Bruckner in a Powdered Wig

I'd never thought about it before, but there are striking similarities between the compositional approaches of Antonio Vivaldi [top] and Anton Bruckner. Both use what could be called "cell" technique, where a short musical fragment is repeated many times and built upon by adding instruments and modulating. This is used instead of a longer melodic line. Bruckner was trained as an organist, so he would have known baroque music. Probably Bruckner scholars have recognized this parallel for a hundred years, but we each learn in our own time...

Shadow of a God

The other day, my friend and I heard the first movement of Beethoven's 8th Symphony. My friend suddenly blurted out, "I hate this movement; such meager melodic material." I was stunned. Yet, I was not stunned that he hated the movement, rather that he would admit it. I have always found this to be one of Beethoven's weakest orchestral movements, but I have never told a soul.

I'm normally proud to be a critical thinker. What is it about this piece that kept me in the closet? Could it be that some of us are still intimidated by Beethoven as God of the Symphony, just like so many angst-ridden 19th-century composers who struggled to carry on the genre? [Pictured is Max Klinger's 1902 Beethoven Memorial sculpture in Leipzig, showing Beethoven as Zeus.]

Death of the Rebirth

Every time I hear the music of G.P. Palestrina (ca. 1525-1594), I shudder. Poor Palestrina; it's not his fault that his clear, smooth, magnificent style of sacred counterpoint made him the musical poster child of the Counter-Reformation. That movement helped to kill off Humanism, bringing back to Europe a long period of censorship, intolerance, and injustice in the the arts and every other level of human existence. Somehow, irrationally, Palestrina's music represents this for me. I have an easier time emotionally with the music of Wagner!

Piano Man

The British band Radiohead has always had a very guitar-based sound, which I've noticed in particular as I've tried to adapt some of their songs for piano and voice. So I was surprised when, a few weeks ago, I heard lead singer Thom Yorke doing a song from his solo album The Eraser on TV. Yorke sat at a keyboard, and that was the predominant instrumental sound in the arrangement. Remarkable how different Yorke's floating falsetto seems without the textural contrast of strummed chords behind it. [Since you're surely curious, he is covered in chocolate in this photo for an Oxfam fair-trade event.]

Dilly of a Q

Why couldn't the Indigo Girls song Dairy Queen have been even a little bit about soft serve? I can't be alone in wishfully wondering this...

Revival Meeting

Hallooo? Broadway producers? Could we please have a new production of the Kander/Ebb/McNally musical, Kiss of the Spider Woman? Is the deterrent that you can't find a dancin', beltin', web-climbin' powerhouse to play the lead? I guess there aren't so many Chita Riveras around, hmmm? [Chita, who created the role, is pictured above]

Speaking of McNally musicals, I distinctly recall a few years back that good old Terrence [lower photo] was reworking the book for Pal Joey, putting more dramatic emphasis on wartime America. I remember that the team had been given full access to the Rogers & Hart library, and had found some unknown songs... Whatever became of that intriguing project?

A Song Worth Watching

One of the great mysteries of the modern era is the artistic purpose of the music video. The commercial purpose is obvious, but is there any other merit to the genre? Generally, I would say no, but in a very small number of cases, a music video is a short film that enriches the experience of hearing the song.

Above are images from two such cases: 1. [top] Lullaby, by the Cure, a creepily cartoonish video that reveals a serious, real-life connotation to the lyric hook, "spider man is having me for dinner tonight". Suffice it to say that Robert Smith seems to have gotten an education beyond the curriculum at his boarding school. 2. [bottom] Hurt, Johnny Cash's heart-stopping version of the Nine Inch Nails song, presented against visions of ancient, rotting decadence interspersed with scenes from Cash's own life.