[NewMusic] Book Review - Alex Ross = Gannicide

Sat Nov 3 01:46:02 PDT 2007

NPR demographics (why bother?) and Klingon Thereminists (ugh) aside, I will only issue this small warning regarding "The Rest is Noise." 

Alex Ross seems to frequently speak from his ass. Please don't take anything his ass says for granted. Do some fact checking on your own.

Quite often, what comes from his ass makes me want to commit Gannicide.

For someone with some major media establishment entities and (assumedly) a few fact-checkers behind him, he is often very loose with the facts, not only regarding music history, but...well, music in general.

Here is a relatively recent example, from a piece dated June 25th, 2007 that appeared in the New Yorker:

"On the Internet, the landscape of American orchestral life is visible as never before. Almost all professional orchestras have their own Web sites, where you can study schedules, listen to MP3s, admire pictures of the executive director with donors, and read cute bios of the players. (The oboist bungee-jumps; ergo, musicians are human beings, not alien geeks.) Wandering around this virtual map, you can see signs that America’s orchestras are vacillating between vague optimism and raw panic. In some cases, straight-up classical works are perilously rare; concertos of Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky huddle among prepackaged pops programs like “Barbie at the Symphony” (an edutainment event backed by Mattel) and “The Music of Barbra Streisand” (Babs not included). Nearly as often, you stumble on happy surprises. Who would have guessed that the Redwood Symphony, a volunteer orchestra in the Silicon Valley area, has played all of Mahler’s symphonies? That the South Dakota Symphony has featured eight Pulitzer Prize-winning works this season? Or that the Rochester Philharmonic just recorded, on the Harmonia Mundi label, one of the snappiest Gershwin disks in years?"

So, all that poop about the "progressive" programming and happy surprises aside (how many concerts/how much programming by regional orchestras have you atended/been impressed with lately? Does American orchestra life really seem more "visible" to you these days?).....Alex Ross wrote:

>>"The South Dakota Symphony has featured eight Pulitzer Prize-winning works this season"

If you take a moment of your time and actually go to the web site of the South Dakota Symphony:

http://www.sdsymphony.org/20062007Season/ImperialSeries/index.cfm

You will find that for their 2006-2007 season:

George Crumb indeed won a Pulitzer in 1968, but not for "A Haunted Landscape."

Apparently they performed Yehudi Wyner's Piano Concerto, "Ciavi in Mano", which was the 2006 winner.

And Christopher Rouse did win a Pulitzer for his Trombone Concerto. 

...So, lets see....uh, that makes exactly *two* Pulitzer-winning works for "this season."  Three Pulitzer-winning composers, two Pulitzer-winning works.

Well, you say....perhaps he meant more than just "this season?"...i.e including 2005-6? Again:

http://www.sdsymphony.org/20052006Season/Index.cfm

Steven Stucky did indeed win a Pulitzer for his Second Concerto for Orchestra

The work of Zwillich they performed (Trumpet Cto) is not a Pulitzer prize winner, although she did win a Pulitzer for her First Symphony.

The South Dakota Symphony site lists Rochberg's Oboe Concerto as winning the prize in 1972. This is not true. He's never won a Pulitzer (!!!) Jacob Druckman won the prize in 1972, for "Windows."

....So for 2005-6 they performed exactly *one* Pulitzer-winning work. Two Pulitzer-winning composers.

Check the winners here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulitzer_Prize_for_Music

That makes exactly four works that won Pulitzers, split across their last two seasons. And Five Pulitzer-winning composers programmed during their past two seasons, in total.  Not "eight Pulitzer-winning works" featured "this season." 

It is this sort of thing that bothers me greatly about Mr. Ross. Just spew, and if it fits his meme, it must be true. No facts are necessary. Like the pervasive myth of the 12-tone "orthodoxy" entrenched in their "ivory towers" suppressing the work of the neo-tonalists of the 60s, 70s and 80s, that he (and many others, Mr. Gannicide included) likes to carp upon so regularly. Puhleeese. Do some fact checking....will ya, Alex? Just look at the composition faculties at the major music conservatories/universities during the period in question. You'll find a lot of names like William Schumann, David Diamond, etc., but aside from Milton Babbitt at Princeton (and Donald Martino...and maybe Ralph Shapey at University of Chicago -- although I would not consider U of C to be a major music school), you'll be hard pressed to find many serial composers at any of the major music schools, not to mention the minor ones, where there were even more more tonal/neo-tonalists in residence. Again...do the research, will ya Alex? Hell, even Schoenberg didn't teach serial composition to students at UCLA. He taught TONAL harmony, counterpoint and form. "Orthodoxy" my ass.

I agree, he certainly doesn't sound patronizing, and is rather fluffy (perfect for NPR but not for the so-called hardcore folks) but hey, that's part of the problem, IMHO. It makes it much more easy for him to disseminate misinformation. Much like certain Fox Nooze pundits.

Standard disclaimer.

-MH

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Message: 4
Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2007 11:44:13 -0700
From: David Slusser <slusser at pixar.com>
Subject: Re: [NewMusic] Book Review
To: Bay Area New Music Discussion Group <newmusic at music.mills.edu>
Message-ID: <40937574-044D-4E97-B926-2AFB1492C096 at pixar.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed

I heard the author on public radio (yes, I'm in that demographic)
and  the book sounded a bit introductory for the hardcore
intellectuals on the list.  Still, I'm going to look for it as a cure
for my insomnia.  He didn't seem patronizing, and It may fill
some of the gaps in my knowledge.

The Klingon playing the Theremin was awful once he started
singing.  Of note, though, was the coiled pitch antenna.  This
guy didn't do much with pitch, but I have experimented with
this on one of mine.  I use malleable copper wire, and have
configured a couple sharp curves.  Moving the hand vertically
gives you a fixed pitch set (because of the varying distances).
Horizontal proximity modulates this pitch set higher and lower.
"Normal" play is still possible by staying in one vertical position.

On Nov 2, 2007, at 7:36 AM, Matthew Goodheart wrote:

> Salon.com has a review of a new book by Alex Ross about "contemporary
> composers" called "The Rest Is Noise."  Has anyone read the book?
>
> http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/11/02/alex_ross/
>
> I perused through the letters, which are generally what one would
> expect.  One sentence I was rather fond of:
>
> ". . . it's hardly the kind of music you want to have playing in the
> background while you're doing the dishes -- though I encourage you to
> try it anyway, because it will really change the way you feel about
> dishes."
>
> Also of note was a letter from Rupert C. who posted a link to what is
> apparently a Klingon playing a Theramin
>
> http://youtube.com/watch?v=y1WlvegSSPQ
>
> mg
> _______________________________________________
> Bay Area New Music Discussion Group
> NewMusic at music.mills.edu
> http://music.mills.edu/mailman/listinfo/newmusic

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