Classical Notes: January 2007 Archive

Quartetto Gelato loses a founding member

Posted at 2:57 PM on January 2, 2007 by Don Lee

Word has come from the record label Marquis Classics that oboist Cynthia Steljes of Quartetto Gelato died on Friday. The report says the cause was "mesothelioma, a rare form of asbestos-related lung cancer."

Quartetto Gelato didn't occur to me the other day when I was blogging about the blurred line between classical and other categories of music. The four musicians are indeed a classical crossover act, and they manage to straddle the fence effortlessly. Their secret, I think, is that they keep their feet close together. On one side there might be an arrangement of a melody from Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and on the other, an Italian popular favorite such as "O sole mio."

The quartet's unusual configuration of instruments--usually oboe, violin, accordion, and cello--has a way of freshening familiar classical repertoire. On the group's first album, I especially enjoy the subtle substitution of oboe and accordion for the harmonium and one of the violins in Dvorak's Bagatelles.

The group's Web site says services for Cynthia Steljes will be held Thursday in Mississauga, Ontario.

Apparently Quartetto Gelato intends to keep performing; the Web site lists Saturday and Sunday concerts in Columbia, MD. It plans to be in these parts--at the University of Minnesota Morris--on April 21.

Dante and Opera

Posted at 5:26 PM on January 3, 2007 by Rex Levang

According to this story from the BBC, an Italian composer is writing an opera based on Dante's Divine Comedy. As the story explains, Marco Frisina's opera will take the spectator on a musical journey from the inferno (rock and rave music), through purgatory (Gregorian chant), to paradise (suggested by "classical style melodies").

Interesting thing is, according to one theory, Dante has already been used as operatic source material -- by perhaps the most popular opera composer of all time, Giacomo Puccini. In this interpretation, Dante's scheme is reflected in Puccini's "The Triptych" ("Il Trittico"), which is made up of three one-act operas, seemingly unrelated. The first act is a brutal tale of despair and violence (that would be the inferno). The second shows a nun, Sister Angelica, torn between her earthly faults and her heavenly aspirations (i.e. purgatory). The last, "Gianni Schicchi," is a comedy -- if not a divine one -- with a message of happiness through love.

True or not true? Difficult to say. Meanwhile, the organizers of the Frisina opera are hoping to have it staged at the Vatican, and "Il Trittico" is due to be performed at the Met later this season. If nothing else, Dante, in the near future, is likely to be a more visible author on the horizon of opera lovers. . . .

Music you can taste

Posted at 7:30 PM on January 4, 2007 by Alison Young

When I was young, I was unlike my peers in this way: I couldn't have music playing while I did my homework. I really wasn't that much of an oddball. I did listen to WLS in Chicago and learned all the words to the hits of the 70's, but I somehow never managed to learn how to filter out the music and concentrate on what I was doing. Music simply got the upper hand in my conscience. So if I wanted good grades, I needed to direct my full attention to studying and immerse myself in music at another time.

This past summer, cognitive psychologist and sometime musician Daniel Levitin published a book about how we perceive music. It's sort of a primer for an emerging discipline, the neuroscience of music. Called This is Your Brain on Music, it explores subjects such as why we're able, by age five, to recognize and remember songs; what makes us perceive music differently if we see it being played as opposed to just hearing it; and why music makes us feel a certain way, usually better!

Some of his discoveries have actually debunked a few of our cherished assumptions like the one that links listening to classical music to enhanced math ability. If his theory is right and there is little real connection, that might put some of those Baby Mozart CD's on the quick-sale rack.

But maybe that's not the worst thing for the longevity of classical music. The fact is that music is just something we need around. It shouldn't be something we want just so we can become better people, generally smarter or better studiers (as was definitely not the case with me.) Philosopher poet George Santayana wrote in The Life of Reason, "Music is essentially useless, as life is: but both have an ideal extension which lends utility to its conditions." The enjoyment and, to a certain degree, the understanding of music is our birthright. And Dr. Levitin's work, which also points out babies can’t tell the difference between sound and other senses like smell or taste, gives us some very left-brained scientific proof of that right.

