Exploring Music Blog with Bill McGlaughlin

character test

2009-03-04T10:06:00.000-08:00

Dvor�k G�tterd�mmerung She'd "McGlaughlin" ba�o Amazon:

Fin-De-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture by Carl E. Schorske

2009-02-16T06:00:00.000-08:00

A Very Valentine- Gertrude Stein

2009-02-13T06:02:00.000-08:00

Very fine is my valentine.
Very fine and very mine.
Very mine is my valentine very mine and very fine.
Very fine is my valentine and mine, very fine very
mine and mine is my valentine

Come and Be My Baby- Maya Angelou

2009-02-13T06:01:00.000-08:00

The highway is full of big cars
going nowhere fast
And folks is smoking anything that'll burn
Some people wrap their lives around a cocktail glass
And you sit wondering
where you're going to turn
I got it.
Come. And be my baby.

Some prophets say the world is gonna end tomorrow
But others say we've got a week or two
The paper is full of every kind of blooming horror
And you sit wondering
What you're gonna do.
I got it.
Come. And be my baby.

2009-02-13T06:00:00.000-08:00

In today's program, Bill mentioned the poem that Willem Mengelberg wrote into his score of Gustav Mahler's 5th Symphony Adagietto. Here's the complete text:

Wie ich dich liebe,
Du meine Sonne,
ich kann mit Worten Dir's nicht sagen
Nur meine Sehnsucht
kann ich Dir klagen
Und meine Liebe
Meine Wonne!

How I love you,
You, my sun,
I cannot find the words to tell you.
Only my longing
Can I lament to you,
And my love,
My delight!

On the lower margin, also in Mengelberg's writing, we read "If music is a language, then this is the proof. He [Mahler] tells her [Alma] in tones and sounds, in music."

Excerpted from Constantin Floros' Gustav Mahler- The Symphonies

Rabindranath Tagore's "I seem to have loved you..."

2009-02-13T05:59:00.000-08:00

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times,
In life after life, in age after age forever.
My spell-bound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms
In life after life, in age after age forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,
Its ancient tale of being apart or together,
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge
Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:
You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount
At the heart of time love of one for another.
We have played alongside millions of lovers, shared in the same
Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell -
Old love, but in shapes that renew and renew forever:

Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you,
The love of all man's days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life,
The memories of all loves merging with this one of ours -
And the songs of every poet both past and forever

Thomas Hardy- Lines to a Movement in Mozart's E-flat Symphony

2009-02-11T06:00:00.000-08:00

Show me again the time
When in the Junetide's prime
We flew by meads and mountains northerly! -
Yea, to such freshness, fairness, fulness, fineness, freeness,
Love lures life on.

Show me again the day
When from the sandy bay
We looked together upon the pestered sea! -
Yea, to such surging, swaying, sighing, swelling, shrinking,
Love lures life on.

Show me again the hour
When by the pinnacled tower
We eyed each other and feared futurity! -
Yea, to such bodings, broodings, beatings, blanchings, blessings,
Love lures life on.

Show me again just this:
The moment of that kiss
Away from the prancing folk, by the strawberry-tree! -
Yea, to such rashness, ratheness, rareness, ripeness, richness,
Love lures life on.

Dvor�k in Love

2009-02-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

Today Bill mentioned Josef Skvorecky's fictional book Dvor�k in Love, which tells of Dvor�k's relationship with Josephine. It was Josephine's favorite song, "Lasst Mich Allein," which made its way into the finale of Dvor�k's cello concerto.

This week on Exploring Music: A Lover and His Lass

2009-02-09T05:30:00.000-08:00

Composers influenced by the great elixir of love.

This week on Exploring Music: Listener's Choice, Part II

2009-01-22T07:52:00.000-08:00

Back again! Last year we gave an entire week of listener requests, but the suggestions just kept on coming. This edition includes African-American composers, a Japanese Koto ensemble playing Handel, and traditional Hawaiian pieces.

News from the Audio department

2009-01-22T07:51:00.001-08:00

Hi, Bill Siegmund here, longtime reader, first time blogger.

