Mark Likes Music

It's no surprise that the Detroit Symphony Orchestra today cancelled all concerts up to December 11 . The musicians have been on strike for months, and there's no end in sight; the two sides aren't even talking . Here's how startlingly bad things are financially for the Motor City band, as Jeff Bennett reminds us today in the Wall Street Journal : The DSO reported a $3.8 million deficit for its 2009 fiscal year compared with a $509,000 loss in fiscal year 2008. Corporate giving, driven largely by Detroit auto makers and parts suppliers, was cut in half, falling to $1.59 million from $3.29 million. The 2010 fiscal year results are due out in December. That's almost $4 million dollars on a $31.4 million operating budget, with a primary source of revenue drying up. There's no way the musicians can be ignorant of the realities here: their city simply can't support an 85-member orchestra with a base pay even at $82,000 (their base pay was $104, 650). What...

Speaking of Louisville: Louis Andriessen won the Grawemeyer Award today for his opera thing La Commedia . The award is one of five that industrialist and "astute investor" H. Charles Grawemeyer founded in 1984 at the University of Louisville.

The Louisville Orchestra are on the verge of bankruptcy and may not make payroll on Tuesday. At the same time, administration is negotiating with the musicians on a new contract. CEO Robert Birman says, "The musicians aren't a problem; they're an expense we always agreed we would have." You would assume, hearing this, that Birman and his crew know that they can't ask the musicians to sacrifice more than they have. But that's not the case. Management is asking for base pay to drop from an already measly $34,200 to just under $29,000. They also want to lay off 16 musicians. Birman also had this to say: This orchestra has to have the discipline and the honesty to live within its means and almost to a person the community is saying we will not continue to just simply bear out this orchestra. They've got to get serious about coming together and finding a sustainable platform. I'm not sure who the "they" are in this quotation, but it can...

I found a couple of people weighing in on the proposal to raise property taxes for the Detroit Symphony , which has been on strike for almost two months now. Bottom line for both: this would be a quick fix with little long-term benefit. The Detroit News  opined as such: Musicians rejected a sweetened offer last week, saying the pay reductions it still demanded would compromise the quality of the orchestra. That seems a specious claim, considering that work rules in their contract make it almost impossible to fire a musician whose skills have waned. This contract fight is about the long-term viability of the DSO; taxpayers would do the orchestra no favor by approving a bailout before the tough decisions are made.  After arguing why governments should support cultural institutions, Edmonton Symphony Orchestra conductor Bill Eddins makes a similar poin t: Cultural Heritage tax proposals tend to embolden the opposition who thinks that the Arts aren’t important to a hea...

Darth Vader has always scared the hell out of me. I find nothing cute about Chad Vader, and this is just plain horrifying: For years, I had a recurring nightmare where mechanical Anakin would relentlessly follow me everywhere. He'd never quite catch me, but I could never fully escape. Thanks to NTT DoComo's ad for the Samsung Galaxy S , I can relive the dream!

In an attempt to end the Detroit Symphony strike, a Michigan state representative wants to make it possible for people in three area counties to vote to help fund the orchestra with a small increase in their property taxes . It's worth considering: orchestras, privately run as non-profits, are nonetheless civic institutions, and there's no reason why property owners shouldn't pay a little bit for something that improves the cultural life of their city (and their property values). The tax increase would be small, only about $20 on an assessed $100,000 worth of real estate (by my calculations, so I could be way off). Assuming such an initiative goes before the public, here are some questions to ask before voting on it: 1. Is the orchestra an essential service? These are tough times for Detroit, and before voting to saddle neighbors with an added expense, it's worth asking if the orchestra is something that the area absolutely needs. 2. How much government money al...

Openculture.org loves free stuff, and today they pointed its readers to James Kibbie's website , where the University of Michigan organ prof is giving away Bach recordings he made on organs throughout Germany. I downloaded his version of the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (the scary one in movies); sounded good to me.

Did you ever wonder what happened to that guy in high school who thought he was deep because he listened to metal. "It's not Satanic," he'd say. "I'm a Christian, and I can tell you that the lyrics actually remind us about evil. They're a warning." Well, he lives in a three-bedroom colonial in California now. And he's setting his holiday light show to Slayer's "Raining Blood."