But, of course, I can't help but wonder if Dr. Levitin was more inclined to be a scientist because he listened to lots of music.

D Is for Dark

Posted at 4:49 PM on January 5, 2007 by Rex Levang (6 Comments)

A while back, a listener contacted us about something that we had said on the air. We had referred to a certain key as "dark," and the question was, Just what does that mean?

Fair question, and the best response I could come up with is that "dark," in music, is often used to describe minor keys, and low-pitched instrumentation. Describing music is a tricky business, once you get past adjectives like "loud" and "soft," and I can understand why announcers and writers would use whatever creative means are available to try to convey the mostly non-verbal experience of music in words.

But calling music "dark" is modest, in comparison with some of the extravagant images and associations devised by musicians of the past in order to describe the different key signatures.

E-flat major is the key of love and devotion, according to one commentator. According to another, it is cruel and hard. D-flat major cannot laugh, but it can smile. E minor is like "a maiden robed in white with a rose-red bow on her breast." For still others, keys evoke colors. E major is green, according to Rimsky-Korsakov; or yellow, according to Amy Beach.

Reactions such as the above -- often contradictory, so you've been warned -- have been compiled on this fascinating Web page.

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The six-million-dollar soprano

Posted at 2:27 PM on January 6, 2007 by Alison Young (7 Comments)

Traveling musicians may have more to fear these days than leaving their Strad in a taxi or catching the flu in poorly ventilated airplanes.

A soprano who regularly sings with the New York City Opera Alison Trainer was working in Phoenix around Thanksgiving when she found herself chewed up by hundreds of bedbugs in her Hilton hotel room.

Most of us have never come across this vermin except when our mom would murmur "Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite" as we drifted off to sleep, but cimex lectularius were commonplace in the "olden days" before hygiene and DDT. And these small, brown, sort of flattened creatures, that look a little like ticks, are making a come-back, most likely because we've all become world travelers and they too travel quite well.

Bed bugs nap during the day, hiding in little crevices, usually waiting for their hosts to return. Once things are good and quiet, the bugs creep out, stick a little funnel-like tube in and suck away. Contrary to what one might imagine, the bugs are not a result of squalor. Cleanliness has nothing to do with an infestation so much as good hiding places and plenty of warm bodies. In fact, pristine hotels are often prime dwellings.

OK, just typing this gives me the heebie-jeebies. It's a subject for a horror movie, and I don't blame Alison Trainer one bit for her fear of ever bedding down again OR for taking the Hilton to task to the tune of six million bucks.

The only thing I'd like to know is why she didn't say anything for a whole week. Not to be overly graphic, but itchy bites and blood on the sheets should probably be a clue that you'd need to switch rooms.

Well, one thing is for sure: gigs or no gigs this year, this soprano has gotten her fifteen minutes of fame. And, if she wins her case, she can probably be a bit choosy about where she stays next time.

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Upbeat about downloads

Posted at 3:59 PM on January 9, 2007 by Don Lee

The January 8 page in my day planner carries this quotation from conductor Fritz Reiner: "Watch out for emergencies. They are your big chance."

Last year you might have thought the classical music recording industry faced a dire emergency. There was a double-digit decline in classical album sales from 2004 to 2005.

Today comes this news, reported by Musical America: Nielsen SoundScan says classical album sales were up 22.5 percent in 2006. That figure includes downloads. It may have taken us awhile, but it seems we geezers (and classical recording distributors) are finally figuring out how iTunes works.

E Is for Education

Posted at 8:40 AM on January 10, 2007 by Rex Levang

Primary education as it was practiced a few decades ago . . . challenging in its rigor, or completely divorced from life's realities?

Maybe some of each. In any case, I was recently going through an old box of household flotsam and jetsam and ran across part of a little eight-page newsletter that we used to receive as part of music class in grade school, in 1960s Duluth. This particular issue (of "Young Keyboard Jr") contains a synopsis of Wagner's "Lohengrin."

Here is how they thought they could address 10-year-olds at that time.

