Issue 88

In the world of Classical Music, the end of the 19^th Century brought with it the end of the “Romantic Era”, which had followed on from the “Classical Period” after the death of Beethoven. Although these are somewhat arbitrary distinctions, they do serve to provide a pair of pretty useful designations that conveniently distinguish the majority of the music composed in those periods. They also represent boundaries between periods of reasonably consistent thinking about how composers would set about composing music. Composers – from a 30,000 foot viewpoint – are always making advances in the ideas governing how to conceive and write musical ideas. Usually those advances take place within the overall confines of generally-understood stylistic and structural guidelines. But composers can always be counted on to explore the boundaries of conventions and rules. And if in the breach they begin to establish some kind of acceptance, what you have are the makings of a new paradigm.

But what are these rules? It’s not like baseball, or football, or cricket. There is nothing black-and-white to say that something is verboten, with ten yards penalty and loss of down for a violation. Instead there is just the opprobrium of the community of self-appointed experts, and the disdain – or worse – of the audiences. The rules are basically a set of broadly-accepted conventions that describe how music should be written, supported by a framework of theoretical underpinnings which explain why it should be that way. These conventions address issues like: what sorts of things tend to make a melody acceptable to listen to; what combinations of notes sound harmonic when played together; what sequences (or progressions) of chords work best together; which instruments play best together; and how to assemble a short collection of musical episodes into a larger piece that is more satisfactory as a whole than the individual episodes heard in isolation. Taken together, these concepts form the basis of the theoretical study of musical form or structure.

The history of the underlying theories of musical structure reflects nothing more than listening to the folk tunes that ordinary people sing, and trying to establish what it is about them that renders them appealing. The earliest songs are simply repetitive verses. So the earliest efforts at establishing a theory of music were no more than attempts to codify what works well as a verse, and what doesn’t. These folk songs began to evolve into more sophisticated repetitions of verse–chorus, eventually reaching the verse–chorus–verse–chorus–bridge–verse–chorus structure which became the default framework of the 90-second pop song of the 50’s and 60’s. If you listen carefully, you will find that it still dominates ‘song-type’ popular music today. Just about everything Elton John ever wrote more or less follows this formula. Take this example, a verse–chorus–verse–chorus–bridge–chorus–coda variant:

Pioneers like Bach and Mozart took this basic verse–chorus–verse–chorus–bridge–verse–chorus structure, tore it apart, studied its basic structures, and ended up codifying it into something far more elaborate called Sonata Form. Classical Sonata Form has three parts, an Exposition, a Development section, and a Recapitulation. You can look at the Exposition as being the first verse – chorus – verse – chorus part, the Development section is the bridge, and the Recapitulation is the final verse – chorus. These are very broad brush strokes indeed, but hopefully they serve to get the point across.

The key point is that musical theory sought to explain why it was that good music sounded good. What it did not attempt to offer was a painting-by-numbers solution to the creative process of composition.

The Classical Period represents the full flowering of what you might call the Mozart picture of musical structure – the grand assemblage of Sonatas and other codified structures into suites, concertos, sonatas, symphonies, and more besides. But creative processes never stand still [and those that do quickly find themselves going stale]. In particular, Beethoven came along and started nibbling away at Mozart’s “rules”. He didn’t care if he was caught offside, to use the sporting analogy, as long as he was able to score a beautiful goal. And in music, there’s no referee to blow the whistle. Eventually, if enough people break enough of the rules, then the old rules are no longer relevant, and a set of new rules comes in and takes their place

That’s what happened when Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony (1824) arguably closed the book on the Classical Period and ushered in the Romantic Era. Composers like Berlioz came along with revolutionary music, although it is hard to look back today on Symphonie Fantastique of 1830 and see it as in any way revolutionary. But it was. In Classical Music, the “exposition”, “development”, “first” and “second” themes, and other such constructs were all defined in purely musical terms, such as the famous first four notes of Beethoven’s ubiquitous 5^th Symphony, and they served as the musical purpose around which the piece in question was built. In Symphonie Fantastique, however, the musical ideas are subservient to human concepts – “Scène aux champs”, “Marche au supplice”, “Un bal”, etc. Beethoven had dabbled with this idea himself in his 6^th Symphony, but the music itself still paid due respect to the requirements of classical symphonic structure. Berlioz, however, made the structure subservient to the musical soundscapes he was creating. Symphonie Fantastique was almost operatic in its scope:

As the century progressed, other composers came along and found yet more ways of writing music which departed from what was left of Mozart’s rule book. By the end of the century, Mahler was writing symphonies which were undoubtedly symphonic, and were undoubtedly tours-de-force of compositional technique…but the structures of these symphonies were staggeringly complex and convoluted. To this day, conductors approach some of these symphonies with great trepidation. Yet to the listener they hang together seamlessly from beginning to end.

