The occasions' sound of mirth puts cap on the start of another yuletide song (8)

New Music Boxes: Wring Out the Old. A musical cryptic crossword for year's end.
NewMusicBox, December 23, 2014.

Sinners, reconciled

arr. Guerrieri: The Wexford Carol (PDF, 99Kb)



Happy holidays from everyone at Soho the Dog HQ! Here's a carol arrangement to cleanse your aural palate in between walls of indiscriminate seasonal noise. Honestly, this has been one of those years when I think Christmas might be better off as, say, a quadrennial affair, like the World Cup. You know how the World Cup comes along, and people with no previous interest in the sport are straightaway really into it, to an unprecedented degree? Imagine if you could pull that off with platitudinous Christmas sentiments. ("Peace on earth? Goodwill to all? I suddenly find these notions INTRIGUINGLY COMPELLING" *strokes chin as eyes widen and flash*) Comfort and/or joy to everyone out there.

BONUS STOCKING STUFFER

"Hark! the Herald Angels Sing" (descant and harmonization by me, 2014) (PDF, 57 Kb)
The same thing in a lower key (PDF, 57 Kb)



A characteristically nutty descant I wrote for an otherwise beloved carol. I like my angels heralding in screaming bright G major, but that might be just a bit high for the end of a full lessons-and-carols service, and a half-century of Presbyterian hymnals have insisted on F, so take your pick.

In the flesh

Reviewing Schola Cantorum Boston.
Boston Globe, December 16, 2014.

You belong with

This Year's Model (or, That's What They Don't See). On In C, Taylor Swift, Heinrich Heine, Nazarene painters, Duke Ellington, and the canon.
NewMusicBox, December 12, 2014.

Universal adapter

Reviewing Charles Rosen, The Complete Columbia and Epic Album Collection.
Boston Globe, December 7, 2014.

Arrival gate

Boston: Passports and Layovers. Reviewing the Lorelei Ensemble and Roomful of Teeth.
NewMusicBox, December 5, 2014.

Something borrowed, something blue

Reviewing Odyssey Opera.
Boston Globe, November 24, 2014.

Squeeze theorem

Reviewing an evening with Michael Pisaro.
Boston Globe, November 13, 2014.

Organic fruit

Reviewing the Cantata Singers and Ensemble.
Boston Globe, November 11, 2014.

Reflecting telescope

Reviewing Richard Goode.
Boston Globe, November 4, 2014.

Back issues

I haven't updated this space for several months now, for a lot of reasons. I've been writing elsewhere. I've been trying to compose. I've been out of town. I've been....

Eh, who am I kidding? This is why I haven't been updating:

Which is not to say I haven't been working, though. So, in a bout of real-work avoidance, I've at least gone back and filled in a bunch of links from the interregnum—Boston Globe reviews, NewMusicBox articles, other appearances here and there. I've also compiled a master list of all the "Score" columns I've written for the Globe over the past couple years. (Links to that list and my NewMusicBox articles are now in the sidebar, too.) Critic-at-Large Moe (pictured above, on left) would like you to know that he, too, has not been idle.

Anyway, a drink. This one is named in honor of Henri Poincaré, since I was reading a biography of him, and full of grapefruit, because I love grapefruit.

3-Sphere

First, make some grapefruit-infused gin: add the peel (no pith) and juice of one grapefruit to 500ml of gin, let it steep for a week, then strain it through a coffee filter.

Then, combine:

2 oz. grapefruit-infused gin
1 oz. grapefruit juice
½ oz. Cocchi Americano
a couple dashes of grapefruit bitters

Stir with cracked ice and strain into the closest thing you have to a non-Euclidean glass.

XL Tall

Reviewing Dinosaur Annex.
Boston Globe, October 27, 2014.

Reverb and chorus

Boston: A Fight for Love and Glory—Pipeline! at 25. Reviewing Crazy Alice, Quintaine Americana, Kudgel, Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, and Bulkhead.
NewMusicBox, October 16, 2014.

Δισσος μυθος

Sounds Heard: Christian Wolff, Pianist: Pieces.
NewMusicBox, October 14, 2014.

Chic and unique with lots of kick like a cleat

Reviewing Mark Padmore and Jonathan Biss.
Boston Globe, October 14, 2014.

Diplomatic passage

An interview with David Grubbs.
Boston Globe, October 9, 2014.

Blink comparator

Reviewing Stefan Jackiw and Anna Polonsky.
Boston Globe, October 7, 2014.

Dress for success

Reviewing the Parker Quartet.
Boston Globe, October 2, 2014.

Makers' Mark

For Guerilla Opera, every production is a premiere.
Boston Globe, September 20, 2014.

Afterimage

Reviewing the Eroica Trio.
Boston Globe, September 16, 2014.

Alternating current

Reviewing Akiko Hatakeyama.
Boston Globe, September 11, 2014.

This powerful magnet, that left 'em stagnant

Sound and Fury. Reviewing Jan Swafford's Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph.
The American Scholar, Autumn 2014.

Look and feel

Style Points.
NewMusicBox, August 27, 2014.

Spin the dial

Sounds Heard: The Things We Did [This] Summer. Pulitzer Prize Fighter, BMOP, Lewis Spratlan, Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol, Neil Cicierega, and the Boston Symphony Chamber Players.
NewMusicBox, August 5, 2014.

Book of Judges

Tanglewood: Sessions and Lessons on Successful Composition. Further thoughts prompted by the 2014 FCM.
NewMusicBox, July 28, 2014.

Piece work

Reviewing the 2014 Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music.
Boston Globe, July 23, 2014.

Out of this world

Reviewing Thomas Hampson and Wolfram Rieger.
Boston Globe, July 18, 2014.

