sherman.bd at gmail

bernard sherman's site
AKA "Barney Sherman" in the Midwest, "David Sherman" when I lived in California (& went by my middle name), and "Bernard D. Sherman" in print. Analyze that!
My news

. classical radio host 7AM - 11AM on Iowa Public Radio Classical (any opinions you discern here are my own, not my employer's)

. recent enthusiasms:

blogroll

notable on the web

online media

books

recordings on my mind

books

inside early music
(oxford university press)

"Excellent . . .a great achievement." -The Times Literary Supplement

"I can't imagine a better book of its kind... readers will profit greatly, and they are addressed considerately and without condescension." - Richard Taruskin

. introduction
"a fluent essay stirring up controversy with a light touch
"- The Musical
Times

performing brahms
(cambridge university press)
Winner, Association for Recorded Sound Collections "Award for Excellence: Best Research in Recorded Classical Music"

"As all-embracing as you could imagine...I predict [it] will never be surpassed or superseded." - Sir Charles Mackerras

last updated April 2008 January 2009

reprinted from The New York Times, Early Music, etc.
. authenticity NEW!
. bach
. beethoven
. brahms
. chopin
. conducting, festivals, etc.
. hearing loss
. mozart
. weiss, byrd, mahler, strauss
. hildegard
. reagan's 1981 tax cut and its effects

Since 1998 the website that dares to ask: if a site goes up on the Web and nobody reads it, does it really exist?

 

notable on the web

MUSIC

NEW: January 24th, 2009 - This Is How People Listen to Classical Radio - in terms not of the "importance" of the piece, but of the emotional effect. Kudos to Greg Sandow for being able to put himself in the ear-space of a listener. This is how it's heard. I also appreciate that my failure to program high-dissonance modernism could be seen not as a lack of responsibility, but a quest for "a fuller view of life than screams alone can give." I also appreciated the comments by radio professional William Lang. Like him, I'm constantly looking for new music that will not drive listeners away. Observation: such music is far more likely to come from West of the Atlantic than East, probably for reasons involving funding and peer pressure.

NEW: January 16th, 2009 - RIP John Mortimer. Here's a rarity: a Christmas story for the NYT Book Review. Premise: Tiny Tim grows up to be a misanthrope who makes a fortune through insider trading on the London stock exchange. It's Christmas in 1894, and he's in North Africa with Oscar Wilde, Bosie, Colonel Picton (military aide to the bey), and a French novelist. Sir Tim says, "I never keep Christmas. In fact, I throw it away. I always found that if you kept Christmas it went bad quite quickly." What ensues? - read on: http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/03/28/specials/mortimer-tinytim.html

NEW: January 14th, 2009 - You have been reading Greg's five-part posts on where Classical Music is in 2009, right? Read it: http://www.artsjournal.com/sandow/ RE: post 1: I wrote the following comment to Greg: "Just a loose thought about yet another possible reason why the [classical-music] audience has aged [over the last half of the 20th c, relative to the population as a whole - Greg demonstrates it carefully and has some excellent ideas on why. I suggested adding one:} "(1) music became more and more a marker of group membership - it had been that for centuries, but became more so; (2) people had increasing numbers of options about which group to become a member of: more mobility; (3) crucially- "the young" increasingly became a group you could identify yourself as a member of. Having one's own music (to mark off "us," the young, from "them," the old) became increasingly important (4) having lots of different "musics" to choose among became increasingly possible (recording being a big part of this? And prosperity/leisure?)...... None of this is to replace anything you [Greg] said - it'd be just one more element."

January 14th, 2009 - Instructions for Puck: - oxytocin for Helena and Hermia; vasopressin for Lysander and Demetrius. Got it? [re "Anti-love drug may be ticket to bliss" - John Tierney's brilliant angle, in the New York Times]

December 23, 2008 - Year-end roundup on classical music - Ben Kieffer interviews me on Iowa Public Radio's The Exchange.