I'm the Technical Director for Exploring music, which means I push
all the buttons on the electronic things we use to record the show.
And what are those electronic things?

microphone: Audio Technica 4077 cardioid condenser
mic pre: Metric Halo MIO 2882 +DSP
A-D converter: Metric Halo MIO 2882 +DSP
Recorder: Apple Macintosh 1.67 GHz PPC G4, 15" w/ Glyph HD
Recorder: Tascam CD-RW2000 (backup)
Console: PRE BMX III-14
Ace technician: Rodney Belizaire
without him we're sunk!
Host facility: WQXR
Piano: Yamaha PF-500
i-Tunes: i-Tunes

Geeky enough for ya? Wait, there's more.

We record Bill using the above mentioned Metric Halo, which I'm nuts
about. It's a really cool single rackspace unit. (For those of you
scoring at home, a single rackspace is 19" wide and about as thick as
Gideon's Bible.) It's got eight channels of analog inputs and outputs
and 10 channels of digital inputs and outputs. It connects to a
computer via a Fire Wire cable, and this is how the audio gets
recorded to the Mac. The 2882 also has built-in effects, which we
exploit shamelessly. We put a little dynamics processing (compressors
& limiters) and equalization (EQ) on Bill McGlaughlin's voice. Each
show is a four channel recording as we record his microphone dry (no
effects), wet (with effects), and we record stereo tracks of the
piano. The piano also gets a little EQ and other top-secret
enhancements. I also make a rough mix of all the elements on the CD
recorder as a backup. The system is quite stable and we've never
needed to use the backup, although now I've probably jinxed it.

And how do we record the show, you ask? Very well, thank you. Bill M.
may also write a bit about the process, but what we do is take _A
TON_ of music and load it into i-Tunes. For each theme (a theme is a
week, or occasionally two weeks, of shows) our production team in
Chicago goes through the library at WFMT and pulls material to be
considered, then they make mp3s (low resolution audio files) of
everything, burn 'em onto DVDs and Fed-Ex them to Bill Mac in NYC.
Meanwhile, we also comb the library here at WQXR for more gems and
pull what seems interesting, and then drop all the audio into i-Tunes
(Bill Mac also uses a Mac - no relation).

During the taping of the show (OK - there isn't actually any tape
involved in the recording process, but it's still a convenient
expression, like Dial M for Murder) I play excerpts of each piece. So
Bill M. might introduce, say, the Finale of Wagner's G�tterd�mmerung
with Georg Solti and the Wiener Philharmoniker, and then I'll play
the first 30 seconds or so, and then I'll skip to the last minute of
the piece and play that before Bill says something like, "What a
fiery performance of the Finale of Wagner's G�tterd�mmerung with
Georg Solti and the Wiener Philharmoniker." (You see why I don't
write the scripts for the show.) Believe me, Bill has listened and
listened and listened to all of the performances we use on the show,
he knows them inside and out from his years as a musician and
conductor and music fan, so that when it comes time to record the
shows we need only hear enough of each cut to establish a tone, or
sometimes remember a detail that we want to point out. All the music
gets added in later by the crack production team in Chicago.

OK - that's enough blogging for now. If you've read this far, then I
invite you to tune back in and I'll tell more about the rest of the
production process, and add some photos, and talk about audio, and
music, and other possibly relevant but hopefully interesting things.
Thanks for reading, and of course thanks for listening.

Cheers,

Bill

--------------------------------------------------------

Bill Siegmund Digital Island Studios, LLC 71 West 23rd Street Suite 504 NY NY 10010 212.243.9753 vox 347.262.6951 cell

Secretary, Audio Engineering Society New York Section --------------------------------------------------------

12/8/08

2009-01-22T07:27:00.000-08:00

12/08/08

I just got a letter from a lovely woman in Houston. She mentioned
that she?d been born in Edinburgh, which may account for manner in
which she at first spelled my name ? McLaughlan ? undoubtedly more
common that the version which I inherited.

I once looked up the matter on the internet and found an article
claiming there are over four hundred variants of MacLachlan. Here?s
a link for anyone who might not have enough to do.
http://www.maclachlans.org/question.html

That same search produced a splendid jpg.

Looking at the figure of a Highland warrior brings back the memory of
a time when I was returning to the mainland from the Isle of Skye.
(I?d been on the road for a month and a half with the St. Louis
Symphony and entourage, all two hundred of them, and a week on remote
islands with more sheep than people seemed a good change of pace.) I
stopped into a little shop by the ferry terminal and the shopkeeper
became very animated. He pointed a finger and said, ?Don?t move,
I?ve got something to show you.?

He returned a minute later with book on the Highlands open to a page
showing a warrior in full regalia. ?It?s yourself, don?t you
see? From your clothes you might be Canadian or American, but your
people are from here.?

