ChordStrike

Stile Antico: Media Vita

In a few days, the wait is over for fans of Stile Antico, the phenomenal vocal ensemble who specialize in Tudor and Renaissance choral music (and high-profile side projects with Sting.)  They release "Media Vita," a selection of works by the sixteenth century composer John Sheppard. 

Less well-known than Thomas Tallis, Sheppard's fame has spread slowly, because his compositions only made it to the twentieth century in manuscript form and many of them are incomplete.  What survives bears all the hallmarks of greatness.  This recording provides ample evidence of his bold, rich and individual harmony, as well as an inspired knack for compositional passion, while still adhering to Archbishop Cranmer's protestant tastes for concise word setting.

The performance captured here is at the same lofty standard that Stile Antico's earlier recordings attained - almost perfect.  This group engages the listener like no other, with the purpose of soloists, the tonal evenness of an ensemble, and with a clarity that is ground-breaking.  On a few listenings, though, this perfection is itself the disc's undoing.  I don't expect my thoughts to be received well, but I'm left willing the performance to move me more than it does.

If I'm honest, I miss children in this music.   Children don't sing as well as the sopranos in Stile Antico, plain and simple.  They are slavishly subservient to the choir director in front of them, the absence of which is one of the inspired features of this group.  They also think about football while they sing and who might get the carol service solo instead of them, but when they get it right, for me, there is an experience beyond the finesse on this album.

If you doubt me, and live within a reasonable distance of New York, duck into St. Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, during a sung service and judge for yourself.  Profound utterances, from the young, barely conscious of what they say, have a power that was understood by Britten, Walton, Boyce, Greene, Purcell, by all the great composers of liturgical choral music, all the way back to Sheppard.  In the hands of a child, these notes and words come from a different sphere, literally.  A sphere that the rest of us have had to leave behind. -- Hugo Munday

Editor's Choice: Othmar Schoeck, "Notturno"

By the time the European avant garde had advanced to breaking china and blowing train whistles, Swiss composer Othmar Schoeck was deemed "too accessible."  Their loss, as "Notturno," op. 47, (1931-1933) is a post-romantic chamber gem.  Poems by Nikolaus Lenau, scored for string quartet and baritone are given a new reading on an ECM recording featuring the rock-solid, Rosamunde Quartet, with Christian Gerhaher.  This is attractive, meaty, but agile musicianship, showing a wonderful dynamic range.  Extra props go to Herr Gerhaher for his beautiful tone, and impeccable diction. – Hugo Munday

Best Classical Album, 2009: - Bach - Solo Cantatas

This album was released in February, so we had almost a full year containing some excellent recordings in which to check our judgment and yes, this is the best disc in the classical canon for 2009.

Bernarda Fink as contralto soloist with Petra Müllejans directing her and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, offer three Bach cantatas "Geist und Seele wird verwirret," BWV 35, "Gott soll allein mein Herze haben,"  BWV 169, and "Vernugte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust" BWV 170.  All are from a minor fault-line in Bach's output, coming after three years of composing, rehearsing and performing a cantata a week, they focus less on the chorale as a musical and textual pivot and more on the solo voice.  Bach also elevates the organ from the traditional meat and potatoes continuo role, to full concertante instrument.

The Freiburg ensemble kept up an impressive recording schedule in 2009, what with the recent release of an exceptional "Die Schöpfung," (Haydn) under Rene Jacobs, and there is ample evidence on this record, to show why they have become the 'go to' band for authentic instruments. Freiburg's ensemble work is the best of all worlds, giving us the hearty soul of a classical orchestra, but from the authentic texture of original instruments, with breath-taking individual contributions (I'm thinking of the woodwinds, especially.)  Unlike the Haydn box set, Petra Müllejans serves a unique role within the orchestra as both a Musical Director and principle violinist, so the result is light years away from a "what the conductor wants" mindset.

Seminal works, like these cantatas, don't fare well if they're loaded up with superstar brilliance.  Quite often the path to the center of the work is subtractive in that the interpreter removes any and all obstacles between the author and the lucky audience.  On this recording, Bernarda Fink personifies this stripping away of the unnecessary.  Soaring above fine tone and consummate musicianship, she renders some of the most introspective, uncomfortable texts with utter humility and simplicity.  No raised pinky, no chewed scenery, just you, Bach and words that leave you nowhere to hide. -- Hugo Munday.

Best of the Month: Best of the Verdi: Requiems?

