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Jerzy Chwialkowski is the author of The Da Capo Catalog of Classical Music Compositions published by the Da Capo Press in 1996. The Catalog is out of print; however, a limited number of new signed copies of the Catalog can be ordered from the author at www.jchwialkowski.webs.com
I’m curious enough to have the author send me his self-published book for review. Just because.
Um … I might have even be tempted, although the price is far too high, but when I read the description I had to laugh:
Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Opera San José is the professional opera company in San Jose, California, United States, founded in 1984 by Irene Dalis. In 1988, it formed a resident company of principal artists, for which it has purchased fourteen apartment units to provide rent-free accommodation. Until 2004, the company performed in the Montgomery Theater in San Jose’s Civic Auditorium complex. One of the keys to the company’s success over the years has been its fiscal prudence. The company opened its 2004-2005 season in the 1,119 seat California Theatre, a former vaudeville and film theatre designed by Weeks and Day. On opening day in 1927, this 1,848 seat movie palace was said to be the finest theater in California. With its magnificent Jazz Age décor, it was part of a wave of ornate theaters built to define downtowns all over the country. For nearly 50 years the theatre showed films, until it’s closure in 1973.
REALLY! This is absolutely ridiculous! They put a book together by grabbing info off the internet and then they charge $49 for it?
Yeah, I’m sure it’ll be a best seller. After you read the copy you buy may I borrow it? (And if they took things from my website, I wanna know!)
I love reading “High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles!” on the front.
Okay … if you really want to buy the book, you go right ahead. But don’t say I didn’t warn ya!
In Davis-Gardner’s version, the Pinkertons return to America with 4-year-old “Benji,” who’s explained away as an orphan adopted from the streets of Nagasaki.
With his Japanese features atop blonde hair, Benji is fated never quite to fit in either of his two worlds.
Fatefully, they decide to settle on the Illinois prairie, where Pinkerton has inherited the family farm after his father’s sudden death.
Oboe & Romance Book With CD (Sorry, I had a link to the book seller … you know … that big one, with the big name … but due to their issues with the state of California I have removed the link. You’ll need to find it elsewhere.)
These books feature 10 romantic originals for solo instrumentalists. The accompanying CD features solos with accompaniment, as well as accompaniment-only tracks for practice. Songs: Dreaming : Mood Romantic : Memory : A Song For You : Friends For Life : Nothing Has Changed : The Sound Of My Life : Teardrops : Everlasting Love : Livin’ Without You
I really think someone should put out some sort of book and CD that’s about feeling sad and morose … forget this romance stuff! ;-)
Mexican tenor Ignacio Jarquin recreates Caruso as his trunk is stolen, as he avoids the bayonets of soldiers evacuating the streets and takes refuge in a city of tents in Golden Gate Park.
I read the above here*.
Interesting to read this, as I’m currently reading a wonderful book called Earthquake Days; The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake & Fire. I was reading Caruso’s account of the quake the other day. In it are Caruso’s own words from The Theatre Mazazine in which he says
“I watch those that have already arrived, and presently some one comes and tries to take my trunks, saying they are his. I say, “No, they are mine”; but he does not go away. Then a soldier comes up to me; I tell him that this man wants to take my trunks and that I am Caruso, the artist who sang in “Carmen” the night before. He remembers me and makes the man who takes an interest in my baggage “skiddoo,” as the Americans say.”
My long-awaited second book, Boozehound, is now in stores. No, wait, mine is Listen to This. Today is the official release date, and I will celebrate, as is my long-standing custom, by placing a signed copy of the book in a little handmade boat in the shape of a swan and setting it loose in the waters of the Hudson River. Actually, I have never done any such thing, and am unlikely to do so now, but I like the image.
Most readers know by now that I don’t like to actually do serious reviews; as much as I can be quite critical, I hesitate being open about it. But recently I’ve been given* recordings of a few things and some books, and I think that the companies who provided these are expecting me to review them. So I guess I’ll have to hop to it!
Here are the things I’ve started to listen to and read so far (yes, I have more):
Elina Garanca: Habanera
Boulez/Vienna Philharmonic/Tetzlaff: Song of the Night
Measha Brueggergosman: Night & Dreams
Nico Muhly: A Good Understanding
Nico Muhly: I Drink The Air Before Me
Hahn/Higdon/Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerti
… and one book (although several have been sent)
Lotfi Mansouri: An Operatic Journey
I suppose these are the perks of running a blog. Truth is, though, that reviewing takes a lot of time, and it’s also a responsibility one shouldn’t take lightly. I can’t just say, “Don’t like it,” and feel good about things … or can I? Or perhaps, since I sign nothing saying I’m obligated and must review, I should only comment on the things I like. I do like to try and be kind and all that jazz.
It does make me admire the real reviewers out there. The amount of time it takes to truly listen and read — assuming they really do that! — is tremendous. I understand why one that I’ve read on occasion said, “I will not read things if you send them to me. Period.” He’s a big enough name that I’m sure it’s completely his choice about what he chooses to bash review.
At the moment I have Garanca on. But am I truly listening? No. I’m blogging! All I can say at the moment is I hear her and immediately think, “Why did you bag SF Opera for something else?” as we read all about last March. (Not that I was at ALL sorry with her wonderful replacement, Alice Coote!) And I think about the crazy video she has out promoting the recording, which made me not really want to hear it. Watch and see if you agree:
I don’t think I’m their target audience for that one!