The print he showed me is remarkably like the jpg above. My brothers
and sister would agree that we?ve become less warlike over the years.

In any case, here?s my correspondence with Kathleen Anderson:

(feedback@exploringmusic.org) on Monday, December 01, 2008 at 11:20:36 name: kathleen anderson your home station & city: KUHF Houston, Tx

question or comment: I sent a message to one website and got a reply to
check this one. I had checked this one and was
unable to find the info. I was seeking. I wanted
to know the name of the singer who sang a song on
Bill McLaughlan's show (I think in Sept.) The
name of the song was "That Day". The singer is
apparently Bill's sweetie so I assume he had the
info. I need. I loved the song and would like to
know if there is a CD with that song on it. I
would appreciate if you could give me the info I
need. I did not find it on any of the playlists.
Thanks Kathleen Anderson

From: William McGlaughlin Date: December 1, 2008 1:41:31 PM EST

Hi Ms. Kathleen, (my daughter's name, by the way)

Sorry if we're late getting back to you. We've got a very small staff
and sometimes things get past us.

"That Day" was indeed sung by my inamorata, Karrin Allyson. It comes
from a Concord Jazz Album called "From Paris to Rio", a collection of
French and Brazilian material. Except for the last piece, which is
Italian. Don't ask. It just seemed to fit.

The melody is composed by Ennio Morricone for the movie "Cinema
Paradiso", a real heartbreaker. Or at least it seemed to work that
way on Stan Dunn. Mr. Dunn, a celebrated Bay Area jazz disc jockey
(KJAZ for many years), wrote beautiful lyrics to Morricone's tune and
gave them to Karrin, who loved them. Me too. When it came time to
record the album, I added a string quartet arrangement.

I just looked the album up on Amazon ? It's Audio CD 1999.

Thanks for taking the time to write and I'm delighted you enjoyed the
recording,

Bill McGlaughlin

Date: December 2, 2008 11:24:25 AM EST Dear Bill, thank you so much for this wonderful reply. I will certainly get the
CD. I listen to your show as often as I can. I love it and think you are
doing a terrific job. You mentioned Autumn in the reply and I did
love that series and was so delighted that you played "Autumn in
New York" a great favorite of my late husband and myself. I also
enjoyed the Brubeck number - an other favorite. I was fortunate to
hear him in person in New York in 1956 - we were both so young. I
got his autograph on a business card which I kept for years but gave
it to my son just recently as he was going to a concert given by Mr.
B in Santa Fe. He got his autograph on the same card more than forty
years later.

You are a great host. When I first heard you I thought you sounded
like Martin Scorcese - you still do. I loved the weeks you dedicated
to Mahler . That was easy to like as he is a favorite of mine. In
some shows you present music I normally would not be interested in
but you are so enthusiastic about the works and while I may not fall
in love with them I do develop an appreciation for them. Keep up the
great work. (I wonder if you plan to make CD's of the shows as it
would be a wonderful musical education for everyone.)

By the way we have another degree of connection - besides the name
Kathleen - I am a Scot - born and bred in Edinburgh. I came to this
country as a lass and met my husband here - in Texas no less. Again thank you for the information re the song and Ms Allyson - she
has a lovely voice. I look forward to many more hours of listening
to your show, Kathleen

Entry No. 2

2009-01-22T07:26:00.000-08:00

Thursday November 27, 2008 NYC 2:38pm

I?m starting to feel more optimistic about the blog. Some good omens
have appeared.

Yesterday I opened the file I?d written at the restaurant in Chelsea
on Tuesday and wondered if it would do. I also realize that I?d have
to quote some of the NYRB article for the piece to make sense. But
that?s copyrighted material. I looked at the NYRB web site, found the
permissions page and wrote a request.

When I got home from Dizzies? at Lincoln Center last night there was
a reply.

On Nov 26, 2008, at 10:55 PM, The New York Review of Books wrote: Dear Mr. McGlaughlin,

Thanks for your message. You are welcome to quote from the piece.

I'm a cellist and a big fan of your program and of St Paul Sunday
Morning. I'm delighted to learn that you read the NYRB. Please let
me know if we can be of any further help.