The mighty Verdi Requiem has long been a staple of both the huge orchestra and huge opera singer.  Set from the catholic funeral mass,  the practical use in an actual funeral is somehow secondary to the intense drama, which storms down with the full force of a John Martin canvas, on us miserable listeners. 

The last 50 years have given us several notable recordings which are joined this month by a new rendition, offered by EMI.  Produced from a series of live concerts in Rome, Antonio Poppano conducts the orchestra and chorus of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, with soloists whose credentials are impressive; Anja Harteros, Sonia Ganassi, Rolando Villazón and René Pape.  The artwork is flames against a black background.  Flames of passion?  Flames of religious torment?  Both, it turns out.

It is the band and especially the chorus that often take this recording beyond simply good.  Great choruses are rare.  They're horrendously expensive to maintain, and usually the most agile ones are made up of younger singers, whose voices have yet to mature.  Pappano has his hands on the real thing.  The fugal sections of the "Libera me, Domine" are first rate.  Tons of full blooded, mature voices,with beautifully turned-out diction and articulation, demonstrate a heart-felt response to the dynamics of conductor and score.  This brings me back to the flames.  It is never lost on us that we're listening to Italians, making very catholic Italian music, with fire and intensity.

My perception of the Requiem will always be colored by the '67/Solti recording, which is flawed in so many ways but still, one of the most hell-for-leather, viscerally exciting events on record.  I cherish this recording, but the bombast of the Vienna Philharmonic grate on the ear next to this new one.  Also the soloists are too inconsistent.  Marilyn Horn's Peterbuilt gear-change is distracting, Pavarotti delivers a "Ingemisco" for the ages, that is marred by really sloppy editing, Martti Talvela's grip on intonation is tenuous and Sutherland for all her worth, is just plain mis-cast.

The performance of Pappano's soloists are marked by truly impressive legato singing, without exception.  All of them have the courage to throttle back and exhibit pure sotto voce, especially Villazón, but Anja Hartenros leaves the most indelible mark. 

She and once again, that stunning chorus, deliver a "Requiem aeternam" that left me in the middle of the office, wondering what time of day it was.  Youtube has a more. -- Hugo Munday.

Bernstein: Mass | Best Release of the Month, Runner up

Things come in clusters, suddenly, when you haven't thought about them in years.  A few weeks back, watching the funeral cortege for Teddy Kennedy, "A Simple Song" from the opening of Bernstein's Mass, popped into my head.

 

Commissioned by Jackie Kennedy to open the Kennedy Center in DC, the whole thing bursts out like new in this Naxos release from the Baltimore Symphony, conducted by Marin Alsop and featuring the radiant Jubilant Sykes, as Celebrant.  Time is hard on much from the 1970s, but not our Mass. -- Hugo Munday

Best Release of the Month | András Schiff: Bach - Six Partitas

 J.S. Bach published his collected Partitas in 1731.  He was 46 years old and had been the cantor at Leipzig's Thomaskirche for eight years.  He had already composed two of the most important choral works; the St. Matthew and St. John passions.  Bach probably attached significance to keyboard works by publishing them as his Opus #1, and they've come to be appreciated as the pinnacle of a form that was soon to fall out of fashion, in favor of other frameworks such as the sonata.

In late August ECM New Series put out a live recording of the Six Partitas, made 2 years ago in Germany, by Andràs Schiff.  Mr. Schiff has already recorded these works, albeit more than 20 years ago, but between these recordings he's been in demand as a conductor, particularly after founding the Cappella Andrea Barca chamber orchestra.  He points to his work from the podium, particularly conducting the choral works mentioned above, as influencing the performance of Bach's keyboard works.

These partitas are offered out of traditional sequence -  V, III, I, II, IV and VI.  Although there is no reason to think that Bach wrote the partitas to be performed together, this arrangement provides the most logical key progression (G - a minor - B flat - c minor - D - e minor).  From his side of the footlights, Schiff also notes that in live performance the inner tranquility of the B-flat major partita (traditionally #1), is something that live audiences are seldom ready or settled-in to hear.  I have no objection to the rearrangement, certainly as VI, which seems the most climatic, still comes last.