I much prefer this video:
As to the Lotfi Mansouri book … heh … while we were at Marriage of Figaro on Tuesday night I wondered (but didn’t check) jokingly if we’d find his autobiography there. I would guess not. At the same time, everyone knows it’s out, and most know he dissed Runnicles, Willie Brown, Pamela Rosenberg, and so many more. So maybe it’s just better to go ahead and put it out there. Dunno. Maybe I’ll look when we attend the next opera. It won’t be this Friday, though; that’s the Opera in the Ballpark event. Oh … but maybe they’ll bring their store to the ballpark too? I’ll probably not get there, though; we’ll be searching for the garlic fries! (I’m guessing it’s more about the experience than the music …?
Many many thanks to Jillian … so visit her site. She gets all the credit!
“Patient as ever, Jamie listened carefully to the “A” of the fork, and sang again, producing a sound wedged somewhere in the crack between E-flat and D-sharp.”
I’m reading Martin Schuring’s book. He is saying you should keep your thumb on the bottom octave key when you go to the side. I have always taught my students not to do that. I understand his reason; when you use the side octave key it takes over and the bottom octave key closes. His point is that moving the thumb off of the octave key is an unnecessary and extra movement. We usually want to move as few fingers as possible. Makes sense, I suppose.
BUT … I have students who use both even when they aren’t coming from a bottom octave key note. So, for instance, if they are playing octave leaps from low A to high A they use go to both octave keys, moving the thumb when unnecessary.
So perhaps we should split the difference? When coming from a note (or going to a note) with the bottom octave key, the thumb could be on the bottom octave key. But why in the world would you move your thumb to that key when it doesn’t need to move at all?
I’d love to chat with him about this!
I must say, though, that I am enjoying his book tremendously. I went to the later chapter on our behavior … and I wish everyone would read that chapter! (I’d name it, but I foolishly left the book in the orchestra pit … oops!) I think this book should be required reading. Really.
I have a habit of finishing books in hotels. I sent off The Rest Is Noise from the downtown Omni in Los Angeles; Listen To This, which Farrar, Straus and Giroux will publish at the end of September, went forth last week from a Marriott in Park City, Utah. The new book is a panoramic collection of musical essays, taking in Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Verdi, Brahms, Marian Anderson, Frank Sinatra, Cecil Taylor, Led Zeppelin, Björk, Radiohead, Mitsuko Uchida, Esa-Pekka Salonen, John Luther Adams, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Bob Dylan, and the Malcolm X Shabazz High School Marching Band. In the Preface, I say that the aim is to “approach music not as a self-sufficient sphere but as a way of knowing the world.”
I’m definitely looking forward to Alex Ross’s new book!
Robert Bloom (1908-1994), one of the foremost oboists of his time and a former member of the Yale School of Music faculty, is the subject of a new biography. Robert Bloom: The Story of a Working Musician brings together essays, correnspondence, reviews, anecdotes and more. It also incorporates Bloom’s book on pedagogy dictated in 1975-1976: The Oboe, A Musical Instrument, as well as a disc of two chapters, one on reed-making and one a discography.
The above is from the Yale School of Music blog. RTWT. (No one says all musicians spell, eh?)
I see the book available at RDG. Once I start getting our finances back in order I’ll need to pick this one up.
Most oboists know that Martin Schuring has corrected the Barret Oboe Method. I still like the old one I own, just because of how it looks, but if you want to be able to easily read the thing you are best off purchasing Martin’s edition.
Now I’ve been informed that he has a new book out. Very cool, and you can bet I’ll be buying a copy!
I went with my cousin and his girlfriend to a performance by the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra of Beethoven’s Violin Concert in D major and F Major Sixth Symphony. It wasn’t anything spectacular; I mean, it wasn’t even a full orchestra performing.
I haven’t turned this blog into a money-making venture, but on occasion I’m blessed with little perks. I’ve been given tickets to concerts, a reed maker actually sent me some reeds (sadly they didn’t work for me), I get a little bit of income from sheet music ordered from Sheet Music Plus (thanks, everyone!), and now I’ve been sent a book to review. I am hoping to get it read more quickly than I might normally read a book, since I have some down time at the rehearsals when they are rehearsing the Brahms Violin Concert.
If you are wondering what I’m writing about, you feel like supporting me here in this little blog, or you just want to read about it and get me to shut up, here you go:
The grave voice of the oboe is heard from the bassoon, where, without becoming assertive, it gains a quality entirely unknown to the oboe and English horn. It is this quality that makes the bassoon the humorist par excellence of the orchestra. It is a reedy bass, very apt to recall to those who have had a country education the squalling tone of the homely instrument which the farmer’s boy fashions out of the stems of the pumpkin-vine.
The humor of the bassoon is an unconscious humor, and results from the use made of its abysmally solemn voice.
Heh. Ah, that abysmally solemn voice.
This is from the same place I found the oboe description. But I read that it’s from a book called How to Listen to Music by Henry Edward Krehbiel. If you go here you can read it via gutenberg. The book was first published in 1896.
to you. It’s excellent! It also just happens to be written by trumpeter David Burkhart, husband of a wonderful local oboist Deb Shidler. :-)
