Lennie, what are you thinking?

I've been meaning to write about this article I found, "Change is in the Air", but my laziness and procrastination has found better things for me to do.

Alas, my mind has been running circles around this article, just trying to get a grasp it and to understand if it's a joke or not. Allow me to highlight a few of my favorite parts:

The articles starts off with how Slatkin intends to change to orchestra seating around. The article reads:

"...the orchestra will be seated with their backs to the audience. Music Director
Leonard Slatkin said at a press conference yesterday, “I feel that the listeners are distracted by seeing the faces of the musicians. By turning around, people will tire of looking at backsides and focus purely on the music.”"

While, I think that this might be an interesting experiment, I can't see this working out to better ones musical experience. Secondly, these performances are as much an aural experience as a visiual experience. As a musician, I want to see the performer's face and how they emote. Do they smile during the scherzo of such-and-such piece? Are they grooving along, moving their head a little to the latin rhythms in Roberto Sierra's symphonic works? That's just as much an element for me as the music itself. If you want people to enjoy the music for purely music's sake, then put a recording on in the concert hall. I'm sure they'll get rave reviews.

Besides that, doesn't one take into account the acoustical properties of each instrument and how sound travels from the stage to the audience. Aren't these multi-million dollar concert halls designed, by some of the greatest architects and sound engineers, to achieve the most sublime aural and acoustical nuances from an orchestra...that faces forward?

Here's another good one:

"Beethoven’s 5th will get a trimming, but with a different rationale.

“Many years ago, I did a production of Tosca in Hamburg. The director told me that since everyone knows the opera, he wanted to eliminate many of the traditions that have bogged the work down. So there was no church in the first act. The heroine did not leap to her death at the end. Yes, we were roundly booed, but I started wondering whether the same rationale could be applied to symphonic music.”

So for these performances of the overly familiar Beethoven score, the opening five bars will not be played, since everyone knows how they go. It will be straight into the 6th measure. In fact, every time the four-note motto comes in and is played loudly, the passage will either disappear or be performed softly.

Most of the soloists will be surprised to learn that the tuttis that usually herald the first entrance will go away. So no more three minute intro for either the Brahms 1st piano concerto or Violin Concerto.

Slatkin has a reason for this as well.

“We are not paying them to sit or stand around.”"

I'm not certain you really need to explain this one, I think his rationale is flawed. How can you eliminate motivic ideas in a composers work that he develops later on? Beethoven is the king of motivic ideas - that's like taking out the peach in the peach cobbler. Makes no sense.

And the intros to these concertos? What?

On the one hand, I can understand how you could promote these changes for one concert and make it an enlightening experience for the audience and orchestra alike. But for every concert? I just don't think the rationale justifies the means here.

I just feel like he's taking the lower joint of my clarinet from me, and telling me - okay, now play Beethoven 6.

This one made me laugh...

"Other emendations include orchestration changes. The opening of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, played by the bassoon in a high register, will now be intoned on the tuba, two octaves lower than printed.

“Tubists at the beginning of the 20th Century were not as facile as today’s artists. Bassoonists have plenty of solos. Why not let someone else have a chance at it?”"

Your justification for changing the opening is based on the fact that bassoonists have plenty of solos and that we should be fair and give someone else "a chance at it?"

But...I'm just...so confused.

I'm honestly and truly shocked about this article. I can't decide whether it's a joke or not. April fools - in September?

If you've been to a DSO concert lately - please inspire us with what you've seen. Is this true? And if so, how has it affected your listening experience?

Wagner

Knowing Wagner's social and political dealings - makes it very difficult to enjoy the music that he composed.

He was a horrible human being with bad morals and no concepts of good ethical behavior. But his music - was so powerful and beautiful.

How can you condemn Mendelssohn for being Jewish then, in the same sentence comment how his music and compositions have inspired and influenced you?

Were you saving face, Wagner? I mean, it's okay, you can be honest, this is a safe place. We won't tell anyone. Promise.

I want to hear what you have to say about this.

Discussion. Comment.

GO.

Hello? Contemporary Music? Are you There?

