“Beethoven certainly changed the way that people thought about music, but this change was a change for the worse. From the speculations of Pythagoras about the “music of the spheres” in ancient Greece onwards, most western musicians had agreed that musical beauty was based on a mysterious connection between sound and mathematics, and that this provided music with an objective goal, something that transcended the individual composer’s idiosyncrasies and aspired to the universal. Beethoven managed to put an end to this noble tradition by inaugurating a barbaric U-turn away from an other-directed music to an inward-directed, narcissistic focus on the composer himself and his own tortured soul. This was a ghastly inversion that led slowly but inevitably to the awful atonal music of Schoenberg and Webern.”
Tag: 06.05.05
Some Do’s And Don’ts At The Cliburn
After weeks of listening to competitors of this year’s Van Cliburn Competition, Scot Cantrell has some advice for competitors…
Bravo Piano – Chicago Plan Looks Like A Winner
The Chicago Art Institute’s expansion plan designed by Renzo Piano and unveiled last week, is a winner, writes Blair Kamin. “The plan calls for a $258 million wing at the southwest corner of Columbus and Monroe Drives that will concentrate the Art Institute’s now-scattered modern and contemporary collections in a 264,000-square-foot temple of steel, glass and limestone. Completion is due in spring 2009. In most cities, this would be a stand-alone structure, the leading art museum. Here, it has been deftly woven into an urban composition that includes the sober classicism of the Art Institute’s 1893 temple along Michigan Avenue and the baroque modernism of Gehry’s Pritzker music pavilion, across Monroe in Millennium Park. That is a balancing act worthy of a circus acrobat carrying a parasol.”
An Ode To The Bassoon
What use is a bassoon? “We hold the whole thing together. Aside from holding up the bottom of the four main woodwind instruments, we modify our colors, and in the process, suddenly it’s not a flute and a bassoon, it’s a ‘flassoon.’ And the combination of clarinet and bassoon is a ‘bassinet.’ The same thing with the oboe. It’s our job to make these instruments into something altogether different. A good bassoon player has to have an ear for color and has to be a good ensemble player.”
The Professor Who Attacks Arts Subsidies
John Carey’s new book “What Good are the Arts?” argues that the majority should not have to pay for the entertainment of the educated minority. “What, he explains, really gets him about Covent Garden, is the ‘luxury’ of it. He also feels it’s wrong that the majority should pay for the pleasures of the educated minority. When there is no way of proving that so-called great art has any transcendental value, Carey feels, it is hard to argue that it should be made available at the tax-payer’s expense, as in his view it offers no demonstrable moral or spiritual benefits to society. This even leads him to question the state subsidy that makes the National Gallery entrance free of charge.”
Philly Opera Racks Deficit, Cuts Staff
The Opera Company of Philadelphia has recorded its first major deficit since 1995. “The company ran a $400,000 deficit on an $8.6 million budget for the fiscal year that ended May 31. As a result, the company has let go Susan S. Ashbaker, a key member of the music staff for 16 years; plus the director of marketing, director of development, and two lower-level staff members.”
Scotland – Accessibility Threatens Quality?
Scotland is undergoing a debate about the accessibility and quality of its support for the arts. Is one incompatible with the other? “We must not confuse accessibility with the lowest common denominator. You should aim to put out the best art exhibitions, the best musical performance, the best book festival and then you make that accessible. My belief is that this shows the greatest respect of all to the individual to whom you are trying to create access, to say ‘we have the best here’.”
Doubt, Spamalot Win Tonys
“Doubt,” John Patrick Shanley’s drama of suspicion and certainty has won this year’s Tony for best play. “Monty Python’s Spamalot” wins best musical.
Blue Men Got The Blues In Toronto
The Blue man Group is opening an outpost in Toronto. But there are problems. “With the first preview set for Tuesday night, the major focus is not on the show itself, but on the boycott against it waged by Toronto’s three major performing arts unions — Canadian Actors’ Equity Association, the Toronto Musicians’ Association and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. Inflammatory rhetoric is now the order of the day, lawsuits are being threatened and the unions are planning continued action once the previews start.”
Rushdie – Campaigning For Freedom
As president of PEN/America, Salman Rushdie is campaigning for the American government to loosen laws on banning importation of some literature. “It seems somewhat ironic that Rushdie should survive a period of life-threatening danger, living in 30 houses in nine years, and wind up in the land of the free only to discover that he must start campaigning for freedom all over again.”