Losing faith in the future of music

This is supposed to be high art? It makes my ears bleed! Why can't modern composers create music that is innovative and beautiful? ARGH!

Sex, Drugs and Romanticism

      Perhaps the most angst-filled era in the history of western music is the Romantic period. For the romantics, composition was not an occupational calling or intellectual paradox, but an innate passion. These emotional rebels idealized every aspect in life and believed music should reflect their principles. Theoretically, they laughed in the faces of traditional tonic-dominant relationships and revered secondary dominants and foreign key modulations. Berlioz’s (b. 1803- d. 1869) Symphonie Fantastique and Liszt’s (b. 1811-1866) Liebestraum are two pieces that demonstrate the fervor and drama of the Romantic Movement.

        The Symphonie Fantastique is the ultimate example of program music. The work was written in 1830, when Berlioz was just discovering his infatuation for the British actress Harriet Smithson. Many cite her along with Berlioz’s experimentation with Opium as the muses for the symphony.  However Berlioz’s memoirs allude to Goethe’s Faust—an epic poem about one man’s deal with the devil—for inspiration for the work. Berlioz supplied his own program notes for his “instrumental drama,” which relate the story of the music. The story is of a young artist who meets a woman so beautiful he becomes obsessed with her (first movement). He cannot shake her image even at the most exciting ball or peaceful countryside  (second and third movements) and he becomes increasingly lonely. Finally decides to kill himself with Opium, but it is only strong enough to knock him into a deep coma (fourth movement). While he sleeps he dreams he has been sentenced to death for the murder of his love and the procession to his death and funeral are filled with and orgy of terrible beings (fifth movement). An extravagantly large orchestration and inventive techniques create a new whimsical sound that narrates this fantastic story, while the constant presence of an idée fixe unites the movements.

            Liszt was interested and inspired by the Symphonie Fantastique, but the passion in his works is slightly more refined. Liebestraum are a set of three pieces that ooze sensuality. Though he composed many original works, Liszt was also inspired by transcriptions. He often transcribed his own work as well as the work of others (including Berlioz’s Symphony Fantasitque). Liszt completed the transcription of Liebestraum in 1850. Originally three separate lieder, the three pieces illustrate poems that tell of three very different types of love. The first poem Hohe Liebe describes saintly and religious love, while the second, Gestorben war ich divulges a description of erotic love. Finally, O liebe so Lang du lieben kannst imparts the truest love of all, a mature, lifelong love. The works are reminiscent of vocal works written in the romantic style, featuring sweeping cadenzas in both hands and solid melodic lines, but the pieces are more than simple lieder. They ebb and flow, leading you on harmonically before quickly changing directions all the while dramatically swelling and then quickly becoming hushed.  Together these pieces band together to create a marvelous drug of sensational emotions, better than the most surreal dramas or bodice ripping novels. 

Ranty Ranty Rant Rant

Why is it that an assignment with limited guidelines and infinite possibilities causes stress instead of joy? Why is it so challenging to be creative? Because we have been socialized to be terrified of making mistakes and, consequesntly afraid of becoming individuals. The American education system, created by a society that commodifies everything from iPods to a college education, has socialized us to believe that an impressive transcript and resume are the secret to Nirvana. The story goes that if you don't get good grades, you wont get into a goof college. Withought a good college you can't get into a decent Masters program, which is the only way you will be able to land a job lucritive enought to pay off your masses of student loan dept. However, in order to be successful in this quest for grades and first-class educations at exellent institutions of higher education, very few slip-ups can be made. Society has stamped mistakes with a big red X, a color and symbol that we have been taught to fear within the depths of our souls. This fear of error has kept our one-track minds in queue, quelling any shred of inspiration, innovation, or imagination.

We have also been trained to dread idle hands and loneliness. Because of this dread, any time that is not spent in class--or studying to boost those puny B pluses-- is spent hammering away at socially approved extra-curricular activitied (see: nationally recoginzed philantrhropy clubs and varsity sports). These activities don't just look good on transcripts, but also serve a deeper purpose. A full plate of extra-curricular activites keeps you in line, making you too busy for any personal exploration or experimentation, whether it be hallucinogenic, sexual or in artistic creation. Also keep in mind that those who are a little too fidgety from sitting in a desk all day are doped up with Ritalin or another pharmaceutical wonder.