Andràs Schiff, is fresh off the completion of a very successful reading of the Beethoven piano Sonatas, again on ECM New Series, but one glance at his discography will tell you that Bach holds a special importance for him.  As one would expect, you can't hear Schiff using any pedal, but the abstinence is much more pronounced than his earlier recording or most other prominent renditions.  The effect is liberating.  Free from lingering harmonics, this performance seems dedicated to the melodies within, as line and voice assume a clarity I've seldom heard.  Recorded live in a 16th Century former armory  in Neumarkt, Germany, there is an almost eerie lack of audience noise, although the placement of left and right hands in the stereo image is nigh on perfect.  Schiff leads the listeners unflagging attention in an unbroken thread for hours.  Masterly. -- Hugo Munday

Erich Kunzel dead at 74

Conductor Erich Kunzel died today, at the age of 74, in a hospital near his home on Swan's Island, Maine.

Four months ago he announced to a stunned classical music world that he had been diagnosed with liver, colon and pancreatic cancer.

Born in New York City, Maestro Kunzel began his conducting career with Santa Fe Opera in 1957, but he will be remembered best for his stewardship of one of America's most successful and active pop programs, The Cincinnati Pops Orchestra.  It came with over-sized flags, indoor fireworks, circus animals and Hollywood stars, but Erich introduced and welcomed untold numbers of new concert-goers to the world of classical music.

 An inductee into the classical music Hall of Fame, he sold more than 10 million records and was awarded the classical crossover artist of the year by Billboard magazine for four consecutive years.  A search under his name will give you some idea of how diverse his reach was. Choosing a favorite from all these is next to impossible, but I'm shamelessly fond of his version of Ron Goodwin's score for the 1969 film "The Battle of Britain."

Here are a couple of the most complete website tributes, currently.  The Cincinnati Enquirer and The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra website.

Best Classical Albums of 2009, so far: John Eccles - "Judgment of Paris"

John Eccles was a composer for court, church and stage, in the late 1600s and a contemporary of, and collaborator with, one of this years birthday greats, Henry Purcell.  In 1700 Eccles, along with colleagues, Daniel Purcell (youngest brother of Henry), John Weldon and Gottfreid Finger entered a competition to see who could compose the best English version of "The Judgment of Paris."  Move over Susan Boyle, this is the original "Britain's Got Talent." 

This "Paris" is special because it shows Eccles trying to shunt musical theater in an all-English direction, and move it out of the shadow of the dominant Italian and French traditions.  As Lindsay Kemp points out in verbose but thorough liner notes, the word settings, or underlay is for English speech rhythms and the score focuses more on line and melody that decoration and ornamentation.  This is a Maske, so it feels much more like music from a play than an opera.

The score is a theatrical and musical treat, lived up to in this vibrant and energized performance, conducted by Christian Curnyn and sung by the Early Opera Company.  The soloists are well cast, lucid and each of them really grasp the difference between this and opera.

The Three Mad Songs that end the program are just that, set pieces from various English plays where the heroin loses it, usually because a man has done her wrong.  One song each is given to our Paris soloists, Lucy Crowe, Claire Booth and Susan Bickley, so Curnyn presents the listener with a latter day "Judgment," with us playing Paris. Currently I'm awarding the apple to Ms. Crowe for her rendition of "Restless in Thought..." from "She Ventures, and He Wins." 

Lastly, I save praise for Nicholas Anderson and the recording engineers.  Chandos tout their 24-bit recording as giving greater dynamic range, and on this disc (along with attentive mike placement) this really seems to work.  This listener feels right in the middle of the action.-- Hugo Munday

John Eccles: The Judgment of Paris / Three Mad Songs

Christopher Curnyn / Early Opera Company & Soloists

Chandos Early Music

Best Classical Albums of 2009 - Stile Antico: Song of Songs

The last place in the world I would have expected a musical revolution to take place would have been renaissance vocal music. How many different ways can a group sing "Now is the Month of Maying"?  Beginning with The Deller Consort in 1948, we've enjoyed a usually high standard of vocal ensembles and since the 1970's the major universities and conservatories of the world have gestated a group of note every five years or so. Making things more unlikely, the newest kids on the block have arrived on the most well-beaten path for groups like this. Most are ex-choral scholars from Cambridge University.

The ensemble in question is Stile Antico and over the last few years they have broken into a different paradigm of performance for vocal groups of this sort.  Recently harmonia mundi released their third recording Song of Songs and they've just completed their US debut at the Boston Early Music Festival.

As the title suggests, this recording is a compilation of renaissance compositions using texts from the Song of Solomon, the biblical collection of love poetry, purportedly written by King Solomon to a Shulamite girl.