"Wicked woman," cried Frederick to his wife. "We accused an innocent girl! What will become of us?"

"Hush, you fool," replied Ortrud. "I have a plan. Brabant will be ours yet!"

Now Ortrud, who was really an enchantress, boasted, "I have not studied black magic in vain! I shall fill Elsa’s mind with doubts – she alone can make her Knight reveal his name and his mission. Then his magic powers will be broken!"

The author, Helen B. Kilduff, continues in the same vein, summarizing all of Act II of the opera, with musical examples. At the end of the piece, the reader is addressed directly, in boldface type:

Will the wedding continue? Will Ortrud’s evil spell force Elsa to question her Knight? What will happen if Lohengrin reveals all? In our final chapter next month, you will find out!

Bolcom's permission to borrow

Posted at 4:44 PM on January 11, 2007 by Don Lee

Composer William Bolcom is in the Twin Cities, preparing for VocalEssence's April festival celebrating his music. Bolcom is known for his eclecticism, evident in the massive work to be featured in the festival, his Songs of Innocence and Experience. It ranges from madrigals to modernism to reggae.

In a luncheon today at the Minneapolis Club, Bolcom tried to explain where that eclecticism comes from. Here's a partial list:

• From Monteverdi, whose concept of opera harked back to classic Greek drama, which Bolcom says used various means to appeal to all strata of society

• From Mozart, who tested ideas by rejecting them. When the ideas wouldn't go away, he knew they were good (which is how Bolcom accounts for a country/western setting of Blake's poem "The Shepherd").

• From John Cage, who once told Bolcom there are two kinds of people: those who immediately judge a thing as good or bad and those who take it all in and then decide.

Bolcom didn' t say whether he's ever followed Cage's example of making artistic decisions by rolling the dice.

Smashing Opera

Posted at 8:07 PM on January 11, 2007 by Alison Young

The other day I was asked a question that I've been asked at least a couple dozen times in the last few years. And no, it was not is it flutist or flautist (it's flutist!) The question was is classical music on its death march?

The question was part of a live interview and I was without any notes, so I pointed to two things off the top of my head, two performances that have stirred up an almost rock-concert hysteria and both of dreaded NEW classical music. One was the concert by nine emerging American composers, part of the annual Composer Institute at the Minnesota Orchestra last November, mentioned in this blog. The other is the Met's new opera by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's Tan Dun about the emperor who unified China and began building the Great Wall. The First Emperor is the final installment in a three-opera commission begun a decade ago. An epic of power and yearning, with an all-star cast, including Placido Domingo and Raise the Red Lantern's director Zhang Yimou, the opera melds West with East; in fact the opera begins with the classic smashing percussion sound of traditional Peking Opera. In spite of some mixed reviews, (the AP's reviewer called it "Fascinating but Flawed") the opera is sold out for the rest of its run. And it has earned a place with five other operas to be shown in High Def on the big screen this season; Emperor will play in two locations in the Twin Cities this weekend. I'll miss the theater presentation as I have the privilege of working the buttons that broadcast the Met to Minnesota, so I’ll be listening in without benefit of sets and costumes, but trust me, I’ll be listening.

So is classical music dying? I think people are not only hungry for classical music, but also hungry for NEW classical music. Tan Dun said "This subject - the first emperor trying to find a piece of music - it's a kind of a metaphor, spiritual metaphor, for him to find a destiny, find a spirit of the nation.”

And maybe for us, we’re finding the destiny of classical music through projects like these.

F is for Flutist (or Flautist)

Posted at 3:22 PM on January 12, 2007 by Rex Levang

Alison Young just raised a question that comes up from time to time: the one about flutists and flautists.

It wouldn't be the Web if people didn't weigh in on such questions, as they do on Wikipedia and bartleby.com. (Basically: they're both in the dictionary, but "flutist" has a much longer pedigree.) The surprise to me in all this was that the dictionary lists "FLAW-tist" as the first pronunciation of "flautist"; I don't believe I've ever heard anyone use that pronunciation.

