Auspicious Beginnings

Summer winds down, the hiatus ends, and its back to composing, teaching, writing, reading and of course blogging. And what better way to start the coming year than with a nice mention by one Alex Ross on the New Yorker's Web site.

I loved Alex's article on fictional composers (being one myself from time to time, as he mentions) and wish I could offer a link, but as its for subscribers only, you'll just have to pick up a copy of this weeks New Yorker or subscribe to read it. Wholly and completely worth it!

Sometime soon, I'll blog about this summer, some cool concerts (Costello and Cohen for starters) some excellent books (Inherent Vice) and a whole heap of Steve Erickson) some upcoming events and some thoughts, but for now I leave you join me in the basking of a Ross namecheck.

Passings

I want to echo Alex Ross in mourning three passings this weeekend: Robert Hilferty, Michael Steinberg and Merce Cunningham. I could eulogize the latter two (whom I did not know personally) and recount some truly hilarious stories of Robert Hilferty, but I will just let their names stand as the sadness their loss represents. The world is lighter once again.

Another Return

I'm back. Better than ever. And I have a bit of reverie--for the work of Peter Greenaway. I write because of a nice piece in the Times about his show at the Venice Biennale, which made me think of my happy accident a few years back of being in Amsterdam, in the Rijkmuseum, and stumbling upon his Nightwatching, which was utterly fantastic. His work has drawn a lot of ire over the years (once I recall a roomful of older composers giggling at me when I said I was a fan, in that "doesn't-HE-have-a-lot-to-learn-about-the-world" way, or the lobby of a cinema some years ago featuring very pretentious man discussing loudly how pretentious Mr. Greenaway was) but it is work to which I always return. Basically I think he might be the smartest man on the planet. To say I love most of his films (the day Prospero's Books or Drowning by Numbers finally become available on DVD will be expensive but wonderful) is an understatement. To me these films define what art can and even should do, a touchstone: they have unparalleled depth, seek to explore, go beyond their medium while not expecting to be noteworthy simply because they go beyond their medium, and are as learned and seeking as any work out there. And I love his themes, which include conspiracies (from the water tower to the deaths of composers by mysterious means), the body, sex, death, writing, blood, art, beauty and vomit--to him, there is little difference between these things. His operas with Andriessen are divine and strange (maybe Rosaand Writing to Vermeer will come to DVD on that same glorious day).

I am being general, because I've just not the weeks it would take to be specific.

To return to Nightwatching, it was an amazing "show" wherein the famous painting by Rembrandt was suspended in the middle of the room. The lights dimmed, and for twenty minutes an audio track played which told the story of this great work through illuminating certain bits of it from the front and from behind, turning a staid and unmovable image into a vivid storyboard (about, yes, a conspiracy contained within the work). It was breathtaking--and oddly unfilmable. (Which leads me to the point that Greenaway is always referred to as a filmmaker and yet he's not made a picture in years, focusing instead on installations like these). From what the article seems to say, the show at the Biennale sounds like this experience writ large. Alas, I'll not be there--unless a generous reader would like to fund my expedition!

Needless to say, it's nice to be back.

Allow Me to be the Last

...to congratulate Steve Reich on a long-overdue Pulitzer Prize. And I am also happy to hear that Harold Meltzer was a runner-up.

Grammar

I hate to go all Jay Leno, but I have to gawk at the mixed meaning behind this headline (found on Google News):

Iran, in gesture to US, promises help on drugs

I mean, really, think about it...

Music = Brain

Every so often a study gets released explaining how music has a positive effect on one's mind, especially the complexities of classical music. It makes you smarter, better at math, and some say younger. Its hard to disagree, and it is even harder to disagree with the sprit of these undertakings because, well, since math is the smartest way to be smart in our No Child Left Behind culture because it is the most quickly quantifiable, music must therefore be good for US because it is good for that.

So today in the Times there is an appropriately skeptical piece by Matthew Gurewitsch about prescription music, music written specifically to have a desired effect on a specific brain. Its even handed, well written, and takes on this odd little practice with the right kind of attitude: that of the objective journalist. It ought to be read.

What I found most intriguing--and I mean that last word in its fullest spy-thriller resonance--is the presence of the guardedly anonymous composer in the mix. You go for your study, someone writes you a piece to suit your specific mental needs (apparently we all need Glass or Riley redux?) but the hand is silent; we are never to know. This strikes me as the oddest notion of this entire questionable (but not necessarily wrong) practice: there's someone, or a team of someones, who are writing music to have an effect on your brain and their name(s) is (are) a well-kept secret.

Of course, being a composer myself, I begin to wonder who it might b, which of my colleagues has landed the no-doubt lucrative dayjob of writing music to put troubled minds be at ease? And why, I wonder, is the whole practice intentionally shrouded in a veil of mystery? Do these composers feel they are doing the wrong thing? (They are not.) Do they fear the repercussions of the world knowing that they--gasp--might need to supplement their income? Or is this whole practice a little questionable, and when later it becomes known do these composers want not to be associated with it? I think that alone would be such a distraction, for me, from any possible efficacy of this study.

I say, if you're going to do it, do it: cop to it, and let us know how it works and why. There is nothing to be ashamed of, no need to hide. Hell, I think it would make an interesting companion piece in the Times to send a music journalist to accomplish a piece of derring-do and smoke out just who is behind this particular curtain. Music Therapy's Greatest Composers UNMASKED. Composers working in an underground laboratory somewhere to make the world a better place are revealed for what they are, dramatically and on television. I'd watch it.

Shining Brow Release

On March 18, this is where I will be. This piece--the seminal work of an amazingly gifted composer (and I am proud to say, friend)--will be available, finally, on a CD (insert usual praise to Naxos, who just sees to it that important things don't go unreleased) and is deserving of a big loud fete for the launch. Make your reservations early. See you there.