The Fredösphere

NPR reviews Eric Whitacre.  Don't miss the music samples from Polyphony and the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, both which sing with more oomph in the bass (as you would expect) than the students on the otherwise superb recording made by the Brigham Young University Singers.

So, I'm not the only person who tried to standardize his iTunes composer info via hand-editing.  Lileks is similarly crazy.

Victor found "White and Nerdy" at YouTube.  It's topical to the Fredösphere, you know, because a glee club makes a cameo appearance.

Gravity Lens found a "retro-eye-candy-filled trailer" for a documentary called Future By Design.  It's the story of futurist Jacque Fresco, an old-tyme social engineer who worked on the grandest possible scale.  Imagine Le Corbusier with more curves and less timidity.  These guys are the Trotskyites of the design world:  their hubris would frighten if only we could find a way to take them seriously.  That's impossible, because we now understand the extreme limits under which top-down social planning operates.  It frightens, because implicit in these clean drawings of stylistically-consistent cities of the future is vast destruction -- every mansard roof and Gothic ornament and faux-mediæval spire must fall before the wrecking ball.  Ouch.

"As long as you have war, police, prisons, crime, you are in the early stages of civilization."  Or for that matter, as long as you have humans.  I suppose the answer to that is:  bring on the post-humans!

"The answers of yesterday are no longer relevant."  Wow.  I did not know that.

I guess my paranoid streak is getting out of control.  Fresco (what a name for a futurist!  Did he make it up?) admits himself his models are conceptual -- mere guesswork.  The poor guy was simply born too soon.  Were this a hundred years from now, we could give him a planet or two to terraform and develop to his heart's content, far from any established human settlement.  In fact, we need a few of these nuts around; occasionally, one stumbles onto something really good.

There's more about the documentary here.  Also, see the Venus Project.  Dig those bisected oblate spheroids!  They sure beat utt-bugly grids.

Mixolydian Mode reminds us that the wonderful world of radical Catholic traditionalism continues to entertain.  In particular, don't miss Antipope Pius XIII, who is new to me.  He's got his own College of Cardinals, which is more than most of us can claim.

Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo of Zambia has enjoyed an unusual career in the Church.  Among other things, he married a South Korean acupuncturist selected for him personally by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.  Getting married:  I thought Catholic priests didn't do that.

From bad religion to bad religious art:  my friend John found Deadspin, which dares to mock Heavenly Images.

Other religions, other omnipresent entities:  it's the story of Half.com, America's first dot-com city.  That's its name:  Half.com.

From the silly, to the disturbing:  Germans debate a production of Mozart's Idomeneo canceled due to risk of Islamist terror.  The opera displays the severed head of Muhammad.  Shouldn't they be more worried about enraged Lutherans rioting over the severed head of Jesus also displayed?

Thanks to the very useful Friday Informer at New Music Box, we are alerted to yet another angry old man (besides me, of course) who wants to know where's his MacArthur Genius Grant.  Indeed, what's with this stingy MacArthur foundation, anyway?  Why can't we all be geniuses?

Ah well, if being smart and bitter doesn't appeal to you, there's always the dumb and happy route.

What's been on the record player lately...

Brahms' Nänie.  Painfully beautiful, which is to say, everything Mahler wanted to be, but became only 90% of, which is still saying a lot.  That opening three-chord gesture defines the emotional landscape with admirable economy.  So how did this classicist manage to get himself born into the Romantic era?

Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings.  I knew from Humphrey Carpenter's biography of Britten that the Serenade was a major work, but you never hear of recordings or performances of it, so I took forever to look it up.  I downloaded it last week from iTunes, and was stunned.  Here, Britten digs very deep emotionally, which is to say, he achieves the ideal of romantic art, which need have nothing to do with mush, or even lush.  Wow.  You've got to hear this music.

Richard Strauss' big works for a cappella choir.  Since I can claim to have heard the Deutsche Motette in live performance (Eric Ericson's choir once came to town and sang it) as well as in a recording, I feel confident to judge this piece.  My verdict:  an admirable failure.  Perhaps one can make an orchestra of voices, but not by this method.  Sixteen parts plus soloists make for confusion, especially if the parts are deployed somehow without creating a full, solid solid.  Very strange, hearing each vocal line elbowing its way past the others.  Strauss' other big choral pieces (Der Abend, Hymne, and Die Göttin im Putzzimmer) work better, but the extreme vocal ranges involved guarantee they will be rarely, and disappointingly, performed.  Ah well, he -- and we -- will always have Also Sprach Zarathustra.

This post's title refers to an icon from my childhood, the symbol of lo-fi listening.

Stefan Beck knows stuff.  Interesting stuff:

The required reading list of an American high school student usually includes, along with works by Remarque, Knowles, and Salinger, a famously awful “anonymous” offering called Go Ask Alice. The book, billed as the real diary of an average Sixties teen, chronicles a terrifying descent into drugs and depravity. Picture Marcia Brady helping William S. Burroughs tie her off in a public lavatory and you’ve got the idea.

The thing is, it isn’t a real diary. Neither, unfortunately, are Jay’s Journal (descent into Satanism), It Happened to Nancy (descent into AIDS), or Annie’s Baby (descent into teen pregnancy). All of these penny-dreadful pseudographies were written by their supposed editor, an octogenarian Mormon former youth counselor and “music therapist” named Beatrice Sparks. You really can’t make this stuff up.

Hey, watch it, Stefan:  some of my best friends are married to a Mormon music therapist.  Meanwhile, another passage from the same article caught my eye:

A delightful and unusual reference book, Brewer’s Rogues, Villains, and Eccentrics by William Donaldson, relates the story of Thomas Chatterton (1752–1770), “liar, exhibitionist, literary fraud, and by some accounts a genius”:

    Born in Bristol, and raised by his widowed mother, Chatterton had begun to “medievalize” himself by the age of 11, brooding over old parchments in Bristol churches. In 1763 he produced his first literary forgery, Elinore and Juga, allegedly the work of a 15th-century poet… . His greatest work was The Legend of Thomas Rowley, supposedly a priest of St. John in Bristol during the reign of Henry IV.

The public always has been obsessed with youth and with child prodigies, but, incredibly, nobody ever stops to wonder what a young man or woman—having experienced little but the comfortable world of academia—can possibly know about the larger world and the people in it. What happened to debuts written by people in their forties? Shouldn’t there be struggle? Why are those who’ve done and seen the least expected to tell us the most?

What did he say?  Creative artists getting their acts together in their forties?  That's a pretty thought.  Much prettier than this experience (via 2 Blowhards):

The kids harbor a strong belief that a man past the age of 45 should either be rich and in an executive position, or vanished from the workplace. I remember being introduced to my boss, a woman only a few years out of college, at my last job.

“It must be tough to be… you know,” she said.

“No, what is it that I am?” I asked.

“You know… a loser.”

Alex Ross remembers Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.  I'd like to get my hands on that recording of the "Neruda Songs."

The main topic was about mapping musicians' musical tastes to their politics, but what caught my eye was Kyle Gann's great tip for composers:  listening to crap.

I find nothing more inspiring than sitting in a concert and listening to bad music. As a critic-composer, I've started some of my best pieces while listening to music that bored or disgusted me. Often when it looked like I was taking copious notes, I was actually drawing staves in my little notebook and sketching out chords and melodies in a burst of anti-cliché inspiration. The opportunity to hear lousy music live is greatly underrated.

Allow me to develop this idea a bit.  This suggests to me a pair of continua which together form a matrix of four categories of music, the relative merit of which we can debate.  (Of course, you say, a super-geek like the Fredösphere, lover of charts and inventor of nested counterpoint would think of a matrix, wouldn't he.)  Here's the Music Enjoyment vs. Respect matrix:

	Hate	Love
Respect	Force yourself to consume regular doses.  Struggle to understand why someone would work so hard to craft something so unlovely.	Ah, the good stuff!  Educational and inspirational.  Just don't spend all your time here.
Contemn	Draw inspiration here by negative example.  Be reminded why the good is good.	Here be dragons!  Stay away!

For composers, the love-but-don't-respect category is the deadly one.  This is the stuff that lowers your standards, induces complacency, encourages mindless imitation, and generally rots your brain.

Survival depends on adaptability.  So many groups are struggling to navigate the bewildering maze which is life in the modern world.  Pirates, for example, struggle awkwardly to gain power within Sweden's democratic process.  (As it happens, the article is about copyright reform, so it's not only funny, it's -- purely by accident, I assure you -- relevant.)

Christopher Tolkien continues to mine his father's writings.  Insert your favorite orc treasure or Mines of Moria metaphor here.

This story got my hopes up, way up, but it turns out it's a blurb for a conventional concert, which is good, because a church needs a talking horse like a bicycle can tune a fish.  Or something.

Via ArtsJournal:  Welcome to Hollywood; here's your ghetto, and welcome to Hell, here's your accordion.

Sorry, all those 19th century woman musicians look alike to me.  (It's the Guardian classical music quiz.  Oooh, it's tough.)