On his blog, Andrew Sullivan has a conversation going about childrearing . Katie Roiphe from Slate pines for the "benign neglect of the 1970s and '80s," and Mark Oppenheimer worries that helicopter parenting destroys individuality. I grew up in a rural area--big back yard; acres of open field to run through; cows--and it was relatively low-risk for my Mom to open the door and kick me outside. I loved it. I could run around, make believe, just sit and watch the clouds go by. I'm glad that today I live in an area where my wife and I can give our children at least a modicum of that freedom. I also grew up in that era of benign neglect Roiphe is nostalgic for, and almost died three times before I was twelve: once by drowning, once when I was run over by a truck (long story), and once by a fall from a bridge (also, long story). If parents today coddle, it may be because we remember those death-defying moments a little more vividly than the fun stuff. This post does...

Through the Daily Dish, I found this Pop Matters article on the music you can find in CD bins at 99 cent stores. Thanks to the complete devaluing of the CD and the ruination of the recorded music industry, you can find better than ever stuff at places that used to only stock not-played-by-the-original-artists '70s hits packages. I found Boston's second album at the drug store last week for well under $10. Thanks to Pathmark, I got to know the artistry of Waylon Jennings just a little bit better. Now's the time to get out there and make your finds. While we still have the chance.

The New York Times critics' blah-blah about Lincoln Center's White Lights Festival--dedicated to spirituality and exploring our "inner universe," something like that--got me thinking about music that makes me contemplate the Big Questions. 1. Rheostatic's "Shaved Head" on Whale Music There's nothing like a song about chemotherapy to get you thinking about the great beyond. At least I think it's about chemotherapy. I hear in this song all the pain that comes with the realization that your relationship with the one you love is short, transitory. Every time I listen to this I cry, so I don't listen to it much. It's exhausting. For end-of-life poignancy, it's right up there with Alden Nowlan's "This is What I Wanted to Sign off With." 2. Beethoven's "Ode to Joy"  In whatever version I hear it, this melody gives me that little chill on the back of my neck. You can't help but feel as if we're al...

The Seattle Symphony is performing a cheesy-music favorite tonight and Saturday. They have a sound clip and program notes on their website . They're also playing, with Elisa Barston, Philip Glass's First Violin Concerto: Here's a challenge: how many copyright infringements can you find in this video?

Through his Facebook page, Menon Dwarka  reminded me (and a lot of other people, really) that Gorecki's Third Symphony also played a musical role in Julian Schnabel's Basquiat : The film came out in 1996, a few years after the hit recording and the same year that Lamb came out with their trip-hop homage to the composer .

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra musicians, on strike for weeks now, are putting on their own holiday concerts, starting this weekend: This isn't the musicians' first foray into concert production; back in September, after their contract was up but before the went on strike, they performed two concerts.  If I were the musicians, who seem to be both unified and highly motivated to do things their own way, I would start thinking about how they can abandon the orchestra as a corporation and form a new group in Motor City. Stop picketing, and start doing more playing.

Twitter buddy Claire Swait  responded to my comments on David Hockney's iPad art , making the point that it's the talent of artists that matter, not the media they use. I'm not sure the Vestibules would agree: The Ballad of Marshall Mcluhan from Randall Acronym on Vimeo . Canadians can be quite silly.

Ed Ruscha and David Hockney are painting dog bowls. It beats  doodling away on an iPad .

Is it really that cute, that groundbreaking, to do this sort of thing on an iPad ? David Hockney’s got a display of Apple art going on in Paris until the end of January: As Open Culture mentions , the blog Messy Nessy Chic has some samples online . In the above video, Hockney muses over the problems of displaying his iArt. He goes with hanging rows upon rows of iPads and iPods on the walls of the gallery. I have an idea: print the damn things out!

1. He's the all-time NHL points leader, and scored 92 goals in 1981-82, a single-season record.  Gorecki or Gretzky ? 2. He won first prize for his First Symphony at the UNESCO Youth Biennale in Paris in 1961, his earliest significant critical recognition outside of Poland, decades before a recording of his Third Symphony was a hit in the US and UK. Gorecki or Gretzky? 3. His wife was involved in an illegal betting scandal that resulted in the arrest and conviction of former NHL player Rick Tocchet. Gorecki or Gretzky? 4. In 1979, he quit his job at the Music Academy in Katowice to protest the Communist government's refusal to let Pope John Paul II visit Poland. Gorecki or Gretzky? 5. He was dealt in 1988 by the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings in the NHL transaction forever known by hockey fans as "The Trade." Gorecki or Gretzky?