Musical theorists studied these developments throughout the 19^th century, and for the most part managed to continue to analyze the great works of the period in the most painstaking detail. Why bother, you might ask? Well, the main reason is that if you are teaching skills like composition to the next generation of students, you want to be able to teach the underlying frameworks that reference works adhere to. As you develop your own musical language as a composer, it is generally helpful along the way to understand how Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Mahler composed, and to be able to compose exercise pieces using their styles. The idea is that, only if you understand the styles of the great masters that preceded you will you ever be able to truly develop your own voice.

With the Romantic Era drew to an abrupt and sudden close when the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky foisted his Rite of Spring onto an unsuspecting public. This was a profound shock to the musical establishment. The Rite of Spring is a truly extraordinary composition, and it changed absolutely everything. It is hard to overstate its impact. To the extent that there ever was a “Romantic Era” rulebook, Rite of Spring put it through a shredder. It is almost impossible to extract from the Rite of Spring its underlying musical essence, without ending up merely dissecting it into its component parts. It follows no straightforward structure that you can teach to promising students. Any attempt to ‘learn what it teaches’ results in nothing more than copycat works of limited value. It is what it is. And it has proven to be – without anything else coming close – the single most influential piece of classical music of the 20^th Century, and perhaps even ever:

All of this was no comfort to the musical establishment. How do we teach students about the latest music if we don’t even understand it ourselves? Even worse, the classical musical establishment was hopelessly elitist. [It still was in my own youth, some 50+ years later.] It tried to respond by looking down on new music it couldn’t understand, mostly, it must be said, from composers of a much, much younger generation. But these were highly charged times, and across many spheres of the Arts, not just in music, avant-garde movements were making a lot of noise in the corridors of power and influence. Of course, right at that moment, the Great War came along, and in its wake dealt a death blow to many of the old structures of the establishment. When peace returned, the time was ripe for major changes across all aspects of western society.

In the world of classical music, 1920’s Vienna became the hub of avant-garde and modernist thinking, centered around the great and famous Arnold Schoenberg. He, and his students Alban Berg and Anton Webern, established a school of thought that became most strongly associated with the so-called 12-tone movement. This movement espouses musical structures which – and this is a very loose description indeed – make use of sequences of 12 notes, called tone-rows, in which no two notes are the same [there are only 12 unique tones on a musical keyboard before you start repeating one octave above or below], and no two notes have an identical length.

Note that you don’t have to be a fundamentalist when it comes to tone rows. Berg in particular insisted a tone row didn’t have to contain all 12 tones. Here is a tone row you might recognize, and which Alban Berg himself might have been proud to have written!

But let’s not get too tied up with what 12-tone music is or isn’t. The key takeaway here is that Schoenberg pioneered a movement in which musical composition transitioned from being a musically creative enterprise, to one where it ended up being the result of some abstract application of a mostly philosophical set of considerations. Like Jackson Pollock throwing paint across the room at a canvas, music was no longer the designed output of a particular creative process, but became the almost arbitrary consequence of a series of non-musical machinations.

Crazy as this sounds, the so-called Second Viennese School became the most powerful influence on 20^th Century Classical Music. The original 12-tone ideas grew and evolved into what is more broadly categorized as Serial Music. I don’t really want to attempt to justify it, but frankly, Serialism has more in common with mathematical Set Theory than it does with Sonata Form. And it more or less infected the entirety of the Classical Music establishment during the decades following the Second World War. A whole generation – and more – of musicians were taught that modern composition was a theoretical exercise in artistic abstractions with little concern given to what the result might actually sound like, and more emphasis on grand nonsense such as the ‘totality of the listening experience’. Sure, that kind of thinking has a place…but that place ought to have been more like the three-man music department of an arts college in Grimsby, rather than the entirety of Western musical intelligentsia. I have to look back on it and ask: “What did it all really accomplish?”. I have to wonder who, other than academic musicians indoctrinated into that way of thinking, really listens to the music of Stockhausen, Boulez or Webern, other than out of idle curiosity?

