Archive for February, 2007
28 February 2007 at 11:59 am
· Filed under Links for the week, Music
Tom Service interviews Tom Adès.
Barrington-Coupe – ‘it’s a fair cop‘.
It’s March tomorrow – so boycott the RIAA for a month. (Thanks, César.)
And two things from Alex. (Due to technical problems they’re not appearing on site at the moment, so I’m reproducing in full.) This one made me think:
Brendan Kroener has analyzed the 2006 classical surge for Slate, attributing the phenomenon mostly to the crossover titans Andrea Bocelli, Josh Groban, and Il Divo. It’s a smart piece, but I’m not entirely convinced. Il Divo released their monster-selling debut in 2005, together with a Christmas record at the end of the year. So they more or less held steady from 2005 to 2006, and can’t have contributed too dramatically to the classical uptick. It’s good to point out that neither Groban nor Bocelli released albums in 2005, but both singers put out records in November 2004, which should have continued selling well into the next year. If classical sales are so closely tied to the crossover category, why did they fall sharply from 2004 to 2005, when the latter year saw the introduction of an enormous new crossover act? I don’t deny that Bocelli and Groban added heavily to classical sales last year, but I believe that they account for only part of the rise. What we need are overall figures for the “straight” classical and classical-crossover divisions. It’s easy to mock the genre by noting that, say, a New York Philharmonic iTunes release is selling only a few thousand copies a month. But there are thousands upon thousands of classical releases each year; it’s the aggregate that counts.
And this one made me laugh (and made me think of Diana Ross – two good things):
Justin Timberlake, Los Angeles CA: “If I wrote you a symphony, just to say how much you mean to me, what would you do?”
A: I would be extremely flattered, Justin! But do we really need another exercise in Classical-Romantic nostalgia? I would recommend a continuous one-movement form derived from a single motivic kernel.
Update: I had meant to include this link too – a review-article published on Culture Wars on the spnm’s recent RIOT event, and on new audiences for new music.
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28 February 2007 at 10:46 am
· Filed under Music ·Tagged Radio
Good news: the first Mixing It show from their new Resonance FM location is to be broadcast tonight, 11pm. Also streamed online for everyone outside London. Here’s a tracklist to whet your appetite:
01. Ergo Phizmiz: Aubers Vespers Farnaby Absalom Mix
track 9 Nose Points In Different Directions-Music by Ergo Phizmiz 2001-2006 Womb Records
02. Soulsavers: Jesus Of Nothing
track 2 on cd single – from album “it’s not how far you fall, it’s the way you land” v2 records
03. Yoko Ono with DJ Spooky: Rising
track 2 from “yes i’m a witch” parlophone
04. Henryk Gorecki: String Quartet No 3 op 67 “…. songs are sung” 3rd Movement, Allegro Sempre Ben Marcato – Kronos Quartet
nonesuch records out march 20th
05. Fulborn Teversham: Count Herbert II
track 2 from album “count Herbert II” Pickled Egg Records
06. Luc Ferrari: Saliceburry Cocktail (2002) part 3 and a bit of Part 4
tracks 9 & 10 from “Son Memorise” 1976-2002 Sub Rosa
07. Stabmaster Vinyl: Bear In A G String
track 5 from “the soft, smooth, luxurious sound of high quality recordings” compilation
08. Duo Baars – Henneman: Ruby Slippers
track 6 from album “Stof” Stichting Wig Records, Amsterdam
09. Feedle: Everything Slow
track 4 from album “leave now for adventure” Illicit Recordings
10. David Toop: Auscultation
track 2 from album “Sound Body” samadhisound
Oh, and Resonance are on a big fundraising jag at the moment, so send ‘em a donation, or risk losing it. (And you know the BBC aren’t gonna take their shows back.)
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27 February 2007 at 7:03 pm
· Filed under Music ·Tagged György Kurtág, György Ligeti, Morton Feldman, PhD, research
Another long day in Colindale newspaper library. It’s scary, and probably not something I should admit, but I feel like I’m doing more research in this final year of my PhD than I did in my first…
Anyway, two amusing things discovered amongst the rolls of microfilm.
