Alex Ross on Music and Noise

FOR my money, there is no more important and provocative essay about classical music over the last 10 years than an Alex Ross that begins this way: "I hate 'classical music': not the thing but the name. It traps a tenaciously living art in a theme park of the past." And he goes on: "For at least a century, the music has been captive to a cult of mediocre elitism that tries to manufacture self-esteem by clutching at empty formulas of intellectual superiority."

Ross's new collection, out this week

Hoarder that I am, I've still got the original 2004 New Yorker pages with that article. But those less obsessive than me can check back into this piece -- "Listen to This: Crossing the Border From Classical to Pop" -- and others on the enigma of Schubert, Radiohead, Bjork, classical music in China, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and the majesty of late Brahms. Even though I've read a lot of this stuff before, this new collection -- Listen to This -- is the most fun I've had with a new nonfiction book in ages.

Anyone telling the story of classical music over the last century or so would have to pay attention to composers, audiences, orchestras and conductors on the West Coast. Ross's first book, The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century took deep looks at Gershwin and Schoenberg's time in Los Angeles and the career of Bay Area composer John Adams. Listen to This gives us "The Anti-Maestro: Esa-Pekka Salonen at the Los Angeles Philharmonic." (The piece ends with the arrival of Dudamel.)

I spoke to Ross when The Rest is Noise came out. Here is that interview; the first question went like this:

Q: Why does classical music from the last 100 or so years -- unlike the visual art from the same period -- remain what you call "this obscure pandemonium on the outskirts of culture"?

A It's had a struggle to find an audience, especially compared to other art forms. The first blasts of Modernism in painting and literature and so on all caused scandals: Audiences rebelled at first, but they quickly caught on, and Picasso and Jackson Pollock sell for $100 million a canvas. The esoteric has become popular in these other art forms, and that hasn't really happened in classical music.

And let me direct readers interested in the LA Phil to Sunday's excellent Reed Johnson piece about the Phil's  president, Deborah Borda. 

Viva Gustavo

FRIDAY night I was lucky enough to take in the concert Gustavo Dudamel conducted as part of the LA Philharmonic's "West Coast, Left Coast" festival. (The concert was repeated Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.)

I say lucky because not only were we seeing the nation's most exciting young conductor -- albeit one born, raised, and trained in Venezuela -- but a program that made the case, if it still needs to be made, for the West Coast as the site of much of the freshest, most distinct music post-World War II. This weekend that meant Esa-Pekka Salonen's "LA Variations," which seems to me his breakthrough piece, Lou Harrison's Asian-accented, alternate-tuned Piano Concerto, played by Italian phenom Marino Formenti, and John Adams' "City Noir."

The Adams is the newest piece, debuted just last month. Adams is known as a minimalist, and this piece offered some of the genre's use of repetition, but also drew from film noir soundtracks, Gershwin, mid-century West Coast jazz, automobile sounds, and other signifiers of Southland culture. Even by Adams' high standards this was a wonderful piece. (It was inspired by the excellent books of California history by Kevin Starr.)

Here is Mark Swed's LA Times review of the show.

None of this music is an obvious fit conductor Gustavo "The Dude" Dudamel, but he brought it alive. I really wanted to be a detractor on this guy, but he keeps winning me over.

Amazingly, we sat right in front of Adams, who is a very cool guy, Frank Gehry -- who of course designed the hall we were sitting in, and legendary tenor Placido Domingo. Next to us was Phil boss Deborah Bordah. Quite an evening -- and more proof that traditional "high" culture in LA has long come of age. The fact that the show sold out also proves that the audience is on board with the explosion of serious music here.

Photo credit: LA Philharmonic

The End, and Beginning, for Esa-Pekka Salonen

SATURDAY night i took in one of the farewell concerts by esa-pekka salonen leading the los angeles philharmonic. of all the reigning  arts heads from when i arrived here a dozen years ago, i'd bet that salonen is the only one still in place. some institutions -- and this includes hollywood studios as well -- have turned over leadership several times in that period.

this was about as strong a concert as i've ever seen the phil offer: first was a wonderfully eerie short ligeti pieces, "clouds and clocks," in which strings and female voices made their own harmonic world without forgetting melody.

second was salonen's new violin concerto, a wide-ranging piece that sought to sum up his 17 years in LA and his 50 years on earth. except for an overly literary nod toward pop culture (with rock drumming) he almost entirely succeeded: the final movement, the adieu, is one of the most deeply felt adagios i've ever heard. and this from a man often considered an icy nordic. i am no scholar of contemporary music -- here is the nyt's tomassini's review of the same program. but my sense is that salonen's compositions have taken an enormous jump forward in the last five or six years, since about the phil's move into disney hall.

finally, the program's second half devoted to beethoven's fifth. wondering how this once-young-turn modernist would render this hoary old warhorse -- ironically? with a contemporary-music coolness? salonen jumped right in, literally. this is a hard piece to really >hear<, after all these years, but salonen and the phil made a convincing go of it.

there are some all-stravinsky programs coming, with visuals by peter sellars.

as we left disney hall, my wife and i lamented that the la times would not give his retirement (to compose fulltime) the attention it deserves, get into the whole sweep of the man's 17 years here. the next morning we found that we were wrong: this very fine story by mark swed gets at al of it.

HERE is my discussion with salonen re. his interest in rock music.

besides changing classical music's culture -- making it more contemporary and pop savvy -- and helping get the acoustic marvel disney hall built, salonen exemplifies a certain graceful, crisp and balletic conducting. he may lack the power or heft of the tradition austro-german maestro, but he brought something new and valuable to southern california.

Photo credit: los angeles philharmonic

LA PHIL VS RADIOHEAD

Just back from a LA Philharmonic press conference which is the most elaborate i've seen from any arts group, including i think the getty's launch a decade ago... they're very excited about Gustavo Dudamel, the 27-year-old venezuelan who kicks off his first season here in the fall. the one concert i saw him conduct, which included a berlioz, was as good as the considerable hype. (i have vowed to call him "the dude.")

so we're all looking curiously forward to the guy's arrival. i was disappointed, though, that esa-pekka salonen was not at the shindig -- his time as music director kinda of defines not only my time in LA personally, but i think a period where the city's culture become vastly more sophisticated, unpredictable and hybrid. (i did get to bump into california composer john adams, who is directing a very cool festival of west coast music that includes frank zappa and his own "the dharma at big sur," more on him later.)

anyway what i mean by hybrid, mostly, is a union of fine and pop culture that has been part of LA's genetic makeup for a long time, but which really developed in the last few years. one of my favorite conversations with salonen involve his interest in rock n roll. i'm quite impressed with it, especially if you think of what terrible taste in music most continental europeans have. i mean, italo-pop anyone?

Photo credit: Flickr user 12