Many groups have fished in this pool before, but Stile Antico's repertoire choices and exquisite program notes (written by Matthew O'Donovan, one of the basses) draw a well delineated link between the surge in medieval popularity and the suitability of these texts for the purposes of the Marian 'cult' that portrayed the Virgin Mary as the representation of the church as a whole.

This album holds together as a concert and a concept better than any other attempt at this repertoire that I have heard (actually, all three of their albums do that) but Stile Antico really set themselves apart in the way in which they perform.  These musicians work without a conductor, which is common practice for chamber instrumentalists, but uncommon in a group of this size. Perilous as the concept might sound for a group of singers, I've never heard people present this repertoire with such a high level of commitment.

I'm currently mixing an interview with Carris Jones, one of the Altos in the group, that I'll post here, but far better than I can, Carris sums up the quantum shift the choice of no conductor makes in the collective consciousness of the group.

"It give us, most importantly, a direct communication with our audiences and it means that we cannot, any of us, go on what I would term "choral autopilot."  We're not conveying what one other person, i.e. a conductor, wants us to convey.  We're conveying a message what we have got together as a group, agreed corporately, rehearsed over many weeks and then put that practice into performance and it's a very different discipline to singing for a conductor."

I include a couple of samples so you can judge for yourself, but any of the tracks on the MP3 page show what this group is about.  Also their other releases, Music for Compline and Heavenly Harmonies offer the same exquisite ensemble and intelligent programming choices.  I know the group will be in New York in October, this year, but for a full breakdown of their concert itinerary I'd check their website.  This repertoire has never been more engaging. -- Hugo Munday

Big Pipes: A Concert Hall Organ Primer

Most musicians probably take for granted the fact that they can carry around their instruments to concerts and band practice. In today’s world, a small Fender amp and Stratocaster are all a musician needs to get rolling. And in yesterday’s world, as we learned in anthro-musicology news last week, something as simple as a little vulture bone and mammoth tusk made a fine instrument some 35,000 years ago.

On the opposite end of the scale – literally – fast forward several thousand millenia and consider that one particular instrument of choice is so large that it probably requires an installation plan, building permits, and perhaps an architect. Yes, I’m talking about the world’s largest instrument: the pipe organ.

While recently digesting some minutia related to Renaissance piano concerto transcriptions with my friend Pete who provided background research for this piece, he brought up an interesting point that there seems to be a recent resurgence of the pipe organ in concert halls nationwide.

That’s right, it turns out that pipe organs are not just for Sunday School anymore, even though many followers of the craft still convene in grandiose churches, as they did in Seattle last weekend to pay homage to the pipes and not necessarily the holy water.

Could this new movement bring pipe organs into the mainstream of the classical music world? Or does the fact that so many pipe organs already exist in concert halls indicate a fait accompli for pipe organs beyond the hallowed walls of churches everywhere? To help answer it all, let’s look at some of these noble beasts up close and personal based on their most notable features:

The Newborn: We start off by highlighting the pristine William J. Gillespie Organ which is the newest concert hall organ to be built and resides at the  Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa, CA. 

The Queen’s Throne: Certain to help sell tickets with its good looks and towering majesty, the organ inside Meyerson Hall in Dallas epitomizes the "new" wave in concert hall organs.

The Cubist: As one might expect, one of the most visually spectacular, and extremely controversial new pipe organs is the monster Rosales Opus 24 in the new Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles. 

The Big Boy: One of the most recent additions, and attracting tremendous attention, is the new Dobson (2006) at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia.

The Southern Bell: One of the smaller blowers in the ring of newly christened organs calls Music City its home in the Nashville Symphony's new concert hall. Hmm, I do love me some honky tonk mixed with a little organ music on a Friday night to kick off the weekend.

The Postmodernist: In the category of Things To Come (a couple years away), Casavant is currently building a major organ for the new Kauffman Center in Kansas City.

The Orphan:  Alice Tully Hall in NYC is still awaiting the glorious return of its pipe organ after it was removed prior to the hall's acoustical renovation.

Calling attention to the new concert hall trend, the New York Times states that, "An organless Tully means that New York has no major concert hall with a pipe organ, bucking a nationwide trend. 

The Nip & Tuck Class: (currently or recently under renovation):

Boston Symphony Hall
Severance Hall, Cleveland

Chicago Symphony Hall

The Energizer Bunnies: Two really venerable old guys, not recently rebuilt but kept in shape by virtue of excellent maintenance:

The Atlantic City Convention Hall (which also claims to be the largest in the world).

The venerable Hutchings by Steere/Skinner in Woolsey Hall at Yale.

