The Depressive Nightmare Siren Girl

By way of a disclaimer, I'm going to repeat a shocking confession that I mentioned once before in this space:  I've seen Mona Lisa Smile.  (It wasn't my fault, I swear!)  My reaction at the end was how remarkably brave the movie was to shine a light on sexism in the 1950's.  (I should skip the part about how Rachel Portman is so terrible a composer, but it's hard not to at least mention it in passing.)

If you'd like, at the end of this plan, you can be shocked about how sexist literary depictions of women from Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance works are.  While some are more nuanced than others, putting them all together in one discussion has an ugly cumulative effect.

Last time around, I showed how the Manic Pixy Dreamgirl actually has a deep literary heritage going all the way back to Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy.  At her essence, the MPDG rescues our hero from whatever metaphorical prison (be it an empty career or 20-something malaise) and teaches him to focus on what really matters in life.  As I pointed out, The Divine Comedy and Garden State are actually much more closely related than they may seem at first glance.

But the Manic Pixie Dreamgirl's redemptive aura is only half the picture.  She has a darker twin designed to take the hero's eye off the ball.  For the sake of simplicity, I'll give her a name, although it won't fit exactly in most of the examples I'm going to discuss today.  It will fit better when we look at the watered-down version, but it would be pretty tough to try to discuss her anonymously.

As an archetype, she goes all the way back to Eve in a sense; other examples from classical times include Calypso and Dido.  The example I'd like to focus on, though, is of a real figure from Medieval Germany.  (Ok, there might be some exaggeration, but the man in the legend really did exist.)

Tanhûser was a minnesinger (and possibly a knight) 13th century.  As the legend goes, he did all the normal knight minstrel activities -- singing minnegesang, fighting in jousts and tournaments, and all that fun stuff.  But he suddenly disappeared.  A years later, he reappeared.  He had been in Venusberg the whole time, serving and worshiping the goddess Venus.  The Christian knight was living a life of sin, distracted from his duty to his lord and Lord.  He went to Rome to beg the pope for forgiveness.  The pope replied that he'd be forgiven when his staff bloomed with flowers.  Days later, the pope's staff bloomed, but Tanhûser had already returned to Venusberg never to be seen again.

In this story, a good knight got tempted into darkness by a woman who existed pretty much for the sole purpose of trying to subvert his life's work.  Unlike the MPDG, who is by design supposed to teach the hero about what really matters in life, the Depressive Siren Nightmare Girl takes a man away from his mission and distract him from his life.^Θ

Some other notable DSNG's from literary history include Merimee's Carmen and Nabakov's Lolita from the eponymous novels.  Lady Macbeth gets the best of her husband while Ophelia (though under coersion by her uncle) fails to get the best of Hamlet.  And, of course, how could I fail to mention the one that ruined my life:  her father for all intents and purposes dead, Criseyde's vulnerability warmed Troilus's heart.  When she has the opportunity to flee to the Greeks, she does in a second, standing Troilus up at their planned meeting ten days later, and going so far as to blame him.  She was the medieval image of a faithless conniving woman, at least until Robert Henryson did his best to rehabilitate her image in the Testament of Cresseid.

Interestingly enough, a legendary monster developed during the Middle Ages that turns gives the metaphor a terrifying literality.^φ    The succubus prayed on men at night, stealing their energy for life.  While this spring out of some level of Medieval discomfort about sex,^≅ it was built on the idea that the weapon of choice of a female demon would be her sexuality.

Like her counterpart of light, the DSNG appears in movies as a watered down archetype serving mainly as a plot device rather than a real character.  That discussion is for another time.

^ΘOne side note about terminology:  it doesn't necessarily fit to apply the 20th century psychological terms manic and depressive to earlier times, but I suggest that they still fit within the context of the day.  While Venus may not be depressed, her sinful life serves as an analogue; she could not be truly happy without accepting Christ, after all.  It's the same way that Lady Philosophy comes across as the opposite of manic, yet still represents that to an early Medieval neoplatonist ascetic.
^φ She had a male counterpart, the incubus, who fed off of women's energy, occasionally leaving behind a present, but even that was widely used as a cover for unexplained pregnancies (or bad behavior by the woman in the society of the time).  ^≅The Medieval discomfort about sex is overstated to a large extent. Read something like The Decameron or The Canterbury Tales and then look at the news from the past two years, and then try to tell me with a straight face that we're the enlightened ones.