Pipe and Drum

Reviewing Aston Magna.
Boston Globe, July 13, 2014.

United nations

Boston: SICPP's Love and Geometry. Reviewing the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice.
NewMusicBox, June 26, 2014.

Hue and cry

Reviewing Nino Jvania and Stockhausen's Natürliche Dauern.
Boston Globe, June 18, 2014.

Flip the switch

Boston: Bromp Treb Busts the Matrix.
NewMusicBox, June 16, 2014.

Nice 'n' Easy

Reviewing Grand Harmonie's Il re pastore.
Boston Globe, June 16, 2014.

Positive to Great

The Radical Virtuoso. A profile of Paul Jacobs.
Yale Alumni Magazine, May/June 2014.

Eager to please, ready to fight

Reviewing the Borromeo Quartet and Lawrence Lesser.
Boston Globe, june 15, 2014.

Ghost in the Shell

Reviewing Ken Ueno's Gallo.
Boston Globe, June 2, 2014.

Voice leading

Boston: Caroline Shaw's Common Cause. Reviewing A Far Cry and Roomful of Teeth.
NewMusicBox, May 21, 2014.

Wheel and spoke

Sounds Heard: Meredith Monk, Piano Songs.
NewMusicBox, May 13, 2014.

Elementary

Reviewing Paavali Jumppanen.
Boston Globe, May 6, 2014.

Calling cards

Who invented "Heavy Metal"? On musical genre names.
Boston Globe, May 4, 2014.

Magnetic moment

Boston: Practice Sessions. Reviewing Keeril Makan's Letting Time Circle Through Us and Bernard Rands' Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.
NewMusicBox, April 15, 2014.

Boats against the current

New England's Prospect: Beyond the Sea. Reviewing Matthew Ritchie's Monstrance/Remonstrance.
NewMusicBox, April 8, 2014.

Return key

Reviewing Emmanuel Music and Russell Sherman.
Boston Globe, April 1, 2014.

Screen Gems

New England's Prospect: The Gift of Sound and Vision. Reviewing Ben Russell and Robert A. A. Lowe.
NewMusicBox, March 28, 2014.

Concentration

Reviewing the Arditti Quartet.
Boston Globe, March 25, 2014.

The Go-Between

Reviewing the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Yefim Bronfman, and Christoph von Dohnányi.
Boston Globe, March 17, 2014.

Tokens of esteem

Reviewing Marc-André Hamelin, Anthony Marwood, and Alexander Fiterstein.
Boston Globe, May 5, 2014.

Friends and relations

New England's Prospect: The Agnosticism of Boston's Equilibrium Concert Series. Reviewing Boston Modern Brass.
NewMusicBox, March 3, 2014.

Swing shift

Reviewing Quatour Ébène.
Boston Globe, March 3, 2014.

Hot House Flowers

Reviewing Leonidas Kavakos and Enrico Pace.
Boston Globe, February 25, 2014.

Unwrapped

New England's Prospect: Boston Symphony Chamber Players Celebrate 50 Years.
NewMusicBox, February 18, 2014.

Thicker than water

Drinks below! But first, some catch-up:

New England's Prospect: Three World Premieres. Reviewing the Boston Modern Orchestra Project.
NewMusicBox, January 28, 2014.

Reviewing Kirill Gerstein.
Boston Globe, February 3, 2014.

Score: Toshirō Mayuzumi, on screen and in the right-wing arena.
Boston Globe, February 9, 2014.

Score: "Will You Walke the Woods So Wilde" and the ways of musical celebrity.
Boston Globe, February 16, 2014.

Reviewing the Boston Symphony Orchestra, playing West Side Story.
Boston Globe, February 16, 2014.

While you read, here's a little something—chewy and fruity in equal parts—to get you through this last stretch of winter and into spring.

Thorolf's Bowl

1 oz. aquavit
1 oz. Cynar
1 oz. lemon juice
½ oz. blood orange-rosemary cordial (see below)
dash of orange bitters

Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into something that'll look good sitting on your sacrificial altar.

For the blood orange-rosemary cordial:

1 cup blood orange juice
½ cup sugar
1 tablespoon rosemary
½ cup or so of blood orange peels (without the pith)

Combine in a pot and bring to a boil; simmer until reduced to about a cup of liquid. Strain out the rosemary and peels.

Death and Transfiguration

Score: Luciano Berio and heroic mythology. O King, the Sinfonia, and Claude Lévi-Strauss.
Boston Globe, January 25, 2014.

I also forgot to link to last week's effort:

Score: A real-life diva gave Tosca some of its flavor. A menu via Sarah Bernhardt and Auguste Escoffier.
Boston Globe, January 18, 2014.

Group theory

New England's Prospect: Fellow Travelers. Reviewing the Fifth Floor Collective.
NewMusicBox, January 24, 2014.

It ain't fiction, just a natural fact

Reviewing Jeremy Denk.
Boston Globe, January 14, 2014.

Two weeks into 2014, and this recital has already earned a spot on my year-end best list.

Wherefore, O wherefore

Score: Behind a Copland experiment, a ethnomusicological pioneer. On Joel Engel.
Boston Globe, January 12, 2014.

While you read, you can listen to me play (and occasionally stumble) through Engel's "A Nigun" (op. 19, no. 1):

Enduro

Score: the Atari 2600 and the Phrygian mode.
Boston Globe, January 5, 2014.

This might be my favorite one of these columns so far. Oh, and I forgot to link to one over the holidays:

Score: Paul Whiteman's Eighth Experiment in Modern Music.
Boston Globe, December 22, 2013.

One more? One more:

New England's Prospect: May All Your Christmases Be Weird.
NewMusicBox, December 23, 2013.

A yuletide respite, courtesy of Weirdo Records.