brilliant criticism April 30, 2008
Posted by Charles Noble in : appreciation/criticism, music, add a commentThroughout history, the great works of literature (whether well-received or not) have sparked equally great works of literary criticism. Alex Ross’ brilliant history of music in the twentieth century has sparked criticism of the highest order - most lately by the great British tenor Ian Bostridge, writing in the Times Literary Supplement (think the English equivalent of The New York Times Review of Books).
Thanks to E. for the tip.
Here’s a taste:
Alex Ross’s The Rest is Noise tells the story of what happened to Western classical music in the twentieth century. We all know that the invention of recorded sound around 1900 made possible an extraordinary dissemination of the riches of the classical repertoire - largely composed for the rich and powerful - to the mass of ordinary people. On the gramophone, the radio, television and, subliminally and hence more powerfully, through the movies, the classical sound in all its variants (even the supposedly rebarbative confections of the Second Viennese School) has insinuated itself into the culture at large. Never before have so many people listened to, or liked, so-called classical music. Yet this extraordinary triumph has culminated in a malaise, a feeling, widespread in the musical profession and elsewhere, that classical music is in crisis and that things have never been so bad. Classical music feels abandoned, left behind as history has moved on, sulking in its tent as the real cultural action happens somewhere else.
new concert space debuts in KBPS benefit April 30, 2008
Posted by Charles Noble in : chamber music, fundraising, add a commentThe Museum of Contemporary Craft, at 724 NW Davis (the DeSoto building, on the North Park blocks), will make its debut as one of Portland’s newest concert venues in a benefit for KBPS’ “Permanent Home on Your Dial” campaign to secure its broadcast license in perpetuity.
The concert will feature Portland chamber music fixtures violist Joël Belgique, violinist Inés Voglar, pianist Cary Lewis, and cellist Dorothy Lewis.
They’ll present a very interesting concert of chamber music rarities, including a world premiere by composer and classical radio announcer Robert McBride of a new work for violin and piano. An arrangement of Borodin’s Polovetsian Dances for piano quartet will also be featured, as well as Enoch Arden, a melodrama by Richard Strauss, with KBPS announcer Edmund Stone narrating.
Tickets are $20 and are available in advance at Classical Millennium at 3144 E. Burnside, or at the door the evening of the performance.
To learn more about the Craft museum, take a look at this video:
