Michael Tilson Thomas - "Keeping Score" Web Site
Keeping Score is a program by Michael Tilson Thomas that combines live performances, a book, DVD series and web site, and PBS programs to focus in depth on a few pieces and why they are influential. This is an ideal resource for John’s “What to Listen for in Classical Music” and “Intro to Music Literacy” students, but this former music grad student enjoyed playing with it too.
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Screenshot: Eroica in cultural/historical context
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Screenshot: As MTT conducts, see details of the score in real time. Each color represents a key change.
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Screenshot: the building blocks of Eroica’s first theme
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Screenshot: MTT connects four parts of Tchaikovsky’s biography to the 4 movements of his 4th symphony
Just a quick post today to recommend the San Francisco Symphony’s Keeping Score website.
Keeping Score is a program by Michael Tilson Thomas that combines live performances, DVDs, PBS programs and a multimedia website to focus in depth on a few pieces and why they are important. This is an ideal resource for John’s “What to Listen for in Classical Music” and “Intro to Music Literacy” students, but this former music grad student enjoyed playing with it too.
The mini-sites offer historical context, lots of pictures, videos of MTT discussing the music, and the opportunity to watch him conduct passages while watching a musical score with helpful annotations. For example, you can watch the key modulations in the exposition of the Eroica on a color-coded circle of fifths.
So far, the program has covered:
Beethoven’s Eroica symphony
Copland and the American Sound
Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring
Tchaikovsky’s 4th Symphony
“Primal Moves” - an introduction to what might be called the underlying “connective tissue” of music.
Because of the technology used on the website, you need the latest edition of Flash. (The page should prompt you to install it easily.) You also must allow popups to enter the various subject area sites.
Preview the Keeping Score shows »
Episode 1: Beethoven’s Eroica »
Buy this item at Powells Books
What's So Degenerate About Korngold?
While blogging about Renee Fleming’s performance of “Ich ging zu ihm,” I mentioned in passing that Korngold’s opera was considered Entartete Musik (“degenerate music”). What does this mean?
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Entartete (“degenerate” or “decadent” in English) was Nazi epithet for art and music the regime considered objectionable for racial or ideological reasons. Korngold, as a Jewish composer, was automatically in this category, but race was not the only way to be designated decadent. Ties with Jewish friends and colleagues would do it, as Anton Webern (somewhat a Hitler supporter in the early years) would learn. Content (like the black characters in Krenek’s Jonny spielt auf) would do it. Being too modern or too jazzy (i.e. “African”) qualified as well. (See our recommended books.)
The Nazi campaign against many of its best musicians was part of a larger, more notorious campaign against modern art, which in 1937 climaxed in a multi-city exhibition of “degenerate” art selected from thousands of pieces stolen from museums. The following year, an exhibit on degenerate music opened in Düsseldorf. An image of the Entartete Musik exhibition catalog can seen here. (Warning: it’s pretty offensive.)
Decca released an Entartete Musik CD series beginning in the 1990s, with special emphasis on more rarely performed works.
“From a purely musical point of view, the “Entartete Musik” series has, with unanimous international critical acclaim, brought back to life more than 30 forgotten key works from the first half of this century by composers such as Braunfels, Goldschmidt, Haas, Korngold, Krása, Krenek, Ullmann and Waxman. These recordings may help the listener imagine what the musical life in Europe was before its destruction by the Nazis, and what it might have been if these great branches had not been abruptly cut off.” (Decca press release)
Korngold was among the lucky ones — he made it to Hollywood and wrote several popular film scores. But some of the composers mentioned in this Decca press release (Pavel Haas, Hans Krása, Viktor Ullman) died in the Holocaust. I will try to get together a list of the “degenerate” composers and performers along with their main works and fates. For now, I just have a great
Do You Want Three Hours of Meditation on Meaninglessness? Mix Schnittke with the Coen Brothers
Maybe you have a favorite uncle who on taking leave of you, jauntily winks as he advises, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” Well, after the way I spent Saturday, evening, I advise you to think twice about doing anything I would do. The day started reasonably well, teaching a fistful of piano lessons to some of my favorite students, several of whom I’ve had for years. A leisurely walk home, while listening to some Panufnik on the ipod, only to find several packages of books I had ordered waiting in the front vestibule. So far so good; I thumbed through a biography of Hindemith I’ve been wanting for some time, as a reasonably entertaining football game played out on the TV. And my wife was baking a ham. A real ham, not Ham and Water Product or whatever.