The Manic Pixie Dreamgirl

I'd like to visit the theme of the Manic Pixie Dreamgirl in a couple of posts, because the more I think about her, the more she fascinates me. (That's right: I guess I'm announcing to the world that I have a crush on a disembodied abstract concept. At least she doesn't have a boyfriend.) She actually has been an important figure in my life: I've had big crushes on my fair share, even dated one or two, am friends with others, and created a whole line-up of them back in the day when I fancied myself a writer. As I dig deep, it's hard to escape the MPDG her two relatives (I'll introduce you a little later) in any aspect of my life.

The Onion piece in question provided a decent overview of how she's been presented in film in the past 70 years, but the army of critics don't go back any deeper, ignoring her long literary pedigree. Let's take a step back and review the essentials: the MPDG "exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures." She appears as if by magic, forever changing the way the the dour hero will look at the world. While her favorite tool today is whimsy, her forbears didn't always have that option in their arsenals, and thus took very different tacks.

The earliest MPDG that I am aware of happens to be one of the most important literary figures of the Middle Ages. She arrives at just the right time, as our hero's life is in shambles; he finds himself locked in prison as a political prisoner, unable to make peace with the world.

I who once wrote songs with Keen delight am now by sorrow driven to take up melancholy measures. Wounded Muses tell me what I must write, and elegiac verses bathe my face with real tears. Not even terror could drive from me these faithful companions of my long journey. Poetry, which was once the glory of my happy and flourishing youth, is still my comfort in this misery of my old age.

So begins Boethius's Consolatio Philosophiae, written in the early 6th century. His salvation comes in the form of Lady Philosophy, who uses Socratic dialogue to make him reconsider what matters in the world (early Medieval Christian asceticism) and what doesn't.

It may seem like a long road from The Consolation of Philosophy to "Elizabethtown," but the essential story is the same: a man is rescued from his (literal or metaphorical prison) by a woman who teaches him not to be so serious and reconsider what's really important in life, be it through silly dancing or neoplatonist asceticism. Having made that intellectual leap, we can trace the MPDG's subsequent incarnations as Beatrice in Dante's Paradiso, Shahrazad from Alf Layla Wa Layla, Reason in La Roman de la Rose, Lucy Manette (A Tale of Two Cities), Eppie from Silas Marner, and even Olivia in "Twelfth Night." Shaw put his own satiric stamp on it time after time, perhaps most memorably in Man and Superman, when Ann Whitefield rescues John Tanner from his life of socialistic bachelorhood.

Opera has no shortage: while Donna Elvira and Marie (Wozzeck) can't quite finish the job, Elsa (Der Fliegende Hollander), Marie (Der Frieschutz), Magdalena (Die Meistersinger), Brunhilde, and even Mimi with her consumptive little heart all offer some sort of redemption.

Even though the MPDG may seem like empty fun, there for the sole purpose of redeeming the male, as I've shown, she actually has a long heritage and is capable of quite a bit of depth. If she represents lightness and redemption, though, she does have a mischievous twin sister, lurking in darkness to bring destruction to men. Next time I'll introduce this figure (in one way or another). As this series continues, it will explore both the literary heritage of this darker figure and the way she appears in movies today; a look at their interactions in the work of Woody Allen; the influence these figures have had on my life; and their rare and devastating child.

Baby Schoenberg

Normally, I don't get too excited about babies, but this image from Jeremy Eichler's column in this morning's glob, warmed my heart:

Here at last was my opportunity to do my part for the forward march of science. It was too late to eliminate all tonal music from Jonah's aural diet but we could at least do some concentrated listening. I cued up the final movement of Schoenberg's Second String Quartet, a landmark in the composer's journey toward atonality. As the soprano sang the famous line, "I feel the air of another planet," I scrutinized my son's face for a glint of recognition, and, to my shock, he actually began clapping his hands. Never mind that he claps his hands freely these days at seemingly arbitrary moments. In my view, it was a scientific slam dunk.