The Storage Rack:  Speaking of Steere, we would be remiss not to mention that Springfield, MA (Pete’s hometown) has a fine concert hall with a 1902 Steere organ that has been in crates for 30 years in the basement of a municipal building. The Steere & Turner company was located in Springfield and subsequently bought out by Skinner (then the General Motors of the organ world) in the 1920's.

Long story short, it’s an active time in the pipe organ world.  And, of course, we have not even touched on pipe organs in churches, from which many glorious sounds are emanating from pipe organs everywhere. But for secularists and other organ-obsessed fans everywhere, the options for enjoying some pipe music in multiple locales are growing, and growing, and growing.

--Lucas Hilbert

Rock Opera

I've figured out why I'm transfixed by Chickenfoot.  There is no difference between this brand of hard rock and one of my true loves, Grand Opera.  Stay with me on this one.

• Both have a long established tradition of terrible lyrics.
• Both, at their best, are often unoriginal.  They recycle clichés we've heard before and fans are in awe of the ornamentation around those clichés and the way they're linked together.
• Both are best practiced by performers that are somehow larger and louder than life.
• Experiencing both (if you're into this stuff) you know what's coming next and it only makes it better.

I could go on - hair, costumes, make-up - all over the top.  Is anyone still reading?

Chickenfoot, lyrically and in many other ways, is a mess, but an exquisite one.  Hagar, at the age of 61, while he doesn't attempt an F above high C, anymore, still has mind-boggling tone, phrasing, and diction. Satriani, steps back from the July 4th pyrotechnics he's known for and becomes an ensemble player with almost no equal.  If you have the privilege to catch these guys live, you'll get to appreciate how he summarizes all that is multi-tracked on the album in his live performance.   Michael Anthony provides an omnipresent depth, pumping out classic hard rock bass lines, and Chad Smith steps away from his signature inner syncopations of RHCP, to this cast-iron back of the beat, pedal work, and sharp, precise upper register stuff.  Ensemble work doesn't get much better than this.

Other reasons I might like this album are that I can't hear any Auto-Tune, and there isn't an iPod app' that makes it any better. -- Hugo Munday

Music is Good for Your Health

According to this article from msnbc.com, doctors have observed that music promotes healing. Pretty cool read! 

Best Classical Albums of 2009 - so far

Leopold Stokowski: Bach Transcriptions, Vol. 2
Conductor: José Serebrier
Orchestra: Bournemouth Symphony

As the authentic performance movement started to gain momentum 35 years ago, these transcriptions became a common point of derision. Why would you take the hallowed works of J. S. Bach and bastardize them with "modern" instruments? One of the marks of a Stokowski or a Beecham is that they took great works (as did Bach) and re-voiced them for their orchestras. Also, as the D minor Toccata and Fugue that opens this recording reminds us, through Mickey Mouse, Stokowski brought transcribed works to a massive audience.  These transcriptions are good, but it's the Olympian grasp of ensemble that is what this disc is all about. This is amplified by the fact that José Serebrier knows the Bournemouth Symphony like the back of his hand, and he was mentored in his youth by Stokowski, himself. There is no new ground here, just a stunning and ravishing exercise in orchestral beauty, recorded and staged with excellence (thank you Naxos). These sounds are good enough to eat.

Vivaldi
Soloist: Daniel Hope
Orchestra: Chamber Orchestra of Europe
I'm in two minds about encouraging this sort of album, but the playing and the repertoire have won me over.  It teeters close to the type of vehicle superstars use to strut their stuff.  I'm referring to the glossy, themed production, with a lush cover, with only one or two words in the title, that contain repertoire from all over the place, to show what a particular race horse can do.  Although Daniel Hope's recent offering looks the part, further comparison would be unfair.  His theme is Vivaldi that hasn't been beaten to death, and there is a great selection of well and lesser well-known works here.  Get it right and Vivaldi is a home-run.  He has a sense of theater and dance that the other Italian Baroquers never quite capture, and Hope latches into both in these pieces.  It's not exactly a bonus track, but Anne-Sophie von Otter - joins the band with the subdued, but beautiful aria "Sovvente il sole". I was sorry when the album came to an end.

