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Index: Music and Photography

‘Tallys’ and the postmodern sublime.

Thursday, 22 May 2014

Nigel Wheale: ‘How much did any of the rapt audience [at the Cloisters] know of the debates over the origin of ‘Spem in alium’, or its place in the development of European polyphony, of the vexed complexities of liturgical revision, or the turbulent politics of the royal court? Some of the audience were certainly choristers themselves, may even have performed the motet, in which case they would be well versed in its structure, perhaps also some of the history. I knew very little indeed, even though I have loved and taught the literary renaissance for decades, have heard Tallis’s motet many times, in live and, more often, recorded performances, generally appreciating the music as a sustaining forest of song, sometimes transfixing, sometimes no more than a matte of voices that pleasingly resolves. And I’m no wiser now as to the precise date, circumstances and allegiance of ‘Spem in alium’, and its enigmatic origins.

Also filed in Art & Architecture, Nigel Wheale: Raptures | Tagged | Comments (1)

Who is Bruce Springsteen?

Tuesday, 19 March 2013

Peter Knobler: ‘Senator and former presidential candidate John Kerry says, “There’s an authenticity about Bruce that’s just incontrovertible…I think it’s because he’s so true to who he is, and people know it.” But who is he? Is he the egalitarian liberal who sang the radical anti-private-property verse of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” at President Barack Obama’s first inaugural, or is he the guy who allowed his band to be low-balled when offered contracts for a highly anticipated and financially rewarding “reunion tour”?’

Also filed in Biography, Memoir and Autobiographical Prose, Notes & Comment, Principal Articles | Tagged | Comments (20)

Watching ‘Einstein on the Beach’ through a periscope.

Sunday, 6 May 2012

Anthony Howell: Backwards clocks and crazed compasses dangle before our eyes, and I notice that everyone in the cast is wearing a watch. Time is Wilson’s essential subject. Things happen at different speeds yet ruthlessly conform to the order of brittleness. The stage is steeped in cloud, and a text on a drop curtain depicting a hydrogen bomb explosion reminds us of molecules of dust generating further terrible heat. We are judged by an elderly black man and a white child; by age and by race. As they consult with each other, a black circle covers a white disk. The cast open their paper bags. It’s okay, we’re not doomed. We’re only on our lunch break.

Also filed in Dance & Performance, Notes & Comment | Tagged | Comments (1)

Story of a song.

Monday, 30 April 2012

Anthony Howell: I hugely appreciate the way Marianne Faithfull has re-invented herself, a process that began with ‘Broken English’. This album is a milestone in UK music history. Every track is a revelation; she really comes into her own as a songwriter, and even to the cover versions of songs such as Working Class Hero she imparts a sort of heroism. The voice is no longer the wistful voice of the sixties singer; instead it has a smoky depth, a husky edge that conveys raw emotion.

Also filed in Dance & Performance, Principal Articles | Tagged | Comments (5)

• Thus Rihanna does not sing in your valley nor for your village.

Sunday, 6 November 2011

Popular culture was always local, and changed imperceptibly from one village or valley to the next. High culture, on the other hand, always had a certain universality to it, and thus the dissemination of high cultural products via electronic media is not a threat to the very nature of that culture. But such electronic dissemination has all but destroyed popular culture…

Also filed in Art & Architecture, Chronicle & Notices | | Comments (0)

• Event: ‘3 Carsons out of Texas’ at the Gershwin Hotel, New York, 20 October – 20 November 2011

Wednesday, 5 October 2011

[Announcement from The Gershwin Hotel and Suzanne Tremblay] – “3 Carsons out of Texas” – L.M.Kit Carson, film pioneer; Rev Goat Carson, Grammy-winning lyricist; and Neke Carson, a multimedia artist – are the subjects of a special month-long event at the Gershwin Hotel in Manhattan, 20 October to 20 November 2011. The event is ‘A […]

Also filed in Art & Architecture, Chronicle & Notices, Film, Television, Video & Theatre | | Comments (0)

• Hildegard of Bingen: nobody’s singing nun.

Friday, 16 September 2011

The real Hildegard, however, was of course a hardcore medieval Catholic: among many other things, a defender of hierarchy in Church and society and a hammerer of heretics whose visions were in essence doctrinal expositions of Scripture according with the beliefs of the times.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, Theology | | Comments (0)

• Low-fi Lomax: the other America’s music man.

Monday, 29 August 2011

During the 1930s and ’40s, Alan Lomax and his father John Lomax traveled throughout the American South searching for the work songs, spirituals and folk tales that gave the region it’s unique identity.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices | | Comments (0)

· Being authentically in the world of Baroque opera.

Monday, 18 July 2011

BEMF seeks to recreate how operas would have been staged at the time of their original performances, not just how they would have been sung and played.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, Dance & Performance | | Comments (0)

· Event: WILCO’s Solid Sound in the Berkshires, 24-26 June 2011.

Thursday, 23 June 2011

At the heart of Solid Sound is a sense of collaboration, where a band can join forces with a museum, a comedian can perform against a backdrop of boundary-pushing works of art, and festival attendees of all ages can be entertained and inspired by three days of exciting, eclectic artistic expression.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, Dance & Performance, Events | | Comments (0)

· The perfect Father’s Day gift? A flowchart! With Phish!

Sunday, 19 June 2011

Do dads really have an influence on the musical tastes of their offspring? This amusing flowchart, created for Father’s Day in honor of dads who rock, predicts the kind of music you prefer by the tunes your father listened to when you were growing up.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, Noted elsewhere | | Comments (0)

· Cello, bow, Bach, Bailey, brief.

Thursday, 9 June 2011

The cellist’s not playing the repeats tonight, and who could blame him? He dances us through each suite’s sturdy allemande, each suite’s svelte and arrogant courante, each suite’s sultry forbidden sarabande.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, Dance & Performance, Noted elsewhere | | Comments (0)

· Benjamin Britten’s Midsummer Camp.

Wednesday, 1 June 2011

Michelene Wandor: The end of the first half culminates in Shorty pulling himself on his stomach, across the front of the stage, to end with his head in Gangly’s lap. Perhaps this is true happiness. Perhaps not.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, The Fortnightly Review of Music | Tagged | Comments (0)

Wagner’s other ‘ring cycle’ and its problems.

Tuesday, 26 April 2011

William Ashton Ellis: ‘Less than four months after the words last cited, Richard Wagner sees that even the transcendent ideal which has sustained him in his troubles hitherto must be renounced. Of his own free will he writes Mathilde in December, resigning his last claim to soul-communion, whilst he seeks to turn the mournful stream of his reflections by taking up a “comic opera,” Die Meistersinger.’

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, The Fortnightly Review of Music | Tagged | Comments (0)

The Philharmonic attic, ‘from the letters of Presidents to the smallest scrap of paper’.

Friday, 4 February 2011

[The International Era] is the time period with the greatest variety of formats for the Digital Archives to test our assumptions about cross-searching; scores, programs, press clippings, business documents, images, film, audio and video. Although the audio and video items are now only a sample, we are developing a long-term strategy for this material to be available in the not-so-distant future.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, Noted elsewhere | | Comments (0)
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