Russians murder a Ukrainian conductor; Joey reports on being an internet piano competitor; every night is now lady's night at the symphony (1/4 of the time)
Thank you, Joey, for sharing your competition video and your experience. Listening to it reminded me that I need to explore more of Martinů's work. I loved that etude. Without listening to any of the other performances, of course you should've won, Mr. Vaz.
Regarding the article on the Orchestra Repertoire Report, I don't know how this would or should impact the statistics, but I'm pretty sure the Chicago Symphony Orchestra did have women programmed for their 2018-2019 season (Missy Mazzoli was the composer-in-residence)...but most of that season was lost to a musicians' strike. Not that there would've been enough compositions by women programmed if the season had gone ahead as planned anyway...
Surprised and pleased to see a Björk rec. Fossora has been in constant rotation since it dropped, and Selmasongs is always close by.
I'm wondering if anyone at Classical Gabfest has seen Tár yet? I'd love to read (or hear on a podcast...) what the thoughts of those in the industry are. As an outsider, I loved it for the performances. I wonder how accurate its portrayal of anything else that happens in the film is.
Nobody's seen it yet, but I assure you that anticipation is VERY high and we are planning massive coverage (including a possible special edition of the pod)
Björk: Wow! I had no idea she composed instrumental music - or movie scores. Thanks for posting it, Will. Love this piece! What exquisite chord progressions and searing suspensions in this piece . . .
I discovered that arranger and jazz artist Vince Mendoza orchestrated that Overture for brass and timpani for the film, but sadly, the original arrangement is unavailable in print.
I vividly recall the year she performed a song for which she had been nominated for an Oscar. She arrived on the Red Carpet in the then infamous - now iconic - swan dress. It turns out that Dancer in the Dark was the film that brought her there.
*****
NTT #7: American Folk Music is quite a broad category. But I have a feeling that American composer Charles Ives might be a candidate for this one. I don't know if he was an avid collector, but he often incorporated (or modeled on) American folk songs, works of Stephen Foster, hymns, and marches (including Sousa). And in my experience playing and hearing some of his works, he occasionally fits the "spiky" description Will used.
Was he actually a curator, though? That sounds more like the musicologist who collected folk music via field recordings for the Library of Congress. His work in Appalachia sticks in my mind, because our annual Christmas Revels production one year featured music and a story loosely based on that. Don't remember his name, but there's an online database of some of his recordings that had been digitized and went online not long before we did that show. I don't know if he was a composer, but if he was, maybe he wrote something completely different like this?
Messiaen came to my mind, too. He was an avid collector, but I think bird song, rather than folk music, was his passion.
But I will add Ligeti (sp?) to my basket. Can't remember his 1st name - something similar to George? Think he was maybe Hungarian. I'd put some of his music in the spiky category, particularly his Trio for Horn, Violin, and Piano in homage to Brahms and his opera Grand Macabre. He did write some things for Woodwind quintet. Although what I played didn't have a piano, like Poulenc used - and I don't remember anything like this passage from having played that Poulenc sextet.
So, my basket has Ives, Appalachian-Field-Recorder-Guy, and Ligeti.
I once thought Soler would be a good NTT, as he’s not all that well-known if you’re not a keyboard player. But now no one would be fooled, if they ever would have been! I bet two truths and a lie with Scarlatti and Soler would be really hard.
Those % increase numbers for music by women composers are pretty massive, and the specificity of the numbers made me go look at the actual report made by the Institute for Composer Diversity. Quite an interesting read (if you don't mind looking at every type of infographic imaginable), and a very informative Who's Who of modern female/POC composers (pages 22-25 of https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b9ee971fcf7fd7add652207/t/62960a5d2a1998349128b94d/1654000223744/ICD_2022_ORCH_REPORT_MAY31.pdf). There's also a great and sizeable appendix of orchestral works by women composers and composers of color at the end that I will certainly utilize for my own listening/programming!
For the Name That Tune, I can't think of any other piano+wind quintet pieces other than the Mozart and Poulenc (though I can think of a piano+wind quintet minus flute by Gieseking that's nice...but this is definitely not any of those). Stylistically I'd put this with those American "ultramodernists" from the first half of the twentieth century. From the hint, my guess would be Ruth Crawford Seeger (though the only piece of hers I know I've listened to is her much-anthologized string quartet); I suppose it could feasibly be by her husband as well, but I know even less about him. I'll fill out my basket with some other Americans: Cowell and Ruggles.
Edit: Realized later that the Mozart also doesn't use flute, so the Poulenc is the only one of those that uses a full wind quintet component.
Regarding the increase of women composers on concerts, the Dallas Symphony in a couple of weeks will be doing a concert entirely of music by women (the big pieces being the Clara Schumann Piano Concerto and Farrenc's Third Symphony), which to the best of my recollection might be a first for them, it being in conjunction with a Women in Classical Music Symposium they are hosting.
NTT: it seems clear to me that we're dealing with a mid-20th c. sextet for piano and winds. The piano+wind quintet genre was (as far as I know) something that Mozart did early on, then it skipped like 10 generations and Poulenc picked it up. I'd guess that this is post-Poulenc, but wholenc?
The clip is spiky as all getout, definitely atonal, but not like *wildly* experimental. I'm leaning towards an American, but even in spite of the clue, I could see it being French, since it has a little bit of a Messiaenic kookiness to it. For a year, I'm going to say 1960.
Ruth Crawford Seeger is my best guess; I'll throw in Dutilleux and Tippett just for kicks.