The accompanying list of musical recommendations will actually allow you to listen to music with your kid without wanting to throw the hi-fi out the window.

Concerning the Price of Bread in China

Google searches for "Price of bread in China" are referring people to this blog more and more frequently, so I'm going to take a moment out for an off-topic post that will hopefully provide some insight into that question. First I'll explain why it's actually the wrong question to ask, and then I'll take two different cracks at answering it anyway for those of you who are still curious.

It is my experience that usually, when someone refers to the price of bread, it's an example of the rhetorical device synecdoche. Thus, to just look at one example, when Berio writes in his Sinfonia that the piece of music can't stop the wars or lower the price of bread, it is simply meant to stand in for food in general. The device works because bread is a staple food in Europe and plays a very prominent role in the diet. Even if meat is too expensive, you fall back on bread.

China has a very different dietary model, however. Baked goods do not play a large role in the diet, and bread is not regularly eaten by the average Chinese person. Instead, depending on the region, rice and noodles fill that role. If you're interested in using one item to stand for the entire Chinese diet, I suggest considering the cost of rice instead. To consider the price of bread in China is like looking at the price of corn in England -- not particularly relevant or helpful.

So, then, how much does food cost in China? It's a huge, economically diverse country, so there isn't a nice, simple answer. It's a lot more expensive in Shanghai than it is Gansu, for example, where you can get a good meal for 3 yuan. Just as a hamburger in New York will cost you a lot more than the same burger in Kansas, specific prices vary wildly throughout the country. That said, my understanding is that the uncharacteristically snowy winter has put a lot of pressure on food supplies throughout the entire country, so food is becoming more expensive everywhere.

And even though I just explained why the price of bread in China isn't relevant, I'll tell you about it anyway. For the reasons I just outlined, bread tends to be very expensive and low in quality. For whatever reason, the domestic bread producers like to put a lot of sugar in the bread. I have no idea what they leave out, but it tastes sweet and has a somewhat chalky texture. It could perhaps make a serviceable piece of toast provided you use enough jam. I preferred yoghurt, fruit, or eggs for breakfast.

There is one institution that ironically provides a decent loaf of bread for cheap. In my experience, the European-owned supermarkets that feature a variety of imported foods could bake a decent French- or Italian-style loaf, for about a third of the price of the terrible packaged bread.

Edit 4/16: PRI's The World on the topic of Chinese food prices

UE Shrugs off Lost Revenue, as E-mails are what Really Matters

I just saw this press release posted on the Universal Editions website regarding their actions against IMSLP. The following paragraph struck me as particularly odd:

The flood of complaints to UE, however, didn’t come. They received about 30 e-mails and one letter (Geist’s thousands apparently had better things to do). UE replied to each and every one and were happy that most – when having heard the other side of the story – were relieved that UE was certainly not acting improperly. In fact, in the end, quite a few messages of support were received.

Apparently, the fact that I no longer purchase UE scores does not move them. They are unconcerned by the lost revenue; it would only concern them if they'd received an e-mail. I thus encourage everybody to join me in not purchasing UE products, as they won't mind at all. Just don't send them an e-mail, or else they may feel the pinch.



For the record: I sent them an e-mail on December 24 of last year, and have not yet heard back. I guess UE doesn't actually respond to all their mail.

Alma Redemptoris Anti-Semite?

Upon this beere ay lith this innocent
Biforn the chief auter, whil the masse laste;
And after that, the abbot with his covent
Han sped hem for to burien hym ful faste;
And whan they hooly water on hym caste,
Yet spak this child, whan spreynd was hooly water,
And song O Alma redemptoris mater!