For more on word origins, delivered by an expert, give a listen to Kerri Miller's interview with Dr. Anatoly Liberman of the U of M.

Tilting at Windmills

Posted at 1:19 PM on January 13, 2007 by Alison Young

We've all been hearing about the dire consequences of our rapidly depleting energy sources, green-house emissions and global warming. Leave it to an arts organization to be in the forefront of reducing their impact on planet earth by generating their own energy. The Glyndebourne Opera Festival in Sussex, England, on the grounds of a 700-year-old manor house, has recently submitted an application for a 230-foot, 850 kilowatt turbine to provide the power for their lights, heat and air-conditioning, hydraulic lifts, sewing machines, washer and dryers, hair-dryers, faxes and copiers, you name it – all the stuff that makes an opera happen.

Although assessments still need to be made on the archaeological and ecological impact, the turbine has gotten the green light from naturalist David Attenborough as well as a majority of the locals. Most interesting to me is in this naturally beautiful setting, the attitude seems to be one of excitement over this piece of machinery. Interest is less about whether the pristine view will be obstructed, and more that the windmill will become a symbol, a sort of physical reminder that solutions must be found to our energy needs before we either burn everything up or burn up the planet.

I wonder what it will take for us Americans to stop squabbling and put up these relatively cheap alternative energy generators in places that may be picturesque but still need energy sources. If a not-for-profit arts organization can do it, why not the rest of us?

Walk Away, Renee

Posted at 9:35 PM on January 14, 2007 by Valerie Kahler

Saw on the AP that Renee Fleming has had to bow out of the upcoming Toscanini tribute concert at Avery Fisher Hall due to illness. Bad tacos, probably. Anyway, the staff at AF will just have to peel one "e" off the dressing room door and make sure the towels say HIS instead of HERS as bass Rene Pape steps into the breach.

Story here.

New Morning the morning after

Posted at 5:26 PM on January 16, 2007 by Don Lee

Were you listening last night at 7:00 when Bill Morelock played a recording of New Morning for the World by Joseph Schwantner? It's a setting of Martin Luther King texts for narrator and orchestra. Would I be right to say that we're not hearing it as much now as we did in the years following its 1982 premiere?

Maybe neglect is what motivated Schwantner to introduce a version for chamber orchestra two years ago. I just noticed it on his Web site.

It's a colorful, stirring piece, one that deserves to be heard more often…more often than once a year on the King holiday. Do Dr. King's words have the effect of binding the music to his annual birthday celebration? What irony that would be.

G Is for Gordon (Ricky Ian...)

Posted at 3:31 PM on January 17, 2007 by Rex Levang

Ricky Ian Gordon is the New York-based composer of the new opera, "The Grapes of Wrath," based, of course, on the novel by John Steinbeck. The Minnesota Opera gives the premiere in a few weeks, and Gordon will be in town for the duration, so we'll probably be hearing from him; meanwhile, from a big profile in "Opera News," a few random quotes:

"You mention 'The Grapes of Wrath,' and people think, 'Ooooh. It's so depressing. The truth is what makes the book moving is that these people are so incredibly vibrant and alive. They're zealous. They're full of belief."

"Prosody is everything."

"I am a fount of ridiculous information. When I discovered Henze, I became so obsessed with 'Cantata della Fiaba Estrema'. . . . Or discovering Michael [he pauses to savor the moment] Tippett."

"Music is not something that flies beside my life. Music is my life."

"The world upsets me. I also feel utterly filled with joy by the world as well. But I take it all in. When I started putting work out, I was lie a little kid who was excited and wanted to say, 'Look what I made.' I still feel like that."

What's in a name?

