Lincoln Center~Third Night
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laughingcrow
- Posts: 2476
- Joined: Tue Jul 29, 2003 8:35 am
http://www.artsjournal.com/sandow/
GREG SANDOW on the future of classical music
Monday, July 26, 2004
Too well-bred
I didn't hear Elvis Costello's orchestral piece at the Lincoln Center Festival, but I don't think I had to. I did hear the three-track sampler Deutsche Grammophon sent out, and it confirms everything I read in the reviews of the complete work -- the music is notably unoriginal. We can all be glad, I guess, that Costello seems to be a competent orchestral composer, but on second thought, maybe I'm not happy about that. If he hadn't been able to write this score, maybe he wouldn't have written it, and then we (and he, too, if he's honest with himself) wouldn't be faced with this failure -- the failure of a wildly original musician, one of the great creators of our time, to meet his own standards when he turns to classical music.
The music, simply put, sounds like other music, like a whole raft of classical scores, and, even more than that, like an abstraction from one style of classical music, like a highly competent rendering of what mildly spicy 20th century music, with a tinge of dance -- think Gershwin, Stravinsky, maybe Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances -- sounds like. It's as if Costello, setting out to write a classical piece, said to himself, consciously or not, "I know what classical music sounds like," and wrote precisely that. What a contrast to what he's always done in pop, where he's forged new paths, referring sometimes back to established pop styles with affectionate irony, not with what sounds, in this new piece, like the obedient conformity of somebody who moves to the suburbs, and says, "Look at how they act out here. I'd better act the same way." There was one passage on the DG sampler, for very high violins, that sounded new, but nothing else grabbed me.
I felt the same thing about Billy Joel's classical CD some years back, even though I liked it more than most classical critics did (and more than I like the Costello piece). I thought it was full of notable affection for classical composers, especially Chopin, and also structured with some originality. But, even more than Costello's piece, it was music by someone who (consciously or not, once again) had decided in advance what classical music was, and stayed within those boundaries. Nothing in it had one-fourth the force of Joel's pop songs.
So why do these terrific musicians -- really lively spirits, in their own area -- put on handcuffs when they write classical music? There might be two reasons. First, classical music is too well-bred. Or, at least, the classical music world is. People come to it from outside with genuine respect, and do what the Romans do. Second, classical music is largely defined by older repertoire, so when people from outside come to it, that's what attracts them, and that's what they move towards.
I interviewed Billy Joel when I wrote about his classical album for The Wall Street Journal, and one thing I noticed was his striking lack of interest in new classical music, or even 20th century pioneers like Schoenberg. He thought maybe he'd listen to Schoenberg one day. Now, it's not that he (or anybody else) should write like Schoenberg, but you'd think -- as someone with an inquiring musical mind, coming into a new field -- that he'd want to learn everything. You'd think, as a composer starting to write classical music, that he -- and Costello, too -- would want to know what classical composers are writing now. But in a way I can't blame them. The classical music world doesn't foster that kind of curiosity, even though, when I look at current orchestral programming, I have to say that things are getting better. But the dominant classical mood involves older music, and a lack of curiosity, so it's not surprising that newcomers would pick up on that -- even if it makes them half the artists they used to be.
posted by greg @ 10:31 am | Permanent Link
GREG SANDOW on the future of classical music
Monday, July 26, 2004
Too well-bred
I didn't hear Elvis Costello's orchestral piece at the Lincoln Center Festival, but I don't think I had to. I did hear the three-track sampler Deutsche Grammophon sent out, and it confirms everything I read in the reviews of the complete work -- the music is notably unoriginal. We can all be glad, I guess, that Costello seems to be a competent orchestral composer, but on second thought, maybe I'm not happy about that. If he hadn't been able to write this score, maybe he wouldn't have written it, and then we (and he, too, if he's honest with himself) wouldn't be faced with this failure -- the failure of a wildly original musician, one of the great creators of our time, to meet his own standards when he turns to classical music.
