Photo by Lambert Orkis
Interesting week:
- Musicologist/blogger Will Robin writes an article about John Adams's new saxophone concerto and gets a few scorching quotations out of JCA; all hell(mouth) proceeds to break loose.
- For example, Darcy James Argue on Facebook.
- Will tweets that JCA also said "I know that I sound like what Elliott Carter sounded like when he talked about me." Carter was wrong, but since JCA didn't name names, we have no way to evaluate his comments.
- Anna Nicole gets its first US performance at NYCO, a company that may cease to exist within weeks
- Painter Yves Klein's Monotone-Silence Symphony to be performed in NYC. Now there's a performance I'd like to hear.
"suddenly these just extremely simplistic, user-friendly, lightweight, sort of music lite," he said. "People are winning Pulitzer Prizes writing this stuff now."
ReplyDeleteHello Mr. Pot, I'd like you to meet Mr. Kettle, you have a color in common.
Nice rant by DJA.
Adams: An internecine skirmish breaks out amongst the Tonalist troops in the Style Wars. A fragging, even.
ReplyDeleteAdams is not a simplistic composer, and never has been. Just because a charge is untrue when said of him, doesn't mean that it cannot be true of others.
ReplyDeleteIt certainly could be true. If only he'd tell us who he's talking about!
ReplyDeleteDavid Lang? In that case, I'd be at least halfway minded to agree.
ReplyDeleteWell, he didn't say!
ReplyDeleteThe only Lang I know is Little Match Girl Passion, which is gorgeous and not at all simple or simple-minded.
...much better if that had stayed lost in The Times.
ReplyDeleteI mean, has he forgotten how the marketing department at Nonesuch knocked La Monte Young out of the minimal quartet, putting Adams in alongside Riley, Reich, and Glass?
He did say, and not very far between the lines, either.
ReplyDeleteHmm. Looking over the list of Pulitzer winners, I realize I don't know that many of them, so I cannot personally assume or guess that it's Lang, especially given my own view of Lang's Pulitzer winner.
ReplyDeleteCarter was right. Adams is truly awful. Strange, though: I once saw them chatting amicably at Zenkel Hall.
ReplyDeleteGotta disagree about Adams - I love a lot of his music. Also, here's some stuff Adams wrote recently about Carter.
ReplyDelete