Posted at 3:12 PM on January 19, 2007 by Alison Young

This is my first winter in Minnesota. Although I've lived in Chicago, Northern Michigan, New York and Cleveland; for the past eighteen years, I was a southerner. So this winter has been kind of fun for me, almost like a novelty. Just the other day it snowed; big gorgeous flakes gently falling, perfect for skiing. In fact, I went out in it, up and down the mini-hills at Como Park. I proudly came home and spoke authoritatively about this particular type of snow being just right for my Nordic skis. I even went so far as to wonder aloud what word the Eskimos would use for this kind of snow. "What's the word for fluffy, but packed, not too icy, but squeaks under the foot?" I asked. No sooner did that query come out of my mouth then I came across an article that completely debunked the idea that Eskimos have countless words for snow. For starters, there's not one Eskimo language (it's part of the Inuit or Yupik language family.) But the key fact is, the Eskimos have just about as many words to describe snow as we do: powder, sleet or slush.

It kind of got me thinking about music. When I taught high school flute students, they would often identify their pieces with the one-word "title" at the top of the page like canon, allegro, andante, or this clear identifier, piece. They had little perspective or maybe lacked curiosity about what criteria sets a Mozart Allegro apart from a Tchaikovsky Allegro. Well, what really does? Maybe it would be clearer if the composer created a distinctive title like "sonata-form collection of notes in the key of C moving rather rapidly and sounding a bit more colorful than the other collection of notes in C I wrote last year."

I guess the argument is that unless it's incidental music or an overture or tone-poem, music doesn’t really need to have a title that defines it, or even a word that describes it perfectly. The "title" is simply a direction to give the performer some idea of what tempo to take or what mood to create. An allegro is an allegro is an allegro, but what's inside the music - the reason notes are used instead of words - is what makes music something unto itself.

Maybe letting the urban legend melt away that there are all these wonderfully descriptive words in "Eskimo" for the many types of snow is not the end of the world. It might mean a single word is inadequate to describe that cold, white stuff. To say it right may even require music.

Lucia di Lammermoor Follies

Posted at 5:49 PM on January 19, 2007 by Rex Levang (7 Comments)

It's a little surprising to see that this week's Metropolitan Opera broadcast is "Lucia di Lammermoor," starring --- Maria Callas?

The explanation is that the Met has changed their calendar. They take a break from live performances for a couple weeks in January, and include in their broadcast schedule archival recordings -- such as this one from 1956. It was the only Saturday matinee appearance by this operatic superstar, who died in 1977.

There's a curious story about "Lucia" that figures in the career of another diva, and this one takes place a little closer to home. The first time that the Met performed "La Boheme" in Minnesota, during a tour in 1900, it was still a modern and somewhat unfamiliar opera. So to round out the evening -- and perhaps to give her fans what they really wanted -- the star soprano of the evening, the famous Nellie Melba, followed up a complete "Boheme" with the Mad Scene from "Lucia di Lammermoor."

What a combination!

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The leaves are brown and the sky is gray

Posted at 4:17 PM on January 20, 2007 by Alison Young

All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray. I've been for a walk on a winter’s day. I'd be safe and warm if I was in L.A. California dreamin' on such a winter’s day.

Sound familiar? Maybe those words have a special touch of poignancy on a cold January day like today in Minnesota.

When the Mamas and the Papas released Califonia Dreamin' in late 1965, the song kind of stalled out, until one bleak mid-winter February day the sentiment of those words had a particularly strong effect on people, especially up north, and the song hit the charts.

The tight harmony, the seemingly easy-going relationship of the four singers, and the folksy songs that only hint at a dark side made this group one of the most popular and influential bands during the sixties. And it was the main singer, Denny Doherty's clear tenor, sometimes punctuated with an achingly yearning growl, that gave me goose-bumps.

Stopped in to a church I passed along the way. Well I got down on my knees and I pretend to pray. You know the preacher liked the cold, he knows I'm gonna stay. California dreamin' on such a winter's day.

Mr. Doherty died this past week. He was just 66.

I may be a classical music host, but I often turn to music of all types for inspiration. Denny Doherty has left our world for hopefully a warmer and sunnier one, and his voice singing about an unfulfilled wish will be one on my lips this winter.

