Regarding the hierarchical culture, it's interesting that the Berlin Philharmonics, who choose their own conductors in a democratic vote, picked a series of nice guys (after Karajan):
Abbado, Rattle, Petrenko.
(Rattle's early relationship with the orchestra was described by himself as "turbulent" but watching them perform over the years, I felt that these were birthpangs. Also, he had a lot of unfair detractors in Germany.)
Interestingly, they also always picked the candidates that embodied a turning away from Karajan's heavy, 19th century 'German' style.
Abbado over Maazel and Barenboim
Rattle over Barenboim
Petrenko over Thielemann
It is unsurprising to me that you have so many problems with conductors, the whole hierarchical culture and the intense competition in some ways overdetermined this kind of outcome. I try to avoid putting up Gergiev (he used to come through Kumamoto at least once a year and sometimes twice with the Marinsky Orchestra because of Yoko Nagae Ceschina, who was originally from Kumamoto) because of links to Putin and Celibidache, who was one of the main antagonists in the Abbe Conant story and now, Dutoit.
Solti was known as 'the screaming skull' but apparently mellowed in later years. Going further back, you hear stories of Reiner and Toscanini (rehearsal recordings like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=886gkXViXi8 make those stories of the music librarian 'pre-sawing' the batons so they would break easily, because they realized that after he broke a baton, he'd calm down, easier to give credence to)
A famous brass anecdote was Ravelli, the U of Mich band director, who often use to isolate a section and make each player perform the offending passage to humiliate them and one time, he went down and one by one, they misplayed the passage until the last one absolutely nailed it, and Ravelli, not missing a beat, says 'you were late for rehearsal last week, what were you doing?'
However, when you are in that environment, those kind of incidents become a sort of glue that the ensemble holds on to, It's no surprise that other high stress team environments (like the chef and the brigade de cuisine) exhibit similar tendencies.
I hope you all had some joy on Christmas Day yesterday. For me, it was basically a Thursday; my actual celebrating will happen tomorrow, when the clan gathers at my brother's house. Three of my four niblings being married now, with in-laws and all, getting us all together on the actual holiday is becoming a scheduling problem. But who cares? My grand-niece doesn't, I bet, being a happy-go-lucky two-year-old.
Maybe this belongs on a music thread, but I did mark Christmas Day as I usually do, by breaking out an old CD of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing Christmas carols. I may be an out-and-out atheist, but I have always said those Mormons can sing. My favorite piece on that CD has always been I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. I always thought they did it beautifully -- until this year when I learned the full story behind it and realized I've been listening to an abridged and prettified version of the original poem all these years. To be fair, it seems they're not the only, or even the first, to confine themselves to stanzas 1,2, and 7 for the lyrics.
My other favorite Christmas carol is Tom Lehrer's, of course. Almost as hilarious as Crucified Santa, you must admit.
Let us hope for a happier new year than the one we have just endured.
I mentioned that I thought Russian music was played best by Russian orchestras, and I think to a lesser extent, this is true with French orchestral music.
My go-to recordings for Ravel and Debussy for years were actually the Orchestre Symphonique du Montréal on Decca. Their long-time conductor (1978-2002) left acrimoniously after labor disputes and has since been the subject of multiple sexual assault allegations, but the orchestra's recordings are (mostly) excellent, both in performance and recording acoustics.
I don't know to what extent the non-UK residents on ObWi know about our Christmas TV traditions, but on the offchance you're interested, it is an inflexible fixture on the Beeb at 3 pm every Christmas day to broadcast the Monarch's message to the UK and the Commonwealth. I hadn't looked at it for years, and it seems like I was not alone, but this year we watched the King, and apparently it was the most watched TV moment this time. Also for many years, it has been a tradition for C4 to broadcast an Alternative Christmas message, and this year's was by Jimmy Kimmel. On the offchance anyone here is interested, here they are (they're quite short - Kimmel's in particular is a mere 5 minutes):
Santa on a cross - Christmas has become the holiday of very mixed metaphors.
Whatever y'all take away from the mish mash of Jesus in a manger + jolly saint Nick + elf on a shelf + Mariah Carey saying all she wants for Christmas is you, I send my very best wishes to you all for peace, joy, and love, now and in the new year.
The world's a crazy place, cherish your personal pockets of sanity and grace.
The center span as a unit ready to be hoisted into place is 195 feet. That includes the portions that sit on top the piers, so the distance between the pier faces is somewhat less. I think the clearance over the trail is a little higher than 20 feet; regardless, the arrow for the clearance is drawn very badly in the sense that the bottom is nowhere near the part of the trail directly below the deck.
In Northern California we got serious rain Tuesday. But Christmas Eve was merely mostly cloudy. And today is down to partly cloudy.
The notable weather feature is that we've had almost a week of daily highs of 57-58, with overnight lows of 54-56. I can't remember a time when the temperature has been so constant.
Here in North Central Texas, I went for a long, pleasant walk in a t-shirt and jeans on a partly cloudy, balmy autumn day. The temperature is likely to be several degrees over 80 by the end of the day.