The thing is, I’m not denying that 12-tone, serialism, whatever, can produce interesting music. It can. It did. What I’m denying is the artistic validity of its creative process – and, more specifically, questioning the artistic validity of a school of thought that was so deeply entrenched into the establishment, for such a long period of time. To the extent great music was created, it was created despite the process, and not because of it. For example, when the aforementioned Jackson Pollock drips paint on a canvas while in a drunken stupor, the result may or may not be magnificent. He might produce a dozen of these, and, for whatever reason, one of them just floats your boat. To my mind the technique itself is only of passing relevance, but for others it is revered as the essence and genius of his art. Sorry, but I’m not buying that. Are we really suggesting that inebriation and paint dripping can be celebrated as creative attributes? </Rant>

Arguably the most famous 12-tone work of all is Alban Berg’s magnum opus Lulu, an opera in 3 acts, unfinished on his death in 1935. A lot of it sounds like an orchestra that is still warming up. But even so, Lulu is actually a tour-de-force of technical composition. It contains deeply layered Wagnerian leitmotifs – in 12-tone – and far more complex related musical devices. The plot itself is very complex and nuanced in a way that is notably uncommon in other major operas. And then, there is the fact that both plot-wise and musically, Lulu is one great big palindrome. For example, at a simple level, for every character who appears in the first half there is a corresponding character who disappears in the second half. The overall rise-and-fall arc of the plot line is totally palindromic. I could go on, but I won’t.

At the very center of the opera is the famous “filmmusik”. According to Berg’s directions, this music is played by the orchestra while the audience watches a black-and-white film of Lulu first being put in prison, and then escaping. This piece of “filmmusik” is itself a total and complete palindrome in every detail. Each and every note is precisely mirrored about the center point. Here it is, if you would like to listen to it: [See if you can spot the center of symmetry. It’s not easy!]

Even today, Lulu ranks among the weirdest of weird operas. I once saw a British TV documentary following Sir Colin Davis directing a production of Lulu that was being prepared for a season at Covent Garden. At the end of what is a very difficult show, both to watch and to listen to, Davis is interviewed by the presenter. He is asked whether, having got to the point where he knows the work well enough to be able to conduct it, he actually enjoys it. Davis thinks about this before answering: “Enjoy it? No, I suppose not.” Then he brightens up: “But I’m getting there!”. A lot of people are apparently getting there. It is unlikely you will encounter a production of Lulu which is not totally sold out. I’d probably try and go myself – purely out of curiosity. But there’s no way my wife would come!

Finally, as we approach the approximate 100^th anniversary of Schoenberg’s Second Viennese School, I am glad to say that virtually every last vestige of the dreaded school of Serialism has pretty much had its day. I look back and I think that a whole century’s worth of musical progress – or at least 50 years’ worth of it – was essentially wasted. On the other hand, who can say what else could have taken its place?

There is no doubt that the classical music world is alive and well today, and that there is no obvious shortage of newly-composed works. But no longer do these works have to be discordant or atonal for the sake of it, nor must they pay homage to somebody’s avant-garde design principles. They are by and large considered pieces, written from the heart, and executed with great skill. We are still producing some wonderfully talented composers.

I’m going to deviate from the standard Vintage Whine topics just this once—because just as important as the heritage of innovation and genius in the creation of audio gear is the heritage of innovation and genius in the creation of music. And to state the obvious: without the music, there is no point in creating, using, or preserving audio gear.

A sidebar: I was a student librarian from grade school all the way through high school. To me, taking care of books and records was almost a sacred trust. As an adult, I had a side-business buying and selling antiquarian books, old books with historic, scientific, or artistic importance. More than once I bought entire personal libraries, collected with care over decades, that were about to be dumped by heirs who had no understanding of what had been collected, or why. Such uncaring disregard horrified and angered me on a level I can’t even convey, almost as much as seeing a child mistreated.

