Video
We’ll Take A Year’s Worth
via Oboe Insight via Wolf Trap via Stages.
Friday Links
- There seems to be a bit of a brouhaha surrounding Canada’s new proposed copyright legislation. C-61 doesn’t get its second reading until after the Parliament returns from its summer break. Perhaps that will be enough time for MPs to see the bill as the Very Bad Idea it really is. Miss Mussel continues to live in hope at any rate. [full text here]
- Ramiro Burr, music critic for the San Antonio Express News, has resigned after it was discovered that he employed a ghostwriter for at least 80 columns between 2001 and 2003.
- The Toronto Symphony Orchestra has received a $3.5 million endowment for the Concertmaster chair. With the current concertmaster retiring, it is hoped that the orchestra will now be able to pay the salary required to attract top violinists.
- Also, just in from the TSO, if you join their email club, you get free access to the Naxos Music Library. (h/t Chris Foley)
Miss Mussel has a subscription for her notes writing gig and it’s been an invaluable resource. There are lots of labels aside from Naxos covering pretty much every piece of music you could thing of, so it’s well worth having access. If you don’t fancy periodic memos from teh TSO, head on over to Naxos and get a 7 day trial subscription. At $225/yr you can’t go wrong.
- Radiohead held a contest to see who could make the best remix of ‘Nude’ from their latest album In Rainbows. James Houston from Glasgow won. “I grouped together a collection of old redundant hardware, and placed them in a situation where they’re trying their best to do something that they’re not exactly designed to do, and not quite getting there.” [h/t S21]
For those are really dying to know, here’s what James used:
Sinclair ZX Spectrum - Guitars (rhythm & lead)
Epson LX-81 Dot Matrix Printer - Drums
HP Scanjet 3c - Bass Guitar
Hard Drive array - Act as a collection of bad speakers - Vocals & FX
Oops…
In her hurry to get the quiz winner announced, Miss Mussel forgot to mention who the performers were. The recording, selected by Quiz #19 winner Michael Monroe, was a Naxos recording, which is available here should it not already be a part of your library.
Notice anything interesting about the personnel?
Here’s a hint: The pianist released the album pictured below late last year.
Miss Mussel isn’t so taken with recordings on the whole but this one has her ear quite firmly in hand. To be perfectly honest, she is falling over herself to think of the superlative superlative with which to describe the album. Pick it up when you order the Poulenc. You will not be disappointed.
This video was on the blog circuit when the album was first released but here it is again just in case you missed it.
Hypothetically Speaking
On scale of one to ten, how high would you rate someone’s maturity level if they snorted milk through their nose the first three times they watched this?
The Saddest Music In The World
The Walrus has a list going of the saddest music in the world as companion to Moira Farr’s article on music and depression. The usual suspects are there (Tears In Heaven, Joni Mitchell, Patsy Cline) as well a few that are off the beaten track.
Pointing out that there isn’t any classical on the list is simply statement of fact rather than an editorial comment. The argument that classical is the deepest of all musics therefore capable of being the sadder than anything else is unnecessarily dismissive of other people’s experience, not to mention more than a little bit arrogant.
Age and a comparatively small amount of exposure to pop music means that out of the thirty songs on the list, Miss Mussel only actually knows three and one of those is because of the Muppet Show. Life experience also means that most of the music on the OM soundtrack is classical. As such, her nomination for the Saddest Music In The World is the third movement of Brahms Horn Trio Op.40.
(Barenboim/Perlman/Clevenger)
What’s your choice?
Ravel: L’Enfant Et Les Sortilèges Video
Here’s the whole opera done as a ballet by Jiri Kylian, the Nederlands Dans Theater, Orchestra National de Paris and Lorin Maazel. Thanks to Gymnopedist on YouTube for uploading the performance.
Bach Cab Sessions
Reuters brought news today of a fantastic little concert series called The Black Cab Sessions. The premise is simple: musicians are invited to play one a song in the back of a London black cab and it is filmed all in one take.
There are 34 chapters in the series so far and all are pop/rockers except for this delight from Jonathan Byers of the Badke Quartet.
The first thing Miss Mussel notice when listening was the sound quality. Who knew the back of a cab could sound so great?
Note to young musicians looking for studio space to make a demo recording: take a cab ride. You can go a long way for £100 and get a great recording out of it. £50 even.
Girl Watching, Debris, Nudity And A Mexican Guy
Nick Park and the gang at Creature Comforts head to America in an attempt to answer that age-old question: What is Art?
For those readers that haven’t watched PBS with some regularity over the past 20 years, the “happy squirrel” television guy is none other than Bob Ross.
Melodyne Direct Note Access: Ride The Wave
Miss Mussel is already fascinated by the idea of a recording being an archive of an event that didn’t happened, so the unveiling of the Melodyne Direct Note Access software this week has piqued her curiosity even further.
How will this change the way people compose, if at all? It now seems possible that all you need do is play one good G major chord on guitar or indeed pull any existing sample from a library and then alter the pitches to suit your ideas. Of course, it would all have to be notated so that someone else could realize the score but then, if you can create an entire album without playing an instrument, who needs musicians?
On the practical side, how does the pitch alteration capability deal with matters of register and tessitura? Take for example a clarinet and it’s radically different sound in the three registers. Would the fat sound of the chalumeau notes be transformed into the thinner upper register sound when the sample is put up an octave?
For those readers who are interested in these types of debates, is this cheating or just using available resources? Will record companies start taking cues from How To Make A Record by William Barrington-Coupe?
All this being said, it is pretty damn cool.
Pub Quiz For Classical Music Nerds: Answers
String Theory
(fill in the blanks and name that string player)
1. Jascha Heifetz (violin)
2. Martin Beaver (violin, Tokyo String Quartet)
3. Lionel Tertis (violist)
4. Mischa Maisky (cello)
5. Eliot Fisk (do guitarist’s count as string players?)
Order Up
Arrange the following in ascending order of composition date.
Quartert For The End of Time , Four Last Songs, The Four Seasons, Fur Elise, Quartet in F major (Ravel)
Answer: 1723 The Four Seasons, 1810 Fur Elise, 1903 Quartet in F major (Ravel), 1940 Quartet for the End of Time, 1948 Four Last Songs
Arrange the following composers in order of death, earliest to latest. Remember Googlers are sad sacks in the corner with no friends.
Britten, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Messiaen, Stravinsky
Answer: Prokofiev (1953), Stravinsky (1971), Shostakovich (1975), Britten (1976), Messiaen (1992)
It’s a Job
Match the organist with his main church gig
1. Franck a) St Suplice, Paris
2. Messiaen b) La Trinité, Paris
3. Guillou c) L’Église Saint-Eustache
4. Vierne d) Notre Dame, Paris
5. Widor e) St Clotilde Basilica, Paris
Answer: Franck/St Clotilde Basilica; Messiaen/La Trinité; Guillou/L’Église Saint-Eustache; Vierne/Notre Dame; Widor/St Suplice (The cathedral links go to samples of that church’s organ from our window on the world: YouTube)
Bonus Question (5 points) Which organist held his post for the longest? Widor
For another five points, how many years exactly? 64 Miss Mussel cannot even begin to comprehend how many sermons he heard during that time.
What A Way To Go
Here is a list of ways composers have died. Who died of each complication…or at least is rumoured to have?
1) an insect bite
2) a lip boil
3) riding a bike into a wall
4) smoking a cigar
5) getting whacked in the head while riding in a taxi
Answer: Berg, Scriabin, Ernest Chausson, Webern, Ravel (technically he died from the surgery required to fix the problem cause by the bump, but let’s not get bogged down in detail)
So, how did you do?
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