I'm not saying there isn't merit in good grades, working hard or having extra-curricular activities, but there is something wrong with the obsession that surrounds them and what they give us-- a little mark on a trasncript or a note on a resume. A student shouldn't take a class because it will grant them the coveted, "easy A," but because they find the subjects interesting. Community service done soley for the purpose of how it looks on a college or graduate school application is meaningless to the individual and harmful to the community. Slogging away at sixty-hour-a-week jobs and studying for hours on end does not make us better people, it only makes us forget the things we once loved, bringing us further and further from our creativity. A creative life is a passionate and fulfilling one and limiting our addiction to work and our obsession with success will help us succeed in living one.

A La Gertrude Stein....

a white house on a white hill.
sitting like white on rice.
white as a ghost waiting for a white Christmas
but stuck, on ash wednesday.
and other shades of gray.
where this white bread is not as tasty as
the blue-plate special,
is a green room.
not green with envy.
living a white lie.
sitting at the beginning of the yellow-brick road,
wishing for more blue blood than white trash.
waiting for a red letter day,
where purple rain falls like agent orange, painting the town red.
perhaps once in a blue moon.
red rover.
red rover.
send that pink slip right over.
force that yellow belly out of its mellow yellow,
into some rose- colored glasses.
or maybe.
that’s just the pot calling the kettle .

Mozart can be cool too

Even though Mozart was a genius and he wrote scathes of beautiful music, I thought that he was a little bit to conventional to satisfy my modern musical palates. Or so I thought, then I learned of his compositions for glass harmonica! This instrument was invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1761 after he saw a professional wine glass player. Check it out!

Woe is me!

Urinetown (the musical) has finally reached its opening. After a record two, very hefty tech weeks we are apparently ready for opening night, scheduled for Thursday. Unfortunately I seem to be missing an essential part of musical theater (and, in my case, life), that is, my voice. Because of this lack of sound production in the vocal folds, I have been sentenced to a day of complete vocal rest, and thus, I am sitting restlessly at home today. For those unfamiliar with this dreaded condemnation, vocal rest is exactly what it sounds like, not using your voice at all, no singing, no talking to whispering, no humming. It is much more terrible than it sounds. My voice is not only my primaty means of communication to the world, it is also my instrument and basic key to artistic happiness. Being voiceless today is frustrating me on so many levels. Primarily, I am worried about the show, as ridiculous and trivial as musicals can be, I have spent so much time this semester on it that it has become basically the center of my universe. I am also worried about the health of my vocal chords (strange that this comes second), but I am in pain! Pain like i've never felt before, not just the emotional pain of not being able to communicate and share my art with the world or whatever, but PHYSICAL PAIN. This is not a bronchitis or laryngitisy pain this is something completely different. I've heard terrible stories of vocal injuries and it really really scares me that this could be one. BUT at the same time I know that stressing out about this and other things is only going to make it more difficult to get my voice back, something that HAS to happen by Thursday. So I am stressed out about trying to relax. Basically. Oh well, at least I have something to blog about.

Music and the Economic Crisis

Though I am by no means a "grown up" (I don't even pay my own rent), I am following the financial crisis with a growing sense of trepidation. As if I wasn't worried enough about getting a job when a graduate, now unemployment in Oregon is at an unemployment rate of 7.3%! As the market plummets further, I wonder how it will affect music in our country, how its recorded and distributed, and how it is performed. According to a report I heard on NPR the other morning, the sports industry is most likely to be hurt by a blip in financial stability. The reasoning is, the only way to see a film is to go see it in the theater (or wait months for it to come out on DVD....or pirate it illegally from the internet, this wasn't in the report, but I think NPR underestimates the poverty and technical abilities of the modern college student), a play can only be viewed in real time. NPR neglected, however, to mention the music industry.

The Oregon Symphony is reportedly failing miserably, sinking into a massive amount of debt. All this, despite a recent endorsement from the headman of Pink Martini, Thomas Lauderdale, who recently headlined a rare sold out concert with the Oregon Symphony. The question is, how can we help save institutions like this? Is it their fault for not having enough fresh, inventive programs (this has been a major argument, as OSO rarely programs new music)? Or is it ours for not supporting them? Should the government bail them out with the auto companies? I think it is the fault of our educations system and our society, for not teaching our children, who grow up to be college students who go to many concerts and young adults who have money to spend on them. Why are all the classical music lovers dying off? Probably because of a major lack of education. Many of my friends aren't uneducated or uncultured but many of them think that Mozart wrote the Moonlight Sonata.I think if our society understood music better as a whole then the financial crisis wouldn't be such a burden on my mind.