Almost.

So imagine that you were in charge of maintaining recordings of some of the great artists of modern times. As many of the artists are long dead, such recordings are irreplaceable. But equally irreplaceable are recordings made by living artists, as those recordings represent specific collaborations, specific vibes, recorded in a particular place at one particular point in time.

As the curator of such material, wouldn’t you do everything you could think of to preserve and protect that material for future generations? Wouldn’t you view it as almost a sacred trust?

I would. But as you probably know by now, many in the recording industry did not.

Just a few weeks ago, The New York Times broke the story: “The Day the Music Burned.” If the title of the story was disturbing, what it revealed was far more disturbing: in June of 2008, fire destroyed a 22,000 square foot corrugated metal building on the backlot of Universal Studios. Within that building was a fenced-off 2,400 square foot area filled with 18′ high shelving. The shelving was storage of archival recording masters for UMG, the Universal Music Group. These days, the UMG conglomerate is the biggest record company in the world.

What was lost?

It’s almost easier to list what wasn’t lost. Analog tape masters from the very beginning of analog tape, all the way up to rap artists from the ’90s. Masters of many of the biggest-selling records of all time—from Hoagy Carmichael and Rosemary Clooney up through Peter Frampton and Barry Gibb all the way to Primus and Common—are gone. Louis, Ella, Joni, Slim Harpo, Muddy Waters. Poof. A complete list may never be known, but the Times, once again, managed to piece together information from disparate sources. See if you can read this without becoming nauseous. I couldn’t.

There are plenty of questions floating around: First, why wasn’t valuable, irreplaceable material handled and stored with greater care? After all, much of the income of record companies comes from remastering, repackaging, and re-releasing material from their back catalogs. Common fiduciary sense would indicate that one should protect the money-makers. Second, how and why was the extensive loss concealed for 11 years? Many artists affected had no idea their assets had disappeared until they read about it in the first Times article. Third, what will the outcome of this mess be?

Well, there are several elements to consider with that last question. You can bet that artists who lost their masters will be seeking compensation of some sort; one class action suit has already been filed, and it’s likely the first of many. Prickly questions regarding who actually owned the masters—the artist, their label, the group—could drag out for years, and the answers may well vary on an artist-by-artist basis.

And here’s a particularly sticky and potentially ugly question, on top of all the others: did Vivendi SA, the French media group that owns UMG, suppress the release of information of the lost masters in order to keep UMG’s valuation high, because they were planning to sell the group? Had they withheld that information and gone through with the sale, release of that information after the sale would likely result in suits seeking damages in the billions. Before the first Times story, UMG’s valuation was pegged at $50 billion. Now, the possibility of a sale is on hold until things shake out a bit.

In purely pragmatic terms, the disclosure of the losses is a disaster for UMG: credibility and trust of artists has essentially vaporized, and Vivendi Chairman Arnaud de Puyfontaine’s arrogant dismissal of concerns over the loss of priceless works of artistic merit as “just noise” has not helped the public perception of UMG or Vivendi.

Basically, it’s a cluster. Just how bad a cluster? We may know in a decade or so.

After all: it took longer than that for the news of the damage to become public.

Welcome to Copper #88! The day this magazine goes live, July 1st, marks the halfway point in 2019. Having had a birthday recently, it certainly does seem that the months and years are zipping by. Back in the days when I still wrote checks, this would be about the time of year where I'd finally started writing the correct year in the date field of the check, halfway through the year. These days, without looking at my phone or calendar, I can rarely even tell you what month it is. It's a good thing I have deadlines to keep me alert. Dan Schwartz talks about TONE!; Richard Murison wonders if we're all just a bunch of navel-gazers; Jay Jay French plays Beatles tourist in Liverpool; Roy Hall has a rough go of it in Napa; Anne E. Johnson’s Off the Charts brings us lesser-known Deep Purple tracks, and Anne's Something Old/Something New features recent recordings of the lovely music of the unjustly unsung Fanny Mendelssohn; and I get up close and personal in The Audio Cynic, and in an atypical Vintage Whine, we look at the fate of vintage music---not vintage gear. Next issue---back to gear. B. Jan Montana concludes his look around THE Show, and I finally (!) wrap up my coverage of the Munich show. I was starting to think it'd run until the next Munich show. Our friend Woody Woodward will be back next issue with Part 3 of his piece on Django Reinhardt. Copper #88 wraps up with Charles Rodrigues as design critic, and a lovely Parting Shot from Maggie McFalls. ---and oh! Have a Happy 4th! Cheers, Leebs.

