tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-246916932008-07-30T19:31:59.301-04:00Jerry Bowlesnoreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-28877491691647074652008-07-30T19:31:00.001-04:002008-07-30T19:31:59.427-04:00

It’s already into the 5th week of five weeks of Greenwood. I was up to my eyebrows for a week or two before the start of camp finishing a piece for this summer. Every year an orchestra piece is commissioned for the final concert (through a fund named for Nathan Gottschalk, a former conductor at the camp), and this year I was the commissionee. I didn’t do anything except my usual duties during

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-48396750482888809282008-04-02T13:40:00.005-04:002008-04-02T14:25:57.666-04:00

I've been reading The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby lately. It's not much fun to read. I suppose it's too much to ask that a serious discussion of the intellectual and political state of the nation should read like P.G. Whodehouse, but one can alway hope. The basic contention, that there's an inherent strain of anti-intellectualism in America, and that it's riding particularly high

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-44648522992088503092007-06-29T09:03:00.000-04:002007-06-29T09:18:27.406-04:00

I'm just about to start loading my car to move out to Greenwood for the next five weeks. Greenwood is a music camp in Cummington, in Western Massachusetts, mainly devoted to chamber music (although all the kids play in the orchestra and they all sing in the chorus, both of which perform every week on the Saturday night concerts along with all the chamber music groups.) It's hard to say exactly

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-4718386816156559252007-06-13T11:06:00.000-04:002007-06-13T11:15:36.494-04:00

Shostakovich--String Quartet No. 7 Irving Fine--String Quartet Britten--Death In Venice--Act II Music of Philip Grange-- The Kingdom of Bones Lowry Dreamscap Diptych for oboe and harp Concerto for Solo Clarinet Radical and Symphonic Wind Band (This is a Cameo disc--2061--Philip Grange is a terrific composer who teaches a the University of Manchester and whose music

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-53760065354863024472007-06-11T23:09:00.000-04:002007-06-11T23:49:17.424-04:00

Every year in June I drive from Somerville, Ma. to Rainsville, Ala. to see my father, returning via Nashville to see my brother and his family. By the end of the school year, the idea of sitting in a car for two days there (and two days back) and listening to lots of music is appealing. (I also look forward to seeing my family, of course). I set out this morning early and got to

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-83017479447847441772007-06-07T10:01:00.000-04:002007-06-08T11:47:30.537-04:00

Carolyn Brown was a dancer in Merce Cunningham's Dance Company for twenty years from its very beginning at Black Mountain College in 1953; for a lot of those years she was also married to Earle Brown. She has recently published a memoir that time, which is called Chance and Curcumstance, and I've been reading it (and re-reading it) lately. At one point in the book she writes, "If one insists on

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-1168883294763281332007-01-15T11:41:00.000-05:002007-01-15T21:36:13.966-05:00

There have been a number of posting in different places lately about teaching composition. On Dec. 21 on the New Music Box, Randy Nordschow asked what was it that teachers taught. Kyle Gann recently, but regularly, more or less says that they can only be nasty brainwashers (that maybe is an exageration which might be considered a completely distortion of what he really had said, of course),

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-1164690144988925322006-11-27T23:57:00.000-05:002006-11-28T00:02:25.003-05:00

They have refined the means of distruction, abstract science almost visibly shining, it is so highly polished. Immaterial weapons no one could ever hold in their hands streak across darkness, across great distances, threading through mazes to arrive at targets that are concepts--- But one ancient certainty remains: war means blood, spilling from living bodies, means severed limbs,

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-1163142986930470252006-11-10T01:36:00.000-05:002006-11-10T02:43:37.836-05:00

For the last two and a half weeks, while I've been occupied with desparately trying to keep up with all the my work that I could, while learning far more that I ever hoped or wanted to know about plastic surgery on jury duty, I've also been reading about Varese--Malcolm MacDonald's book and Edgard Varese: Composer, Sound Sculptor, Visionary, a sort of coffee-table scholarly catalog of a big

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-1161362493718472332006-10-20T12:12:00.001-04:002006-10-20T12:41:57.080-04:00

I'm not particularly plugged into things, so it may not mean anything that I haven't seen any mention of the recent reissue, after thirty something years, of The Baroque Beatles Book, Joshua Rifkin's arrangements of early Beatles's songs not just in Baroque style, but as Baroque pieces. (I was told a story by somebody that at the time he did it Rifkin was a student at Princetone working with

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-1159495226168717822006-09-28T21:32:00.000-04:002006-09-28T22:00:26.180-04:00

ROPER: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law! MORE: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? ROPER: I'd cut down every law in England to do that! MORE: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you ---where would you hide, Roper, the law all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-1158289532102204322006-09-14T22:02:00.000-04:002006-09-15T09:23:50.636-04:00

I've been back in Boston for a little over a week, so this is sort of old news by now. On the Monday, the 28th of August (Bank Holiday), the Proms Chamber Music concert at Cadogan Hall included the first performance of two pieces by Colin Matthews. Commissioned by the BBC, these were added to two already existing ones. They were played by Lawrence Power and Simon Crawford-Phillips. Although

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-1156294457503810932006-08-22T20:51:00.000-04:002006-08-22T20:54:17.516-04:00

It is dreadful to shed blood. It is hard to learn to kill. It is wretched seeing people die, before their time has come. But we must learn to kill! But we must see people die before their time has come! But we must shed blood, so that no more, no more blood shall be shed. Bertold Brecht, translated by Mari Prockauskas