And then I ruined everything.
First mistake: I listened to Schnittke’s First Symphony. Now, the antecedents for this wild chaos (composed in 1972, I think) include Mahler and Ives, and maybe even Berio’s “Sinfonia”, when was that written? And did Schnittke know it? Was it unavailable to a composer working in the Soviet system? I’ll look this stuff up, if nobody enlightens me before I get around to some fact-checking. In any case, the piece is closest to Ives’ collage pieces, but on steroids. I’m planning on discussing Schnittke next semester, so he’s become a project of mine. He is generally associated (rightly) with a Shostakovich type ethos, but the First Symphony owes little to Shosty, although I do think I found some quotes from Shostakovich amongst the bedlam. This is a formidable piece. The scoring requires more players than the entire population of Cameroon in the 15th century. It is confrontational, violent, despairing, cruelly humorous, and ultimately demoralizing. So, naturally, I followed it up with a second mistake, by going with my wife to see the Coen brothers’ new movie, “No Country for Old Men”- which is confrontational, violent, despairing, cruelly humorous, and ultimately demoralizing.
Both pieces are exemplars of what is sometimes called post-modernism. Both are informed by a savage intelligence and irony, and both create worlds of sheer meaninglessness. For an hour with Alfred, and 2 hrs. with the Coens, you’re plunged into a weird, intractable void. You’re much better off with what Ives called “sissy” music- maybe some Boccherini or something. And if you’re gonna see a movie, go into screen seven and see “The Bee Movie” instead of screen eight, where “No Country” is…
More on Schnittke anon. I don’t anticipate discussing the Coens any further. (Yes, I recommend both symphony and movie, if you’re confused.)
Some Clarifications and Amplifications: Barber, Taruskin, and Snobbery
[Barber’s Violin Concerto attempts, and magnificently succeeds in, creating obviously beautiful and appealing melodies. Make no mistake, Violin Concerto though it may be called, the first two movements are luscious songs.]
Didn’t I just say that in my last post?
Am I permitted to say that my comment on listeners “being free to luxuriate in the beautiful melodies” of the Barber concerto is an observation, not a condemnation? At least I didn’t consciously try to put down Barber’s audience; and if I put down Barber’s audience subconsciously, it is probably due to my own insecurities, and not to a rational evaluation of the nature of his audience. Snobs are insecure people, let’s face it. For convenience, and because I’m heartily sick of semi-colons and other connective gammatical devices, I’ve arranged these in the form of a list:
1. The Barber Violin Concerto is a great work. I know that. And ironically, from my point of view, it would continue to be a great work even if only the size of Webern’s public liked it. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. And you know, I’m not persuaded that it is always out of bounds to criticize public taste. Standards of discrimination has its value…I would hate to have classical music concerts become pops concerts. My problem is that I’m frustrated that what I value isn’t valued more generally, which I guess is a kind of immaturity. Don’t I get credit for defending the popular rep in my student days, at least? And I’m not always a snob. Didn’t I just run a class on Sibelius, for instance? And haven’t I praised Leonard Bernstein’s music at every opportunity?
2. Taruskin is a great writer and thinker. I know that. And ironically, he would still be a great writer even if he preferred Webern to Barber and if only a public the size of Webern’s liked his work.
3. I imagine it was some jackanapes and not The Great Man who claims I’m a snob who needs to be rebuked. But let me respond, as to being a snob: It’s a fair cop, Guv’nor, you got me bang to rights. As for a rebuke? Well, I deserve all sorts of rebukes for all sorts of transgressions. …ah, if you only knew!
4. For better or worse, a blog is the sort of forum where in order to generate interest, it appears that controversial or provocative claims get more readership and generate more interest than careful, sober posts. And I try to do my posts with humor, which is some defense. That’s why posts on Taruskin and even one on Alex Ross’s fine new book took issue with some of their views. The “off the cuff” nature of a blog reveals things about the writer that he would not perhaps want to reveal intentionally. Regular contributors to the comments, such as Ry and David, who happen to be friends of mine, are most often moved to comment when they disagree with something. I imagine it is easier to take shots from the sidelines than to create an interesting post a priori, which is fair, but I ask for some indulgence. I like to stir things up, it’s in my nature.