Part 1 of Jan Montana's report appeared in Copper #87---Ed.>

I don't know anything about modern analog equipment, but I'd rather spend money on a TriangleArt turntable than most of the visual art produced these days.

Yes the platter is floating, by magnetomotive force I'm told. Keep your hard drives away.

True Analog had a fine display of drivers using assorted cone materials available only to the OEM crowd (in large quantities, no doubt).

Despite their appearance, these $25K Apollo loudspeakers from Arion Audio are actually dipoles, both the towers and the woofers. The towers are powered by 2A3 Triode Lab amplifiers which belt out 3.5 watts per channel RMS from 20 - 20K at 8 ohms. It was surprising how clean and dynamic this system sounded at loud volumes on digital music. In my opinion, the flat panel woofers didn't really keep up with the towers despite their 500 watt amps.

My audio sensibilities have kept me from being much of a fan of Wilson speakers despite my respect for the person of Dave Wilson. Alma Audio from San Diego may have changed my mind with this demo featuring Luxman power, an Innuos server, and an MSB DAC. The L-509X amp with a pair of Tune Tot speakers are just under $20K.

Fans of full range dipoles should find these Canadian speakers from VKmusic.ca interesting. There must be many of them because the room was packed and I didn't get a chance to ask the host about the drivers. They sounded much like the Lowther dipoles I've heard at other shows.

These Ekahi speakers ($8900/pr.) from alaiaaudio.com, introduced at this show, featured top-flight Scan Speak drivers and very complicated, but beautiful, cabinets. They sounded very clean, smooth, and non-fatiguing, but might have benefited from a sub driver in the boxy stand.

I've liked 3 way ATC speakers with dome mids ever since I first heard them over 30 years ago. They've always impressed me with their lifelike presentation. These powered versions are no exception. ($50,000/pr.)

No idea what the protrusions from the front of these drivers are, but they don't appear in the images on the WaveTouch Audio website. The sound of these $4800/pr. Antero speakers reminded me of the classic BBC LS3A monitors.

Here's a nice view of the hotel pool from one of the demo rooms. Not sure why I took this photo but I'd enjoy the opportunity to drive the Vette.

At their show demo, CDT Audio from Buelton, CA presented these 2.1" mid-tweeters as "image enhancers" to one's existing home audio system. But the hand-outs they gave us referred to them as a "point-source speaker" with the "ability to produce all of the sound output". I went to their website for clarification, and there they are presented as mid-tweeters for car audio. Sounds like a very versatile speaker.

I always stop in at the Evolution Audio room, as much to say hello to the affable Jonathan Tinn and his engineer Kevin Malmgren, as to hear their excellent speakers. They didn't disappoint me with this version, which produced bass so serious I looked for a subwoofer. The heroic efforts Kevin employed to engineer the right sound can be seen in the exposed crossover.

The Canadian Muraudio electrostats feature curved panels, which is not unique. What is unique is that the panels are curved in the vertical dimension as well, which makes them more of a point source rather than a line array design. This offers a wider soundstage to accommodate people seated off to the side, standing along the back wall, or passed out on the floor. The broad dispersion doesn't stop at the 750 Hz. crossover point as the four bass drivers are arrayed to carry on through the midbass and bass frequencies. They integrate better with the panels than most of the other hybrids I've heard. Clever design, which solves many problems. Their sound reminded me of the beloved Quad 63s, but with bass and dynamics. ($15,000/pr.)

It's fun to discover sound playing from one of the demo rooms hours after the show has ended. The room was packed but I got a glimpse at the top of the speakers, and assumed they were large Magicos. But they seemed to have more body and soul, which I attributed to the first generation tapes played by Greg Beron, owner of United Home Audio. Once the room cleared out a little, I could see that these were Audio Solutions speakers. By their sound and appearance, I expected them to cost in the neighborhood of $50,000, but was surprised when the distributor told me they are made in Lithuania and retail for $10K/pr.

