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style or substance? May 17, 2008

Posted by Charles Noble in : miscellaneous, music, add a comment

Style vs. substance the duality that’s on my mind as I write this.  I’m at a loss.  Why do individuals or organizations who do impeccably prepared, virtuosic performances passed over in favor of those who cloak mediocrity in the guise of a fancy mission statement?  Does it really all come down to marketing?  Are we who play traditional forms of classical music doing ourselves a disservice by slaving away to perfect our craft?

I don’t think that the style/substance relationship is a zero-sum equation.  One can inform the other.  They can achieve a symbiosis together that they would lack separately.  But, still, are we in America so impressed by a slickly packaged idea that we can overlook the actual substance of that idea?  I’m afraid to answer my own question, because one answer indicates that I’m cynical beyond rescue, and the other answer says that I’ve hopelessly naïve.

Any thoughts?

eastern exposure May 9, 2008

Posted by Charles Noble in : bloggers, music, the orchestra world, add a comment

I’m here in La Grande, Oregon with the Oregon Symphony, in case you’re wondering.  And it’s been a busy first day.  Yesterday my wife (a freelance cellist who plays often with the orchestra) and I arrived here at around 9:00 p.m., enjoying the great change of scenery and ecosystems that we continually marvel at when we venture across the Cascade Range along the way. 

I got some great sunset shots from the top of the huge hill that I-84 climbs before you descend through the Blue Mountains into La Grande, but no way to post them at this time - I’ll be sure to share photos from the trip with you when I’m back home on Sunday.

This morning at 9:30 and 11:00 we played youth concerts for elementary, middle, and high school students from La Grande and several surrounding communities, including Baker City, Cove, and Union.  (more…)

blog rankings 2008 April 8, 2008

Posted by Charles Noble in : bloggers, music, add a comment

I stumbled upon a post over at Classical Convert which has published lists of the Top 50 Classical Music Blogs using four different metrics - most of which don’t mean that much to me. However, I was please to see that this blog has cracked the top 50 in 3 out of the 4 lists!

Google Reader Subscriptions method: #41

Technorati Authority Score method: #40

Google Incoming Links method: #49

And ACD over at Sounds & Fury posted his own methodology which listed DA at #49.

To this I owe you many thanks for reading, linking, and re-visiting my blog over the past year.

As I’ve said before, I don’t write this blog for fame or fortune, but just as a way of providing some badly-needed therapy, and it’s gratifying that it just so happens to be a place that you come to for whatever you come here for!

brahms the wallflower? January 22, 2008

Posted by Charles Noble in : appreciation/criticism, music, add a comment

Anne Midgette, writing for the Washington Post, talks about her non-response to the music of Johannes Brahms, which she describes thusly: (more…)

alex ross & marin alsop on charlie rose January 17, 2008

Posted by Charles Noble in : appreciation/criticism, conducting, music, television, add a comment

See the video after the jump (click on title above or link at left to view entire post and see video). (more…)

audiences pendulum keeps swinging December 28, 2007

Posted by Charles Noble in : appreciation/criticism, music, the orchestra world, 4comments

John Terauds, the classical music critic for the Toronto Star, writes in a recent column that younger audiences are turned off by crossover efforts, and just want the “straight stuff”. (more…)

stabler lists top events of 2007 December 28, 2007

Posted by Charles Noble in : appreciation/criticism, soloists & recitals, the orchestra world, add a comment

Oregonian critic David Stabler
David Stabler

David Stabler, the classical music critic of the Oregonian newspaper, has listed his top classical music happenings of 2007. (more…)

duda-mania? December 1, 2007

Posted by Charles Noble in : music, the orchestra world, 2comments

This is the review that did it for me - New York Times music critic Anthony Tommasini fairly wetting himself over the Philharmonic debut of conductor it-boy of this decade, Gustavo Dudamel. (more…)

lachrymae October 21, 2007

Posted by Charles Noble in : the orchestra world, 2comments

There are instances where a topic sweeps across the blogosphere, sometimes it’s referred to as a “meme”. I hadn’t heard of this before, so I checked dictionary.com and found that a meme is described thusly:

a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of gene

In this instance, I found a post from a new blog to me: The Omniscient Mussel, who wrote a post based upon a post at Iron Tongue of Midnight about what pieces (or parts of pieces) of music make one cry. Since I’ve been all over the emotional map this month, and much of that territory was in the sad or worse region, this is a timely topic.