On his blog The Rambler , Tim Rutherford-Johnson surveys the Górecki obirtuarie s from major papers in the US and the UK. A friend of mine wrote to ask how Gorecki avoided serious rebuke from authorities in Communist Poland. Apparently, Gorecki wondered the same thing:   I remember these times with pleasure because they were a great reawakening for Polish music. I don’t know how we got away with it year after year. A colleague of mine at work winced (virtually) when I located Gorecki's relevance within the 1990s  as a source for and inspiration to trip-hop musicians and soundtrack writers. Some obituaries Rutherford-Johnson cites do the same thing, focusing on the Third Symphony, while others provide a broader perspective .

There's an article in the Los Angeles Times this weekend about  George Crumb's seven-part American Songbook  project. There will be performances this season in LA, in Washington, DC and New York City, and a version of Song Book IV  staged by Peter Sellars and sung by Dawn Upshaw at the Ojai Festival. Delia Casadei describes the folk songs Crumb chose to adapt: They are, in other words, more than references to an archaic lost world: Some of the bloodiest episodes of the country's history are etched into their very sinews. They are the spirituals of African slaves, the lullabies of American Indians, the congregational singing of the English settlers and songs of the Civil War. And they have been on the lips of the entire country since time immemorial.   Name that tune: there's a sample on the Bridge Records website . And read Casadei's article .

As Tom Service points out in the Guardian , Gorecki's legacy is much more--and much more varied--than the Third Symphony that brought him worldwide notoriety in the 1990s : The thing is, the Third Symphony is untypical of Górecki's earlier work, and only partly reflects his later. Górecki began his musical life as an uncompromising modernist in Poland. His orchestral works of the late 50s and early 60s made him a new-music sensation at the Warsaw autumn festival, and his music was heard at the same bleeding-edge events as that by Xenakis and Boulez. His listening suggestion: the 1956 Piano Sonata. He links to one version; here's another: I don't know if I would call this bleeding-edge modernism, certainly not at all like Xenakis or Boulez, but it does show a more lively, aggressive side. At the same time, there is a directness and consistency of affect to the Piano Sonata that is similar to the Third Symphony. Another piece to look at is the Second Symphony, commis...

A couple of things struck me when I read that Gorillaz is recording its new record on an iPad : Frontman Damon Albarn professes to be a technophobe but "fell in love" with his iPad at first look. And now he's recording an album on it. That's a pretty big leap.  There's no mention about how Albarn is using the iPad. Is he using Smule apps for instruments? Is he mixing stuff on it, using it as a virtual console?  We should stop talking about all the great things an iPad can do.  Here's the video that Radhika Marya mentions was a YouTube hit:  Gorillaz - New Music - More Music Videos

Gorecki's Third Symphony was all the rage, particular in the UK, after the recording with Dawn Upshaw, London Sinfonietta, and David Zinman became a hit in 1993. Lamb released a song named after the the composer that was a licensing bonanza (it was used I Still Know What You Did Last Summe r, a Femme Nikita TV episode, and a Tomb Raider video game). "Gorecki," as musicologist Luke Howard points out, bears the characteristic mark of Symphony of Sorrowful Song s: The symphony's trademark sound--slow, thick strings; ethereal, slightly exotic sounding soprano melodies; static harmonies--was everywhere. Even in beer commercials. Howard hears it in the Death Scene to Romeo + Juliet (Baz Luhrmann also used Lamb's lyrics in his Moulin Rouge! ). It's hard to deny that this Polish composer, who passed away today , shaped our everyday musical environment--what we heard in movies, on the radio, on TV, and even in the mall--for a good ten years just as definitively...

Executive Director Lynne Meloccaro on why t he American Symphony Orchestra offered its players salaries instead of maintaining the pay-for-service model it's been operating under for years: We didn't want to do that because the perception people had that orchestras were collapsing all over the place was affecting philanthropy. The primary reason that Ms. Meloccaro gave wasn't artistic (although music director Leon Botstein said that it was "a way of stabilizing a very fine orchestra") or at all related to ticket sales (that an ever-shifting roster would result in inconsistent performances and a lack of personal identity that could repel audiences). This move had everything to do with the ask. No one will donate to a non-profit that is crumbling. The new ASO contract, so Ms. Meloccaro hopes, sends a signal to large donors that the orchestra is on sound financial footing. You might want to keep ASO's reasoning in mind the next time you see a non-profit art...

My buddy Joe Lehman, in response to my last post , sent me a link to this:

App maker Smule just released their Magic Fiddle , and the St. Lawrence String Quartet took the bait. Couldn't they have at least picked something more upbeat that Pachelbel's Canon? When I saw Lang Lang play his iPad, I thought it was kind of cute. But it gets old really quick. There's something about this marketing campaign that's just depressing. It turns the music into a joke or a stunt. I'm not sure whether people are laughing with or at the musicians: Hey, look at those dorks in the tuxes playing Mozart on iPads. What a bunch of dorks. There are musicians out there who are using iPads as music-making tools . Do you know of any?

Like Bolero , it gradually builds, using a distinctive dance rhythm to drive the music forward toward the big finish. But there's nothing erotic about La Valse : it's a phantasmagoria that leaves you winded, and a little bit wounded too. As Ravel put it, a "fantastic and fatal whirling." Ravel wrote versions for solo and duo pianos, but it's most popular--and most horrifying--as an orchestral  piece.

Writing about Ravel's Bolero in the movie 10 (one of those movies that a guy who grew up in the post-AIDS 1980s finds horrifying) got me thinking about the songs that make me feel just a little bit ... uncomfortable. Here's my top five (not that you asked): 1. Exile, "I Wanna Kiss You All Over" What a coincidence: this song was a #1 hit the same year that 10 came out. How could anyone find this sexy? This is the gold standard. Whenever I hear a song that is overladen with sexual innuendo (or explicit calls to action), it's "I Wanna Kiss You All Over" that I compare it to. 2. John Mayer, "Your Body is a Wonderland"  This is one of those songs that measured up to Exile's. 3.  Rod Stewart, "Tonight's the Night"  Another 1970s hit: #1 in 1976. Pete Townshend wrote a short story about this song. I read it when I was 14. It kind of messed me up for a while. 4. Bob Crewe and Kenny Nowland, "My Eyes Adored You...

Here's what Uncle Fred had to say about Ravel's Bolero : "It's the most descriptive sex music ever written." According to his niece-in-law Jenny, played by Bo Derek in 10 , "he proved it." To anyone with qualms about pedophilia (I'm firmly in this camp), Jenny's little story, meant to seduce poor hapless George (Dudley Moore), is uncomfortable, to say the least. (The whole movie gives me the creeps.) Although he was an incestuous cad, Uncle Fred had a point about Bolero . As mentioned in an earlier post , the piece opens with the snare drum playing the distinctive rhythmic pattern of the Spanish dance it's named after. The seductive flute melody that enters shortly after sets in motion a gradual blossoming to a climactic finale; as that rhythm pulses below, the melody repeats, the orchestration expands, and the music becomes ever more incessant and powerful. It's hard not to get all worked up when you listen to it. Bolero set Rav...

Now that the World Series is over, it's time to start thinking about the Super Bowl--and the ads that'll be on the Super Bowl broadcast. During the third quarter of last season's game, Coke ran an ad that used Ravel's Bolero , a piece that even the composer might concede is among the cheesiest music ever written. The ad, by advertising company Wieden & Kennedy, was set in Africa, but the music is based on the distinctive Spanish dance rhythm. Ravel's mother was Basque, and although he didn't make his first trip to Spain until 1924 when he was almost 50, he used the sounds of the country in early pieces like  Rapsodie espagnol e suite (completed in 1908) and his opera L'Heure espagnole (composed at around the same time, and premiered in Paris in 1911). In the same year Ravel sat down to write Bolero , he made a triumphant tour of North America. Everywhere he went--from Houston to Montreal--people greeted him as a star. Ravel was overwhelmed: ...

The New York Times posted a review of last weekend's Moogfest, in Asheville , NC. See also here .