"Your Mind is Blank and Empty"

Or: how to review a performance of a piece you've heard too many times.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

No that is not my head. I have hair.

When you leave off the inherent challenges in being  compensated for one's creative work, the lot of the professional classical music and/or opera critic is a pretty good one. We get to hear a lot of performances, of operatic and orchestral masterpieces that have survived into the fairly small club that is known as "the repertory." Occasionally we experience delicious rarities, epicure works by composers that we've heard of but have never seen played live. And finally, we occasionally get to hear and write about something new and genuinely innovative.

Tales from Typographic Oceans

Or…reflections on doing everything yourself with your hands tied behind your back.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Don't worry everybody, sh'cool. Photo creator unknown. 

Hi readers!

I feel compelled to step from behind the digital curtain for a moment and address something that happened on the blog last week. There was a post, The Idea of North reviewing the visiting Orchestre symphonique de Montréal at Carnegie Hall. On further examination, that particular piece was riddled with typographical errors. (Those errors have been corrected, and the persons doing these titles have now been sacked.)

What Music Critics Really Do

Photo by Ben McDaniel, taken at the Wirtsburg Gasthaus in Freiburg, Germany.

No, these aren't the "new water closet arrangements" at the Bayreuth Festival. But it does appear to be three urinals built from former Wagner tubas, the French horn/Saxhorn hybrids designed by Richard Wagner for performances of his Ring cycle. They're also used for performances of the last three Bruckner symphonies: the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth. 

In Memoriam: Howard Kissel, 1942-2012

Howard Kissel, 1942-2012.
Photo by Mary Blanco.

Former Daily News critic dies.
by Paul Pelkonen.
Howard Kissel, who spent 20 years as the theater and classical music critic at the New York Daily News, died on Friday. He was 70.

I first knew Howard when I was a young writer covering the New York Philharmonic. I remember meeting him at a Philharmonic cocktail function and discussing music. That was probably in 1998.

He was always a friendly face with an encouraging word for a writer, and a good colleague. The last time I saw him was at the Carnegie Hall press breakfast and season announcement a couple of weeks ago.

According to his bio on the Huffington Post, Howard is the only person to have served as the New York Film Critics Circle and the New York Drama Critics Circle. He wrote several books, including The Abominable Showman and The Art of Acting. He also worked as an actor, playing Woody Allen's manager in the classic Stardust Memories.


His most recent work was posted three days ago on the Huffington Post, where he worked as that publication's Cultural Tourist.

Contact the author: E-mail Superconductor editor Paul Pelkonen.

This Post is Bullsh*t

A Rumination on the Fine Art of Saying Nothing at All.

Photo by Fos53 from his blog. 

Dear readers of Superconductor:

Writing about modern classical music is difficult. And it's harder when, like me you do it every single day. The music critic must be able to turn the sounds of scratches, taps and squawks into readable prose that somehow manages to convey the sounds that we're hearing and, at the same time make the basic underlying ideas of a composer accessible to the man on the street.

One of the biggest stylistic problems is the tendency to write in "critic-speak." To use voluminous phrases that soar majestically from the pages of the Penguin Guide. To describe horns "ejaculating"--a favorite verb of early 20th century critic Ernest Newman. Or to write purple prose that sounds as if it were translated from German a la Richard Wagner.

Now, thanks to composer Dominic Irving, the task is a little easier. Mr. Irving has just launched the Contemporary Classical Composer Bullshit Generator, a web app that generates paragraphs of purple prose that would make Nicholas Slonimsky proud.

Here's an example from the Generator:
Rather than generatively writing chaotic instruments, I now prefer modulating flowing types of movement, in conjunction with highly coherent fanfares. I coined the term 'piece-piece-music' to describe my most radical approaches to polyphonic composition. My aim is simple - to inform all tense non-fragmentary-fundamentals, whilst simultaneously (and non-aesthetically) premiering the idea of 'improvisatory-chord-key-signatures'. I build upon the so-called 'conflicts of quasi-serialist juxtapositions', and transform them into what I term 'spatial-intra-semantic commission-experiences', which I see as a distinct improvement. My latest composition explores the boundaries between octaves and techniques, whilst utilising a highly contrasting attitude to a traditional, intellectual platform.


The shameful part is, that I've written paragraphs like this. Or at least taken them down when interviewing certain composers. I shall name no names.

Here's a few more samples, all generated this morning when I was playing around with the CCCBG:

My orchestration is the only one of its kind, due in part to the inclusion of highly-polyphonic synergy-triads, with a hint of so-called 'resonance-tetrachords'. My latest piece begins with a rather percussive 'time-signature-installation', before apparently transforming the existing fragmentary material into a more passively-semantic state, a process I term 'contrastingly-eclectic-premiering'.

Working extendedly means that my focus is always uniquely-based, and never periodic. My aim is simple - to mix all pro-neo-Romantic contrasting-phrases, whilst simultaneously (and contrapuntally) composing the idea of 'contemporary-imitation-materials'. The most important tip I can give anyone is this: Never compose soloistic perceptions; rather, endeavour to premiere your microtonally-avant-garde challenges. One of my most integral influences is the concept of contextualizing postmodern ensembles, which rejects my style and causes my material to become somewhat minimalistic. It must be remembered that cultivating interactions, especially if they are 12-tone (or even unified), should be avoided.

And then there's this whopper: 

It is plainly obvious that the act of influencing extended polyphonies causes one to become coherent (and sometimes even innovative), which is why I deny this approach, preferring instead to simply deny pre-conceivedly. Recently, I have started to embrace interactions as a strongly-psycho-serialist alternative to established forms of operatic noise-compositions, which has made my work simultaneously improvisatory. It is always crucial to seek a sense of 'developments of chord', never more so than today. It is plainly obvious that the act of superimposing tonal chord-structures causes one to become Expressionist (and sometimes even periodic), which is why I deny this approach, preferring instead to simply dominate melodically. The fact that transcriptions tend to (at least in their technological state), quartally study, even in the presence of a strong tessitura, is, you will agree, patently absurd.

Dear readers, I promise never to inflict paragraphs like these on you. Much. After all, brevity is wit.

If you've made it this far down the column, I want to thank you as I generate my own brand of classical music...er...bullshit, for being here for almost five years. There are more of you than when we started, and I thank you for your patience, your enthusiasm, and your occasional corrections. I'm heading to three straight nights of Tchaikovsky pieces, and hope that the following reviews will generate some pleasure in your lives.

In other words, I hope you continue to enjoy the blog.

All best,
Paul J. Pelkonen,
Editor,
Superconductor