Our Christmas Eve plans were canceled by weather. We received about 2" of rain here, and our friends in Ventura County were hit with an inch more than that. The path through L.A. in-between was 4-5". We were not going to drive into that.
Points south are clearer, so today we head to San Diego to wander around the Zoo with all of the other heathens.
It's always a crap shoot when you upload images with unusual sizes. Not just in WordPress, but in many social network applications. Click on the image of the overpass above to get a version that's not scrunched-up horizontally.
Yesterday it was 65 °F with high clouds here at the north end of the Colorado Front Range urban corridor. I took a ride to see the city’s new gift to the bicycle cult. The city seems to finish about one major construction project on the trail system every couple of years. The next one broke ground this month — it will close a half-mile gap in the trail system, including going under the six lanes of the second busiest street in town.
"From a Looney Tunes perspective—y'know, where everything's usually total mayhem with anvils droppin', dynamite explodin', and folks yellin' "Th-th-th-that's all, folks!"—here's the primary observations of life in Riga:..."
"From a multiculturalist perspective, which emphasizes the peaceful coexistence of diverse cultural groups, mutual respect for differences, preservation of cultural identities without forced assimilation, and enrichment through diversity (often via dialogue, accommodation, and shared norms), the article portrays Riga as a successful, lived example of multiculturalism in practice..."
On “Weekend music thread #10 Maurice Ravel”
Regarding the hierarchical culture, it's interesting that the Berlin Philharmonics, who choose their own conductors in a democratic vote, picked a series of nice guys (after Karajan):
Abbado, Rattle, Petrenko.
(Rattle's early relationship with the orchestra was described by himself as "turbulent" but watching them perform over the years, I felt that these were birthpangs. Also, he had a lot of unfair detractors in Germany.)
Interestingly, they also always picked the candidates that embodied a turning away from Karajan's heavy, 19th century 'German' style.
Abbado over Maazel and Barenboim
Rattle over Barenboim
Petrenko over Thielemann
On “Not the Christmas presents we want, but maybe the ones we deserve”
Wow, thanks!
Not sure I'm going to look at it, but good to have it "out there".
On “Weekend music thread #10 Maurice Ravel”
It is unsurprising to me that you have so many problems with conductors, the whole hierarchical culture and the intense competition in some ways overdetermined this kind of outcome. I try to avoid putting up Gergiev (he used to come through Kumamoto at least once a year and sometimes twice with the Marinsky Orchestra because of Yoko Nagae Ceschina, who was originally from Kumamoto) because of links to Putin and Celibidache, who was one of the main antagonists in the Abbe Conant story and now, Dutoit.
Solti was known as 'the screaming skull' but apparently mellowed in later years. Going further back, you hear stories of Reiner and Toscanini (rehearsal recordings like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=886gkXViXi8 make those stories of the music librarian 'pre-sawing' the batons so they would break easily, because they realized that after he broke a baton, he'd calm down, easier to give credence to)
A famous brass anecdote was Ravelli, the U of Mich band director, who often use to isolate a section and make each player perform the offending passage to humiliate them and one time, he went down and one by one, they misplayed the passage until the last one absolutely nailed it, and Ravelli, not missing a beat, says 'you were late for rehearsal last week, what were you doing?'
However, when you are in that environment, those kind of incidents become a sort of glue that the ensemble holds on to, It's no surprise that other high stress team environments (like the chef and the brigade de cuisine) exhibit similar tendencies.
On “An inscrutable Merry Christmas”
I hope you all had some joy on Christmas Day yesterday. For me, it was basically a Thursday; my actual celebrating will happen tomorrow, when the clan gathers at my brother's house. Three of my four niblings being married now, with in-laws and all, getting us all together on the actual holiday is becoming a scheduling problem. But who cares? My grand-niece doesn't, I bet, being a happy-go-lucky two-year-old.
Maybe this belongs on a music thread, but I did mark Christmas Day as I usually do, by breaking out an old CD of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing Christmas carols. I may be an out-and-out atheist, but I have always said those Mormons can sing. My favorite piece on that CD has always been I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. I always thought they did it beautifully -- until this year when I learned the full story behind it and realized I've been listening to an abridged and prettified version of the original poem all these years. To be fair, it seems they're not the only, or even the first, to confine themselves to stanzas 1,2, and 7 for the lyrics.
My other favorite Christmas carol is Tom Lehrer's, of course. Almost as hilarious as Crucified Santa, you must admit.
Let us hope for a happier new year than the one we have just endured.
--TP
On “Weekend music thread #10 Maurice Ravel”
"Their long-time conductor (1978-2002) left acrimoniously after labor disputes and has since been the subject of multiple sexual assault allegations"
Well, at least not Nazi-adjacent like von Karajan.
It can be SO hard to separate artistic excellence from non-artistic assholery. It works much better when all the artists are long dead.
Maybe that's why "vita brevis, ars longa" is important.
"
I mentioned that I thought Russian music was played best by Russian orchestras, and I think to a lesser extent, this is true with French orchestral music.