So, without further ado, a small selection of the pieces that, if they don’t make me cry they at least move me deeply.

  1. Adams - On the Transmigration of Souls. I really didn’t expect that this piece would get to me, especially as a performer. There’s a lot to do in this piece, and it’s easy to get lost, so there isn’t a ton of time to devote to getting emotionally involved. However, the street sounds and voices of relatives that bookend the work immediately got right to the core of me from the first moment of the first rehearsal. There’s such a sense of time and place, of empathy for those people who were there at Ground Zero, or were just going about their lives, not realizing that they or their loved ones were being irrevocably tied to history.
  2. Mahler - Ninth Symphony, mvt. IV - Adagio. I played this piece in conservatory orchestra, as principal viola, and it was a life changing experience. This last movement of a composition that is essentially a farewell to the world, and a premonition of death, is one of the great valedictory statements in music. Such sweep and intimate grandeur (if that can be made to make sense) - and the entry of the woodwinds after nearly 15 minutes of incredibly moving string passages just makes my heart break every time I hear it.
  3. Puccini - Nessun dorma, from Turandot. This always made me weepy, especially the Pavarotti version. It’s pure emotion for the sake of emotion, and that is something that I’m a bit ashamed to love, but I do.
  4. Bach - Goldberg Variations. It’s such a journey, through the whole range of keyboard possibilities and the final return of the opening Aria is always a moment that brings such relief and feelings of an epic journey brought to a satisfying conclusion.
  5. Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 21, Kv. 467 “Elvira Madigan” - I hate these nicknames derived from films, but you use this one and everyone knows the concerto you’re talking about, so there you go. The Andante from this movement is just so absolutely sublime, it did actually bring me to tears the first time I played it. It was during my first season with the OSO, and Yoël Levi was conducting. I don’t even remember who was playing the piano, but they were terrific whoever they were. We got to the Andante and to the section where the pizzicato accompaniment by the strings doubles in tempo - it’s such a great spot, just absolute perfection - you cannot imagine anyone else writing something this perfect. Man, Wolfie knew how to write a good chart.
  6. Brahms - Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, mvt. 3 - Andante. The stumbling, ruminative, despairing piano solo passage that precedes the return of the opening cello solo in the slow movement of this concerto never fails to move me. I remember the first time I ever heard this piece, it was a recording of Leon Fleisher with the Cleveland Orchestra under Georg Szell, and I knew that Brahms would have pride of place in my musical heart forever.
  7. Beethoven - String Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 130 - mvt. 5 - Cavatina. Anyone who loves listening to or performing string quartets must claim this piece, and this movement of this piece as being near the top of their personal best list. For me, the unbelievable passage where the world is shut out and we find ourselves at the very core of Beethoven’s experience is the pinnacle of the art of the quartet. If you haven’t heard the Guarneri Quartet’s performance of this movement in their second cycle of the quartets, then you really owe it to yourself to get hold of the recording and prepare to shed a few tears.
  8. Bach - Partita No. 2 in d minor for Solo Violin, BWV 1004 - Ciaconna. Truly one of the towering works for any solo instrument, or for any instrumental combination for that matter. Mahler liked to describe the symphony as a container which could hold an entire world in its confines. Bach beat him to it by a couple hundred years, and with a single instrument. The maggiore section is one of my favorite places in this piece, a place near the emotional nadir of the work, and then there is the miraculous return to the opening minor sequence, with the violin clawing its way back up from the edge of the abyss only to triumph. Amazing.

There are many more, but this is a good top of the list for me. Have your own nominations? Send a comment along.