Do Blogs Count?
January 8, 2010
Be a scribe! It saves you from toil and protects you from all kinds of work. It spares you from using hoe and mattock, that you need not carry a basket. It keeps you from wielding the oar and spares you torment … Now the scribe, he directs all the work in this land.
— Tomb inscription at Memphis (Saqqara) ca. 2100 BC
Pointed out to me by Peter Kurth
Lord, Byron!
January 8, 2010
The veteran artist of the piano Byron Janis has a remarkable article in the Wall Street Journal in which he takes an enlightened — and very atypical for his generation — attitude towards the written text of classical music.
Tip of the hat to Kim Witman
A Very Last Reference to Christmas Music
January 8, 2010
While Americans commonly exert themselves to make their Christmas celebrations as Olde Englishe as possible, I think it deserves remark that the superb choir of Westminster Cathedral took both of their two Christmas Midnight motets from the corpus of contemporary American composition. Fortunately, they are preserved on YouTube as only the incomparable BBC television directors can present such events:
Passing on the Flame
January 7, 2010
Last night I went to the memorial for a recently-deceased colleague. There were several fine musical performances and touching personal talks about what the much-missed friend meant to various people. But an eminent composer stood up and talked movingly about the man in terms that laid before us facts about our friend that were universally applicable in our own lives.
He spoke of how people in music need to stay in touch with that initial enthusiasm that got us into this stuff to begin with. Enthusiasm, of course, isn’t everything. That very morning I had begun listening to the 11-hour PBS documentary Leonard Bernstein: An American Life, in which the unique maestro emphasizes how much sweat and toil went into the making of the composer-conductor-pianist he was. However renowned he was for charisma and energy, he commendably wanted the world to know how much grueling effort goes into the making of a Bernstein.
The composer speaking last night told of an interesting technique he has when his energy is flagging as he sits alone in a room with his pencil and music-manuscript paper: he says that, from time to time, he thinks of our departed friend and of how fresh his relationship with the art remained. And it brings him back to the place where he belongs.
In some sense, for those of us who are deeply committed to music as a way of life, this kind of rebooting is the same as returning to our true selves. It is melancholy that the loss of a fellow-traveler on the road was the occasion for this reminder, but if the crowd made up largely of musicians there took the point to heart, then — if for no other reason — our lamented colleague left us a valuable legacy.
Most, if not all, of us would do well to have such a signal to self that reminds us of why we do what we do and live the life we live.
Happy New Year
January 1, 2010
Blogging the Revolution
December 28, 2009
“On Christmas Day, for the first time ever, customers purchased more Kindle books than physical books.”
Did you get a Kindle for Christmas? If not, you and I must be the only ones. The figures are amazing.
Behind the Musical Scene at Christmas
December 28, 2009
Very few people indeed have any idea of the work — either its nature or extent — that goes on in the preparation of Christmas music in a major establishment. Having spent much of my career in running large church-music programs, I’m particularly grateful when even a glimpse of one aspect of it is presented to the public. Hence my appreciation of this rather charming BBC spot. (There will always be inaccuracies in mass-media: Easter music is “very sad and depressing”? Or is Winchester shakey in one aspect of education? Well, today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, a day when, formerly, children were allowed to rule their elders and a chorister even dressed as a bishop and ordered adult clerics around.)
The sense of responsibility, introduction to intense teamwork, and administrative skills that choral music can give children in a well-run program are enormous. The first head boy of my choir at St. Ignatius Loyola is now a leading foreign correspondent for ABC news, and the first head girl is active in the casting of films (which must be a little like some of what I did in those days). One of the boys who most tested my disciplinary ingenuity is now a fierce music educator, and another whom we all loved was killed in 9/11 under circumstances that did him honor. Yes, choral music is a great preparation for a good life.
A Happy Christmas to All
December 25, 2009
Information about the performance here.
RogerEvansOnline.com 