Classical Convert

Listening Post

Recently I’ve been listening to Copland and Bocolm, both on a bet that I’d (against my will) enjoy modern American composers. Well that’s not entirely true, since I already enjoy John Adams. Really it was about not liking Copland. Until very recently I stereotyped all of Copland’s music as part of one big circus and/or Western soundtrack. Well it turns out that isn’t true (somewhat expected revelation thanks to this CD). I’m going to write more about this soon, but in the last few days I got sidetracked by accidentally discovering a rather different piece of music:

(That’s Valentina Lisitsa, a “pianist electrifying!” and rising classical superstar, playing the last movement of Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” piano sonata, Op. 106)

There is so much Beethoven I don’t know, or don’t understand. This was a piece I had heard mentioned dozens of times (it’s one of the most famous sonatas, and I think one of the more famous Beethoven pieces), but I never really liked the first two movements enough to listen all the way through. I must’ve always skipped to a different sonata after a couple minutes (I have the Claudio Arrau boxset, and Beethoven wrote 32 sonatas, so it’s way easy to skip to one I know I like better like No. 32, or the Appassionata).

But now I am totally in love with the Hammerklavier. Especially the last movement, with the crazy fugue, which conveniently lasts exactly as long as it takes me to walk into lab!

Losing your head

Oh wow. This last year of graduate school is running me into the ground! Weekends have become just like every other day, except I don’t go in until noon.

I have found some time to work on updating all of the “beginners guide” stuff on this site — which is something I’ve been meaning to do for ages. I’m not doing it incrementally though, it’s all gonna change at once. While doing this I’ve discovered all kinds of little tidbits. For example, do you know the one about Haydn’s head? Apparently he was the victim of head-robbery (a dangerous and serious problem often ignored by mainstream news outlets) and didn’t get it back for about 150 years. And now he has two.

Things I learned from the Cleveland Orchestra strike

As you might have heard, if you’re the highbrow type who pays attention to the Arts column (or if you just live in Cleveland — that’s not to say you couldn’t be both) the Cleveland orchestra was on strike for about ten hours this week. The two most striking (haha) things I’m getting from this episode are:

1. The median pay for members of the orchestra is over $140,000.
2. They get several times more paid vacation a year (10 weeks) than I do.

I’m not saying they shouldn’t get pissy over a pay cut. In fact, I’d love to redistribute some less deserving salaries (politicians, hedge fund managers, ambulance chasers, etc.) to the coffers of my own special interest groups (classical musicians, research scientists, underwear models, etc., especially people who are all three). However,  that particular sharing of the wealth will have to wait until I am made dictator of the USA, probably around mid-August. No, I’m delighted they are defending their salaries, but that’s a pretty sweet deal!

Does anyone know what the range of salaries is? I bet that median figure is biased toward the low end of the range.

One of the first CD player reviews

Audiophile wank has spewed from the mouths of reviewers for many years (I’d love to see just how far back this goes — did the press ever talk about the luscious high-end on the first wax cylinders?). For my first exhibit I present this review of the first Sony CD player, from 1983. IN DIGITAL!

Featuring all of your favorite vague adjectives:

… the sound was so opulently gorgeous it almost defied belief! It was a total incarnation of the perfectionist’s wildest dreams: rich, velvety, airy, awesome, liquid, yet incredibly detailed. There were none of the analog disc’s problems. No marginal mistracking, no subtle VTA-error distortions, no disc-resonance smearing, no feedback-induced low-end boom or mud, no ticks or pops or pressing grumbles even at the highest listening levels. And there was no analog-tape flutter or modulation noise or transient-rounding or print-through or hiss.

I’d love a history of these reviews for each new audio technology as it came out.

Helping in Haiti

If you haven’t already done so, I’m giving you a nudge toward providing cash to help people survive the fallout of one of the most devestating natural earthquakes in recorded history. To help you decide where to most effectively donate your money I recommend looking at the ratings on Charity Navigator, as well as the list on NPR. I chose Partners in Health, who have been providing healthcare services to the poor in Haiti for over 25 years, via their sister organization Zanmi Lasante.  I found they were independently recommended several times.

Something else I discovered is that you should under no circumstances send things which aren’t money. This can actually hinder the relief efforts, since it is extra boxes of stuff that aid workers have to sort through and deal with:

“Of course, the donors were only trying to help, but misplaced intentions actually worsened the suffering. Buried under care packages and out of date antibiotics labeled in Thai and Chinese were the world’s most advanced malaria medications. Meanwhile along the coast, people who had just lost homes and families writhed in malarial fever for lack of treatment.”

So just stick with the credit card…