December - So... year-end roundup time. Entry #1: the winner of the Pulitzer Prize in music, David Lang's The Little Matchgirl Passion. Beautiful. The committee is no longer in an uptown ivory tower. It's also telling that no CD is out - the piece was distributed free online here. No waiting. The age of Youtube.

December - Entry # 2 Newspapers are dying and music-critic gigs disappearing, but I'm struck by how good the critics in the USA are in 2008. Having Anne Midgette on the staff of the WaPo is a prime example.

November - I gotta get back into this - haven't touched this site since April. Wanna think about 2 things: (1) why we like the music we like; (2) the question of music affecting life/personality/behavior. The latter strikes me as politically fraught, complex, nuanced, easy to get wrong. But it's what jumped out about me in this story from NPR. (3) Felix Mendelssohn. Strongly recommended background reading: Deborah Hertz's brilliant How Jews Became Germans.

April: Officer, he had a strong jaw, slight underbite, and furrowed brow: Forensic anthropologist Carolyn Wilkinson reconstructs the wigless head of J. S. Bach from a cast of his skull and other evidence. How he might have looked when he was not in full dress and you had just hired him to play for a wedding. - March, 2008

It's scientifically designed to be the most unpopular song ever written. Naturally, I love it. Especially the rapping opera singer - April 2008

Clap Your Hands Say Bravo! The above reminds me of a previous question about whether It's OK to Applaud between movements at a classical concert. The proscription against that sure chimed with the proscription against "histrionics." Anyway, I hold with those who say Express yourself! See: Alex's short essay and Greg's post .

. Essential: the 2nd edition of Lydia Goehr's The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works (published in 2007). Our core sense of what music IS (at least for classical fans) turns out to be about 200 years old.

Why not just give Alex Ross his Pulitzer right now and be done with it? (for The Rest Is Noise.) So I wrote in October. I'm delighted that the NY Times has since put it on its "10 Best Books of 2007" list and that the Washingon Post, LA Times, Economist, Time, Newsweek, and Slate put it on their best-of-year lists. His writing has by itself improved the future of music.- Jan 1, 2008

. The tone of moral outrage sounds Leon-Wieseltierian, and he bullies the defenseless, but Richard Taruskin on the state of classical music is not to be missed. (Much more essential, though, is his Oxford History of Western Music. There he had to seek the tone of the balanced observer - although his difficulties with that role are part of what make the book so utterly compelling.)- Nov. 2007

 

Recordings on my mind these days: here

 

some notable online radio/ lecture sources:

Open Source Radio, the model in harnessing the Web for creating radio, IS BACK!!!!

NPR's Planet Money often succeeds in making the arcane intuitive.

authors@google - amazing series of invited lectures at the corporate campus.

Thinking Allowed with Laurie Taylor on the BBC - great title, eh? Great show, too; listen online.

WGBH's "Forum" trove -huge collection of lectures and interviews from the Boston area.

bloggingheads.tv - political argument on a higher level than the Sunday talk shows.

Thoughtcast with Jenny Attiyeh - master interviewer at work.

 

 

. recordings I'm lovin': -

. Why do people still record Bach's Goldberg Variations ? Because they are Zhu Xiao-Mei, that's why: http://www.amazon.com/J-S-Bach-Variations-Goldberg/dp/B001IL0PDM/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_4 .

. Why do people still record Bach's solo cello suites? Because they are Jean-Guihen Queyras, that's why.

. Mel Gibson temporarily ruined Bach's St. Matthew Passion for me: his movie made me hear Bach's epic as a massive charge of deicide. I'd rather hear it as a more universal rumination on betrayal, guilt, and the sad acceptance of fate. The first one-per-part recording, by Paul McCreesh, did not help: its feeling was Gibsonesque, with its fast tempi, harsh articulation, and constant striving for drama. The 2008 recording by John Butt and the Dunedin Consort, however, is rehabilitating it for me. Partly the musical insights of phrasing and articulation, the astonishing clarity, and the the pure singing. Partly something deeper. Recommended.