H Is for History Boys

Posted at 1:54 PM on January 25, 2007 by Rex Levang (28 Comments)

If you saw the recent movie, "The History Boys" (or the play that it's based on), you might be interested to know about its origins, according to its author:

Listen to Nicky Hytner on "Private Passions," Michael Berkeley’s always excellent programme, a superior and more interesting Desert Island Discs without its tiresome conventions. Most of Nick’s musical choices are quite spare (or "transparent" as Nick calls them), not caring for music as a warm bath, which is generally where my musical appreciations stops. So there’s Handel, Janácek, Sondheim, Haydn and Britten and ending with a wonderfully slow and sexy rendering of "Bewitched" by Ella Fitzgerald, with the words "I'll spring to him and sing to him / And worship the trousers that cling to him."

Nick doesn’t mention the stories of singing as a boy in the choir with the Halle under Barbirolli or how he was winkled out of Jewish prayers to bolster the singing of the Christian hymns, at Manchester Grammar School. But it reminds me of the stories as Nick told them to me and how vivid and touching they were, so after the programme I make notes to see if I can turn these anecdotes into a film.

--Alan Bennett, "Untold Stories"

And so the play came to exist from listening to the radio. . . .

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How do you say that again?

Posted at 9:26 AM on January 26, 2007 by Alison Young

Earlier this week, I barged in like a bull in a china shop on one of my colleagues introducing a piece of music on the air. I tried to blend into the background as he announced the conductor of the piece, Hungarian/American Antal Dorati. My colleague gave the name as DOR-uh-tee, accenting the first syllable. After he put the music on, I, a bit impolitely, blurted out "Uh, I think it's dor-AH-tee." And to that he said, "Well, you know, Alison, I dated a Hungarian once and she set me straight on the name."

So, as any self-respecting music host having just opened mouth and inserted foot, I looked up Dorati's name to see who was right. Well, we're both right; sort of. The Hungarians DO say it the way my colleague said it, and old Anton probably grew up referring to himself that way. But by the time he came to America and became a U.S. citizen, he changed his name to his preferred sort of Italianesque pronunciation. In fact, he even added an accent to the second syllable to be sure we all knew what he wanted.

So what about all this pronunciation stuff? I got a real kick out of how NPR handled the murder of Vincent Van Gogh's great-grandnephew Theo Van Gogh. We've all been saying the artist's name "van-GO" for so long, if the reporter suddenly started saying his name like the Dutch say it, "finn-GOFF," people would scratch their heads and be a bit confused just who they were talking about. But the murdered film-maker, Theo Van Gogh, is only fairly recent news to the rest of the world. So in one sentence, the reporter said the two names entirely differently.

The problem gets a bit thorny on the air at Classical Minnesota Public Radio with about 25 hard names, words and titles to pronounce seemingly all at once. I know we give it our best shot and try to say them in a way that is respectful to the origin, while also being easily understood by our (for the most part) American audience. We try to sound educated and knowledgeable without going overboard with, for instance, a perfectly executed Barcelona tongue-through-the-teeth Isaac Albeniz (al-BAY-neeth) or a Parisian close-lipped and swallowed Claude Debussy (di-byu-SEE) I’m sure we’re not always spot on, so, if I haven’t already opened a huge can of worms, I'd love to know if we're making sense to you on the air!

More Operatic Funnies

Posted at 5:47 PM on January 26, 2007 by Rex Levang

Via YouTube comes some video of operatic disasters, Department of Wagner. The commentary is in German; however, all you really need to know is that there are three clips here:

1. The man in the wings is prompting the chorus in their gestures. All goes well till the soloist's costume becomes unbuttoned.

2. Siegfried's Funeral Music.

3. The mighty hero cleaves the anvil in two, or tries to.

The commentator here seems to be saying that the first clip is an actual performance. But given the staginess, and the camera work, and the lipsynching, it just can't be. Still kind of funny, though!

Composer visited by aliens, gives birth to two-headed sheep

Posted at 4:52 PM on January 27, 2007 by Alison Young

Musician, writer and creative writing professor Daniel Stern's final piece before he died last week was one of his typical short stories called The Advancer. An obituary writer has a scheme to charge people for writing positive advance obituaries about them and bad ones about their enemies. At one point the cringing narrator says "I can never read an obituary again with innocent eyes." Reading those lines gave me a bit of a chill and I'll definitely need to pick up a copy of The Kenyon Review where the piece was published last Spring.

