It took a little while for the Beatles to make contact with Karlheinz Stockhausen regarding his cameo on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Although they definitely tried to dot all their i’s and cross their t’s—legally speaking—maybe they should have checked their spelling. The Dirty Projectors have indie rock’s most highly educated backup band. Cyclists in Los Angeles ride for new music. Modern composers’ brains are more developed than yours. Christoph Eschenbach calls the Philadelphia Orchestra management a bunch of incompetent liars. And we contemplate what the musical theme of the 2012 Olympics should be. Now read this: your weekly starred items.
• Karlheinz Stockhausen was probably never more visible to the general public than from his cameo on the cover of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album—his post-9-11 remarks notwithstanding. But he seemed to be a hard guy to get a hold of. Archived on the official Stockhausen website are several bits of correspondence between the Beatles and Herr Stockhausen, including a very formal initial request for the use of his likeness and a much more urgent telegram after his failure to reply. What if Stockhausen didn’t reply? Would that have altered the history of rock and roll? [Unquiet Thoughts]
• David Longstreth and his band Dirty Projectors got classy at the Allen Room courtesy of Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series, which presented the DP’s pseudo-contemporary-indie chamber opera last week with support form the conservatory-trained pit band Alarm Will Sound. Does this make Alarm Will Sound more indie than the NOW Ensemble? [NY Times]
• The Los Angeles-based new music series Monday Evening Concerts mounted a performance of Mauricio Kagel’s Eine Brise for 111 cyclists. Though LA Times critic Mark Swed didn’t think it was much for the ears—and surely he meant an Alpe d’Huez ascent—you gotta give props to the series for organizing over 100 cyclists without the promise of $20 cash premes and podium girls. [Culture Monster]
• In his new book The Music Instinct, author Philip Ball draws on the latest neuroscience research to explain why most people seem to hate modern classical music. The reason? They’re not smart enough. Well, sort of. It’s more that the brain finds patterns enjoyable, and modern classical music makes the brain have to work too hard. The most disturbing finding of this research: tone sequences in music by Schoenberg and Webern were LESS PREDICTABLE than random tone sequences. So much for logic and order. [Telegraph]
• In an interview with the German publication Die Welt, it appears that former Philadelphia Orchestra conductor Christoph Eschenbach forgot one or both of these two things: 1) that some English speakers—even Americans—can speak/understand German, and 2) they invented this thing called an online translator. Had he remembered either of those two things, he might have given a little more thought to publically calling out the Philadelphia Orchestra management as “incompetent” people who “lie” and whose mismanagement directly led to the orchestra’s current economic situation. [fig 1.] The moral of the story here is to check yourself before you unexpect yourself. [Adaptistration]
• The 2010 Winter Olympics may be coming to an end this weekend, but that just means you can start thinking about the 2012 games. Charlotte Higgins is taking a survey about what the musical theme of the next summer games should be. “London Calling” by The Clash? [Guardian]
Figure 1.