. I love The Shins. I like the way James Mercer's lyrics play with cliches - evoking them then subverting them. (E.g., in Saint Simon, "Mercy's eyes are blue [evoking cliche, but then.... ]/ when she places them in front of you [were you expecting that image?]/ Nothing holds a Roman candle to ["Roman" transforms the "holds a candle to" cliche, making it resonate with the song] etc... ) I like how the music works with the words - sometimes by opposition. (Try A Comet Appears - the line "let's carve my aging face off/ fetch us a knife/ start with the eyes/ till all that's left is a grimacing smile "- such a violent image, such tender music. And the two adjectives earn their keep; the verbs, like "carve" and "fetch," do more of the work. As they should.) I like how he undermines the potential repetiveness of the strophic song through meaningfully varying the returns [Australia: "damned to be one of us, girl/ faced with the dodo's conundrum/ i felt like I could just fly/ but nothing happened every time I tried" --- later in the song becomes "dare to be one us, girl/ facing the android's conundrum/ i felt like I should just cry/ but nothing happens every time I take one on the chin..." - with a beautiful, surprising new harmony at "take one on the chin..".] I like his control of metaphor (in the same song - Australia - early on, the line "keep your wick in the air and your feet in the fetters" is a striking set of verbal sounds, but seems obscure; but much later in the song it connects to "you don't know how long I've been/ watching the lantern dim/ starved of oxygen..." And the last line: "so give me your hand and we'll jump out the window.." -- that chimes with the dodo's conundrum, maybe?) Above all the music... the man has always been known for his ability to write a hook, and his music is inventive way after the hook. Australia uses a polka rhythm, begins with a hook full of syncopation, and then has the melody start in the same non-tonic harmony that the hook reached up to. Similar invention right through to the end. Here's an interview with Mercer on the craft of songwriting: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/40237-interview-the-shins My top-10 Shins list, in alphabetical order: Australia; A Comet Appears; Kissing the Lipless; New Slang; The Past and Pending; Phantom Limb; Pink Bullets; Saint Simon; Sleeping Lessons; Those to Come.

. I love Ravel. I'm into his piano trio anrd piano concertos (notably, Krystian Zimerman). On Youtube you can watch the Beaux Arts Trio playing this Trio and Leon Fleisher play the Left-hand Concerto and Martha Argerich play the G Major! And Rattle/Berlin in La Valse ! - a You Tube not to be missed.

. Isabelle Georges and the Sirba Octet, Du Shtetl a New York, a joy. Check this Youtube out: Bei mir bist du scheyn.

. Barenboim on Beethoven - a 6-DVD set from EMI, On Discs 5 and 6 Barenboim gives masterclasses to young pianists, including Alessio Bax, Jonathan Biss, and Lang Lang. Sample this Youtube excerpt. E.g., the part about a piano crescendoing on a single note.

. Ludwig won't roll over: In fact, he's never had it better. Yes, I love golden-agers like Schnabel, Arrau, Kempff, Busch, Klemperer, Furtwaengler, Annie Fischer, the Quartetto Italiano, etc. But not the lead-age concept that we've declined. So many people devote so much of their lives to this music now that we shdn't be surprised that some of their playing is from the top. Examples: Mitsuko Uchida's op. 101; Andras Schiff's Op. 109; Garrick Ohlsson's op. 2 no 3; Paul Lewis's Op. 10 no 2; Jonathan Biss in op. 13; Peter Serkin in op. 27 no 1; the Takacs quartet cycle; the Vanska symphony cycle; Angela Hewitt's Op. 7 and her cellos sonatas with Daniel Muller-Schott;; .... more to come as I think of them. [BTW, I oppose Vanska's extreme literalism in principle, but the results shut me up.]

Newish recordings [as of April 2008] that have jumped out at me: Stephen Hough playing Chopin Ballades and Scherzos on Hyperion; in fact, anything by Stephen Hough, come to think of it; Trevor Pinnock's return to the Brandenburgs on Avie; Peter Watchorn's WTC book 1 on his own Musica Omnia label; Rene Jacobs in Don Giovanni on Harmonia mundi; Marc-Andre Hamelin's Haydn sonatas on Hyperion: the the the Shahams playing Prokofiev on their own label; Yevgeni Sudbin playing Scarlatti; Hausmusik playing Mendelssohn; Pierre Hantai playing Scarlatti. [I'll update this one of these days.]