The Prioress's Tale from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is a beautiful story of faith. An innocent young boy sings a hymn to the redeeming virgin. Cruel villains overhear his singing, and plot to slit his throat. The villains are slain, and despite the slit throat, the innocent is able to continue singing the hymn at his own funeral. Chaucer doesn't leave any doubt of the moral:

"My throte is kut unto my nekke boon,"
Seyde this child, "and as by wey of kynde
I sholde have dyed, ye, longe tyme agon.
But Jesu Crist as ye in bookes fynde,
Wil that his glorie laste and be in mynde,
And for teh worship of his Mooder deere
Yet may I synge O Alma loude and cleere.

"This welle of mercy, Cristes mooder sweete,
I loved alwey, as after my konnynge;
And whan that I my lyf sholde forlette,
To me she cam, and bad me for to synge
This anthem verraily in my deyynge,
As ye han herd, and whan that I hadde songe,
Me thoughte she leyde a greyn upon my tonge.

"Wherefore I synge, and synge moot certeyn,
In honour of that blisful Mayden free
Til fro my tonge of taken is the greyn;
And after that thus seyde she to me:
'My litel child, now wol I fecche thee,
Whan that the greyn is fro thy tonge ytake.
Be nat agast; I wol thee nat forsake.'"

It is a miracle. The child's faith is rewarded, and the villains' attempts at silencing him failed. Even if they can kill him, he has a reward in the afterlife coming from Mary herself.

The problem is that people get really confused about the what's going on in the story because the villains are Medieval caricatures of Jews. There weren't any in Chaucer's England, but anti-Semitic stories and myths still circulated. However, that they are Jewish is beside the point. In the 70's, stock villains were Russian. In 14th Century England, they were Jews. Trying to explore this tale from a modern perspective on anti-Semitism will get you nowhere, and will only distract from what is otherwise a nice specimen of Miracle narrative.

Apparently, composer Delvyn Case fell into that trap. He calls the Prioress's Tale "a tragic and anti-Semitic story," and goes on to say it is " a violent incident involving Christian persecution of Jews." To say he misses the point is a gross understatement. He writes:

I chose to base this opera project upon a tragic and anti-Semitic story from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, "The Prioress’s Tale." My librettist and I, writer Christopher Hood, have transformed this potentially divisive tale into a parable whose primary message is that peace, reconciliation, and forgiveness are possible when each of us validates the our common humanity with others. Our opera is a musical and dramatic portrait of two characters – one Jewish, one Christian – who overcome their fear and hatred of each other by rediscovering their own capacity for forgiveness.

If he wanted to write an opera about reconciliation between religions, why awkwardly force Chaucer's miracle story into it? Mixing up modern sensibilities with medieval literature just undermines both.

Calling all Pretentious Elitists

I added Pretentious Classical Music Elitists to the links on the right. It's a good place for some contentious discussion about good music, and what makes music good. The catch is that you must be a member of Facebook in order to even see it. I'm not advocating that anybody join Facebook for the sole purpose of seeing that page, but if you are on there already, it is worth dropping by.

That said, I don't recommend joining unless you actually like music that others describe as pretentious and elitist. Rachel Portman or Eric Whitacre fans needn't bother. The fact that people with strongly populist tastes join the group raises an interesting question: why do people want to be labeled as pretentious and elitist? I don't seek those labels out, and have to defend myself against them. It's not that I'm pretentious or elitist; it's just that I have high standards and enjoy music that others may dismiss as difficult. Liking Babbit or early Glass isn't a put-on; I actually do enjoy listening to it. I don't enjoy listening to La Boheme. So for me to join that group isn't an admission of being snobby or pretentious as much as it is an acknowledgment that I wouldn't be able to shake the label if I tried.

Norm Lebrecchht's next book?

Apparently, classical music isn't the only form that's dying.

Serving the Public Good Indeed

Apparently, those of you in Wisconsin are being subjected to Rachel Portman's Little Prince opera tomorrow.

Once upon a time, they showed full performances of real operas and orchestral concerts routinely on PBS stations. Now they show this drivel, Andre Rieu, and the Vienna New Years Concert, and say, "Look at us, we broadcast culture!"

While last year's slate of broadcasts from the Met looked promising, in execution, they were scheduled at odd hours, and didn't live up to the press releases.