Thank you, Joey, for sharing your competition video and your experience. Listening to it reminded me that I need to explore more of Martinů's work. I loved that etude. Without listening to any of the other performances, of course you should've won, Mr. Vaz.
Regarding the article on the Orchestra Repertoire Report, I don't know how this would or should impact the statistics, but I'm pretty sure the Chicago Symphony Orchestra did have women programmed for their 2018-2019 season (Missy Mazzoli was the composer-in-residence)...but most of that season was lost to a musicians' strike. Not that there would've been enough compositions by women programmed if the season had gone ahead as planned anyway...
Surprised and pleased to see a Björk rec. Fossora has been in constant rotation since it dropped, and Selmasongs is always close by.
I'm wondering if anyone at Classical Gabfest has seen Tár yet? I'd love to read (or hear on a podcast...) what the thoughts of those in the industry are. As an outsider, I loved it for the performances. I wonder how accurate its portrayal of anything else that happens in the film is.
Nobody's seen it yet, but I assure you that anticipation is VERY high and we are planning massive coverage (including a possible special edition of the pod)
I've heard only excellent things from some (non-musician) film buff friends!
Björk: Wow! I had no idea she composed instrumental music - or movie scores. Thanks for posting it, Will. Love this piece! What exquisite chord progressions and searing suspensions in this piece . . .
I discovered that arranger and jazz artist Vince Mendoza orchestrated that Overture for brass and timpani for the film, but sadly, the original arrangement is unavailable in print.
If anyone is interested, here's the soundtrack:
https://youtu.be/K7N8lvaBu_w
And here's the movie:
https://youtu.be/BTbu9Mdh0nk
I vividly recall the year she performed a song for which she had been nominated for an Oscar. She arrived on the Red Carpet in the then infamous - now iconic - swan dress. It turns out that Dancer in the Dark was the film that brought her there.
*****
NTT #7: American Folk Music is quite a broad category. But I have a feeling that American composer Charles Ives might be a candidate for this one. I don't know if he was an avid collector, but he often incorporated (or modeled on) American folk songs, works of Stephen Foster, hymns, and marches (including Sousa). And in my experience playing and hearing some of his works, he occasionally fits the "spiky" description Will used.
Was he actually a curator, though? That sounds more like the musicologist who collected folk music via field recordings for the Library of Congress. His work in Appalachia sticks in my mind, because our annual Christmas Revels production one year featured music and a story loosely based on that. Don't remember his name, but there's an online database of some of his recordings that had been digitized and went online not long before we did that show. I don't know if he was a composer, but if he was, maybe he wrote something completely different like this?
Messiaen came to my mind, too. He was an avid collector, but I think bird song, rather than folk music, was his passion.
But I will add Ligeti (sp?) to my basket. Can't remember his 1st name - something similar to George? Think he was maybe Hungarian. I'd put some of his music in the spiky category, particularly his Trio for Horn, Violin, and Piano in homage to Brahms and his opera Grand Macabre. He did write some things for Woodwind quintet. Although what I played didn't have a piano, like Poulenc used - and I don't remember anything like this passage from having played that Poulenc sextet.
So, my basket has Ives, Appalachian-Field-Recorder-Guy, and Ligeti.
I once thought Soler would be a good NTT, as he’s not all that well-known if you’re not a keyboard player. But now no one would be fooled, if they ever would have been! I bet two truths and a lie with Scarlatti and Soler would be really hard.
Those % increase numbers for music by women composers are pretty massive, and the specificity of the numbers made me go look at the actual report made by the Institute for Composer Diversity. Quite an interesting read (if you don't mind looking at every type of infographic imaginable), and a very informative Who's Who of modern female/POC composers (pages 22-25 of https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b9ee971fcf7fd7add652207/t/62960a5d2a1998349128b94d/1654000223744/ICD_2022_ORCH_REPORT_MAY31.pdf). There's also a great and sizeable appendix of orchestral works by women composers and composers of color at the end that I will certainly utilize for my own listening/programming!
For the Name That Tune, I can't think of any other piano+wind quintet pieces other than the Mozart and Poulenc (though I can think of a piano+wind quintet minus flute by Gieseking that's nice...but this is definitely not any of those). Stylistically I'd put this with those American "ultramodernists" from the first half of the twentieth century. From the hint, my guess would be Ruth Crawford Seeger (though the only piece of hers I know I've listened to is her much-anthologized string quartet); I suppose it could feasibly be by her husband as well, but I know even less about him. I'll fill out my basket with some other Americans: Cowell and Ruggles.
Edit: Realized later that the Mozart also doesn't use flute, so the Poulenc is the only one of those that uses a full wind quintet component.
Regarding the increase of women composers on concerts, the Dallas Symphony in a couple of weeks will be doing a concert entirely of music by women (the big pieces being the Clara Schumann Piano Concerto and Farrenc's Third Symphony), which to the best of my recollection might be a first for them, it being in conjunction with a Women in Classical Music Symposium they are hosting.
NTT: it seems clear to me that we're dealing with a mid-20th c. sextet for piano and winds. The piano+wind quintet genre was (as far as I know) something that Mozart did early on, then it skipped like 10 generations and Poulenc picked it up. I'd guess that this is post-Poulenc, but wholenc?
The clip is spiky as all getout, definitely atonal, but not like *wildly* experimental. I'm leaning towards an American, but even in spite of the clue, I could see it being French, since it has a little bit of a Messiaenic kookiness to it. For a year, I'm going to say 1960.
Ruth Crawford Seeger is my best guess; I'll throw in Dutilleux and Tippett just for kicks.