From Joseph Horowitz’s new essay on the whiteness of American classical music:
What’s the pertinence of Aaron Copland’s poor opinion of “Mr. Gershwin’s jazz”? Of Virgil Thomson’s view that American folk music was fundamentally white? Of Leopold Stokowski’s credible assertion that William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony(1934) marked “a wonderful development in American music”? And whatever happened to that formidable symphony, greeted by one eminent critic as “the most distinctive and promising American symphonic proclamation which has so far been achieved”?…
Beethoven’s first self-promoted concert in Vienna in April 1800 contained works by Mozart and Haydn alongside his own first symphony, piano concerto and a septet, opus 20, that was the hit of the night. On the notion that nothing succeeds like success, Beethoven sold his publisher an additional version of the septet, scaled down to a trio for clarinet (or violin), cello and piano and registered as his opus 38. Contrary to expectations, it never matched the popularity of the septet, then or since. I cannot recall a really gripping recording….
The station has been running for 20 years but a national debate on the future of broadcasting has put its funding under scrutiny and a leading TV current affairs programmes says it’s touch and go.
Its disappearance would be disastrous.
I’m truly shocked to see this on Twitter. I did not see #rtept but the very thought of shutting down @RTElyricfm is unimaginable and utterly ridiculous. A public service broadcaster with no classical station would be an embarrassment. Please let’s not regress! #SaveRTElyricFMhttps://t.co/MtTJnoEkJP
The Guardian has a riff going with a list of 25 post-2000 works chosen by its music critics, and some 250 dissenting comments. I’d agree with very few of the Guardian’s selections.
Here’s the Slipped Disc 20:
20 Nico Muhly, Two Boys (2011)
19 Missy Mazzoli, Breaking the Waves (2016)
18 Oded Zehavi, flute concerto (2017)
17 Peter Maxwell Davies 9th symphony (2012)
16 Jennifer Higdon, violin concerto (2008)
15 Salvatore Sciarrino, 7th string quartet (2000)
14 Arvo Pärt, 4th symphony (2008)
13 Salvatore Sciarrino, 7th string quartet (2000)
13 Thomas Ades: piano concerto (2018)
12 John Adams, Doctor Atomic (2005)
11 Harrison Birtwistle: The Minotaur (2008)
10 James MacMillan, 3rd symphony (2003)
9 Steve Reich, Daniel Variations (2006)
8 Hans Abrahmsen, let me tell you (2016)
7 Karlheinz Stockhausen: Sonntag aus Licht (2003)
6 Charles Wuorinen, Brokeback Mountain (2014)
5 Gyorgy Kurtag, Fin de partie (2018)
4 Miroslav Srnka, South Pole (2016)
3 Michel Van Der Aa, Sunken Garden (2012)
2 Donacha Dennehy, That The Night Come (2010)
1 John Luther Adams, Become Ocean (2013)
+
Why?
Because Adams’s piece is the most important orchestral work to address the crisis of life on earth. It will be performed so long as life remains on earth.
There was a time when it seemed Claudio Abbado or Riccardo Chailly might succeed Georg Solti in Chicago. Why that never happened is still hotly disputed, but Chicago got 15 years of Daniel Barenboim and missed out on the pizza.
In the 1990s, the New York Philharmonic went in pursuit of Riccardo Muti. That, too, never happened. It got Kurt Masur and Alan Gilbert.
Then, ten years ago, Chicago landed Muti. Yesterday, it signed Enrique Mazzola for the Lyric Opera. Chicago has gone all-Italian.
And New York? Dutch at the Phil, Quebec at the Met.
Mazzola
Winners of this year’s Ig-nobel prizes:
(September 12, 2019, CAMBRIDGE, MA, USA) The 2019 Ig Nobel Prizes, honoring achievements that first make people LAUGH, and
then THINK, were awarded at Harvard University's historic Sanders Theatre tonight before 1100 spectators in a ceremony filled with
paper airplanes and people showing off their personal habits.