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-1154442746890011842006-08-01T10:25:00.000-04:002006-08-01T11:34:56.513-04:00

During the first four weeks at Greenwood there wasn't much time to do much else, as things begin to end, a few things. My time has largely been occupied with Loeffler Quartet, second movement, Tschaikovsky First Quartet, first movement, Lee Hyla Anhinga, Dvorak E major Quartet (#8?), first movement, Beethoven Op. 127, first movement (hard, hard, hard, hard), Nico Muhly You Could Have Asked Me,

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-1151672585283676632006-06-30T08:54:00.000-04:002006-06-30T09:03:05.296-04:00

A Late Fourth Firecrackers sounding like shots of handguns rattle The afternoon of early July at a late time For celebrations and it is an inglorious Fourth we have come to, like the birthday of a very Sick man: no simple affirmations will do today. In the dying wind the nation's stars and stripes slacken; I guess this must be the flag of its disposition Not to save itself. Only now, much

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-1151645038086915042006-06-30T01:19:00.000-04:002006-06-30T01:51:14.553-04:00

Tomorrow I head off to Cummington in Western Mass., where I teach at Greenwood. Greenwood is an amazing and wonderful place. (Actually Cummington is pretty interesting. William Cullen Bryant, early American poet, author of Thanantopsis and To a Waterfowl, lived there. Richard Wilbur lives there now. Copland wrote music for a film called The Cummington Story, which was about resettling German

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-1151323426611472532006-06-26T06:51:00.000-04:002006-06-26T08:03:46.626-04:00

Sick Puppy is the sort of acronyn that Steve Drury gets from his Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice at the New England Conservatory Summer School. I got back from a trip to southern regions in time to catch the last half of this year's installment, which featured Michael Finnissy. Wednesday night's concert included Unknown Ground, a piece for baritone with violin, 'cello,

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-1147872908462160422006-05-17T09:29:00.000-04:002006-05-17T10:11:07.330-04:00

There was previous discussion of the WHRB (the Harvard radio station) orgies which are underway at the moment, but some specific ones, not mentioned then, might be pointed out: Friday, May 26 5:00-10:00pm The Harold Shapero Orgy. Including the recording by David Kopp and me of the Four Hand Sonata--Shapero doesn't especially like it--too

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-1146597257404874632006-05-02T14:49:00.000-04:002006-05-02T15:14:17.416-04:00

A story from last week in my, as of today, soon-to-be nonexistent, theory class at Newton North High Schoolf: The class has about a dozen kids in it, mostly guitar players in rock bands. It's a more or less straight ahead classical harmony course. Periodically, to liven things up and keep them a little uncertain of what might be going on, I play them some kind of music: so far this year

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-1145892841084691042006-04-24T10:34:00.005-04:002006-04-24T11:34:01.103-04:00

I recently heard Ingrid Monson at Harvard do a talk on the interaction of jazz and recording. It caused me to think again about Ellington's Reminiscing In Tempo. For anybody who doesn't know, most jazz recordings until post World War II are about 3 -3 1/2 minutes long, since that was the limit of 78rpm recordings. Reminiscing In Tempo is unusual in that it was released as a single piece that

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-1145892446370841482006-04-24T10:34:00.004-04:002006-04-24T11:27:26.383-04:00

I recently heard Ingrid Monson at Harvard do a talk on the interaction of jazz and recording. It caused me to think again about Ellington's Reminiscing In Tempo. For anybody who doesn't know, most jazz recordings until post World War II are about 3 -3 1/2 minutes long, since that was the limit of 78rpm recordings. Reminiscing In Tempo is unusual in that it was released as a single piece that

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-1145892295550753242006-04-24T10:34:00.003-04:002006-04-24T11:24:55.563-04:00

I recently heard Ingrid Monson at Harvard do a talk on the interaction of jazz and recording. It caused me to think again about Ellington's Reminiscing In Tempo. For anybody who doesn't know, most jazz recordings until post World War II are about 3 -3 1/2 minutes long, since that was the limit of 78rpm recordings. Reminiscing In Tempo is unusual in that it was released as a single piece that

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-1145891558545432852006-04-24T10:34:00.002-04:002006-04-24T11:12:38.566-04:00

I recently heard Ingrid Monson at Harvard do a talk on the interaction of jazz and recording. It caused me to think again about Ellington's Reminiscing In Tempo. For anybody who doesn't know, most jazz recordings until post World War II are about 3 -3 1/2 minutes long, since that was the limit of 78rpm recordings. Reminiscing In Tempo is unusual in that it was released as a single piece that

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-1145890427178007152006-04-24T10:34:00.000-04:002006-04-24T10:53:47.220-04:00

I recently heard Ingrid Monson at Harvard do a talk on the interaction of jazz and recording. It caused me to think again about Ellington's Reminiscing In Tempo. For anybody who doesn't know, most jazz recordings until post World War II are about 3 -3 1/2 minutes long, since that was the limit of 78rpm recordings. Reminiscing In Tempo is unusual in that it was released as a single piece that

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24691693.post-1144855463729088162006-04-12T11:11:00.000-04:002006-04-12T11:24:23.743-04:00

I was recently involved in two concerts. A piano quartet I coach at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School did a concert for a group in Worcester, Ma., called Music Soiree. The played the Schumann Quartet, the first piano quartet by Gerald Barry, and pieces by students of mine, Jeremiah Klarman (13) and Stephen Feigenbaum (15). They played really well and they were a hit. The reason

Rodney Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16485567377686864129noreply@blogger.com