The Guarneri Quartet
The Hungarian Album
Where's the American music?  I don't have a slew of new world compositions but I have returned to this album a few times.  A couple of years ago the Guarneri announced that they would stop performing as a quartet in 2009.  I don't know whether this will be their last release, but if it is, one of my favorite American groups is going out on the right note.  On offer are three quartets, two of which are by Ernö Dohnányi (D flat major and A minor, respectively), but it's the middle offering from Kodály that I keep going back to.  A little more challenging, tonally, this gem does not look west for influences, but is a rustic exploration of Hungarian folk idioms, even bird-song and musical fragments that build to a full-blown Hungarian dance at the climax of the second movement.  Distinct and different music, given a clear, cohesive voice, by a group that will be missed.

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 11 "The Year 1905"
Conductor: Vasily Petrenko
Orchestra: Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Finished in 1957, the eleventh symphony commemorates the massacre of hundreds of Russian demonstrators by the Imperial Guard, outside the Winter Palace, in January, 1905.  Part of the brittle terror locked in this work comes from the fact that while Shostakovich was working on this piece, Soviet tanks were dealing with Hungarian students and demonstrators, with a similarly cruel hand.  That terror is not locked in there anymore.  Conducting phenom', Vasily Petrenko was still 20 years away from being born when this was written but he brings a level of cohesion and understanding that makes this one of the most accomplished, dynamic readings of this work, I have ever heard.  I've got goose-bumps just penning this.

Best Music of Feb, 2009: "The Happiness Project" by Charles Spearin

Charles Spearin, Canadian musician and founding member of Do Make Say Think, releases a solo effort called The Happiness Project on February 14. No accident with the date, methinks. Love abounds on this album. Not the romance of a couple, but the love of happiness that comes from connecting with a neighbor or a friend.

Spearin tells us he has long wanted to score the accidental music our voices make, when we speak. He invited neighbors into his apartment to tape them having a meandering chat, about what makes them happy. Listening to the recordings, he edited and then passed sections on to musician friends, to copy as closely as they could, on their instruments. Finally, Spearing sets these melodies, as if they were songs.

The opening effect is not unlike Steve Reich's post-phasing work, where a solo instrument (in this case a sax, guitar, bass etc.) slip-streams our "soloist", as they deliver their opening statements. Then Spearin goes his own way, snatching a phrase that interests him and riffing it out into their song. "Anna", reveling in the happiness of others, gets a floppy, jazzy combo, complemented by looped birdsong from the street outside. "Vittoria's" juvenile, halting speech grows into a syncopated brass / bass reed band treatment, replete with Hawaii 5-0 drum riffs. "Vanessa", deaf since birth, hears for the first time at 30, after surgery. Her arresting eloquence gets a beautiful, lilting loop at the moment of epiphany.

"Mrs. Morris" begins and ends the album, with her Caribbean musings on "happiness is love".  Her reprise is beautifully informed not only by the first, reverential treatment, that begins the album, but also every other track we've heard. 

Spearing finds a lot of music in all of us.  This record is a delight. -- Hugo Munday

George was telling porkies

Board members and patrons of Dallas Opera, TX were breathing a sigh of relief just before the new year, when the New York Times published a very eloquent denial from Dallas' new general director, George Steel, saying he was happy in Dallas and not contemplating a move back to New York to head up the fast-sinking New York City Opera.  Today, the same newspaper broke the story that George is, indeed, returning to the big apple to become general manager.  I'm linking to the Alex Ross blog, for the details. 

NYCO is in big trouble.  They owe a large amount of money.  Their original choice for the position, Gerard Mortier (Paris Opera / Salzburg Festival), walked away from the position at the last minute, because he thought their budget wasn't big enough.  They are also homeless.  The New York State Theater is under a massive renovation, which will keep the company flitting around the five boroughs in temporary accommodation for 2009/2010.

I really like the idea of George Steel taking over.  He is a proven impresario from his days at the 92nd Street Y, and at The Miller Theatre, where he built a reputation for imaginative, high-quality programming, that proved very pleasing to new and established audiences, alike.  He's also a conductor, which could save them a buck or two, as he could moonlight.  I've even heard him sing counter tenor, but I should stop right there.

This appointment feels a lot better than unsuccessful attempts to import big, expensive stars from Europe.  I also think that City Opera's founder, Mayor, Fiorello La Guardia, were he around today, would also want to give the local boy a chance.  Go GRS!  Make us proud! -- Hugo Munday

Record Label Loyalty

In the decade or so since relaxed regulatory legislation begat new and ever more rapacious media consolidation, independent record labels have stepped up to the challenge by fostering loyalty through quality, charisma, and--occasionally--sheer stubbornness. Certainly, none among us shops exclusively by label, but certain imprints can be trusted to deliver a general level of quality that we can count on year in and year out.

