Best Composer Ever

It's time for an update. If you haven't been into the library to vote for your favorite composer, you should! Remember, it doesn't necessarily have to be the composer who wrote your favorite music. You can like other things about these composers, too. We're just trying to identify "Best in Show."

Speaking of which... Those who are probably not the "Best," but who are beloved of someone, the composers with one vote: Donizetti, Rameau, Ligeti, Francaix, Janacek, Faure, Bozza, Nielsen, Milhaud, Schumann, Schoenberg, Glass, Rossini, Chopin, Hildegard von Bingen, Villa-Lobos, Michael Haydn, Verdi, Larry Bell, Buxtehude, Salieri, Golijov, Holst, Elgar, Haydn, Corelli, and Vaughan Williams.

Then, of course, there are the "Slightly Better" composers, those with two votes--Strauss, Ravel, CPE Bach, Handel, Schubert, Messiaen, Poulenc, Vivaldi, Copland, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Lee Hartman, Scriabin, Piazzola, Wagner, Not-Brahms, Beethoven, Xenakis, Puccini, Debussy, and Reich--or three--Berg, George Crumb, Barber, Mahler, Mendelssohn, Berio, Prokofiev, and Cage.

And finally, the short list. With four votes, we have Ives, Mozart, Brahms, Britten, Rachmaninoff, and Stravinsky. Last update's favorite, Bartok, has five votes.

Shostakovich has eight votes.

Bach has nine.



There are hundreds of New Music people at this festival. Why is Bach winning?

Come in and vote!

Featured Work (Week 6)

Messiaen, Olivier (1908-1992)
[Quatuor pour la fin du temps]
Quartet for the End of Time: for clarinet, violin, violoncello, and piano

In the library: Durand, score (piano) and parts, two copies.

The instrumentation of the quartet is unusual (which I love in a piece), the cause this time being that Messiaen was writing for the instruments at hand. The composer was a French soldier during the Second World War; when France fell, the Germans gathered French soldiers into POW camps. Messiaen spent two years in these camps, first near Nancy--where he met clarinetist Henri Akoka and cellist Etienne Pasquier--and later in Stalag VIII-A near Goerlitz, Germany (now western Poland).

During their time in the camp at Nancy, Messiaen had begun a clarinet solo for his friend Akoka. After their transfer to Goerlitz (the three musicians were transferred together, by happy coincidence), he met a violinist, Jean le Boulaire, and began to compose a trio for his three friends. The clarinet solo, Abime les oiseaux, became the third movement of this trio. At the last minute, a piano was found, and Messiaen added a piano part for himself, and the trio became a quartet, the Quartet for the End of Time.

The Quatuor is divided into eight movements, based on a passage from Revelation that describes (surprisingly or not) the end of days. Several of the movements describe the passage of an angel, who walks upon the earth announcing that time shall cease. Others--the first and third in particular--are very worldly, contrasting the sound of birdsong (one of Messiaen's favorite motifs) with the splendor of the passing angel.

Quatuor pour la fin du temps was first performed in Stalag VIII-A in 1941. Messiaen claims that his audience numbered thousands, but his estimate is probably a little over-exuberant. Four hundred, Pasquier's still-impressive estimate, seems more likely.


For further reading: program notes from the Philharmonia Orchestra, Boston University's Messiaen Project, and (as always) Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians.

Shh...

It's quiet in the library today. You musicians and your "rehearsals" and your "lessons." What's that all about, anyway?

So I've been listening (over and over and over) to one of the Vivaldi concertos for the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet event. If you watch the DVD, you'll notice that there's a guitar part in the very beginning, for about four bars, and then three more bars starting at about measure 87. Vivaldi didn't actually write that part. He did write some guitar concertos, but this particular guitar is being treated as a continuo instrument, which he didn't.

So... There is no guitar part from which a guitarist (or, in our case, harpsichordist)can play, but the dancers needs something to dance to, and (more importantly) Maestro wants a guitar part. For harpsichord.