I’ve decided to turn over a new leaf. Who needs a snob? Here’s a new list of points that will indicate my new, reformed direction.
1. Aren’t puppies cute? I saw one crawl in a sock drawer once, just a-snoozin’ away! And kittens are cute, as well.
2. And so are composers. Especially ones who write nice music. Only meanies think that it’s appropriate to criticize each other’s taste. And I think you’re cute, too. Can’t we all get along?
3. Boy, those concert grand pianos sure are big!
4. Goshers, isn’t it amazing how the Chicago Symphony got through the whole 80 minutes of Mahler 6 without stopping or breaking down even once. They’re like super-men!
Oh no! I’m doing it again! These “reformed” comments smack of sarcasm! Oh, well, a chameleon may change his colors, but never his nature.
A Brief Comment on a Common Objection to Atonality
Like so many other classical music lovers, musicians, and bloggers, I too am impressed by the new book by Alex Ross, “The Rest is Noise”, and am enjoying this perceptive, engaging and big spirited work. But I would like to comment on a suggestion or appraisal made in the book concerning the deep difficulties a listener faces with Schoenbergian atonality — and I don’t dispute for a second that many fair minded listeners have difficulties with Schoenberg and his atonal colleagues and progeny. Schoenberg understood this as well. This is the passage I find problematical:
“The source of the {Schoenbergian} scandal is not hard to divine; it has to do with the physics of sound. Sound is a trembling of the air, and it affects the body as well as the mind. This is the import of Helmholtz’s On the Sensations of Tone, which tries to explain why certain intervals attack the nerve endings while others have a calming effect. At the head of Helmholtz’s rogue’s gallery of intervals was the semitone, which is the space between any two adjacent keys on a piano. Struck together, they create rapid “beats” that distress the ear — like an irritating flash of light, Helmholtz says, or a scraping of the skin. ..similar roughnesses are created by the major seventh, slightly narrower than the octave, and by the minor ninth, slightly wider. These are precisely the intervals that Schoenberg emphasizes in his music.”
Most composers know nothing of acoustics, and don’t care to know anything about it, because they intuitively understand that the effect of any given interval or harmony is so contextual that the remoteness of any given overtone from the fundamental note is comparatively meaningless. The evolution of harmony teaches us this… compare Renaissance polyphony with a Clementi sonatina, or Gesauldo with early minimalism, or even Chopin with Tchaikovsky and the nexus between style and intervallic content becomes apparent. Phrases such as Helmholtz’s “distress the ear”, “calming” and “irritating” sound amateurish and possibly philistine, and the attempt to quantify a listener’s aesthetic perception scientifically is an old and fruitless game. It seems depressingly clinical, as well. And whose ears are we talking about? Professionals? the public at large? I’d like to trade ears with Pierre Boulez. You can’t tell me that Boulez perceives a minor ninth the way your Uncle Marty does.
Schoenberg emphasizes relatively remote harmonic relationships. So does Debussy. So do certain Jazz musicians. So does Ravel. So does Varese. So does my beloved Milhaud. But these relationships are as “natural” as any of the more obviously primary relationships. It’s a question of vocabulary and syntax.
Schoenberg’s music is difficult because he eliminates a hierachical relationship between sonorities and is relentlessly contrapuntal, and because he rarely repeats things. Some of his tonal works, such as the First String Quartet and the First Chamber Symphony, are as hard for the novice as the atonal pieces. I promise you, the First Quartet is more difficult than the exquisitely clear neo-classic Third Quartet, for instance.
A major reason why Schoenberg is so difficult, therefore, is not that he was the “liberator of the dissonance”, but because he was the “eliminator of the dissonance”…providing of course, that we apply the proper (natural) context for the workings of his admittedly esoteric and complex vocabulary.
To read excerpts from The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross, visit Alex’s blog. Alex also has links to listen to some of the works he discusses in the book.