My fellow travelers to the THE Show, San Diego Music and Audio Guild members Paul Marble (left) and Joaquin Perez (right), agreed that this event was well worth the investment of time and money. In the center is THE Show's Operations Manager, Kyle Robertson, who not only did a terrific job of making everything run smoothly, he also went out of his way to make attendees feel welcome and appreciated.

“Hi Dad. How would you like to be my sous chef? I’m doing a charity event in Napa and I’ll need a assistant.”

Ilan, my son, was the winner of Top Chef, season two on Bravo TV. Since then he had become somewhat of a celebrity and had done dozens of cooking events around the country and abroad. I had to say yes.

I was flown out first class and chauffeured to a very fancy hotel in St. Helena, California. Our driver for the event was John Shafer—owner of Shafer Vineyards, a most prestigious producer in the Napa Valley. On arrival, I found a bottle of their Cabernet Sauvignon wine in my hotel room. He was a delightful man who regaled us with farming stories (the vineyard owners call themselves farmers) as he drove us around for supplies.

The organizers had invited most prior Top Chef winners to make one dish each for lunch. Among the attendees, apart from Ilan, were Richard Blais, Harold Dieterle, Hung Huynh, Stephanie Izard, and Kristen Kish.

Ilan had decided to make a tongue sandwich with romesco sauce on fried bread. It was truly delicious, but a little much for some people who couldn’t stomach the idea of eating tongue. As there were so many students from the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena (CIA) jockeying to help, there wasn’t much for me to do. Ilan had also invited his friend Rahul, who is now a partner in his Los Angeles vegan ramen restaurant, Ramen Hood.

My job was to prepare ingredients as told. At one point Ilan asked me to perform some task and I suggested I do it a different way.

Ilan looked at me seriously and said, “Dad! All I want to hear from you is, ‘Yes Chef!’”

“Yes Chef,” I answered. I did what I was told. [That HAS to be a first—Ed.]

We served our dish and, with few exceptions, the crowd of high rollers raved over Ilan’s food. Everyone had been given a cutting board to eat on and some circled the chefs, asking them to autograph their boards. One woman approached me and I explained that my son, standing nearby, was the chef. She soon returned and again asked for my autograph. I asked why.

“You created this Top Chef,” she said, beaming.

Another woman, dripping with jewelry, asked me to sign her board. When I explained that I wasn’t the chef, she looked at me in abject horror and backed away as if I was contagious.

Service over and surrounded by vineyards, we started drinking some amazing wines. A bunch of us then sauntered (staggered) over to the restaurant at the Meadowood Resort and, of course, Ilan was friendly with the head chef, which made for quite a lush meal. We also drank a few more bottles of wine. At one point, I mentioned that my favorite brewery in the world, Russian River Brewing Company in Santa Rosa, was only 25 miles away. Russian River brews a beer, Pliny the Elder, which in my opinion is the best beer ever made. Everyone agreed that it was time to stop drinking wine and start drinking beer.

Russian River Brewing Company was founded in 1997. While RRBC has recently opened a new brewpub in Windsor, California, the original premises in downtown Santa Rosa consists of a very long bar that is eternally crowded. Serving standard pub fare, it has the feel and look of a local pub in Anytown USA, but the beers they make are magical. Pliny, my favorite, is a double IPA. Double IPA means double the amount of hops, which makes the beer bitterer, but if properly made (and Pliny is) the addition of extra malt balances the bitters and turns it into something sublime. Many brewers make double IPAs but no one does it better than Russian River. It is not uncommon to see many a customer clutching his pint and smiling knowingly. A pint or two of Pliny and all is well with the world.

Refreshed from our outing to the brewery, we returned to St. Helena to a restaurant booked for all of the chefs and their helpers. By this time, we were all rather lifted, which made the chefs quite talkative. At one point some the chefs competed in showing their battle scars, which ranged from cuts (lots of them), to serious burns, to scald marks. They seemed to find this subject hilarious.

Dinner over, we all traipsed over to a local bar to listen to music. Hanging out with chefs is fascinating but their excesses in food and alcohol must take a toll on them, and I wouldn’t be able to do this all the time. Nevertheless, that weekend was an experience.

The next morning, hung over, the limo whisked me back to the airport. It was time for a detox.