This was the 29th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. Most of the new winners journeyed to Harvard — at their own expense — to
accept their Prizes. Each winning team also received cash — a ten-trillion dollar bill from Zimbabwe.
The Ig Nobel Prizes were physically handed to the winners by genuine Nobel laureates.
MEDICINE [ITALY, THE NETHERLANDS]
Silvano Gallus, for collecting evidence that pizza might protect against illness and death, if the pizza is made and eaten in Italy.
REFERENCE: “Does Pizza Protect Against Cancer?” Silvano Gallus, Cristina Bosetti, Eva Negri, Renato Talamini, Maurizio Montella,
Ettore Conti, Silvia Franceschi, and Carlo La Vecchia, International Journal of Cancer, vol. 107, no. 2, November 1, 2003, pp. 283-284.
REFERENCE: “Pizza and Risk of Acute Myocardial Infarction,” Silvano Gallus, A. Tavani, and C. La Vecchia, European Journal of
Clinical Nutrition, vol. 58, no. 11, November 2004, pp. 1543-1546.
REFERENCE: “Pizza Consumption and the Risk of Breast, Ovarian and Prostate Cancer,” Silvano Gallus, Renato Talamini, Cristina Bosetti, Eva Negri, Maurizio Montella, Silvia Franceschi, Attilio Giacosa, and Carlo La Vecchia, European Journal of Cancer Prevention,
vol. 15, no. 1, February 2006, pp. 74-76.
ANATOMY [FRANCE]
Roger Mieusset and Bourras Bengoudifa, for measuring scrotal temperature asymmetry in naked and clothed postmen in France.
REFERENCE: “Thermal Asymmetry of the Human Scrotum,” Bourras Bengoudifa and Roger Mieusset, Human Reproduction, vol. 22,
no. 8, 2007, pp. 2178-2182.
CONTACT: Roger Mieusset, Groupe de Recherche en Fertilite´Humaine, Université Toulouse III. Hôpital Paule de Viguier, 330 Avenue
de Grande-Bretagne, TSA 70034, Toulouse Cedex 9, France. Tel: (+33) 567 771027. <mieusset.r@chu-toulouse.fr>
PEACE [UK, SAUDI ARABIA, SINGAPORE, USA]
Ghada A. bin Saif, Alexandru Papoiu, Liliana Banari, Francis McGlone, Shawn G. Kwatra, Yiong-Huak Chan, and Gil Yosipovitch, for
trying to measure the pleasurability of scratching an itch.
REFERENCE: “The Pleasurability of Scratching an Itch: A Psychophysical and Topographical Assessment,” G.A. bin Saif, A.D.P.
Papoiu, L. Banari, F. McGlone, S.G. Kwatra, Y.-H. Chan and G. Yosipovitch, British Journal of Dermatology, vol. 166, no. 5, 2012, pp.
981-985.
The incoming director of the Vienna State Opera, Bogdan Roščić, has leaked plans for 10 new productions to the tabloid press.
His star attraction will be a Traviata, imported from the Paris Opéra.
He is also promising to re-engage the former music director Franz Welser-Möst, alongside the willy-waving conductor Teodor Currentzis and the regisseur-provocateur Barrie Kosky.
The new Vienna has all the hallmarks of a Bogdan record-company production. It’s a bunch of deals that look just like everyone else’s.
In a word: Bog-standard.
From the Concertgebouw orchestra:
Conductor emeritus Mariss Jansons has had to cancel the concerts with the Concertgebouworkest on 18 and 19 September in Amsterdam and on 21 September in Bucharest due to health reasons.
The Romanian conductor Cristian Măcelaru will take over the programme unchanged… Măcelaru is Chief Conductor of the WDR Sinfonieorchester in Cologne.
Previously, Janine Jansen pulled out of another season-opening concert.
