Rufus has been promising us a solo piano album since before his Judy phase. Perhaps this new one will be it. His website announced the album officially yesterday with an interesting playlist. The album will be called “All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu” and no, I have no idea who Lulu is, except an opera by Alban Berg and an old cartoon.
1. Who Are You New York?
2. Sad With What I Have
3. Martha
4. Give Me What I Want and Give It To Me Now!
5. True Loves
6. Sonnet 43
7. Sonnet 20
8. Sonnet 10
9. The Dream
10. What Would I Ever Do With A Rose?
11. Les Feux d’artifice t’appellent
12. Zebulon
This long weekend, Daniel invited four friends he knows from up north to stay with us. We are all spending time getting to know each other and having a relaxing weekend. I had heard that these people were experts in RockBand, especially the Beatles. Instead of playing RockBand, we sat around in the living room, singing with me playing piano. [It was almost a Judy in Carnegie Hall night: "I'll sing all night!] Amy’ husband, Bill, was the most knowledgeable of them all in terms of knowing the Beatles songs. He seems to know all the tunes, a lot of the harmonies, and I hear he’s an amazing RockBand drummer. So the two of us were John and Paul last night. Probably more singing tonight.
I bring all this up, not so much of a “dear diary” thing, but because at the end of the evening, Bill had this huge smile. I asked him what for and he explained that he was overjoyed with the experience of reading from sheet music instead of following the words and playing instructions that go flying by on the monitor with RockBand. (We have paperback books of lead sheets of Beatles songs that we pass out on Beatles Nights.) The notion of someone celebrating the technology of music notation was a real surprise for both of us, and an unexpectedly happy one at that.
An intense day at the office. Some intense personnel meetings and thorny conversations. I passed on an evening concert to just stay home and lick my wounds. No, it’s not that bad. But STOP is good.
Chihara urged me to go have a martini and dinner and relax. I did just that at Ammo (Highland). Benny, i’m sure he did! put Rufus Wainwright’s latest in the mix, and I got to hear new Rufus during dinner. I texted with my honey as though he were with me. I checked my email and found one from an old classmate from high school.
Now get this: I’ve never been invited to, or been to a high school reunion. Tonight, over my Hendrick Gibson, I found out that since 1971 I HAVE BEEN MISSING. I’m sure my blood pressure rose a tad when I read that on my Palm Pre Plus. But now! Denise has found me, and I am now rejoined with my compatriots from high school.
There were two attachments to this a second email from Denise: one was a list of current known alums, their addresses, emails and such; and the second was “deceased or missing” and yours truly was on the MISSING list in blue.
After that whole rush, I looked at the living and realized that this was the wrong class. My [dysfunctional-or am I missing THERE too?] class of 1971 didn’t actually send me a notice for a high school reunion. I was stamped as the wrong year.
[Sigh.]
I went to the next email, from my mother telling me my father was in the emergency room and being observed. She rattled off the various tests they had already done, and all systems look good. But more tests tomorrow.
My medium rare Hanger Steak with fingerling potatoes, broccoli, and a Cab arrived with these hot rushes from the past hovering over me.
“Dessert, sir?”
No, I’m sweet enough darling, thank you; I’ll have the bill.
Scott Spiegelberg used to make lists of the Top Classical Music Blogs, but when Invesp.com came along, he left it to them. If you care about such lists, bookmark it; the list is updated daily. They keep track of RSS membership feeds, unique monthly visitors, Yahoo and Google indexing, Google PR, and Alexa and Compete ranks. (If that is confusing, read here.) The number to the right of the blog name is invesp’s score.
Top 25 Classical Blogs (Invesp.com)
1st Sequenza21/ 100
2nd Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise 99.72
3rd parterre box presents La Cieca 99.29
4th NewMusicBox 97.83
5th Opera Chic 97.66
6th On An Overgrown Path 97.48
7th Jessica Duchens classical music blog 96.21
8th Jason Heaths Double Bass Blog 95.91
9th Dial “M” for Musicology 95.73
10th aworks :: “new” american classical music 95.69
11th Mind the Gap 95.63
12th slipped disc 95.62
13th Opera Today 95.57
14th Ionarts 95.41
15th The Collaborative Piano Blog 94.62
16th Daily Observations 94.6
17th rogerbourland.com 94
18th Classical WETA 90.9 93.82
19th Adaptistration 93.76
20th The Omniscient Mussel 93.76
21st CLASSICAL-ICONOCLAST 93.74
22nd Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment Blog 93.62
23rd Createquity 93.61
24th oboeinsight 93.58
25th BIS New Releases 93.5
The next ranking comes from PostRank Analytics. The number to the right of the blog name is the number of “engagement points” they have given. According to their website: “Engagement refers to the attention other people pay to your published content, like blog posts, news & articles.”