1. On 3rd March 1971, organist Xavier Dorasse had to pull a performance of Ligeti’s Volumina from his London concert because when he first hit that all-notes, all-stops blazing chord at the beginning, he blew the organ’s fuses.
2. On 22nd November 1973, London audiences were faced with a choice that looks agonising in retrospect, but of which they likely weren’t aware at the time: go and see John Tilbury playing Feldman, or Zoltán Kocsis playing Kurtág? 33 years later, either of those gigs would kill. Wow.
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23 February 2007 at 11:15 am
· Filed under Music ·Tagged Radio
Wooo!
From Mark Russell:
Hello,
I’ve just delivered our first MIXINGIT for Resonance FM. Robert & I were overwhelmed by listener support and decided to carry on. I’ll let you know when our first show is to be broadcast. I’m posting to thank everyone for kind emails and messages of support. And also to ask for help. We have a vast backlog of Playlists dating back to 1995. We need a website. Is there anyone out there who could help us set up/design a simple website which would house these playlists, host potential podcasts and keep everyone up to date with news, music etc ?
Our email address : mixingit@mac.com
Many thanks,
Mark Russell
And of course, if you feel you can help out on the website front, drop him a line.
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21 February 2007 at 4:37 pm
· Filed under Links for the week ·Tagged BBC, Henryk Gorecki, Joyce Hatto, Kaija Saariaho, links, Radio
Having just trawled through a bunch of rec.music.classical.recordings threads that veer from the carefully worded and well-researched to the moronic, I’m a bit Hatto’d out to be honest. But a couple of extra bits for now: first, the indomitable Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music at Royal Holloway has got on the case; and in a more light-hearted vein, John TurtleTop observes that this goes into territory beyond even Milli Vanilla or John Oswald’s wildest dreams. Watch this space for when the lawyers get involved…
(Actually, there is something interesting to be said in here about the entanglement of musical forgery, listener response, the role and limits of criticism, music and the law, and the power of a Really Good Story, but I’ve not quite nailed it yet.)
Update: Oh, and there’s also this massive article from Christopher Howell on Musicweb, unearthing his past correspondence with Hatto and her husband.
Update 2: Those lawyers may be involved already.
The Times (“why is Radio 3 so creepy in the way it treats presenters and listeners alike, and why is it so keen to highlight dissent if it is in a comfortably far-off place such as Turkey or China, while making every attempt to squash it when it is rather nearer to home?”), and the Guardian (“In a few months, most listeners will have forgotten what the old format sounded like” (Geoffrey Wheatcroft takes the opposite side elsewhere on the GU site)) both get stuck into the ‘whither Radio 3′ debate.
Also worth reading: Timothy Mangan on Górecki’s Third String Quartet, and Matthew Guerrieri on Saariaho.
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20 February 2007 at 10:55 am
· Filed under Copyright
Number 10 has clearly been busy recently catching up on its correspondence. I’ve had two emails from the PM this week responding to petitions I’ve put my name to (not, I might add, that silly ‘I don’t want to pay for stuff’ one on road tolls). The latest is a response to the Ban DRM petition that closed last month. For those interested, I’ve copied the whole thing below. The first thing to notice is that the PM has clearly lost his writing mojo recently – sheesh. And secondly – what he says is mostly aloadofoldcrap.
(Utterly loony emphasis added by me.)
Digital rights issues have been gaining increasing prominence as innovation accelerates, more and more digital media products and services come onto the market and the consumer wants to get access to digital content over different platforms. Many content providers have been embedding access and management tools to protect their rights and, for example, prevent illegal copying. We believe that they should be able to continue to protect their content in this way. However, DRM does not only act as a policeman through technical protection measures, it also enables content companies to offer the consumer unprecedented choice in terms of how they consume content, and the corresponding price they wish to pay.
