Anthony Tommasini on Kurt Weill in today's NY Times

[Larry Kart]

Today's NY Times has a review by Anthony Tommasini of Kurt Weill's little-known 1934 musical "Maria Galante," which Tommasini said Weill "composed in French." Well, the libretto is in French (and not even by Weill but by Jacques Deval), but the music was composed in ... music, no?

[Ted O'Reilly]

Today's NY Times has a review by Anthony Tommasini of Kurt Weill's little-known 1934 musical "Maria Galante," which Tommasini said Weill "composed in French." Well, the libretto is in French (and not even by Weill but by Jacques Deval), but the music was composed in ... music, no?

You're right...he's a maroon.

[papsrus]

Today's NY Times has a review by Anthony Tommasini of Kurt Weill's little-known 1934 musical "Maria Galante," which Tommasini said Weill "composed in French." Well, the libretto is in French (and not even by Weill but by Jacques Deval), but the music was composed in ... music, no?

One would think.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Well, language has a good bit to do with music. Listen to any French singer trying to sing Rock & Roll (well, it's just Johnny Halliday, really). For that matter, listen to a British Rock & Roll singer trying to do Rock & Roll, or most kinds of American music. There was a late sixties rock band - I forget the name now - who made their sole (I think) LP and led off with a piece called "Yorkshire blues" - a B B King style blues sung with a Yorkshire accent and dealing with Yorkshire type background events - which was deliberately hilarious.

The way people speak has got something to do with the music they make. So I can see that, if you're trying to write music for French people to sing to in French, you need to write something different to what you'd write if you were expecting German people to sing in German.

MG

[Larry Kart]

Well, language has a good bit to do with music. Listen to any French singer trying to sing Rock & Roll (well, it's just Johnny Halliday, really). For that matter, listen to a British Rock & Roll singer trying to do Rock & Roll, or most kinds of American music. There was a late sixties rock band - I forget the name now - who made their sole (I think) LP and led off with a piece called "Yorkshire blues" - a B B King style blues sung with a Yorkshire accent and dealing with Yorkshire type background events - which was deliberately hilarious.

The way people speak has got something to do with the music they make. So I can see that, if you're trying to write music for French people to sing to in French, you need to write something different to what you'd write if you were expecting German people to sing in German.

MG

Sure to all the above -- but however much the language one speaks, or the language in which your singers are singing (if you're writing for voices), matters, you don't say Wagner or Mahler composed "in German" or Ravel or Offenbach "in French." It's a usage error, not a conceptual thing. Tommasini should have said: "'Maria Galante,' in which Weill sets [or works with] a French text, etc." -- or something of the sort.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

It's a usage error, not a conceptual thing.

Ah yes, I see what you were on about. I suspect the internet makes us not so sensitive to niceties of usage now, since people with all kinds of strange grasps of English (or other languages) are welcome pretty nearly everywhere.

Even Chewy

MG

[Mark Stryker]

Larry,

I'm surprised that two logical explanations seem to have eluded you as an old newspaper man -- either it was the damn copydesk that screwed it up or carelessness on the writer's part induced by deadline pressures, distractions or the many varieties of gremlins that have a way of getting between your brain and your best-intentioned copy.

I'm guessing that Tony meant to write "composed in France" -- a factually accurate statement that makes sense to note in the context because Weill was on the move in those years -- but instead wrote "composed in French" and then never caught the slip, reading over it because we often don't notice our own typos. If that's the case, then 99 out of 100 copy editors would not have questioned the phrasing. Alternatively, Tony may have written something awkwardly (or not) and in making a change, the copy editor condensed it to "written in French" and introduced the problem.

Of course, it is possible that Tony meant to write what he did, but we all have brain cramps. No harm, no foul.

Edited November 15, 2008 by Mark Stryker

[Larry Kart]

quote name='Mark Stryker' date='Nov 15 2008, 03:45 PM' post='855231']

Larry,

I'm surprised that two logical explanations seem to have eluded you as an old newspaper man -- either it was the damn copydesk that screwed it up or carelessness on the writer's part induced by deadline pressures, distractions or the many varieties of gremlins that have a way of getting between your brain and your best-intentioned copy.

