Blogging, John Adams, Nico Muhly
It seems as if most of the composers who maintain blogs seem to post an awful lot about things hardly related to music, but I’ve noticed a few recurring trends: food, politics, and culture. So in an effort to fit in, here we go:
Food. Well, John Mackey has said everything there is to say about Asian food, Jeremy Denk is an expert on pizza and other late-night junk foods, and Nico Muhly has covered all of the weird Icelandic cuisine (shark meat, whale blubber, etc.). So, I’ll leave it to them.
Politics. I’m no expert, so I’ll leave it to the people who know what they’re talking about. John Adams provides some colorful commentary in the form of a fictional neighbor (one gun-toting, Palin-supporting Marcel Proost!), but Adams is far wittier than I am. So for a Green point of view on politics, he’s your man.
Culture. Okay, so central Maryland doesn’t have an awful lot to contribute as far as ‘high’ culture goes. Unless your definition of high culture involves rap. Which it very well may.
But no worries. When I get back from Italy I’ll post all about the risotto and tiramisu and medieval towers and warm coke.
I’ve left out one topic: music. And I should definitely start writing about different music-related topics, like Jeremy Denk does. So here are two. 1. I’ve been playing through some reductions lately of Adams’ orchestral works, namely, El Nino and Nixon (the latter in preparation for some commissioned transcriptions for saxophone and small wind ensemble). And it struck me how little material there really is once you get to the bottom of the pieces. Adams is always so much more of a minimalist than we give him credit. Yet he avoids that trademark minimalist repetitiveness by juxtaposing two or three (or, in the case of the Chamber Symphony, four) layers, each of which carefully avoids that rut. It makes me wonder why more composers don’t rely as much on timbrel- and pattern-driven juxtaposition as Adams so successfully does. Just thinking.
2. Jerry Bowles posted a few weeks ago on the new music blog Sequenza21 a question: Is Nico Muhly overrated? I’m not going to expound on whether or not he is; my opinion is pretty much irrelevant. Lots of readers posted some pretty angry comments, namely, ‘why would you ask such a terribly rude question? of course he’s not’ and so on. But as I got to thinking, shouldn’t that be a question we always ask whenever a new composer or style pops up? Muhly has gotten a lot of mileage from that public image of the Glass-and-Bjork-protege, and Bowles rightly asks about the actual content of his music. I think the discerning musician (or music-lover) should always go deeper, looking for real meaning in the music they’re hearing. 1) Does the music actually say something? 2) Does it have to? 3) What is the value of music that tries specifically to avoid ’saying anything’ at all? I say, 1) it should, 2) yes, and 3) oh boy. That’s a topic for another day.