It is clear though that the needs and rights of consumers must also be carefully safeguarded. It is reasonable for consumers to be informed what is actually being offered for sale, for example, and how and where the purchaser will be able to use the product, and any restrictions applied. While there is good reason to expect the market to reach a balance as these new markets develop, it is important that consumers’ interests are maintained in the meantime.
Apart from the APIG (All Party Internet Group) report on DRM referred to in your petition, Digital Rights issues are an important component in other major HMG review strands on Intellectual Property, New Media and the Creative Economy. In particular, the independent Gowers Review of Intellectual Property commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, published its report on 6th December 2006 as part of the Chancellor’s Pre-Budget Report. Recommendations include introducing a limited private copying exception by 2008 for format shifting for works published after the date that the law comes into effect. There should be no accompanying levies for consumers. Also making it easier for users to file notice of complaints procedures relating to Digital Rights Management tools by providing an accessible web interface on the Patent Office website by 2008 and that DTI should investigate the possibility of providing consumer guidance on DRM systems through a labelling convention without imposing unnecessary regulatory burdens.
Yes, but are you actually going to do anything?
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15 February 2007 at 12:56 pm
· Filed under Copyright, Music
Industry reactions to Steve Jobs’s Thoughts on Music (a slightly hypocritical, cynically-timed, Euro-bashing, but basically welcome piece of input) are starting to come in.
Unsurprisingly, Warners say “no way, José“.
Only slightly less surprisingly, European industry execs say “less DRM, please“.
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15 February 2007 at 12:08 pm
· Filed under Music ·Tagged BBC, Radio
A couple of recent articles on the current state of Radio 3:
David Self in the Telegraph laments the almost complete departure of live music from R3’s schedules, and echoes concerns heard elsewhere that such a course will damage Radio 3, perhaps irrevocably, in the long term:
Radio 3 managers may blame financial pressures for this move. Agreed, a live outside broadcast demands some 15 technicians and engineers, a technical rehearsal and travelling expenses for a staff announcer. To record a concert may need only a couple of engineers and some studio time to “polish” what they have recorded. Tragically, the skills needed to balance microphones for the various sections of a large choir or orchestra will soon be lost. This short-termism is a supreme example of the BBC shooting itself not only in the foot but the heart.
<snip>
If the station is abandoning its commitment to live concerts, music lovers are entitled to be worried about other aspects of that “rich musical life” that are also put under threat by this decision. For Radio 3 is not just a broadcaster of music, it is a patron, too. What, for instance, will happen to the many new works it commissions each year for broadcast in its live concerts? Are they to be quietly abandoned? If they are, then it’s not just our musical present that is being denuded, but our future, too.
And what about the BBC’s six in-house performing groups? The Welsh and Scottish Orchestras are not under Wright’s control, so are safe. The Symphony Orchestra is required for the Proms, and the Concert Orchestra actually makes money for the Corporation, so they presumably are safe for the time being. But I wouldn’t over-estimate the life expectancy of the Manchester-based BBC Philharmonic or the prestigious BBC Singers. Without regular broadcast work, there is little justification for their existence.
And Norman Lebrecht in La Scena musicale despairs at the ‘Tchaikovsky experience’ bloating the schedules all this week. I think he sells Tchaikovsky short (“What you hear in Tchaikovsky is what you get: there is no message”) as a composer of depth, but his central thrust is right: such gorges on a single composer, stripped of all context, nuance, critical judgement; mindlessly consuming hours and hours of music for no other reason than it’s by Tchaikovsky (no matter how poor some of that music might in fact be) … well there’s a term for this, it begins with P and ends with ornography.
Update: Guardian blogger Stanley Wells takes a completely opposite view – “There is much to be said for a week-long intensive survey of one or two composers’ outputs. … But I’m not sure that the pairing of Tchaikovsky with Stravinsky was wise. Indeed I’m far from sure that I want to hear all of Stravinsky’s music, ever.”
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15 February 2007 at 11:06 am
· Filed under Musician Deathwatch ·Tagged deathwatch, Music, musician, obituary
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