So I'm transcribing today. Come visit!

WE HAVE TAGBOARD!!

...and I'm really excited!

Changing Ting-Ting's mind

There was a mix up in the library today. Are we talking about a fuzzy mammal or a composer? There was a little bit of confusion between "beaver" and "Biber."

Also, there was an insane hatred for purple sharpies and a discussion regarding the hierarchy of sharpie colors.

Tango music reigned supreme again in the library as well as a random mix of Radiohead, the Strokes, Beck, and the like.

Hilary introduced us to "Making Fiends" which was hilarious. It's been a slow but hilarious day in the library over all.

Ting-ting needs to be convinced that ice skating is not scary at all and we all need to go ice skating one day. Also, we should really carry out Ting-Ting's idea of dancing on Fridays. Have you seen the fliers for the Santa Fe Ballet? I'm convinced I can do that move...or at least my attempt could be entertaining.

Binding Things!!!!!

Regarding reminisces of meeting Sara for the first time in the Chamber Music Library: I walked in and basically declared my love for binding things, which Sara in true librarian fashion took an immediate liking to. I immediately embarked on continuing to bind things and actually found some examples still in the chamber music library that I had cataloged and hence had my freakishly neat handwriting that we used to use a weird white pen to write with.

I even showed Sara a new way to bind smallish parts which involves some of that awesome reusable fibered tape and rolling the parts so as to slightly offset the pages enough that the tape adheres to each individual page. I learned that there actually exists a machine whereby one can bind parts in such a way as to eliminate the primitive roll and tape method. I learned this from Paul, the head librarian of the Minnesota Orchestra who I'm convinced just likes to use random machinery.

In any case, I should stop talking about binding though it seems to be a random passion of mine for no good reason. There are more important issues at hand such as talking about Salad Fingers with Sean (the non-contributing contributor) and Sara.

Library Update - Week 5

My dear minions:

Congratulations to Logan Bean and Hillary Schefter, who are now "Assistant Minions." They have spent at least ten hours in the library since the beginning of the festival, learning skills and applying their outside knowledge. They've been extremely proactive, creative, and dependable...and might want to consider a second career in library science?

Congratulations are also due to Sara Wollmacher and Steve Holden-Corbett, who have graduated to "Novice Minion." They have each spent at least five hours working in the library since the start of the summer; they have mastered the skills required of Probationers (and, in most cases, a couple of others); and they have shown unusual initiative, resourcefulness, and dependability.

There is a library blog now; it's delightfully nerdy, if you are delighted by nerdy things. Unfortunately, mostly it's me writing for it, so it's really especially nerdy--and kinda silly. If you have things to say (like, for example an incredible story about Larry Bell or bananas or virtuoso timpani) then you should write for it. Tell me that and I'll add you as an author. http://asmflibrary.blogspot.com

Checks are available in Student Services for those who worked during Weeks 2 and 3 and still haven't picked them up. The next pay date is 7/31. There are also new (improved!) time cards. If you want to make sure you're getting paid for the right hours, you might want to come in and double-check them. They should be correct--but better safe than sorry, right?

And of course, the work schedule is nearly ready for you to sign up for hours to work in Week 6 . Sign-up begins in the office at 11:00 (and there will be another email after we close today). See you soon--and thanks for all your hard work!

Best,

Sara Miller
Chamber Music Librarian

Language Barrier

Tango Music made my day in the library! 5 hours went slow but fast and I can't imagine how many books me and Glencora cataloged this afternoon.

My story in Mexico, it was dirty but for sure I learned from that experience.... Let's make the chamber music library "language barrier guaranteed" library =p

Tango Shmango

Today is "Tango Day" since I parked myself at the circulation desk and decidedly blasted the music of Libertango; totally awesome group (by the way) and you should check them out. Ting Ting told a funny story that was coated with drama and unfortunate effects of a language barrier.