I'm guessing that Tony meant to write "composed in France" -- a factually accurate statement that makes sense to note in the context because Weill was on the move in those years -- but instead wrote "composed in French" and then never caught the slip, reading over it because we often don't notice our own typos. If that's the case, then 99 out of 100 copy editors would not have questioned the phrasing. Alternatively, Tony may have written something awkwardly (or not) and in making a change, the copy editor condensed it to "written in French" and introduced the problem.

Of course, it is possible that Tony meant to write what he did, but we all have brain cramps. No harm, no foul.

[Mark Stryker]

I see what you mean. This might be a good time for a few days of R&R.

[Larry Kart]

I see what you mean. This might be a good time for a few days of R&R.

Good idea. Please pass the hemp.

[7/4]

Wow - so it;s OK to post an entire review from the NYTimes without a link to the original article?

If Larry Kart can do it and Mark Stryker doesn't bat even a fucking eyelash, does it mean anybody can do it?

.

[7/4]

Oh, by the way...

Steve Tyrell appears through Dec. 31 at Café Carlyle, at the Carlyle Hotel, 35 East 76th Street, Manhattan, (212) 744-1600, thecarlyle.com.

[Larry Kart]

Wow - so it;s OK to post an entire review from the NYTimes without a link to the original article?

If Larry Kart can do it and Mark Stryker doesn't bat even a fucking eyelash, does it mean anybody can do it?

.

Sorry -- you're right. But I wasn't posting it, I think, in the same way you used to do. I was doing so in hot blood, in order to try to make a point about something else that I'd already begun to make and couldn't continue to make unless the review were in front of us. I won't do it again, though.

[7/4]

I'm not sure there's any way of rationalizing doing exactly what you and Mark made a big deal out of telling me NOT to do.

What a load of nonsense from both of you.

.

[Larry Kart]

I'm not sure there's any way of rationalizing doing exactly what you and Mark made a big deal out of telling me NOT to do.

What a load of nonsense from both of you.

.

I said you were right in your complaint and explained how it happened. What more do you want -- a pint of spinal fluid?

[7/4]

I'll get back to you about that.

.

[Mark Stryker]

Valid points all around. Consistency demands that I should have called Larry on the posting issue, but, frankly, I didn't even notice, probably because I was responding to the original Weill post and the infraction occurred in a secondary follow-up and it was a first-time offense. But Larry got overheated, apologized, says he won't do it again and offered a pint of fluid. Let's grant absolution. For the record, my position on posting entire articles has not changed, and let me thank everyone for their efforts in recent months on following the rules. Still, everyone is entitled to one inadvertent fuck up. As I said previously in this thread in another context, no harm no foul. Let's move on.

Edited November 16, 2008 by Mark Stryker

[JSngry]

P.S. (to J. Sangrey) I'm not dissing Bacharach, just saying that the phrase "Bacharach is Cole Porter with a beat" is wrong/meaningless any way you look at it.

Indeed it is. It shows a profound lack of understanding about both & would have me hitting the figurative "off switch" immediately.

Now, Bacharach (up until 1967-68 or so) & Weill, that, I think, you could go at least a little somewhere with, with or without the stupidass "beat" thing....

[Guest youmustbe]

My 2 cents, or one cent on the Times reviews, since I live in NY.

I don't read the jazz reviews since I don't go to jazz clubs anymore unless it's something I booked i.e, am getting paid to do. But I do read dance reviews and classical music reviews because that is what I attend. The dance reviews are good. The only exception is when they dare make even the slightest critique about my favorite ballerina at the ABT. The classical reviews are good too with the exception of Tomassini who Mr. Nerd.

[Guest youmustbe]

Just to add.

The NY SUN which went out of business, had terrific dance and classical music reviewers. Because the paper had a small circulation the reviewers didn't have to be 'nice'.

There is a good reviewer in the Village Voice who nailed John Adams' Dr Atomic for what it is. An opera by a composer who has lost his 'talent'. Mr. Nerd fawned all over it. But then again, maybe he has to in order to keep the gig.

BTW I was at the Met Opera cafeteria, eating with some orchestra musicians before a perfomance and I got a kick how they use words like 'gig' and 'cool'. Jazz jargon baby! Be Bop and they don't know it!