Handelian bliss, part 1: Andrew Manze and the Academy of Ancient Music's recording of Handel's Op. 6 concertos - and btw, this opus is not just another set of Baroque concertos, but a cornucopia of invention (some of which is plagiarized, but who cares?) And this is not just another recording. Try the effortlessly overdotted rhythms at the beginning of op. 6 no 10; you can hear how to these players this style has become a natural language. And try the unhurried Allegro Moderato in the same concerto - the vitality comes from within, not from mindless briskness, and the performance makes you feel the music's almost childlike delight. The group plays with tons of character throughout. And you can download it.

Handelian bliss, part 2: Don't hold Gramophone's enthusiasm against it: the Messiah by the Dunedin Consort and John Butt really is inspired. Ideal for those who've heard the thing way too often and don't care if they ever hear it again (because it's the first attempt to record the Dublin premiere version, and it makes the "small-chorus" ideal so intimate); just as ideal for someone coming to it for the first time.

.If you like the idea of Ira Gershwin and Kurt Weill performing "The Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria" et al., you gotta hear them. Available at emusic.com and on a CD, "Tryout." (Also: don't miss their musical/ operetta Lady in the Dark.)

. I love Ben Folds. If Sasha Frere-Jones hates it, it's probably for me.Contrary to John McWhorter, of whom I'm a big fan, there is a kind of verbal intelligence available in the pop world even now. More on this later.

. Nigunim by Frank London, Lorin Sklamberg, and Uri Caine - moving, beautifu, (Thank you, LK.). Even though I don't romanticize the Chassidim as they seem to. Also: Srul Irving Glick's A Night at Heaven's Gate And, in a different vein, the Klezmatic's Woody Guthrie CDs.

. I love Rene Jacobs in Haydn's symphonies 91 & 92 on Harmonia mundi - check out 92's opening . What is more beautiful than a string section playing superbly and perfectly in tune? - Which brings us to....

. ...another exclusive! - sample Simon Rattle and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in the Brahms Tragic Overture. Rattle, who's often dissed as superficial, proves otherwise. I've heard other conductors project these inner voices but make them sound like too-precious detail. Here they are meaningful - and moving. Beautiful phrasing. (also: the strings in Rattle's new Berlin Mahler 9th on EMI. Phew!)

. Eric Ewazen's Down a River of Time is heartfelt. I like so much of what I hear from this unabashedly neo-romantic composer.

. When old means new: the Debussy release from Andante.com (early recordings, e.g., Coppola's La mer) . And at emusic, Sibelius bud Robert Kajanus conducting the Sibelius Fifth. Kajanus and Coppola bring a lightness, volatility and spontaneity to the music that would be hard to regain once the works became Classics.

. Mozart - Benjamin Britten and Sviatoslav Richter playing the first movement of the duo sonata in C, K. 521 (iTunes) strikes me as a mind-blowing synthesis of imagination, finesse, and wild energy. The musical equivalent of the right stage of hypomania. And Rene Jacob's recordings of Mozart's Don Giovanni (at youtube, here's a documentary), and Figaro and Cosi - no "hypo" to this mania!

. What's on my iTunes? Aside from the above?: Ray Charles, I Don't Need No Doctor; Martha and the Vandellas, Jimmy Mack (the stereo version), Miriam Makeba's The Click Song, Mahler Adagietto by Bruno Walter with the New York Phil,. (and his Mahler Fourth from Vienna in 1955, from the Andante set); Paul Robeson (anything I can get my hands on, but above all Balm in Gilead); Louis Jordan (Look out, sister, look out!); Neal Young's Harvest Moon; Death Cab for Cutie's Plans; Joni Mitchell's Hejira, Paul Simon's Only Living Boy in New York City; and lots of Handel and Bach (two opposites, really). And a lot of Bob Dylan (notably Blood on the Tracks, and John Wesley Harding, and Modern Times, and odd songs like Isis, and Tears of Rage, and Visions of Johanna, and and and...) and of the Beatles.