The music, simply put, sounds like other music, like a whole raft of classical scores, and, even more than that, like an abstraction from one style of classical music, like a highly competent rendering of what mildly spicy 20th century music, with a tinge of dance -- think Gershwin, Stravinsky, maybe Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances -- sounds like. It's as if Costello, setting out to write a classical piece, said to himself, consciously or not, "I know what classical music sounds like," and wrote precisely that. What a contrast to what he's always done in pop, where he's forged new paths, referring sometimes back to established pop styles with affectionate irony, not with what sounds, in this new piece, like the obedient conformity of somebody who moves to the suburbs, and says, "Look at how they act out here. I'd better act the same way." There was one passage on the DG sampler, for very high violins, that sounded new, but nothing else grabbed me.
I felt the same thing about Billy Joel's classical CD some years back, even though I liked it more than most classical critics did (and more than I like the Costello piece). I thought it was full of notable affection for classical composers, especially Chopin, and also structured with some originality. But, even more than Costello's piece, it was music by someone who (consciously or not, once again) had decided in advance what classical music was, and stayed within those boundaries. Nothing in it had one-fourth the force of Joel's pop songs.
So why do these terrific musicians -- really lively spirits, in their own area -- put on handcuffs when they write classical music? There might be two reasons. First, classical music is too well-bred. Or, at least, the classical music world is. People come to it from outside with genuine respect, and do what the Romans do. Second, classical music is largely defined by older repertoire, so when people from outside come to it, that's what attracts them, and that's what they move towards.
I interviewed Billy Joel when I wrote about his classical album for The Wall Street Journal, and one thing I noticed was his striking lack of interest in new classical music, or even 20th century pioneers like Schoenberg. He thought maybe he'd listen to Schoenberg one day. Now, it's not that he (or anybody else) should write like Schoenberg, but you'd think -- as someone with an inquiring musical mind, coming into a new field -- that he'd want to learn everything. You'd think, as a composer starting to write classical music, that he -- and Costello, too -- would want to know what classical composers are writing now. But in a way I can't blame them. The classical music world doesn't foster that kind of curiosity, even though, when I look at current orchestral programming, I have to say that things are getting better. But the dominant classical mood involves older music, and a lack of curiosity, so it's not surprising that newcomers would pick up on that -- even if it makes them half the artists they used to be.
posted by greg @ 10:31 am | Permanent Link
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Otis Westinghouse
- Posts: 8856
- Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 3:32 pm
- Location: The theatre of dreams
Elvis' PR reps have posted this round-up of reactions to his Lincoln Centre shows -
http://www.shorefire.com/artists/ecoste ... 27_04.html
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 27, 2004
ELVIS COSTELLO’S THREE NIGHTS AT LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL A MAJOR SUCCESS
Elvis Costello delivered a trio of thrilling shows at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall July 13, 15 and 17, showcasing the breadth and scope of his diverse musical talents. The first show featured rearrangements of his songs performed with the Metropole Orkest, the 52-member jazz orchestra from the Netherlands. The latter two concerts served as previews of his twin September 21 releases, The Delivery Man (Lost Highway Records) with his band the Imposters and a classical work called “Il Sogno” (Deutsche Grammophon), performed on stage by the Brooklyn Philharmonic. Written and orchestrated entirely by Costello, the score exhibits yet another facet of his varied abilities.
Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote in a review of the three shows, “Mr. Costello is ceaselessly curious about music. He is inquisitive enough not just to listen widely, but to learn the makings of every idiom that moves him, from lieder to New Orleans rhythm and blues.”
The Washington Post’s Terry Teachout reviewed “Il Sogno,” saying that “Costello has channeled his thematic material into simple, formal structures that he uses in the disciplined manner of a bona fide classical composer. Am I surprised? Totally. But if any rocker could pull off such an improbable feat, it's Elvis Costello, whose musical curiosity has always been boundless.”
Variety’s David Sprague stated of “Il Sogno,” “For the duration of the three-movement, 70-minute piece, the musicians kept up a vigorous dialogue, hemming and hawing, then breaking into lustful roars… [It is] a surprisingly profound concert experience.”
