I'll concede the point

Research discussed in an article in Sunday's New York Times confirmed what the peddlers at WCRB were hoping nobody would realize: that classical music excites the brain.

Observing 13 subjects who listened to classical music while in an M.R.I. machine, the scientists found a cascade of brain-chemical activity. First the music triggered the forebrain, as it analyzed the structure and meaning of the tune. Then the nucleus accumbus and ventral tegmental area activated to release dopamine, a chemical that triggers the brain’s sense of reward.

The cerebellum, an area normally associated with physical movement, reacted too, responding to what Dr. Levitin suspected was the brain’s predictions of where the song was going to go. As the brain internalizes the tempo, rhythm and emotional peaks of a song, the cerebellum begins reacting every time the song produces tension (that is, subtle deviations from its normal melody or tempo).

That sure sounds like relaxation to me!

Of course, maybe I'm not giving them credit. On a recent trip to New York, I hit a bump hard in Queens. (More fairly, I think, the bump hit me.) This damaged the underbelly of my car.

Because of the brevity of my trip (only about 36 hours), and because it was the weekend, I didn't have an opportunity to have to have my car inspected by a mechanic and cleared for the trip back to Boston. I did my best to rig up the loose parts with duck tape, said a quick prayer, and started driving. I didn't get very far; I left the part in question on the shoulder of the JFK. (I wonder if it's still there; I wasn't really in a position to try to retrieve it.)

So here I was, with 200 miles ahead of me in a car that, for all I knew, could fail at any moment. That it ultimately turned out to be a dispensible part is irrelevant; at the time, I didn't know. For the drive, I'd brought a number of 20th century operas. With my nerves on edge as they were, Wozzeck was not helping.

In this situation, I needed something to silence the voice in my head that was warning of the impending $500 towing bill or being stranded somewhere in Connecticut, or something in between. Yet, I couldn't impair my ability to drive.

I made it home, and visited the mechanic the next day. He said everything would be fine, and I went back to listening to Wozzeck.

In that very peculiar circumstance, the lobotomy that commercial classical radio provides proved helpful. I'll concede the point.

Defending Pachelbel[?]

The "Pachelbel Rant" is making the rounds on YouTube.

It's a pretty easy position within the classical music world to dump on the canon in D. (The matching gigue somehow gets off scot-free.) It's perhaps the poster-piece for everything that's wrong with classical music programming on radio -- always headlining collections of "relaxing" classical music, as if one of the great art forms was actually meant as a lobotomy rather than intellectual stimulation. But is that Pachelbel's fault?

So, then, what about the music? It's both a basso-ostinato and a three-part canon. While this may be considered a strength, I actually think it hurts the piece a little. My recollection is that it is neither all that strong as a canon or as an ostinato. When I think of great baroque ostinato pieces, what comes to mind are Bach's c-minor passacaglia and d-minor chaconne. Each creates the illusion of ternary form and finds ways to integrate each phrase into the next. Pachelbel doesn't; he has an endless series of indepedent four-bar phrases. (I once heard a "rearrangement" by Prof. Robert Greenberg, which changed the order of the phrases, and it was just as seemless as the original.) If you're interested in form rather than straight episodic writing, this is a huge strike against it.

How is it as a canon? It's fairly straight-forward. It does the job fairly elegantly, but doesn't really pose a big challenge. After you've heard Bach's "A Musical Offering," I think it's hard to get excited about the Pachelbel.

So, my conclusion is that this canon has two problems, neither of which is strictly Pachelbel's fault: it is over-exposed, and it wasn't written by Bach. It's possible to imagine a world where the same piece of music might be considered an early-music gem, but it's not the lot it drew.

Strangest choice of the Summer

Milton Babbit and Elliot Carter, two of the great figures of serialism, get together in Tanglewood to perform... Stravinsky? What am I missing here?

Opera, Take 1 - Ironic conducting

Lately, through my chronological survey of the 19th century, I've been listening to Tannhauser and La Traviata. When I studied conducting in college, La Traviata was one of my great frustrations. One of our early assignments was the prelude to Tristan, a piece that I own 6 recordings of; that I'd owned in score and reduction for several years; that I'd learned on the piano; and that I'd studied every measure of in theory class. I've even studied the never heard and largely unknown concert ending. And yet, I struggled mightily with it when I took up the baton. I know it's a maddeningly difficult score, but after weeks of practicing, I felt like I was getting nowhere.

So when I was assigned Violetta's first act arias from La Traviata, which I'd never encountered before, and which I don't really care for, I was a bit disappointed to discover that, in the words of my teacher, I had an aptitude for it. Funny how that works -- of all the different pieces I'd studied over my semesters of conducting, I was best at the piece I cared about least. I put effort into trying to like early and middle Verdi, but I never get anywhere. If anything, I resent Verdi after my experience in conducting class.





I also just watched Boris Goudonov on DVD. Somehow, I never noticed how much Gershwin owes Mossourgsky before.

Independent Music

I'll never understand why the centerpiece of the Pops [Esplanade] 4th of July Celebration is a piece of Russian propaganda music.

Good news for the third best classical radio station in Boston

If all goes as planned, local classical music fans will be able to keep listening to their favorite radio programming on WCRB-FM.

That's the opening sentence of the story in this morning's Globe about a plan to switch WCRB's classical programming to 99.5 when 102.5 switches to a country format.

Here's how I would have written that sentence:

If all goes as planned, local classical music fans will be able to keep listening to the radio programming they settle for while WGBH and WHRB have different programming, assuming they don't have a fancy enough radio to get WGBH HD2.

Schubert hurts his own cause

Schubert wrote too much music for his own good.

As I work, I'm cycling through all my music from the 19th century in chronological order. I hit the year 1822 this week, and with it Schubert's b minor symphony D 759. I've just been listening to Beethoven's late piano sonatas and Die Freischütz. The Diabelli Variations and Dichterliebe are in deck.

As I listened, I couldn't help myself. I started laughing. Measures 36-44 are the culprit. The first theme ends with a forceful cadence -- a syncopated, tutti dominant 7th chord returning to the b-minor sforzando chord. But the third hangs on -- the d is sustained by the horns and bassoons. The d quickly turns into a cadence in G(?), and like that, we're on into the melodic theme (nevermind that it's in the wrong key). That's a grand total of four measures of transition between themes, three of which are a unison pedal d.

That's a pretty typical Schubert move in his instrumental music. (With a few direct substitutions, we could be talking about the "Great" C-major symphony, for example.) It's astounding when you compare it to what Beethoven was writing at the same time in the same place.

If Schubert had only written his 700 lieder, his reputation would be secure. Individual songs like Erlkönig and Gretchen am Spinnrade are in the discussion of the greatest songs ever written, Winterreise and Schwannengesang are masterpieces, and there are so many great songs in between. There's no doubt of his mastery as a composer of short forms; however, he treated long forms the same. Just take one idea, through two or four measures of modulation in there, do another idea, and call it a symphony or a quartet.

Perhaps Schubert's spot in history is this -- no other one composer ever wrote so much great music and so much terrible music.