At least the radio portion of WGBH holds up its side of the bargain. I was astonished, on a recent visit to LA, to hear what KUSC deems radio-worthy. If I'd been there longer than 6 days, I have no doubt I would have heard every Mozart piano concerto, but nothing from outside "the box."

The 21st Century Philharmonic

Glenn Branca has an entry in his New York Times blog in which he programs a season of his imaginary "21st Century Philharmonic" [the link is subscription only]. A couple of representative programs:

REICH Triple Quartet
ADAMS Guide To Strange Places
ADAMS Slonimsky’s Earbox
FELDMAN Violin and Orchestra
CARTER Holiday Overture

STALLING Selected Music From Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig
ROTA Music for the Films of Fellini
MORRICONE Music for the Films of Sergio Leone
BARRY Music for the James Bond Movies
HERRMANN Selections from the Soundtracks

TAKEMITSU Twill by Twilight (In Memory of Morton Feldman)
IVES Central Park in the Dark
IVES Fugue in Four Keys on “The Shining Shore”
MESSIAEN La Ville d’en haut
BRANCA Symphony No. 11

He also has 9 programs consisting entirely of commissions, and all-Xenakis, all-Messaien, all-Glass, all-Reich, all-Scelsi programs, and complete performances of Ligeti's Le Grande Macabre, Strauss's Elektra, Sondheim's Anyone Can Whistle, and Weill's Dreigroschenoper. While there's a lot more to it, that gives a sense of what Branca's thinking of for this orchestra.

What struck me, though, wasn't the exercise, but the comments people left. Naturally, it's a very personal thing to plan a season for such an orchestra, and he left off pieces I'd view as musts (and he'd probably look at my selections with puzzlement). Most of the comments consist of people asking how could he leave out such-and-such composer (from Schoenberg and Stravinsky to Golijov and Tan Dun). Many agree with the sentiment of the project, wishing that such an orchestra existed.

Two of them, however, struck me as very odd.

Guess we “old fogies” have no rights whatsoever. The diletantes have spoken.Remember please that theirgeneration [sic] invented the comedy of rock and roll.

What do us “social security types” and “old fogies” know about music? Aside from insulting an older generation, there is the implication that the music by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Bach, and the myriad of Baroque composers are no longer to be appreciated. Notwithstanding the professed views of these devotees “modern” music, I would be willing to wager that Beethoven’s music will be appreciated long after the purveyors of dissonance will pass from the scene.

I'm astonished that the inference from this exercise is that all the composers from "the box" would be impossible to hear in a world with a 21st Century Philharmonic. Beethoven isn't going anywhere; every year will continue to be a Mozart year. Why not make room for some newer music as well?

While I don't sympathize, I can understand why some people grumbled a little about the inclusion of the Wourinen commission on a BSO program last month. But to go so far as to say that no ensemble should be allowed to perform new music? That's a new level of closed-mindedness that is stunning.

Newbury Comics Classical Newsletter

For classical music fans interested in maintaining access to traditional brick-and-mortar record stores, the response by Newbury Comics has been encouraging. As co-founder Mike Dreese put it:

Like many in the Boston community, I was truly saddened to see the "mega-stores" of music leave the market late last fall. We had a very healthy competition with both Virgin Megastores and Tower Records over the years, and previously with HMV and The Harvard COOP. Their abrupt departure, while perhaps a sign of the digital times, represents a great loss of cultural resource for the region. We at Newbury Comics feel an obligation to try our best to serve the enormous hole these closures leave for Classical fans.

One way to track their progress is through the new weekly classical e-mail newsletter, which features new releases, sales, and offers coupons. The focus of the newsletters will be the Newbury St. and Natick locations, but hopefully, with enough positive feedback, the rest of their locations will also embrace a wider classical selection.

You can sign up here by clicking on the "Beta Classical Newsletter" option (or by filling out one of the forms in the Newbury St and Natick stores). I encourage everyone to let their voices be heard by signing up for the newsletter and showing that the classical audience does exist.

The Glob's Silence on Hatto

At this point, the Joyce Hatto plagiarism scandal is becoming old news, but there's still one voice I'm waiting to hear on the subject.

