T.D.

Andy Roddick Fearless Fosdick Dick Fosbury

Decent-looking programs. Looks like they're taking the "conservative" approach of scheduling about 50:50 "new music" (composers unknown to me) vs. "safe" established international composers (Bartok, Khatchaturian, Villa-Lobos, Penderecki, Takemitsu). Bear in mind I was attending a lot of NYC events at the time. Needless to say, there were a lot of opportunities, but even then/there I had to be very mindful of announcements, as there was no single good source of a "contemporary" calendar...only one rather obscure and amateurish website (which I forget*) even came close. [Added] *OMG, the site is still around: Soundart calendar of new music in NYC ...and still a bit amateurish - trying to reach the link to the claimed 2/27 performance of Robert Ashley's Perfect Lives (one of my absolute favorite works), I hit a dead end!

Dredging up old memories (holy crap, it was over 16 years ago!), I cut/pasted the program I attended below. Maybe Howl suffered a bit in comparison to the other works: Gubaidulina and Saariaho are significant names, and the Sculthorpe piece, though rather out there, was very cool. November 10, 1999 - 8:00pm - "Howl: Music for Strings" - The Great Hall Cooper Union, NYC Lee Hyla (USA) Howl (for string quartet with tape of Allen Ginsburg reciting his poem) Kaija Saariaho (Finland) Neiges (for 8 celli) ** United States premiere Sofia Gubaidulina (Russia) Silenzio (for violin, cello, and accordion) ** New York premiere Peter Sculthorpe (Australia) From Ubirr (for string quartet and digeridoo)

Jim, I didn't mean to harsh your upcoming experience... That string quartet clip sounds pretty good. From what I recall, Hyla was (he passed away fairly recently) generally well-regarded by the new music community. You'll be hearing the Brentano SQ, which is a better ensemble than I heard. The Howl I attended didn't have a live vocalist; it used a Ginsberg tape and there was video playing in the background. Please post your impressions of the We Speak Etruscan disc with Tim Berne.

Stayed home today in bitter cold, but went out to start the car (successfully!) at 3:30 PM and the temperature read 0, which might be a degree or two high because the car was sitting in the sun. Funny, after a low near -25 F Sunday morning, temp might hit +40 F on Tuesday, with pouring rain.

Eduard Tubin Fee Waybill Mike Oldfield

Pierre Garcon Boy Van Poppel (pro cyclist) Diane Ladd

It's on a Kronos Quartet CD called Howl U.S.A., if you want to pre-listen. Kronos discs are probably available cheaply on Amazon, etc., since they get pressed in large quantities.

I think it might have been -25 F last night, pretty sure -20 (Catskill Mtns, NY). My indoor thermometer, which runs low 5-10 degrees in cold weather, said -32 early this morning.

Jim, I hate to be negative, but I saw a performance of Howl live in NYC (Cooper Union; Hyla was introduced onstage immediately afterward) some 15 years ago and truly, even profoundly, disliked it. And the moment the piece ended, a guy sitting directly in front of me turned to his companion and precisely echoed my impression, saying "God, I fucking hated that!" I had previously heard the piece on CD and didn't particularly care for it, but for some reason the performance affected me a lot more. Disclosure: I was a dedicated "new music" follower at the time (when I lived in the NYC area), attended many events at Miller Theatre, Merkin Hall, Manhattan School of Music, etc., am in no way hostile to contemporary music, and generally like "spoken word" material. I heard a couple of other short pieces by Hyla that I found "OK", but I stopped paying attention to him after the Howl fiasco. YMMV, of course. We Speak Etruscan looks like it might be interesting, with Tim Berne.

I kinda hate to say it (as a J.R. fan) but Moe Howard also comes to mind. Incidentally (though off-topic), contemporary classical violin ace Irvine Arditti rather resembles Larry Fine.

Sal Maglie Brutus Beefcake Julio César Chávez

Excellent! Listening now. Very timely in light of the fairly recent discussion of O'Brien's book.

A lot of the super-budget-priced classical megaboxes contain CDs that push the playing time envelope.

CDs can hold more than 80 minutes, but many CD players I've owned became less reliable as playing time approaches 80 min. My current changer sometimes starts skipping near the end of really long discs. A flaky phenomenon, not strictly reproducible.

For an analytical / sceptical approach (none of which is new), see this LA Times article.

Note that upon reading the actual material (which is available on numerous links via Google or Google News), one finds things like ... Roberts is also bearish stocks saying "negative returns in 2016 are probable, though without a recession they should be manageable, think -10-20%, rather than a rout." ... While bearish, this is not much different from the outlook of many of the pundits who are calling an equity correction. If you want doomsday shit, you can always read permabears like Marc Faber et al.

GA, if you Google (or Google News) "RBS sell everything", an Aussie source broke the story 18 or 19 hours ago (from 6:14 PM EST 1/12). The tip was contained in a letter to clients received even earlier. So the message is not "new", and the market's already had time to react.

I'm not sure how "respected" RBS is. The bank exploded spectacularly in the 2008 financial crisis, and the British Government was forced to step in and take an 81% (according to Wikipedia) stake. My impression is that RBS has continued to underperform, and that the Government's sale of RBS shares (which began only quite recently) resulted in significant losses. I mistrust any predictions by Wall St. firms (those who advise you to buy often are actually sellers, and vice versa). And if RBS is so clever, why weren't they suggesting "sell" before the recent correction?

Not to be a wise guy, but as soon as I saw the thread title I knew it'd be a "biggest earners" list...

The Andrew Hill Black Saint / Soul Note box.

John, I've owned the Xanadu CDs of True Blue and California Hard for a long time. Agree with the above on True Blue, which I often play, but haven't heard Silver Blue. My vague recollection of the Coker (which I seldom listen to) is that it's less inspired than the personnel leads one to expect, and the recorded piano sound is not pleasant (as if engineered by Richard Alderson, if that makes sense ). Will give it another spin when I get home from work. [Added] I listened to California Hard again, and it's a loose hard-bop session, OK but still doesn't grab me. I'd go for the Cohn/LTD instead. BTW, I just noticed the Kenny Barron solo reissue (yeah, I should have read the above more carefully); that looks like a must-buy!

I agree that "Carter's string quartets are among the best of bunch where modern quartets are concerned", but his music is a little thorny, difficult (and similar cliches), and not always immediately pleasing to newcomers to "modern classical". I've been down that road, and would start out with the Nonesuch Retrospective set. It's more diverse, and you get good performances of 2 of the 5 SQs (I happen to like the Composers Quartet), and various other excellent pieces (Night Fantasies for piano is a personal favorite). Downsides are that the Retrospective only includes works up to 1982, and the complete SQs are available somewhat cheaper. But you can fill in gaps later on if you become an enthusiast.

I remember him well...even saw him play (baseball) live at Wrigley Field back in the day! IIRC, he played the National Anthem on trumpet at least once.