Month: January 2011

Farewell, Milton

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Milton Babbitt has died at 94. Times obit here; WQXR notice here (via Soho the Dog); Sequenza 21 notice here.

Update: do check out the Babbitt documentary by Robert Hilferty, completed by my Tanglewood classmate Laura Karpman and found here.

Updates #2-5: David Rakowski offers a lovely memorial essay at New Music Box. A good interview with Milton here. And a reminiscence by soprano Judith Bettina here. And yet another interview here.

Update #6: Jim Ricci has recently posted his own reminiscences.

Prismatic Schedule

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The sax quartet Prism has announced its performance schedule for the current season. I’m happy to say this includes a performance of my Straight Up, which I wrote for the group’s 20th anniversary a few years ago. My piece was one of a group of twenty-three short pieces written for the occasion, and all of them have been recorded for Innova. CD release concerts will take place at WXPN’s World Cafe here in Philly, and at The Stone in New York, May 28 and May 31, respectively. (I’m a Penn faculty member, but I can’t get my music heard on Penn’s quite commercial “non-commercial” radio station, despite that station’s supposed allegiance to “real musical variety” - at least my music can sneak into the station’s live performance space.) The Prism season also features a program of music by Greek composers, including Xenakis and Penn alum Stratis Minakakis; and a program of premieres, including music by David Rakowski, Lisa Bielawa, Perry Goldstein, Caro Haxo, and the quartet’s own Matthew Levy.

Merton and Laughlin

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The correspondence of James Laughlin with several of the poets he published  at New Directions books has been issued in several volumes. I’ve been spending time with the Thomas Merton collection. As a Merton fan, I already knew the series of big volumes of his letters (he maintained an immense correspondence), but the Laughlin/Merton volume is especially interesting because, unlike those anthologies, this one includes both sides of the conversation. Laughlin  really believed in Merton as a poet - a bit surprising given the fact that Merton is not at all on the same level as other poets Laughlin published (Williams, Rexroth, Levertov, etc.). It is clear from the letters that his friendship with Merton was spiritually nourishing for Laughlin, just as Merton relied on Laughlin for reading material and as a lifeline to the world of poetry. New Directions also became the place where some of Merton’s most interesting writing appeared (New Seeds of Contemplation, Raids on the Unspeakable, Zen and the Birds of Appetite, and quite a bit more.) The collection is a very readable document of an unusual, touching literary friendship.

40 years of Levine

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I recently picked up the James Levine 40th Anniversary collections of CDs and DVDs. What is appealing about them is the repertoire, with its emphasis on 20th century items - Berg, Schoenberg, Debussy, Weill, Harbison, Corigliano - along with earlier masters. The Elektra, with Hildegard Behrens, Deborah Voigt, Brigette Fassbaender, James King and Donald McIntyre, features razor-sharp orchestral playing and simply incredible performances from all three women. I’ve experienced the charisma of  Behrens as Brynnhilde in person, and that gift is apparent in her sustained demonic intensity as Elektra. It’s a jaw-dropping performance.

 

Snow day listening miscellany

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- WBGO has lots of worthwhile listening at their website The Checkout. (Thanks to Outside Pants for the link.)

-recommended recent listening:

Brad Mehldau - Art of the Trio, Volume One. This is early Mehldau from 15 years ago. Perhaps a bit less edgy than some more recent work of his; impressive for the compellingly projected melodic lines - when I say “projected”, I don’t simply mean the tune is brought to the fore - it has to do with how it is articulated, a sense of a presence speaking.

Daniel Asia - Purer Than Purest Pure (BBC Singers, Odaline de la Martinez) A beautifully performed collection of Asia’s choral music. The more recent pieces are groups of Cummings settings - often playful and charming, handsomely laid out for the chorus. The disc also includes earlier pieces that explore darker moods.

Chilly Monday Miscellany

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- Sharon Browning is eloquent on Tucson and wild geese.

- WHYY offers an archive of their telecasts of Curtis student performances here. (Hey folks, how about some new music on these programs?)

- the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society’s blog previews the upcoming performance by the Matthias Pintscher leading the Curtis Chamber Orchestra, this Wednesday, January 26.

Rouse Oboe Concerto in Philly

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I went to hear Chris Rouse’s Oboe Concerto tonight with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Alan Gilbert conducting, and the superb Richard Woodhams as soloist. The piece is in what the composer calls his “genial” mode - as opposed to a demonic piece like his Pulitzer Prize winning Trombone Concerto. I was most taken with the slow music - exquisite colors, both in the sense of harmony and of orchestral timbre. The contrasting fast playful sections are brilliant, but it was the ecstatic stillness supporting the intensely lyrical Woodhams oboe that was most striking.

Gilbert opened the program with the piece Magnus Lindberg wrote for Gilbert’s inaugural concert as music director of the NY Phil - it is called EXPO (not sure why the all-caps). The piece works with a rather French sounding harmonic language, something it shared with the Rouse. Beethoven 6 closed the program in a performance memorable for some moments of remarkably soft but rich string playing and the characterful wind solos - it was a great night for wind playing all around. Bravo to Alan Gilbert for programming not one but two new pieces.

Lang Lang the jazz all-star

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Here’s an eyebrow-raiser:

The dinner’s all-star jazz lineup includes trumpeter Chris Botti, two-time Grammy Award-winning vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater, jazz icon Herbie Hancock, rising star Lang Lang and four-time Grammy-winning vocalist Dianne Reeves.

This from AP regarding the performers at the White House dinner for Hu Jintao.

Identifying superstar classical pianist Lang Lang as a “rising star” in the context of  an “all-star jazz lineup” is simply bizarre. I can sort of accept that AP would not know he is not a jazz pianist, but it is distressing to think that some White House staff member who was giving out information about the dinner would be unclear about this.

Probably this came about because Hancock and Lang Lang have been doing some performing together. And the paragraph may simply be a matter of bad editing. But still…

Paging Fred Ho!