Best regards,

Matthew Howard Director of Electronic Publishing The New York Review of Books

At 8:35 PM +0000 11/26/08, Bill McGlaughlin wrote: Dear NYRB,

I am the host of Exploring Music, a classical music radio show that plays across the country (WQXR in NYC, WFMT in Chicago, etc.). I was
enjoying Tim Flannery's wonderful piece on Richard Fortey's Dry Store Room No. 1 and was struck by the parallel between the lives of paleontologists (say) and classical musicians.

We're instituting a blog for in which I'd love to be able to quote from Mr. Flannery's piece, starting with the passage on p. 40, column 3 which begins "Accountability was the tool...." and continuing with a little editing through the line on the top of column four, "London's Natural History Museum being an exception...."

Could you please let me know if this would be possible. If not, I can paraphrase the passage and point readers to your web site.

Thank you for your consideration,

Bill McGlaughlin

Leonard Bernstein

2009-01-20T14:18:00.001-08:00

December 1, 2008 - Chicago

I've been enjoying one of Bill's recent literary excursions celebrating Leonard Bernstein, that most gifted of American conductors and composers:

Other contributors include Tim Page and Joseph Horowitz, whom we featured on our Critics week, composer John Adams, and other writers intimately familiar with the Bernstein legacy. Barbara Haws, archivist for the New York Philharmonic, and Burton Bernstein, Leonard's brother, oversaw this compilation of essays focusing on Bernstein's years in New York.

Bill's chapter is titled "On the Podium: Intellect and Ecstasy," and Barbara Haws describes it in the introduction: "Bernstein's passion on the podium is perhaps the most indelible image he has left us. By evaluating Bernstein's marked conducting scores in the Philharmonic Archives and analyzing his televised performances, conductor, composer, and radio personality Bill McGlaughlin brings together the ephemeral with the workaday to understand better Bernstein's hold over the popular imagination and his remarkable rapport with musicians. Melding the flamboyant public display with the private meticulousness seen in the scores provides new insights, and confirms long-held assumptions about what Bernstein was hoping to achieve."

Not bad, Bill! Sounds like it was a fun project, and the end result is a fascinating and fitting tribute.

Jesse McQuarters, Producer, EM

Exploring blog 2

2009-01-19T23:04:00.000-08:00

Tuesday November 25, 2008 NYC 9:30pm

Okay, this is out of control. We made a visit to the mother ship last
week — WFMT in Chicago. During the couple of days we spent, I
mentioned a blog.

God help me, I had in mind the sort of thing my producer at MPR, Mary
Lee, let me get away with for some years — two or three times a year
Mary would ask me rather hesitantly if I’d mind contributing to the
St. Paul Sunday blog.

I’d grumpily agree and then a week or five later, Mary or Vaughn
Ormseth would ever so gently e-mail me and inquire if I’d given the
blog entry much consideration. Eventually, my back against the wall,
I’d cough something up and e-mail it in.

Last week, I inquired of our WFMT web expert how often a blog needed
to be updated. ‘At least every other day,” she replied crisply.
“WHAT??? Says I. Two or three times a year won’t do?”

I’m very old fashioned. But I may be instructable. And I got a lot of
instruction from my colleagues at WFMT. “It doesn’t have to be much.”
“A quick thought, two sentences, will do.” “Bill, you answer a lot of
the listener’s e-mails, you could just paste one in.”

And so forth. But I’m old-fashioned. I recall, (was it Pascal?) in a
letter to a friend. “I’d have written you a shorter letter but I
didn’t have the time.” Man, do I understand.

And so, here I am at a joint (very pleasant, actually, about three
blocks west of WQXR), the Viceroy on 8th Ave., having tried to
replace my spent energy with dinner and a couple of glasses of wine,
and I’m sitting here reading The New York Review of Books by poor
light, augmented by the tiny candle on the table. This is more than a
habit, it’s a way of life.

When I was leaving Philadelphia nearly a life ago, Joe Druian, a
cellist with the Philly Orchestra (his brother was Rafael, the
concertmaster in Cleveland) took me aside and said, “Young man, I
know you like to read. There is a journal you should subscribe to —
The New York Review of Books. It’s hard to find, but look at
newsstands and then cut out the coupon and subscribe.”

Turned out to be one of the great tips of a lifetime. I did find a
copy and I did subscribe and I’ve been reading it ever since.

The New York Review of Books was a lot for a music student to take
on. In the early days, I’d keep a dictionary and a pocket
encyclopedia by my side before I embarked on a new issue. I was so
happy to find the occasional article by Charles Rosen. At least I
could understand his take on Heinrich Schenker, a Viennese musical
analyst even if his findings on Roman Jakobson's linguistic analysis
of Shakespeare sonnets or on Tel Qual remained beyond my depth.