Seemingly every article on the scandal used the first line of this Richard Dyer profile (calling Hatto "greatest living pianist that almost no one has ever heard of) as evidence of established critics having been taken in by the fraud.

So why has the Glob yet to cover the story? The story broke last week, yet, as of right now, she only shows up in a very positive light in the archives. This is particularly strange, given that the Times, which owns the Glob, had the story on Saturday. So how about a follow-up given all the new information that has come to light?

Update 2/23:

They finally weigh in, complete with the Richard Dyer quotation.

Witticism

The caliph said to Ja'far, "Damn it, tell her who we are, lest we are slain by this mistake." Ja'far replied, "This is part of what we deserve." The caliph yelled at him, saying, "This is no time for your witticisms."

"The Story of the Porter and the Three Ladies," The Arabian Nights, translated by Husain Hadawy

Life is a Dream

When the prince is born, a prophecy is made: he will bring disaster to the kingdom. The king tells everyone he died and stows him in a tower on top of a mountain, where he cannot harm anyone. He stays hidden away from everyone's eyes, save one advisor. Only decades later is he finally introduced to the world, and even then, it's far too brief.

The premise of Lewis Spratlan's opera, after a play by the Spanish playwright Pedro Calderòn de la Barca, has unfortunate parallel's to the opera's history. It was written in 1978 on a commission by the New Haven Opera Theater. By the time it was ready to perform, the opoera company folded. It remained hidden away for another two decades, until Spratlan organized a performance himself, with the support of Amherst College. That performance was just act II, though, and was all too fleeting, even with the Pulitzer Prize it brought. Like Segismundo, it sits in a tower having experienced the real world ever so briefly, waiting to be liberated.

*

Calderòn's text lends itself to setting as an opera. Unlike many plays, which require significant shuffling and rewriting to become suitable libretti, James Maraniss's task was primarily to truncate his translation. The play's many long speeches serve as built-in arias. (This act does include two elaborations: where Calderòn calls for musicians to perform, he supplied a two-stanza madrigal text, and added a speech for Rosaura's lament to close the act.)

Spratlan handles the libretto nimbly. The best example, I think, is before Segismundo's entrance. Basilio and Clotaldo continue their conversation without changing the same musical style of their singing. Against, this, however, the orchestra leaves them behind and instead becomes source music. First they "noodle, as if warming up" (original instruction), before settling on a unison B-flat tuning note. The singers maintain their triple meter as the orchestra is reduced to a military band playing a duple march.

After the chorus welcomes Segismundo with a flourish, a "people's entertainment" follows. This section is scored as a solo violin playing in parallel fifths with a flute. What's remarkable is that even though I generally find parallel fifths grating, they sound good here. I think there are two reasons this works. First, the opera as a whole doesn't treat fifths as perfect consonants. By treating fifths sparingly, it's as if the interval becomes a dissonance. Second, the timbre of the violin and flute are different enough that they don't "lock in" the way they do when similar instruments play in perfect parallel invervals. This is followed by a madrigal in imitative counterpoint.

It's a travesty that the entire opera has never been performed or recorded. You can only hear it if you happen to know the right person. Ironically, Spratlan's recent opera "Earthrise" seems to be headed for a similar fate: although the San Francisco Opera commissioned it, they have yet to perform it publicly, citing budget difficulties. Both these operas deserve to be heard. In the story, Segismundo is liberated by an army, and given the opportunity to take his rightful place on his throne. It's time someone did the same for these operas.

Why people don't like new music.

From The Composer's Datebook

[2/4/]1837 - Franz Liszt performs a chamber recital in Paris, featuring the then-unfamiliar Piano Trios of Beethoven; At the last minute, the performers decided to reverse the printed order of the program, performing on the first half of the concert a trio by Pixis, and a Beethoven trio on the second half; The audience (and critics) warmly applaud the Pixis, mistakenly thinking it was the Beethoven work, and react coolly to the Beethoven, assuming it was by Pixis; Among the critics, only Berlioz notices the program switch.