From hip-hop to opera, there are great record labels out there that both focus on a particular genre and deliver the goods in a way that's bankable without being predictable. We ChordStrikers have our favorites, but when you work with music day in and day out, you court the possibility of missing the forest for the trees.

So for those genre junkies out there, what labels retain that magnetism for you? What label name would cause you to read a review in a magazine or online, assuming the artist or title didn't grab you on its own? What labels' releases do you check in on from time to time? Or as Morcheeba put it--albeit ungrammatically--"Who Can You Trust?"

      --Jason Kirk

U2: No Line on the Horizon

It's been a busy week in music. On December 18, classical music fans across the globe celebrated the would 150th birthday of Giacomo Puccini, a church organist before he embarked on a stunning stretch of composition that yielded his many operas. Puccini's sesquicentennial might best be celebrated with good headphones and the superlative Tosca. [Tosca quiz included here, at no extra charge]. If it's your first foray into this peak experience, the time-tested favorite is the remastered 1953 recording with Maria Callas. Please drop word if you can find it vinyl.

Grammy buzz continues unabated, but behind the nomination brawn of Lil' Wayne and Coldplay, there's very cool news in the Recording Academy's intent to give a well-deserved Lifetime Achievement Award to the Blind Boys of Alabama. Go tell it on the mountain! It's been 70 years since this seminal musical institution began, and the boys are more than deserving of this nod. (There's a very cool interactive historical timeline of the group here.)

Finally, to piggyback on Renata's post from a week or so back, we've got a lot more detailed picture of U2's new album, No Line on the Horizon. Slated for no less than five unique versions, the album is due out March 9, 2009, and produced by Brian Eno, Danny Lanois, and Steve Lillywhite. No Will.I.Am, it seems, despite what Kanye said. Er, whew!

And now for some holiday nonsense!

Merry Christmas from snowbound Seattle...

     --Jason Kirk

The YouTube Symphony

What could be more inclusive and equitable than a YouTube Symphony Orchestra, composed of successful applicants from all over the world? 

I love the idea of Tan Dun writing an Internet Symphony No. 1.  Calling it "Eroica” waves a flag for a brave, new era, even if we are more than 20 years into this revolution.  Also, what better conductor than Maestro Tilson Thomas, who has championed new works as a conductor from the podium of the San Francisco Symphony and other orchestras, even composing extensively himself?

This whole project looks to have a very bright future,if it doesn't get soiled by ugly mistakes we have made in the past.  For many years, anybody that wasn't male or white stood little chance of being hired by a major symphony orchestra, until blind auditions, conducted with a screen between the applicant and the audition panel, were instituted.  Some orchestras have brought on vitriolic criticism, because they adopted these practices late or half-heartedly, most notable among them, The Vienna Philharmonic.  Malcolm Gladwell uses the blind audition problem as a prime example of bias in his book "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking."

In the competition rules and regulations, I can't find any language that says that YouTube have made a provision for blind auditions, and for a website whose mission is to allow people to discover, watch and share original videos, I think this is something they will need to address. 

Would it be that hard to do?  I think there are ways to demonstrate attempts to eliminate bias, even in a medium that begins with watching and listening.  Whatever they come up with, I fully acknowledge the need for YouTube to scrutinize the applicants, to make sure they're actually playing and not miming to a brilliant recording of "The Flight of the Bumblebee".  Actually that could become a competition in itself.  Who can spoof the audition panel?  I can see it now - "Eh-hem.  I would now like to perform the percussion part from "Fire", by the late James Hendrix..." -- Hugo Munday

Alan has a point

Bad can indeed be good, and I was working up to a post that said something similar to Alan, but from a different direction.  Who is familiar with the voice of the counter-tenor?  Have any blokes out there sung as a counter-tenor?  Both men and women have a "head voice", but for a multitude of reasons, some chauvinistic, the centuries have left us a head-voice repertoire written for the counter-tenor, and even a small repertoire for the male soprano. What is funny about a man singing in this register?  Nothing, if it's done well.  That is the easiest place to start because there aren't too many folk that sound really beautiful, in this register.  Jeff  Buckley's rendition of Britten's "Corpus Christi Carol," sounds amazing and serves well to hold the beer-can humor that usually accompanies this topic to a minimum.  For those of you who prefer a more classical offering, not many people can find their way around a Vivaldi aria with such amazing poise and pyrotechnics as Philippe Jaroussky:

Now they are about as good as it gets. For the less successful offerings out there, I think our brains play tricks on our ears.  Maybe the first subconscious reaction on hearing a male soprano is "Crikey! It's pretty incredible that he can do that at all!" and we forgive everything else.  A friend of mine (and recovering counter-tenor) sent me this parody, which has kept me in hysterics most of the weekend:

To end on a more sobering note, meet Alessandro Moreschi, who recorded this around 1902, a full twenty years before his death.  Alessandro is popularly held to have made the only  known solo recordings by a genuine Castrato. -- Hugo Munday

They’ve Been Hittin’ in Pairs All Year

First, it was Think of One's Camping Shaabi (packaged with a really interesting "making of" video) and K'Naan's re-issue of his 2006 Juno Award-winning The Dusty Foot Philosopher, a pair of albums that hit me rhythmically and harmonically just right. Though the first is a pop album of sorts and the second a straight-up hip-hop joint, they're both multilingual affairs that originate, each in its own way, in Africa. They’re also incredibly ambitious, undeniably flawed works of art that I share with my kids and will return to for years and years.

Less simultaneously, I fell for Hilary Hahn’s Schoenberg Violin Concerto Op.36/Sibelius Violin Concerto Op.47 and Patricia Barber’s The Cole Porter Mix. Both women are among my favorite delvers into what were once referred to as the serious arts. Both women work hard to make musical connections that challenge conventions, the repertoire, and themselves, demanding twin leaps of imagination and faith. Both women came through with albums that I will stick with, and that will stick with me in return.

Next came a hip-hop pairing; first, Saul Williams and, soon after, the Mighty Underdogs, a.k.a. the MCs formerly known as Quannum: Gift of Gab (Blackalicious), Lateef the Truth Speaker, Lyrics Born, et al. All command respect as lyricists. And performers. And their albums deliver. If you strive for rhyme, listen up:

        * Saul Williams, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust
        * The Mighty Underdogs, Droppin' Science Fiction 

Now, this week, another revelation...

I’ve been paying a distant attention to Brooklyn's Parts & Labor for a couple years now. The band's Stay Afraid (2006) and Mapmaker (2007) immediately grabbed my sustained attention, which flared and then burned away in a few days. Enter Receivers, due out on October 21. Hopefully, at some point you’ve come across an incredible album by some musician you’ve only been loosely acquainted with, and you suddenly feel as if you’ve always known she had it in her. Few feelings equate. Check out Pitchfork's free, full steam of the noise-pop mini-epic “Nowheres Nigh."

Catch your breath yet? Now give it one more go.

Then, in what’s become typical one-two fashion this year, along came Censored Colors. The culprits are called Portugal. The Man, and they got to me in 2005, going 65 on the I-5 a few miles outside of Portland, en route from Seattle, with their song “Chicago.” An gutter-scraping, indie-rock geyser of a tune, it was the first of more than a dozen songs from their 2005 debut, Waiter: You Vultures!!, that left me speechless but for a few gasping hyperboles. I still pimp its praises to anyone who isn’t immediately turned off by volume and rough edges.

Point is, Portugal. The Man (based in Portland, via Alaska) now returns with a mountainous pile of harmonic songs I can't get enough of (except for Parts & Labor breaks). Censored Colors requires a listener who appreciates encountering the fertile accidents that result when a sub-virtuosic composer/performer quite simply can’t be stopped. This is frontman John Gourley. Far better in the studio than on stage, the guy's nevertheless a prolific fountain of song and one of my favorite perennial unsungs.

Oh right, lists.

So this morning I spent an eye-opening, over-caffeinated hour with Tom Moon, author of 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die (podcast interview to follow; stay tuned and be patient). I’d picked at the book rather than properly read it, but this is how it goes with reference materials, right? Knowing nothing about Moon personally, I wasn’t sure what to expect of the guy who just published the Mt. Olympus of Music Lists.

Regardless, I was wrong to expect either an encyclopedic bully or someone who’d long since begun believing more in himself than in the music he wrote about. Instead, Tom Moon is unflinchingly approachable, a well-spoken, well-listened, humble guy who loves what he does and laughs reverently at having been blessed to nab a gig that amounts to every music writer’s wet dream, whether or not any of us would admit it.

     --Jason Kirk

P.S. Everything in pairs: I also recently finished The World in Six Songs, by Daniel Levitin (of This is Your Brain on Music fame). The Onion’s A.V. Club  gave it a C+. Such generosity inspires.