In my last piece I noted quickly that music tends to go with religion, as indicating a life of pure ornament without further purpose, like a wayside shrine or a stained-glass window - indeed like everything treated as holy as opposed to useful. Here’s another perspective.
“They played Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata,” he continued. “Do you know the first presto? You do?” he cried. “Ugh! Ugh! It is a terrible thing, that sonata. And especially that part. And in general music is a dreadful thing. What is it? I don’t understand it. What is music? What does it do? And why does [...]
“My gift for composition is not the kind which will ever be ’successful.’ It is far too subjective for that. When I was a boy I thought I would invent an altogether new art (it would be half-sculpture and half-music, I thought). I began with sculpture and as you know that turned out disastrously. But [...]
Suzanne Vega has only one New York show scheduled on her tour supporting the new acoustic effort Suzanne Vega Close-Up, the late January show at Lincoln Center’s Allen Room. It sold out easily, and others may be added, but there is a slight melancholy about the fact, indicative of the city’s lethargy in celebrating its [...]
Had to happen, I suppose, that the man who took up wearing “I (Heart) SV” shirts in 2009 should get the opportunity to interview her in 2010. If you’ve spoken to me recently you know that the interview did not go nearly as smoothly as I wanted. But it’s up now and you can take [...]
On New Year’s Day, I listened to the Woodstock radio station WDST, which is just about the only independent radio station I’ve ever heard. They had their “top 100 songs of the decade.” Apparently this list was determined by listener vote in some way or other. The list is so idiosyncratic it reads like a [...]
Was with a friend last night and we discussed music that is astonishingly good but keeps you inside of your head too much, music you can listen to over and over again until your body feels diseased by the music’s mesmeric intensity. Well here’s Glenn Gould playing the conclusion of the first movement of Bach’s [...]
For the day, “Anniversary,” written by our best New York singer-songwriter, on September 11th, 2002. The link to the audio is here. The lyrics, which beautifully capture the city in many ways:
Fall and all attendant memories
Crowd the day with unrelated histories
Each year leaves its unresolving fantasies
To hang around each corner
Hang around each street.
Thick with ghosts, [...]
I spend the night just south of Youngstown. All day I had in my head the great song about Youngstown, the most expressive piece of art I know about these “rust belt” towns. Once they were iron, now rust.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVXYzcb3r-w
I went with a friend to see Suzanne Vega play an acoustic show at the Sanctuary Concerts in Chatham, New Jersey. If you rely on the radio to give you a sense of what’s happening in the pop music world, you haven’t heard much from Ms. Vega recently. In corporate radio terms she remains [...]