My go-to recordings for Ravel and Debussy for years were actually the Orchestre Symphonique du Montréal on Decca. Their long-time conductor (1978-2002) left acrimoniously after labor disputes and has since been the subject of multiple sexual assault allegations, but the orchestra's recordings are (mostly) excellent, both in performance and recording acoustics.
On “An inscrutable Merry Christmas”
I just finished mixing up my Boxing Day punch.
*rimshot*
"
I don't know to what extent the non-UK residents on ObWi know about our Christmas TV traditions, but on the offchance you're interested, it is an inflexible fixture on the Beeb at 3 pm every Christmas day to broadcast the Monarch's message to the UK and the Commonwealth. I hadn't looked at it for years, and it seems like I was not alone, but this year we watched the King, and apparently it was the most watched TV moment this time. Also for many years, it has been a tradition for C4 to broadcast an Alternative Christmas message, and this year's was by Jimmy Kimmel. On the offchance anyone here is interested, here they are (they're quite short - Kimmel's in particular is a mere 5 minutes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03BT66GQlkg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dergOG7vpJg
On “Weekend music thread #10 Maurice Ravel”
Thank you.
I think that Ravel in particular and French composers in general doesn’t get their due because they don’t write in the symphony format.
That's very true and I have been guilty of dismissing them as slightly gauche and inconsequential myself, being very German about it all, lol.
On “An inscrutable Merry Christmas”
I'm having a delightful day with my children and my father. It's warm for the time of year here also. Merry Christmas all.
"
Santa on a cross - Christmas has become the holiday of very mixed metaphors.
Whatever y'all take away from the mish mash of Jesus in a manger + jolly saint Nick + elf on a shelf + Mariah Carey saying all she wants for Christmas is you, I send my very best wishes to you all for peace, joy, and love, now and in the new year.
The world's a crazy place, cherish your personal pockets of sanity and grace.
"
The center span as a unit ready to be hoisted into place is 195 feet. That includes the portions that sit on top the piers, so the distance between the pier faces is somewhat less. I think the clearance over the trail is a little higher than 20 feet; regardless, the arrow for the clearance is drawn very badly in the sense that the bottom is nowhere near the part of the trail directly below the deck.
"
Infrastructure measurements.
"
we're almost 20F higher than 'normal' here in central NC.
almost 70F higher than the record low.
good times.
"
In Northern California we got serious rain Tuesday. But Christmas Eve was merely mostly cloudy. And today is down to partly cloudy.
The notable weather feature is that we've had almost a week of daily highs of 57-58, with overnight lows of 54-56. I can't remember a time when the temperature has been so constant.
"
Here in North Central Texas, I went for a long, pleasant walk in a t-shirt and jeans on a partly cloudy, balmy autumn day. The temperature is likely to be several degrees over 80 by the end of the day.
"
Our Christmas Eve plans were canceled by weather. We received about 2" of rain here, and our friends in Ventura County were hit with an inch more than that. The path through L.A. in-between was 4-5". We were not going to drive into that.
Points south are clearer, so today we head to San Diego to wander around the Zoo with all of the other heathens.
🎄 🎄 🎄
"
Merry winter solstice to everyone. I hope you all are safe and warm.
"
It's always a crap shoot when you upload images with unusual sizes. Not just in WordPress, but in many social network applications. Click on the image of the overpass above to get a version that's not scrunched-up horizontally.
"
Yesterday it was 65 °F with high clouds here at the north end of the Colorado Front Range urban corridor. I took a ride to see the city’s new gift to the bicycle cult. The city seems to finish about one major construction project on the trail system every couple of years. The next one broke ground this month — it will close a half-mile gap in the trail system, including going under the six lanes of the second busiest street in town.
On “Weekend Music Thread music thread #09 In Russia, Christmas music sings you!”
Thanks, Marty.
That was hilariously apropos, as anyone with a newborn will know.
On “An inscrutable Merry Christmas”
The best from me for everybody here as well, and wouldn't it be wonderful if 2026 were better! I'm not holding my breath, however.
On “Weekend Music Thread music thread #09 In Russia, Christmas music sings you!”
Too much Cyrillic, perhaps.
I fished it out of the spam folder. WordPress' built-in spam filter is a black-box trade secret. Too much Cyrillic is as good a guess as any.
On “Welcome to my world”
:)
"From a Looney Tunes perspective—y'know, where everything's usually total mayhem with anvils droppin', dynamite explodin', and folks yellin' "Th-th-th-that's all, folks!"—here's the primary observations of life in Riga:..."
Looney Tunes Analyze Riga's Quiet Courtesies
"
This could go on and on.
"From a multiculturalist perspective, which emphasizes the peaceful coexistence of diverse cultural groups, mutual respect for differences, preservation of cultural identities without forced assimilation, and enrichment through diversity (often via dialogue, accommodation, and shared norms), the article portrays Riga as a successful, lived example of multiculturalism in practice..."
Multiculturalism in Riga: Subtle Coexistence
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.