Listening to Music

I've been thinking about what I was going to write about Prof. Raffman's view that twelve-tone compositions are artistically defective. But in the mean time, in addition to thinking about how to make my counter-argument as forceful as possible (recall Prof. Raffman has enlisted the aid of the eminent music scholar Prof. Richard Taruskin), I've been following the advice that I give to the atonal-deaf or the atonal-unwilling; I've been listening to a lot of music. Also, I've been re-reading Charles Rosen's Schoenberg monograph, Bryan R. Simms' The Atonal Music of Arnold Schoenberg, and Lewis Lockwood's The Music and Life of Beethoven.

In connection with the above, I've been listening to these recently acquired compact discs: Budapest String Quartet's Complete Beethoven String Quartets, The Zurich String Quintet's Beethoven String Quintets, and  the LaSalle Quartet's Beethoven: The Late String Quartets. I recommend these recordings. I also recommend the LaSalle's Neue Wiener Schule recordings of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. I also recommend the Arditti's Neue Wiener Schule recordings.

The LaSalle Quartet's recording of Beethoven's E flat Op. 127 and C sharp minor Op. 131 Quartets took me to their recording of Schoenberg's Quartet no. 1 in D minor, Op. 7. And the Schoenberg no. 1 by the LaSalle took me the the fabulous mono recording by the Juilliard String Quartet. This last recording by the Juilliard is so fast, so intense, so rhythmically American, so Elvin Jones/Tony Williams.

Point (finally!) - Like most great music, the Beethoven and Schoenberg string quartets exhaust the performances (and performers). I hate to rely on recorded performances. I've only heard one live performance of a Schoenberg quartet, the Op. 7; and that was because I had a direct hand in programming it with the Arditti Quartet. What I found quite interesting was this. The LaSalle's Schoenberg and Beethoven recordings helped me to hear what Beethoven was up to in his Op. 127 and Op. 131. I also think that reading Schoenberg's writings can certainly aid one in understanding what Brahms and Mahler were up to.

How many years did it take performers to catch up with Beethoven and his quartets? With Schoenberg the race has just started.

On February 12, I attended with a friend a concert at the Power Center, in Ann Arbor that featured the Vijay Iyer trio and the Rudresh Mahanthappa (as) and Bunky Green's (as) Apex. The latter group included Craig Taborn, piano; François, bass; and Damion Reid, drums. Apex was fabulous. Iyer, piano who I had enjoyed very much when he and Mahanthappa performed together in the past seemed to be tending toward a Keith Jarrett conception. I don't wish for another Keith Jarrett - one is enough.