Top 32 Classical Music Blogs (PostRank Analytics)
1 parterre box presents La Cieca 284,043
2 Iron Tongue of Midnight 7,835
3 ANABlog 5,792
4 Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog 4,980
5 PostClassic 4,926
6 ionarts 4,673
7 Sequenza21/ 3,875
8 Adaptistration 3,849
9 Jessica Duchen’s classical music blog3,706
10 The Omniscient Mussel on Classical Music &… 3,137
11 Kenneth Woods- a view from the podium 3,067
12 Soho the Dog 2,839
13 Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise 2,588
14 Dial “M” for Musicology 2,584
15 Musical Assumptions 2,466
16 Music Genre: Classical 2,299
17 The Rambler 1,313
18 CSO Bass Blog 940
19 classicalconvert.com 889
20 rogerbourland.com 855
Other lists
Top 10 Classical Music Blogs (Oak Web Works)
Sequenza21
The Standing Room
rogerbourland.com
The Omniscient Mussel
Thirteen Ways – Adventures (In New Music) With eighth blackbird
Parterre Box
Classical Convert
Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog
Think Denk
Oboeinsight
Mark Carlson and I attended a concert given by the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA). My high school days are a very long time ago (1967-71), and I don’t spend any time around high schools these days, so I was prepared for a culture shock.
From a school of 579 students in music, art, and dance, we heard a GALA concert (read: everyone plays) with 203 high school musicians. WOW!
We heard a jazz band, a gospel choir, an opera excerpt, three piano soloists interspersed, the concert choir, a very large orchestra (!!!), and saw inspired and gifted teachers and leaders. The performances, yes they are young, were on a very high level. I am thrilled that LA can have such a terrific institution, and I encourage all donors to consider making a donation.
Mark and I sat through the 3 and a half hour concert without ever getting bored. It was so fascinating to watch and focus on individual young musicians, seeing their energy and musicality, seeing who are the young Elvises or Madonnas, the Chet Bakers (yes! there was one) and the cool jazzers, already thick with attitude.
I was impressed that the audience listened in rapt attention to the three piano solos, all brilliantly played. I would have imagined that the parents would lean towards jazz and yawn at the classical: but no, these are parents who paid to have their kids go to an arts school. They LOVE the arts. Silly me.
This is a high school where ALL the students are in the arts. There is no Marching Band or football team. Sounds like a dream to those of us who didn’t have that luxury. They are all shapes and sizes and ethnicities. One of the most remarkable observations I made last night was that the students seemed really happy. Most just beamed a kind of happiness. After the curtain went down after the grand finale, we heard a huge WHOOOOOOO from behind the curtain of 203 deliriously happy students who just put on a great concert.
There was another level for me. Dr Dan Castro is the musical and organizational force behind this program. I was Dan’s Chair for his Masters and Doctoral degrees at UCLA. In front of a near sold out Luckman Theater on the Cal State LA campus, Dr Castro publicly thanked me for being a mentor and teacher. He also acknowledged Mark Carlson for whom he was a TA, and Jackie DjeDje, Chair of Ethnomusicology. UCLA got a warm applause from the appreciative audience, many obviously proud parents.
So, in a sense, I felt like a grandfather of the event, or better, a godfather. And to be thanked is always a nice thing.
This is NOT indicative of what we heard last night, I found this reading of a student arrangement of “Turning Japanese” [do they KNOW what that means??] scored for full orchestra.
I finally gave in and joined Linked In yesterday. A screen came up asking me whether I wanted to “link” with all the friends in my address book who already have Linked In accounts. I said ’sure, what the hell’ and it told me exactly how many that would be — and it was a large number. “Sure what the hell” I confirmed again.
Over the past two days I have received scads of emails from old friends and acquaintances, many from whom I have not heard for many years.
This very cool technology has afforded me little “hellos” from all my friends who agreed to be “linked” to me. And they heard from ME for the first time in a long time.
I know: that’s a terrifying thought to some; but little hellos are really OK.
I’m sure many of you have heard this tune, not knowing what it was. I figured it out after watching THE THIRD MAN (1949) directed by Carol Reed, starring Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles.
What is amusing to me is how Reed chose to use Anton Karas, the Viennese zither player, to score the entire film. The program notes on YouTube say:
Release dates, September 2, 1949 UK 2 January 1950 USA
The distinctive musical score was composed and played on the zither by Anton Karas. A single, “The Third Man Theme”, released in 1950 (Decca in UK, London Records in USA) became a best-seller, and later an LP was released.
Before the production came to Vienna, Karas was an unknown wine bar performer. Reed and Howard fell in love with Karas’ zither after hearing him play inside a café. Karas agreed to record some of his own compositions on a reel-to-reel tape machine that Reed set up in the bedroom of his hotel; one of these was later to become the Harry Lime Theme and become a popular hit. The exposure made Karas an international star after the movie was released.
Film critic Roger Ebert wrote, “Has there ever been a film where the music more perfectly suited the action than in Carol Reed’s ‘The Third Man’?”
And I would say that never an introduction to the sadness reality was presented so well.
While musics plays, various documentary-style shots of post-war, divided, fragmented and occupied Vienna (a ‘frontier’ city dividing East and West – and governed by four Allied forces) are surveyed, an anonymous voice-over delivers a first-person prologue. Director Carol Reed in the original UK version. Joseph Cotten delivers prologue in US version.
