Concert Etiquette

The concert hall is a unique place. I can think of no other place in which the attention of so many people is so singularly focused. Be it the opera, ballet, symphony, or chamber recital, the attention points to the stage. And because the rests, the silence, in music is as important as the notes (just ask John Cage), that attention remains unbroken through the performance. This leads to what may seem a stifling atmosphere to many -- full of obscure and antiquated rules and traditions. In actuality, there is only one rule, and it exists for good reason. That rule is: do not disturb.

Renaissance

I don't think I have to remind my readers what renaissance means, but that is what is going on here.

The People's House

Considering that one's social graph is not uniformly distributed among the general population, but rather concentrated around a small number of highly-connected nodes, I think it is fairly safe to say that 100% of my readers fall in the lower 99%.  Recent posts on NPR's Deceptive Cadence blog discuss the widespread perception of opera as exclusive to the 1%, the super-rich.  And yet here you've come, my commoners, to where I like to share my thoughts on that very topic.  Responses to the posts ranged from accusations of opera being outdated and out of touch to those blaming Hollywood for the false stereotypes.  Many people pointed to their personally penurious positions and penchants for opera as evidence against the stereotype.  I'll take the argument a step further.  You will find few institutions more egalitarian than the opera house.

ToreAmix

I write a blog post on remixes, and in less than a week I discover a perfect example of a high-concept remix album being released by Tori Amos.  I confess I am not familiar with her discography, but I gather that her latest album, Night of Hunters, is an exceptional one.  You can listen to it in its entirety for free at the link, presumably until the release date of September 20.

Remix

To my readers:  Apologies for the extended hiatus.  As it turns out, finishing and defending a dissertation drains one's energy for composition more than I anticipated.  After my momentum was lost, it was hard to pick up the pencil, as it were, through travels, moves, job searching and so on.  But I can only go so long without exercising my creative muscle, and so I am back.  And today my topic is the remix.

Quicklink 4

Just a single link for you today.  Life has been incredibly busy since my last post.  It will continue to be very busy for the next month.  But I can at least squeeze in posts like this one.  I came across this fun piece in the blog I've mentioned before.  I don't really agree with a couple of his examples as being "metal," but certainly you can imagine a heavy metal cover of any of these pieces.  In fact, you can imagine heavy metal covers to a lot of classical pieces.  Compare the opening to Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto no. 2 and Muse's Space Dementia, and you'll hear clear similarities.  Or check out Epica's album, "The Classical Conspiracy" for several cool rocked out versions of classical music.  What classical pieces would you like to hear remixed into heavy metal or sound metal to you in their own right?

Grad School Allegory

Some friends of mine and I recently watched a DVD of a production of the opera, "Dialogues of the Carmelites" (1957) by Francis Poulenc based on the Martyrs of Compiègne.  It's somewhat modernist, being almost completely in recitative with occasional ensembles.  Unfortunately, the DVD forewent subtitles since the production used the English libretto, but can anyone ever understand a soprano in any language?  I understand the libretto is deep and thoughtful ("Dialogues..."), so I'm sorry we missed out on that.  Still, it ends with a most heartbreaking scene.  I could not stop thinking about it, so I looked up a few different productions of that scene on YouTube and decided I liked this one.  Watch it once and tell me it doesn't move you.  Yes, that is the sound of a guillotine that repeats 16 times for these 16 nuns.  Listen to the texture of the music thin down from chorus to quartet, trio, duet, solo.  It's tragic!

And then I realized it works as an allegory for our sad lives as PhD students.  Read on for my translation.  And excuse the sacrilege.  It's just satire.