Happy Birthday!

Choralation celebrated its first birthday yesterday. I'm proud of the fact that I've kept this going for a year, even if I haven't been the most dutiful of bloggers. Some improvements I hope to include in the next year:
-Shorter, more frequent posts rather than long, weekly posts.
-More variety of topics
-Greater awareness of the blogosphere at large
-More pictures and sound

Hope you've enjoyed it so far!

World Cup-date

USA: Better luck next time fellas. One goal in three games is not really any way to win the World Cup. Keep up the hard work but try not to be so darn predictable.

England: Beginning to hit a stride, although the loss of striker Michael Owen isn't a good sign. At least Wayne Rooney is getting fit. I have a feeling England will elevate when they face a really good squad. The Sweden game was tough, but they still haven't really been challenged yet. Still don't see the finals in the cards though.

Brazil: A bit overrated. Kind of remind me of the Indianapolis Colts of 2 years ago: unbelievable offense, lackluster defense. Until they meet a team who can contain their power offense, they will cruise. I think they face a rude awakening somewhere down the line.

The strongest teams for me have been Argentina, Holland and Germany. We'll see how these sides do in the knockout stage.

Not that I've been watching any of the games or anything...

Photo from AFP.com

Notes

For years I’ve often wondered what it is about Britten’s music that makes it so special. Of course there is the impeccably elegant technique, the seamless blending of old and new idioms, the palette of traditional and inventive harmony, the ease and fluency with which he sets the English language, and the drama and humanity and strange beauty that permeates his compositions. But there is something else. Listening to some unfamiliar (to me) Britten pieces last week, I finally figured out what that something might be: Britten’s music gives the appearance that it is almost improvised, unfolding spontaneously. It’s like there is a direct pathway from his brain to our inner ears. Most composers strive for this to a certain extent, but for me Britten’s music achieves this with astonishing frequency. The music is constantly going in unanticipated directions, but in the smoothest and most natural way possible. After he has taken us somewhere unexpected, we could not imagine having gone anywhere else. It’s this je ne sais quois which makes a Britten arrangement of a folksong like ‘O Waly Waly’ into something completely different – Everything Britten touches is never quite the same afterward. You can hear this in his piano accompanying of Peter Pears as well. His interpretations of Schubert songs bring out inner lines that we have never heard before, unusual harmonies and new phrase directions in a way that is entirely unique. Britten music will give me a lifetime’s worth of discovery.

On another note, last week I heard two student pianists blaze through the two piano version of ‘Rite of Spring’. I missed the remarkable orchestration, but the piece is still incredibly powerful and exciting in its raw and primal way. It is also highly entertaining to watch two pianists (on the same piano) crossing arms and using every technique at their disposal to bring Stravinsky’s music to life. So I hadn’t heard the ‘Rite’ live until last year, and now I’ve seen it twice. Funny that.

Also, I’ve been thinking a lot about Radiohead’s new album. I think we need to cut the guys a break. If you think about the length and quality of work (and with a frequency of every year or two) we expect from people like Radiohead or Bjork, it is a much higher bar than we’d expect from a "classical" composer. If a "classical" composer wrote a ten-minute chamber music piece, a set of a few songs, or an orchestral program opener, we’d say they had been productive. A "pop" artist is expected to turn in 45 minutes to an hour’s worth of new material at each go. This is like if a "classical" composer was only writing symphonies or string quartets. There is no way they could crank out a major work every year for 15 years. Yet in the "pop" arena, audiences get antsy if there isn’t a new album every year or two. On the flip side, I guess a lot of contemporary classical composers wish that each of their new works was anticipated by millions of people from the ages of 18-35 worldwide. In short, we all can’t wait until Radiohead’s new album comes out (and hopefully Thom Yorke’s solo project will tide us over for a bit), but at least they have taken the time and care that a symphonist would take to turn out a work of comparable length. So take it easy Thom, Colin, Phil, Jonny and Ed: we’ll be happy with whatever you turn out.

Cup Fever

All of England has gone mad. For the past few weeks, there has been nothing in the news except the upcoming World Cup which starts tomorrow. This is quite a shock for someone from a country where soccer is accorded only the smallest bit of attention in the media. It seems like I’ve always known names like Sven, Rooney, Becks and Ronaldinho. Actually the parallels to Philadelphia in the run-up to the Super Bowl are striking: a key player goes down with an injury towards the end of the regular season and is questionable to play, people hold an unrealistic expectation of what the team can actually accomplish, team colours are everywhere, kids are all wearing jerseys and people have those silly flags sticking out of the back windows of their cars. I find all of this new and exciting and I’m glad my year in England coincided with thet World Cup. And yes, I’ll be cheering for England more than the USA. The way I see it is that a World Cup win would mean much less to America than a victory for England, Iran, Mexico or the super-underdog Trinidad and Tobago. The rest of the world lives on soccer and the World Cup is a great equaliser, where smaller countries have just as much of a chance as big ones.

My predictions: England will definitely go beyond the first round and will probably get stopped in the quarter-finals. The USA will have a tough time getting past the first round, having to play teams like Italy and the Czech Republic, but if they do, they could ride the momentum to the quarter-finals. My money is on Germany to win it all, since they have a good team and home-field advantage. Brazil will finish second. Place your bets!

Reading material

Read some interesting articles lately, one by Allan Kozinn in the New York Times, and one by Sasha Frere-Jones in the New Yorker.

Kozinn challenges the notion that classical music is dying, pointing to the rise of online classical music sites and concert venues. To me the article seemed slightly over-optimistic (I still think the average person is pretty out of touch with "classical" music as a whole), but I was particularly taken by his take on ticket sales. Kozinn contends that just as many tickets are being sold, but in the form of last-minute purchases rather than season subscriptions. I think season subscriptions, unless they offer significant discounts, are kind of outdated. Many people, myself included, would rather decide on going to a concert that afternoon than months in advance. So many groups I have been in have lamented the loss of subscriptions, but what if they actually marketed to last-minute buyers? This is the beauty of a web-service like Philly Fun Guide which releases tickets at a discount in the days preceding plays and concerts. The Philly Orchestra has done something similar with their "power hour" rush-ticketing policy. Maybe it's time for more smaller groups to do the same thing...

Frere-Jones wonders why more British pop acts have met with limited success in the US. He attributes this to the slightly darker edge of some Brit pop and also the specificity of the subject matter. I've been wondering why people here know every Robbie Williams song (even if they don't want to) but many Americans I've spoken to say "Robbie, who?" I regret that I have not immersed myself deeper in what's on British pop radio at the moment, but then again I didn't do that that often in America either. That's what the free MTV2 in my Philly apartment was good for...

Been reading a bit more for my research. Saint-Saens was an interesting guy and came into contact with everybody. (Liszt, Wagner, Berlioz, Faure, Ravel, Debussy). I think he may end up being the glue that holds this whole thing together...