Michael Parker has created a website he hopes will become the "one stop shop" for information on Robert Shaw.

Browsing the site, I learned for the first time Shaw's interest in theology.  A chance encounter with Fred Waring, who overheard Shaw rehearsing a glee club, saved Shaw from the gaping maw of seminary and put him on the straight and narrow path of conducting.

Shaw as a theological thinker is a strange idea to those of us familiar with his reputation for arrogance, impatience, and a foul mouth.  In fact, Shaw's monomaniacal approach to rehearsal tended to inspire either a worshipful attitude, or eye-rolling.  (See both attitudes in this post and the subsequent comment.)

Shaw brings the same impatience to his descriptions of bad worship:

First, for worship to occur, there must be a sense of mystery and an admission of pain. Referring to the lines of two American folk hymns, "What wondrous love is this/which caused the Lord of bliss/to bear the dreadful curse for my soul" and "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound/that saved a wretch like me," Shaw remarks, "These words are magic to me, and their melodies, shaped and worn by Niagaras and years of tears, are as perfect as anything I know in music."

In his youth, he encountered a "shoutier boastier fare," such as "O there’s power, power, wonder working power/In the precious blood of the Lamb." In the great hymns and spirituals of the 18th and 19th centuries, such as in "There is a balm in Gilead/to make the wounded whole," and "Swing low, sweet chariot,/comin’ for to carry me home," he finds "a directness and a fervor of utterance and humility which involves man’s nobility and, to me, a spark of divinity."

How different these hymns are from what he calls the "foulsome flush" to which we are subjected on some religious broadcasts. Shaw deplores the fare emanating from what he calls "Crystal Christ-o-rama, California," maintaining that "there are not enough disposal plants in the country to handle TV Sunday morning effluence!" No mystery, no pain.

"Crystal Christ-o-rama, California."  I wonder that that is a reference to.

Ionarts joins me in the heroic quest to keep the world supplied with gratüitöüs diåcritics.  The bucktoothed nun is integral to the plot, however.  It also informs us the Met will broadcast six operas live on PBS and into select movie theaters.  Hey, that's new.

Yesterday we learned the dangerous influence of certain kinds of music, driving poor, helpless listeners into a life of drug use.  Today, we find that choral singing leads directly to homicide.

Via ArtsJournal:

* I'm glad I never got one of those lousy MacArthur Genius Grants.  Glad, I tell you!  MacArthur geniuses are losers!

 It took you 10 years to complete "Almanac of the Dead." Did you feel an obligation to make it very ambitious because of the award? "No, it already wanted to be the way that it was. That's why it was so wonderful that the MacArthur came along. When the MacArthur ran out and the novel wasn't done, I felt pressure, but it wasn't pressure because I had won the MacArthur. It was pressure because I had finished the MacArthur and I still didn't have the novel completed."

Any downside to winning the award? "My ex-husband decided to come back after me to try to get some of my MacArthur fellowship money."

* Your musical tastes predict your tastes in illegal drugs.  The corn may be as high as an elephant's eye, but fans of Oklahoma! aren't.

* We find the answer to that variation of the chicken-and-egg question.  It's the celebrity-and-narcissist question.  The answer:  narcissists turn themselves into celebrities, not vice versa.  Meanwhile, we can be thankful for small graces:

Musicians — who have the highest skill level — are the least narcissistic celebrity group, while reality television stars — the least talented or skilled group — are the most narcissistic.

So, there's no talent to being a reality TV star?!  I'm dumbfounded!  Furthermore, Dance Fever!

Friend John found these sharp color photos of Nazi Germany.  Here's one that seems to say, "I'm ready for my close-up now, Ms. Riefenstahl!"

Japan, the most alien, the most contradictory.  The land of wabi-sabi and Shinto minimalism; also the land of a ghastly cult of the cute:  no surprise Japan gets Christianity all wrong as well.

Here are three nice posts from Boing Boing:  vintage Italian pulp and Instructions for making a glowing pickle and a new spacecraft with an old name.

Also, from ArtsJournal, an article on the Pope's attitude toward worship music and software that writes music in the style of any composer from history.

I can't quite figure it out, but I'll pass this short movie on to you:  "A young man's quest for a long lost dog leads to the madness of Outsider Architecture...."  Hmm, still not clear, but the soundtrack gives you a chance to hear the Choir of New College, Oxford singing Elgar's Nimrod, arranged by John Cameron to the text Lux Aeterna.  I can't exactly say it's not compelling.