I had contemplated dancing in the library today (a side effect of tango shmango music) but thought better of it and did not subject Ting Ting, Carol, Sara, or the poor (whiny) patrons to my poor dancing skills. It's a very frustrating thing: wanting to dance but being forced to harness yourself from the act.

Other than frightening Sara with awkward, scary faces, life at the Chamber Music Library has been very slow - but never unfulfilling. Oh and did you know that Sean now has an article in front of his name? Amazingness

Let's Dance!

It's Tango Day in the library — and all of The Box and all of Shelf 1 is cataloged. What a day!

Brahms

For Glencora:
Okay, so maybe there is such a thing as a rubber Brahms.

Marimba Solo or Haiku Excerpt?

We were shelving music this morning, and The Sean asked whether I was going to go see the Britten. Like, duh! They're still my ensemble, even if Celia is borrowing them for a while; of course I'm going to go see them play for Lucretia. What I said was actually, "Sure! I'll be there with bells on," which was a silly thing to say, since bells at a musical performance would be awfully disruptive. So I amended it: "Silent bells."

"Silent bells," said The Sean. "That sounds like a percussion solo."

"It does!" I said. "Except I'd remove it one more step: 'Echoes of Silent Bells'? 'Memories of Silent Bells'?"

The Sean had pointed out sometime earlier in the summer that marimba solo titles always (practically) have some reference to nature and some ridiculously atmospheric sensory image. Interestingly, those are also requirements for classical haiku.

So here's the fun challenge for the day: Which of the following are the actual titles of solos for marimba or xylophone, and which are excerpts from haiku by Matsuo Basho? Answers (and more!) in the comments.

a. echo rhythm

b. memento

c. autumn evening

d. the night is gone

e. from the kiri tree

f. butterflies, mountains, bamboo

g. over a withered moor

h. life's questions

i. enough to bend the leaves

j. thoughts and loneliness

k. from the edge of the frame

l. silence again

The Best Composer Ever

The Chamber Music Library is currently sponsoring a contest to determine the "Best Composer Ever." We're asking people — staff, mostly, but also patrons and passers-by — to vote for their favorite composer.


This might be your favorite composer to play...or your favorite composer to listen to...or your favorite composer to have a beer with...


(or in Scott's case, of course, a delicious non-alcoholic beverage).

Here are the standings so far:

With one vote, in no particular order: Schoenberg, Prokofiev, Larry Bell, Janacek, Mozart, Piazzola, Mahler, Poulenc, Rameau, Messiaen, Barber, Scriabin, Xenakis, Glass, Wagner, Strauss, M. Haydn, Villa-Lobos, Hildegard von Bingen, Buxtehude, Mendelssohn, Elgar, and Brahms.

With two votes, the slightly-more-awesome: Not-Brahms, Lee Hartman, Bach, Cage, Stravinsky, Ives, and Handel.

The front-runners, with three votes: Berg, Berio, Shostakovich, and George Crumb.

And the lead dog, with four whole votes, is Bela Bartok.


Then, of course, there are rather a lot of composers who are cool enough to get on the board, but not cool enough to get any signatures: Scarlatti, Birtwistle, Clara Schumann, Haydn, Corelli, C.P.E. Bach, Martinu, Saariaho, Golijov, Armand-Louis Couperin, Leonel Power, Ibert, Ravel, Ginastera, Harbison, Alan Fletcher, Debussy, Milhaud, Augusta Read Thomas, Bozza, John Adams, Knussen, Copland, Hindemith, Schubert, Webern, Britten, Fussell, Smetana, Tchaikovsky, and Dohnanyi.

So tell us... Who is your favorite composer?

Back to Bolivia

I'm going to keep naming this blog ridiculous things until someone creative comes up with an acceptable title. I will acknowledge that I'm kinda fond of "Back to Bolivia"--in that it's wacky--and also that the page is much prettier now than it was yesterday. We can do better. Excelsior!

It's passive-aggressive opera day!

...but I'm not going to write about it.