 

Some Blogs I Like:
I) Music:

. Alex Ross (www.therestisnoise.com)
. Greg Sandow (www.artsjournal.com/Sandow)
. Dial "M" for musicology (http://musicology.typepad.com/dialm/)
.
Think Denk (http://jeremydenk.net/blog/)
. http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/
. http://www.gfhandel.org/

. Michael Moeran on the arts in Iowa

II) Economics:
. Brad DeLong
. Tyler Cowen

. Paul Krugman
. James Surowiecki
. Dean Baker
. Economist's View
. Dani Rodrik
. Martin Wolf
. EconomicPrincipals
. Nouriel Roubini
. Felix Salmon
. CalculatedRisk

 

 

my news

recent-ish publications. My review of John Butt's Playing with History is in the autumn 2006 issue of The Journal of the American Musicological Society .
I guest-edited the fall issue of The Journal of Musicological Research (on 20th-c performance).
.
The BBC Music Magazine
liked this site:
"[A] refined voice... intriguing articles on early music and performance from a wide variety of publications. A cleansing experience after all this mud-slinging." - April 2002 (may I also mention my modesty and avoidance of self-promotion...?) . 
My chapter on "Conducting Early Music"
appears in The Cambridge Companion to Conducting (ed. Jose A. Bowen, 2004). Kind review here

. My archived shows
The Wisdom of Crowds with James Surowiecki and Joyce Berg. Better: just read The Wisdom of Crowds. My followup read will be Cass Sunstein's Infotopia. His review of The Wisdom of Crowds is well worth reading: http://www.powells.com/review/2004_06_24.html . BUT - see this new study http://palmdesert.ucr.edu/conferences/economica2007/erikson-gdi.pdf - showing why prediction markets are LESS successful than polls at predicting election outcomes.
my interview with Daniel Altman about his first book, Neoconomy (now available for $0.01 at Amazon...)
And an mp3 of Studs Terkel (on his book And They All Sang) - WFMT called with the opportunity to do a short interview with Studs, and everyone was on vacation, so... I did it. What an honor.
And I just interviewed the brilliant Rebecca Sheir of Alaska Public Radio about her Third Coast-award-winning documentary, The End as Beginning: An Audio Exploration of the Jewish View of Death. I'll play parts of it interspersed with the documentary on KSUI tomorrow. Here's the interview itself (17 minutes) rebecca mp3

. How to Invest- revealed! - a short transcript from when I used to host radio shows on this. Still pretty timely. (TIPS are yielding a little less, but not enough to make a difference to what Larry says.)

. Beta: a wiki for classical-radio producers in English-speaking countries, who need to think about ratings as well as musician: what pieces from the last 30 years would work in our format? (Not: what are the most important pieces, or the greatest pieces? Just... what will fit into the sound of classical radio?) Here's a beta version.

Contact me: sherman.bd at gmail

 

 

That review of my chapter in The Cambridge Companion to Conducting: "Sherman lucidly moderates between differing views concerning performance practice, from standpoints of control and authority to changing priorities and progress. He argues for a serious study of historical context and the composer's possible intentions, stating that such an approach would engender changes made as a result of 'rethinking the boundaries between work and performance' ...Several issues are addressed, most notably the dilemma of whether to conduct from the podium or the keyboard, awareness of the impact that recordings have had on performance aesthetics, and the democratization of perfomers versus the singular interpretation of the conductor-leader" - Joel Novarro, 19th-Century Music Review, vol. 2 no. 1

 

.

Extras

Kant Attack Ad: http://www.flixxy.com/kant-political-advertisement.htm



change in HR article (sample of my ghostwriting)
writing resume

music resume

shermanonly

WIP: ; KSUI playlist 1; KSUI playlist 2; ksui playlist 3

 

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