Allow me to introduce the fine artists who helped me put together the recording of The Superstitious Ghost. Meet singers Paul Max Tipton, Lorna Young Hildebrandt, Kara Alfano (and Karl Schmidt, who is not shown) pianist Tom Strode, and sound engineer Victor Minetola:



Paul sings professionally and has a blog. Lorna, Kara and Karl all teach at Concordia University of Ann Arbor and maintain active performing schedules. Tom directs music at St. Paul Lutheran Church here in town and is the founder of the Ann Arbor Boy Choir.  Victor has worked for recording labels in New York and Michigan and is now preparing to go solo as a writer and producer. Finally, thanks are also due to O'Neill Young, son of my good friend Alan, who turned pages.

Thanks to all who helped make the recording happen. You can hear the sound file and read the text by checking out yesterday's post.

Thanks to the help of a group of talented people, I have a recording of The Superstitious Ghost, my setting of a poem by Arthur Guiterman.  In my next post I'll give more complete credit to those who helped me; today I'll simply say a big "thank you" to pianist Tom Strode, singers Lorna Hildebrandt, Kara Alfano, Karl Schmidt, and Paul Max Tipton, and sound engineer Victor Minetola.

The Superstitious Ghost is downloadable as a 6.7 megabyte mp3 file.

The Superstitious Ghost

I'm such a quiet little ghost,
Demure and inoffensive,
The other spirits say I'm most
Absurdly apprehensive.

Through all the merry hours of night
I'm uniformly cheerful;
I love the dark; but in the light
I own I'm rather fearful.

Each dawn I cower down in bed,
In every brightness seeing
That weird uncanny form of dread:
An awful Human Being!

Of course I'm told they can't exist,
That nature would not let them:
But Willy Spook, the Humanist,
Declares that he has met them!

He says they do not glide like us,
But walk in eerie paces;
They're solid, not diaphanous,
With arms!  and legs!  and faces!

And some are beggars, some are kings,
Some have, and some are wanting,
They squander time in doing things,
Instead of simply haunting.

They talk of "art," the horrid crew,
And things they call "ambitions."
Oh yes, I know as well as you
They're only superstitions.

But should the dreadful day arrive
When, starting up, I see one,
I'm sure 'twill scare me quite alive;
And then, O then, I'll be one!

South Africa continues to act as a laboratory for the terribly difficult science of repentance and forgiveness.  In other religion news, these priests were spying on the Vatican, not for the Vatican ... also, will the last Zoroastrian to leave please put out the fire?  (Via Cosh.)  (But see this alternative view.)

Finally, singer Barry McGuire has some advice:  skip the Christians, just know Christ.  Also, "skip the fame, just be rich."  He describes the recording session for the hit song "Eve of Destruction:"

"We did it in one take. There's a place where I sing, 'I feel like my blood's coagulatin' .... Ahhhhh, you can't twist the truth.'  People say I sound frustrated.  I was.  I was in a corner and the light was dim and I could barely read the words because the paper was wrinkled and someone had gotten chicken stains or something on it."

The things you learn by reading spam subject lines:

Rolex mania is down.  Good!  Now if only Gameboy mania would follow suit, the Fredösphere household would become a much more peaceful place.

Windows XP slip fourth.  But soft!  What light through yonder window breaks?  'Tis the blou screen of death, methinks!

Churchmen.  (Sent by bricklayingbolshoi@[redacted].com.)  What can I say to improve this one?

Neptune competitively.  As opposed to that loser Pluto.

Cruiser sincerely.  Sounds like an expression marking from a Henry Mancini composition.

Assal Amar Balad Saalouny.  Remember the good old days, when orientalism seemed quaintly amusing?

Low-lying carp.  At last, a spammer reveals his identity!

My friend Victor reports.

While on hold with [a certain large telecommunications company] this morning, they played a Muzak version of the Genesis classic "Home By The Sea".  I've highlighted the relevant parts of the lyrics that deal with customer service:

Creeping up the blind side, shinning up the wall
Stealing thru the dark of night
Climbing thru a window, stepping to the floor
Checking to the left and the right
Picking up the pieces, putting them away
Something doesn't feel quite right

Help me someone, let me out of here
Then out of the dark was suddenly heard
Welcome to the home by the sea

Coming out the woodwork, thru the open door
Pushing from above and below
Shadows but no substance, in the shape of men
Round and down and sideways they go
Adrift without direction, eyes that hold despair
Then as one they sigh and they moan

Help us someone, let us out of here
Living here so long undisturbed
Dreaming of the time we were free
So many years ago
Before the time when we first heard
Welcome to the home by the sea

Sit down sit down
Sit down sit down sit down
As we relive our lives in what we tell you
[...]