Bradley Bambarger of The Newark Star-Ledger compared Costello to Stravinsky and wrote, “’Il Sogno’ was also unflaggingly melodious, rhythmically vital and -- most impressive -- orchestrated with kaleidoscopic vividness. Reading music is one thing; orchestration is quite another (with most rockers who compose orchestral works ceding that all-important job to trained experts). Costello seems to have taken to this new art with as much panache as he did Americana, torch songs or other genre offshoots from his initial vein of combustible, if highly literate, rock 'n' roll.”
The New York Daily News reviewed both the Imposters show and “Il Sogno.” Rock critic Isaac Guzman dubbed Costello a “Renaissance Man” and lauded his “blistering set” while Classical critic Howard Kissel called Costello’s work “full of delights, sometimes sounding like vintage jazz, other times like vintage Hollywood. Its most notable feature may be Costello’s understanding of the riches of a symphony orchestra. One can only look forward to his explorations of this great resource.”
http://www.shorefire.com/artists/ecoste ... 27_04.html
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 27, 2004
ELVIS COSTELLO’S THREE NIGHTS AT LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL A MAJOR SUCCESS
Elvis Costello delivered a trio of thrilling shows at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall July 13, 15 and 17, showcasing the breadth and scope of his diverse musical talents. The first show featured rearrangements of his songs performed with the Metropole Orkest, the 52-member jazz orchestra from the Netherlands. The latter two concerts served as previews of his twin September 21 releases, The Delivery Man (Lost Highway Records) with his band the Imposters and a classical work called “Il Sogno” (Deutsche Grammophon), performed on stage by the Brooklyn Philharmonic. Written and orchestrated entirely by Costello, the score exhibits yet another facet of his varied abilities.
Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote in a review of the three shows, “Mr. Costello is ceaselessly curious about music. He is inquisitive enough not just to listen widely, but to learn the makings of every idiom that moves him, from lieder to New Orleans rhythm and blues.”
The Washington Post’s Terry Teachout reviewed “Il Sogno,” saying that “Costello has channeled his thematic material into simple, formal structures that he uses in the disciplined manner of a bona fide classical composer. Am I surprised? Totally. But if any rocker could pull off such an improbable feat, it's Elvis Costello, whose musical curiosity has always been boundless.”
Variety’s David Sprague stated of “Il Sogno,” “For the duration of the three-movement, 70-minute piece, the musicians kept up a vigorous dialogue, hemming and hawing, then breaking into lustful roars… [It is] a surprisingly profound concert experience.”
Bradley Bambarger of The Newark Star-Ledger compared Costello to Stravinsky and wrote, “’Il Sogno’ was also unflaggingly melodious, rhythmically vital and -- most impressive -- orchestrated with kaleidoscopic vividness. Reading music is one thing; orchestration is quite another (with most rockers who compose orchestral works ceding that all-important job to trained experts). Costello seems to have taken to this new art with as much panache as he did Americana, torch songs or other genre offshoots from his initial vein of combustible, if highly literate, rock 'n' roll.”
The New York Daily News reviewed both the Imposters show and “Il Sogno.” Rock critic Isaac Guzman dubbed Costello a “Renaissance Man” and lauded his “blistering set” while Classical critic Howard Kissel called Costello’s work “full of delights, sometimes sounding like vintage jazz, other times like vintage Hollywood. Its most notable feature may be Costello’s understanding of the riches of a symphony orchestra. One can only look forward to his explorations of this great resource.”