It was mostly our Music Director Rex Levang's idea, but since today, January 27th marks the 251st birthday of Mozart and he seems to have raked in all the attention last year, we checked out just who else was born today. It turned out to be a good many from Edouard Lalo to Brazilian Radames Gnattali and flute virtuoso Emmanuel Pahud. Most of the composers and performers I presented on my program this morning are long dead, so the "obituaries" I gave were fairly positive and sanitized. But it did give me a little thrill when I'd find a National Enquirer-esque tidbit to tell that might give the music an extra zip like these:

The Symphony in G Minor by Edouard Lalo, born January 27, 1823, was championed ardently by Sir Thomas Beecham, but largely ignored by everyone else.

Operetta composer Eduard Künneke, born January 27, 1885 really didn't care much for music and only composed in order to make money.

Brazilian Radames Gnattali, born January 27, 1906, would give his right arm and his favorite cavaquinho to compose classical music, but the wild night-life of Rio and the need to make money meant writing pop music including Brazilian choros.

Jack Brymer, OBE, born January 27, 1915, a clarinetist and saxophonist who came to classical music by way of pop music, failed to drop his characteristic jazzy vibrato along the way.

Born January 27, 1885, Showboat composer Jerome Kern suffered a heart attack when he was 54 and was told by his doctors to concentrate on film scores since Hollywood was way less stressful than Broadway. It only took another six years, and lots of good songs including Pick Yourself Up before Kern was killed from the stress.

And then there's that so-called genius from Salzburg, Wolfgang Mozart, born January 27, 1756. Did you know he never found a solid post for himself in Vienna? Some genius; couldn't even hold down a job!

Oh, dear, I guess this looking for the dirt exercise has gotten totally out-of-hand! Well, it was fun to take a look at all the composers and performers who came into the world in the dead of winter and went on to great success. I hope it was good listening too!

If You Liked Opus 111, You'll Just Love. . . .

Posted at 1:06 PM on January 31, 2007 by Rex Levang (150 Comments)

If you're familiar with Netflix, the big movie rental company, you probably know that they give recommendations to their customers, depending on what other people have viewed, and enjoyed. If you liked "Casablanca," you'll probably enjoy "The Maltese Falcon"; if you liked one Owen Wilson movie, you might enjoy the whole cycle; and so on.

And if you really delve into the rentals and the ratings from customers, some surprising correlations emerge. Apparently the same people who really like "The Wizard of Oz" also really like "The Silence of the Lambs." Far from obvious, but true nonetheless. ( More in the New York Times; registration required.) Netflix would like a computer algorithm to figure these deep patterns out, and is offering a hefty prize to the genius who can design it for them – one million dollars.

It strikes me that something like this could be really helpful in classical music. It's not uncommon for people to ask a question like: I went to a concert and really enjoyed [name of piece here]. What should I listen to next?

Sometimes there are pretty good guesses. If you like Mozart's "Eine kleine Nachtmusik," it seems like a safe bet that you'd enjoy some of his other serenades or divertimentos. If you like the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, you'll probably like the first concerto by Max Bruch—it seems to breathe much of the same atmosphere, and the two pieces are regularly paired on recordings.

On the other hand, the obvious choices can sometimes mislead. There must be more than one listener who has experienced, and loved, Pachelbel's Canon in D, and gone on to other music by Pachelbel, only to discover that none of his other pieces have quite the same appeal. You might expect people who love the lengthy Austrian symphonies of Gustav Mahler to love the lengthy Austrian symphonies of Anton Bruckner. In some cases they do. But in many cases, fans of Mahler and Bruckner are two separate groups: Mahler-philes love their composer's special brand of ambition (and think of Bruckner as something of an amateur), while Bruckner-philes adore the special openness of the Brucknerian world (and don't have much time for what they see as Mahler's self-absorption).

So when it comes to answering the musical question, What next? – we don't yet have all the answers.

Maybe someone should offer a prize.

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