Dinosaur Annex's Super Sunday

The good thing about the Patriots' stunning loss last week:

It removed the major obstacle to attending Dinosaur Annex's Young Composer's Festival. The concert will feature music by Mason Bates, Richard Whalley, Derek Jacoby (not to be confused with Sir Derek Jacoby), MissyMazzoli, Sergei Tcherepnin, and Sarah Kirkland Snider. As far as I can tell from the biographies, these young composers seem to be in the under 35 age bracket, rather than the under 50 that passes for young in the field today. The 7:00 concert at First Church on Marlborough St caps a full weekend of events.

This won't be the first Super Sunday Dinosaur Annex show I've attended. I had the good fortune to be at the long overdue permier of [Act II of] Lewis Spratlan's Life is a Dream, opposite what turned out to be a pretty good game. It was a pretty good opera too, though, earning that year's Pulitzer.


[edit: the rest of this post has been adapted into a stand-alone discussion of Life is a Dream here.]

1 + 1 = 1.3

My favorite formula is now 1 + 1 = 1.
-Tan Dun

By combining elements of Western music learned in conservatory and traditional Chinese music he learned growing up in rural Hunan province, Tan Dun's goal is to create a new, unified music that is neither Eastern nor Western. As such, I think that is the standard by which the opera should be judged: how well did it accomplish what the composer set out to do?

While I've long been a fan of Tan Dun, I have very little exposure to his operas. (I've heard the songs from "The Peony Pavilion" included on the album "Bitter Love," but have almost no sense of how it fits together as an opera. I don't know any of the music from Marco Polo or Tea.) The piece that most successfully synthesizes the musical styles is his 2000 Water Passion after St. Matthew. (Ironically, a passion setting is such a strictly Western form; there is no Chinese analogue for the religious oratorio.) He is able to integrate the Eastern folk tradition's emphasis on indeterminate pitch and techniques of using natural objects and throat singing into a moving telling of the death and resurrection of somebody else's savior. While Bach's setting of the same story inspired and influenced him, it comes through as a new and unique music. It is both Chinese and American, and yet neither at the same time. 1 + 1 = 1.

Unfortunately, The First Emperor is a step back. It is best when it stays in the framework of Tan's previous works. It opens with a masterly aria by the Taiwanese Peking opera star Wu Hsing-Kuo that is, unfortunately, the high point of the entire opera. The best of the remaining music is the interludes, where he lets the orchestra (and percussionists) cut lose. It is particularly strong when featuring the zheng (a Chinese zither), the waterphone, the Chinese ceremonial bell, and other instrumental specialties.

Where it falls short is what happens in between. It seems that Tan is almost trigger shy about his formulation of 1 + 1 = 1, and thus doesn't fully commit. While I can sympathize with his desire to take full advantage of a cast headlined by Placido Domingo, much of the singing falls into an almost dull Western arioso style. It isn't the Tan Dun I admire so; it's Tan Dun interspersed with Puccini. Tan became a great composer by exploring, and so many parts of the opera were content to just sit in a traditional lyricism.

Still, on the balance, it was an enjoyable opera. If I have any reservations, it's because my expectations were so high (despite the dozens of negative reviews). I hope that he will tighten act II a little and tone down the Westerness of the vocal lines prior to recording the work. Still, I anticipate taping the PBS broadcast and watching it over the air as many times as possible.



With such a predominantly Chinese creative team (ex-pats Tan, Ha Jin, and Hao Jiang Tian in addition to Zhang Yimou, Fan Yue, Huang Doudou and Wang Chaoge), I was curious to see what the opera's theme would be. Despite his early outsider films, Zhang Yimou's recent work has served as propaganda for the Chinese government. (The unity theme of "Hero" seems a clear enough statement to the Taiwanese, Tibetan, and Uyghur separatists; even Curse of the Golden Flower is about the importance of order and obeying authority.) I am pleased that The First Emperor's stands against the communist government, highlighting Qin's cruelty. In particular, the act of suppressing the old art for a new, truthful art was played out all too often during the tragic Cultural Revolution. And, as happens in the opera, suppressive government can lead to art more interested in exploring the truth than the government line. Gao's national anthem may as well have been Tan's own Snow in June.