Elvis Costello with the Netherlands Metropole Orkest. (Photo Credit: Stephanie Berger/Lincoln Center Festival)
From the August 9, 2004 issue of New York Magazine.
http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/art ... index.html
Classical Music Review
High Fidelity
By Peter G. Davis
Elvis Costello reads—and writes—symphonic scores better than other pop stars
It must have taken some nerve, if not downright gall, for Declan MacManus to rename himself Elvis Costello in 1977, with the King not yet cold in his grave. But then, Costello has never been shy about making bold career moves or finding new avenues for his restless musical interests, and by now he has produced a body of creative work that for sheer quantity, stylistic diversity, and risk-taking is probably without parallel in rock. For that reason alone, Lincoln Center had good cause to honor Costello with an ambitious three-concert retrospective in Avery Fisher Hall that served as the musical centerpiece of this summer’s festival. Apparently, the project held small appeal for the city’s classical-music fraternity, at least what’s left of it, since most of my colleagues stayed away.
Costello’s longtime attachment to classical music, however, was enough to pique my interest. He has already done some intriguing work with the Brodsky String Quartet and mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, but the major event in Lincoln Center’s tribute was his first symphonic score, Il Sogno, a ballet based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream and composed for the Italian dance company Aterballetto. Il Sogno is actually quite different from the sort of music usually produced by pop-rock musicians who dabble in classical forms. Paul McCartney, for example, can neither read nor write musical notation, and it’s said that he composes his orchestral pieces by humming some tunes and playing a few notes on a keyboard while a musically literate associate takes it all down and tries to stitch a piece together. Costello, to his credit, laboriously taught himself how to read music before working with the Brodsky Quartet in 1992, and he wrote Il Sogno directly into full score without relying on preliminary sketches, computers, or collaborators.
The hour-and-a-half-long ballet still sounds more like a compilation than an organically developed symphonic conception—but then, so do the great Tchaikovsky ballet scores. And who knows what a closer examination of Costello’s compositional processes might reveal, since something of genuine musical interest is going on every moment. Like all composers who have been attracted to Shakespeare’s Dream, from Mendelssohn to Britten, Costello makes capital from the play’s three dramatic levels: seductively mysterious visions for the fairy world, full-blooded romantic strains for the squabbling lovers, and bubbly rhythmic momentum for the earthy rustics. Even without the visual aid of dancers and scenery, the music creates a remarkable sense of fluidity that smoothly leads from one plain to the other, especially in the meticulously prepared performance by the Brooklyn Philharmonic under Brad Lubman.
The wide-ranging eclecticism that characterizes Costello’s songwriting style—punk, rhythm and blues, soul, jazz, folk, funk, bluegrass—can be detected in his classical persona as well, and it would be tedious to list all the composers who come to mind while listening to Il Sogno. I’m not sure that identifying them would be especially helpful either, since Costello has a way of absorbing his influences, rethinking them, and challenging the listener on his own terms. That partly comes from his quirky melodic shapes that always keep the ear guessing, as well as an innate feeling for tangy instrumental combinations that you can’t learn from orchestration manuals. Il Sogno may be no deathless masterpiece, but it definitely adds up to a most engaging romp through Shakespeare.
The rest of Lincoln Center’s homage showed Costello in more familiar contexts. The fans turned out in force for an evening with his band, the Imposters. Rock tribal rituals conducted at a decibel level beyond the threshold of pain are not my scene, and it seemed that whatever Costello hoped to accomplish with his songs and his voice got swallowed up in a sonic hell of screaming and pounding electronic amplification. Still, I had to wonder how many other pop-rock figures give this generously of themselves, singing, playing, and reaching out nonstop for a full two and a half hours.
An opportunity to get yet another perspective on Costello’s work came in a program with the Netherlands Metropole Orkest, a 52-piece jazz orchestra whose performance history goes back to 1945. That collaboration definitely had its charms, but Costello really won me over when, after the performance of Il Sogno, he put his microphone aside and sang an unamplified medley with pianist Steve Nieve and bassist Davey Farragher. Only without the fierce electronic trappings, I think, is it possible to appreciate the full stylistic range and stinging melodic twists of his songs, the verbal density of the lyrics (“Oh, it’s not easy to resist temptation walkin’ around lookin’ like a figment of somebody else’s imagination”), and even the husky vulnerability of Costello’s unglamorous but oddly appealing baritone.