Since moving to Cincinnati, I've experienced some beautiful, amazing, and emotionally moving music. Many of those experiences coming from beautiful concerts by the Cincinnati Symphony - a group of amazing musicians who, you can obviously see, love their jobs.

Or, the Classical Revolution at the Northside Tavern - where one can enjoy a refreshing beverage - or two or maybe 4 - and listen to both standard and non-standard classical music. It feeds ones love of drinking and chamber music, like a two for one deal. And rarely have I seen the Tavern not crowded, elbow to elbow, during these events.

But, I feel like the one thing I've been missing, since my move here, is a strong presence of contemporary music. Experimental music, atonal, chance, you know what I'm talking about. Ever since leaving NY and being exposed to contemporary music, studying it, loving it, breathing it - I feel like I've been left out to dry - my soul is yearning for some Ligeti - Chamber Concerto (Watch this video, it's A-mazing).


I'm determined to put together a group of CCM musicians with the same desires and goals - to seek out new works and compositions - perform them and re-enlighten our ears, which have become so jaded by the redundant practicing of the Beethoven 6 excerpts. Roberto Sierra, Steven Mackey, Steven Stucky, Elliot Carter - these should be household names. And as musicians, we should know these ensembles and they should be a part of our daily listening diet: Strike, Eighth Blackbird, Ensmeble InterContemporain - just to name a few. I want to bring some new light and sounds to this place, taint the drinking water so to speak.


Mmm...Carter would be hot right now.


I'm not certain how this "particular" project will pan out. I'm hoping to get in touch with a few composers and ensembles to see who I can persuade into coming out and giving a master class. This music is really the wave of the future - we should be learning and immersing ourselves in this kind of music just as much as one would study Beethoven. Think of how your study of Shulamit Ran's "A Monologue For Clarinet," could help your performance of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto. Maybe - because you analyze the Ran, and study its irregular phrases and extended technique, that when you come back to the Mozart, you can more readily identify his phrasings and his annoying arpeggiated passages are way easier than they were before doing the Ran.

When you have to make music out of atonal notes scattered across the page, it makes you a better player. I'd compare it to, maybe, reading a sentence like: WE:J L:>LS :LKFJIE KJEF WE, and forming a cohesive statement. But, when you really look at it - it reads, "I love you, more than you'll ever know." (and, I mean, I could say that, I just mashed to keyboard down - I'm too lazy to think of something clever right now). It makes being a classical musician - far easier - freer.

Okay - stepping off soap box to practice...Beethoven 6.

Happy music making friends.

I'm not quite certain what you'll find here. Insanity in written form?

Quite possible.

You're definitely not going to find beautifully written pros or eloquently structured sentences littered on these pages. Grammar geeks, be forewarned, I love a run-on sentence as much as one loves eating! A collection of dependent clauses, with no apparent identifier and no rhyme or reason - yes, that would sum up my entries exceptionally well. I like to refer to it as nothing more than vomit of the brain.

I'm Adam. I'm crazy and SLIGHTLY ADD.



Recently, I just moved to the deliciously entertaining and wildly erratic Cincinnati. Here, I'm pursuing my doctorate at Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, following dreams, and wondering where my life disappeared to. I like music and all facets that surround it - reading about it, writing about it, PERFORMING it. I have a few aspirations to be the next Lady Gaga in the clarinet world. How's that for an image?

My goal is to use this "arena" as a forum for what's going on, or not going on, in this rather strange and new home of mine - CINCINNATI.

Reviews, criticisms, raves (and not the ones I went to when I was 18), and musical happenings in and around town. As well as a first-hand experience into the absolutely insane life I manifest.

Also, you'll probably read your fair share of geek clarinet talk. I'll probably talk about equipment, teachers, performers, what has or hasn't worked for me etc. Why I'm killing myself over the Nielsen...where one would go to get necessary pain killers to practice the Corigliano...you know, things that are essential in the world of clarinet playing.

Or at least, what I feel are essential.

Random banter on subjects about music. I mean, really, that's what we're talking about here.

End grotesque vomiting of the brain. My first installment, or so I hope, will be a little piece on the clarinet music of Russell Riepe, specifically the "Three Studies on Flight" for solo clarinet.

See you kiddies soon!