Buxtewho-de?

Buxtehude is a composer that doesn't have much currency today. Most people know him (if at all) primarily for being an important influence of a young Bach. After last year's Mozart overdose, it's nice to have a year honoring a composer who really does need the exposure. In honor of the 300th anniversary of his death, I'm looking forward to getting to know Buxtehude much more thoroughly.

To this effect, I went to the first recital in the series "Ten Saturdays with Buxtehude" at St. Thomas's Church on West 53rd St. The turnout was spectacular for the 4:00 recital. The entire nave was full, and the crowd spilled into the aisle. More to the point, the church ran out of programs. Accordingly, I'm not sure what I heard (beyond a couple of chorale preludes and couple of prelude & fugue pairs) or who was playing (although I later found out it was John Scott). I don't really feel qualified to discuss the program in any detail with so little information. I'll credit Scott for resisting the temptation to use the full forces of the organ, instead trying to stay true to the sound of organs of the 17th century. The programs run through May 26, and should all be well worth it. Just make sure you arrive plenty early if you want a good seat and a program.

How Pathethique!

This is the second post in my series of CD's selected through arbitrary-number generation. I'd like to add a note about my method of cataloguing CD's before diving into the Furtwängler. I arrange everything chronologically by composer. Ideally, I'd prefer a way to have them in strict chronological order of when the piece was composed, but that would prove overwhelming. While composers with very long careers like Liszt (I have pieces from 1833 through 1881) or Bach (1705 through 1750) cause trouble, I think this is the best compromise. When I list the previous recording of Carmina Burana as 571 and the CD discussed below as 452, I'm simply referring to the line on the speadsheet that the disc currently occupies.

Last time around, I attacked Carmina Burana for its poor form and minimal counterpoint. Naturally, when faced with Tchaikovsky's Pathétique Symphony, I'm going to criticize Tchaikovsky as an overrated, all-melody composer, right?

What I like about Furtwängler's 1938 recording is the way he emphasizes the form. The individual movements may not be groundbreaking in its use of sonata form, but he really brings out the dramatic development with his tempi. I'll admit I'm a sucker for Furtwängler's erratic tempo changes, but they are very effective in this piece. In the first and second movements, for example, he suddenly slows the tempo at a formally important moment, and then gradually accelerates back to the original speed. In addition to providing the piece with a very clear trajectory, it also draws attention to the sections that repeat and the sections that don't.

The third movement will always be a thorn in the sides of people opposed to inter-movement clapping. It's also a really dramatic example of why it matters: the fourth movement is the dramatic heart and soul of the symphony. It should follow the thrilling conlusion of the third movement as quickly as humanly possible. The tension is supposed to be built up and not released; the applause releases it and really hurts the finale.

The fourth movement seems like a piece written just for Furtwängler's talents. What impresses me most about this recording is the way he relaxes the tempo after the climax, bringing out the pathos that gives the piece its nickname. It fades away into imperceptable silence, until a note suddenly grows -- and like that, we're into the Prelude of Tristan und Isolde.

I don't have much to say about this particular recording of the Prelude and so-called Liebestod. (If you count full recordings of the opera, I have more recordings of the pair than any other piece. Furthermore, 4 of my 6 recordings were conducted by Furtwängler.) Instead, I want to raise a question:

Why isn't the concert ending of the prelude ever performed? I realize that the opera's finale makes a nice companion piece, but the concert ending serves to wrap it up nicely in one continuous movement. As far as I know, it hasn't been performed in well over a hundred years and never recorded (although if you know of a recording, please let me know). It's good in its own right and deserves a little exposure.


Next on the docket: #232, Clavier-book for Anna Magdalena Bach on Hännsler

Off topic

I'm not sure what just happened in the Pats-Chargers game, but I know I like it.

But that's the Patriots -- they manage to minimize the damage from mistakes, and to capitalize on opponents' mistakes, and to stay close and do the big things when it matters most.

This week, Brady and Manning combined for a passer rating of 50.1. Your AFC Championship quarterbacks, ladies and gentlemen!