitimate secondary research interest. All that really mattered was that I was there, engaged and ready to learn and share. In the breaks between papers, we talked about music, teaching, power point, structuring articles...every single area of common ground. It didn't feel contrived, either. There were no wandering glances over to the other side of the room in search of "true" colleagues. There were no "so what exactly are you doing here?" questions (a question I have received more than once upon entering an AMS session outside my field of specialty). The overall sense of inclusivity was striking and encouraging.

I hope that this is what we (as a discipline) are moving toward. That is not to say I want to see job descriptions that seek scholars who specialize in Prussian music and have "secondary research areas" that include jazz, Turkish pop, and medieval chant (and must be able to teach bassoon!). Specialization is fine, and indeed, it is necessary. I just think we need to encourage a sense that specialization does not preclude mingling and mixing with the crowd at large.

*Society for Eighteenth-Century Music
**American Musicological Society

Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night...

They walked together, arms linked, under one umbrella, not in any kind of rush. One of them carried the umbrella, and the other leaned heavily on a cane. It was pouring, but there was a job to be done and by golly, these octogenarian ladies weren't going to let a little rain stop them.

They hobbled up the steps of the high school, through the double glass doors, and...


VOTED.


If they can vote, so can you.

If you are in a Super Tuesday state, and haven't voted yet, stop reading this and go...NOW!! :-)

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!

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.

Time Out for the White Stuff

The view from our front porch 7:30pm EST.



Henry is not excited.

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.