I have trouble sitting anywhere in the same place for a long time. That means long flights, plays, operas, movies, and concerts. It has something to do with my long torso.
For that reason, and a few others, I find myself preferring smaller portions of everything: food, material possessions, and music. Many times I find half a concert just perfect, especially when new music is involved. Sometimes you just don’t want the tasting menu; you just want to hear the new piece (or whatever you prefer). It’s like being a member of the clean plate club. Sorry, but I never have been. I eat until I’m full. And ditto with music.
It is common to have music on for parties and I find myself musically exhausted with all that music playing all the time. I guess I just haven’t figured out how to tune it out. Ditto with music and sex: I can’t do it.
POSTSCRIPT: The concert actually had another new piece by Globokar for male topless percussionist, Joseph Pereira, who played his body as a percussion instrument. We were all amazed and entertained, although I doubt anyone needs to ever hear the piece again. The performance of “Eight Songs” was astounding, and especially the baritone, Thomas Meglioranza. The audience gave him five standing ovations. I decided my plate was full and happily left at intermission. Funny thing though: as I was leaving, David Lefkowitz waived me over to introduce me to someone. It was one of Schoenberg’s sons (Ronald) and his wife. Oops.
It was the quarterly visit from Matias and Jenny, with baby Katie (18 months) this weekend. As I’ve said before, having visitors in your home makes it feel like a vacation. The energy was dominated by Katie, who is now running and learning words at an amazing rate. Daniel, her godfather, was called “Tito Dan” (Tagalog for Uncle Dan) and that seems to have given away to “Daniel” pronounced quite well. And my name is now Rajhzi, as RoJER seems too tricky to say now. She chases the dogs — they tolerate it and growl from time to time, but nothing more. The entire house becomes Katie’s playpen, which is fun, although the silence of this morning is deafening, now that they have returned to Sunnyvale.
Lynn Harrell, photo by Christian Steiner
You’ve already read about part of the weekend (see “The New Couch”) and the remainder was also entertaining. Daniel and I were invited to Dale and Don’s for lunch on Sunday. I got to meet Lynn Harrell for the first time and his wife, Helen. Lynn is a real sweetheart and a true gentleman. We chatted about where he had been teaching for the past 15 years and confessed to missing it. We also are both in intergenerational relationships, and we couldn’t help but share stories about that. Rachael Worby was there too and it was fun to catch up with her.
Although full from the lunch, we had an early reservation at Mozza with M&J. On the way in I nearly knocked over Elvis Costello. Sitting across from me there was Lisa Loeb. We were surrounded by all kinds of celebrities, most of whom I could not recognize, but then the Grammys had just gotten out, so such is LA life.
Today I go in and talk about 3rd species counterpoint, visit with some students, and tonight go to the Green Umbrella series to hear two old/new warhorses– “Eight Songs for Mad King” and “Pierrot Lunaire” with my concert pal, Ronnie Rubin.
More rain headed towards SoCal and that’s a good thing.
A new commission is in the works where I’ll be composing a new piece for Vladimir Chernov. What a joy!!
While I go feed my dogs and birds and brush my teeth, here is a gem from Lynn, the Faure Elegie, Op.24.
Over the past 10 years we inherited four couches–all off white. The oldest used to belong to Michael Crichton (he wrote The Andromeda Strain on it), who gave it to Martin Nathan, who then gave it to my former partner and me. Bruce bought a Lady Kenmore sewing machine and reupholstered it. 20 years later it is now filled with old cotton and dust mite carcasses and needs a major reupholstering. The 2nd white couch was sold to us by Royana and Hal who didn’t have room for it in their new apartment. Then Bridget moved to Maine and gave us HER old white couch that wasn’t really very comfortable, but useful. Finally Ronnie gave us her little couch with the weird stains on it and rotting plastic zippers.
We have never bought our own couch, so we decided last week it was time to do so. We bought a corner couch that is amazingly comfortable. We finally have a place where people can comfortably congregate: even invade each other’s personal space by sitting so closely. I like.
The couch passed several tests this weekend: red wine was spilled on it two nights in a row (the material is wine proof). Last night, several of our friends had been out Karaoke-ing until 3:30 in the morning and, rather than driving home drunk, they crashed at our house. I woke up at 6 am to find three people sound asleep on the couch. All praised it for its great comfort. It will be great for writing melodies in my sketchbook.
Over the past 10 years we inherited four couches–all off white. The oldest used to belong to Michael Crichton (he wrote The Andromeda Strain on it), who gave it to Martin Nathan, who then gave it to my former partner and me. Bruce bought a Lady Kenmore sewing machine and reupholstered it. 20 years later it is now filled with old cotton and dust mite carcasses and needs a major reupholstering. The 2nd white couch was sold to us by Royana and Hal who didn’t have room for it in their new apartment. Then Bridget moved to Maine and gave us HER old white couch that wasn’t really very comfortable, but useful. Finally Ronnie gave us her little couch with the weird stains on it and rotting plastic zippers.