But I persisted. I still do. When I board the express train at 96th
Street to come to WQXR, I don’t linger over the research for the show
we’re trying to create, I read the New York Review of Books. Two
reasons — real study takes a desk and some better way of taking notes
than hanging on a subway strap allows (actually, the straps are gone,
a victim of changing times — it’s all aluminum now) and secondly, the
New York Review is a tabloid. It’s the same size and shape as the New
York Daily News. You can fold it and cling to the pole and even learn
to turn pages in the moments when the train isn’t rocking insanely
from side to side.

Which leads me to the moment. I’ve been sitting here at dinner, the
New York Review in front of me, adjusting the small candle, reading a
charming review by Tim Flannery of Richard Fortey’s book on the
Museum of Natural History in London. A delightful piece which
celebrates the lovely idiosyncrasies (I’ll spell check that later) of
the denizens (humans, that is — curators) of the Museum of Natural
History in London.

Here’s the bit that really caught me:

quote: NYRB, Dec. 4, 2008, p. 40, “Accountability was the tool that changed all of that. Scientists had
to be productive, and that meant publishing or perishing. It was no
longer good enough to work for years on the one great monograph that
would lay the foundations of an entire field. ....

The pressures that such changes engendered meant that many natural
history museums became war zones between staff and management during
the 1980s and 1990s.”

Dr. Fortey goes on to describe the havoc wreaked by the sudden
institution of entrance charges at the same time — the number of
visitors fell by more than half, severely reducing the income from
museum shops and cafes and leading to more bouts of budget cutting,
leaving collections languishing and expert staff members not being
replaced.

I’m of two minds about this passage. First, I’m completely charmed
and in league with everything Dr. Fortey says. But I’m also thinking
about the job we’ve inherited — those of us who love a branch of
human achievement which can easily come under fire in cost-cutting
times. Paleontology, for example. Or Classical music, for that matter.

It’s no longer enough to love music, devote yourself to it, study it
deeply, perform it lovingly and compellingly (well, for some folks,
that’s plenty and thanks a heap for your devotion and talent and
dedication). We’ve got to make a case for this thing we love so much.

If we don’t, the Margaret Thatchers (substitute your own favorite
bean-counting troglodyte) will cost account us right out of existence.

Classical music has never really paid its own way. Okay, in the
1780s, Mozart could rent a hall, hire an orchestra, write a set of
piano concerti, sell out the hall, rehearse the orchestra, print and
sell the tickets, and make a modest profit from playing a concert of
brand new masterpieces for a smallish crowd. But that’s an exception
and I’m sure my musicologist friends would be able to identify the
members of the nobility whose contributions subsidized those concerts.

But mostly, we’ve needed someone to help. The church, the nobility, a
rising merchant class who wanted the reflected glow of supporting
high art.

Nowadays, we can count on some support but we have to work to develop
that support.

Two or three seasons back, I sat on a panel which heard some
extraordinary young musicians — duos and larger ensembles — audition
for an important institution that helps deserving young musicians
develop their careers. A rainy early spring day at Merkin Auditorium.

Everyone whom we heard that day played beautifully. Some more
compellingly than others, but everyone acquitted himself well. In
addition, the young musicians were asked to introduce the works they
were playing to the committee. (not really necessary to introduce
Beethoven Spring Sonata to Ida Kavafian, but never mind.). Some of
the youngsters were brilliant in their presentation, some stiff, some
nervous. Some couldn’t get beyond telling us how much they loved the
music. Heartfelt incompetence has its appeal, the novelist John Barth
once remarked as does soulless virtuosity. He was speaking of making
love but the same principles apply, he pointed out, to writing. And
to speaking of music, I would add. What Barth wanted and so do I, is
committed, deeply felt virtuosity.

I got a call recently from Chamber Music America, asking me to speak
at their annual conference in New York in January. I agreed, happily.
I had an idea. We’re going to listen to two splendid young groups of
musicians, who will introduce their program and play. And then I’m
going to see if I can find anything to help them with their
presentation. This is an experiment. I’ve never tried to coach
someone in talking with the public.

Well, I’m going to haul myself back over to the 7th Ave. subway. I’ll
let you know how it turns out. G’d evening.