If music critics wrote like Philip Roth, there would be more people read about music.

Strauss's Four Last songs. For the profundity that is achieved not by complexity but by clarity and simplicity. For the purity of the sentiment about death and parting and loss. For the long melodic line sipping out and the female voice soaring and soaring. For the repose and composure and gracefulness and the intense beauty of the soaring. For the ways one is drawn into the tremendous arc of heartbreak. The composer drops all masks and, at the age of eighty-two, stands before you naked. And you dissolve. — Philip Roth, Exit Ghost

'Lulu'

Lyric Opera of Chicago production. Sex, murder, obsession, psychological extremes, the darkest dark of humanity, the story of 'Lulu' makes a perfect drama for Berg's twelve-tone composition. It is a wonder how atonal composition can be musically effective without one hum-able melody, and the advantage of getting the soprano doing sudden hysterical screams is a given. It must be a feast for musicologist to analyze this opera and taking intellectual delight in seeing Berg's genius. But like mathematics, you must have the training to reach that level of enjoyment. For the general public the opera is too long. It is exhausting to get an earful of notes that do not make an imprint to the heart or the mind. That's why Berg's violin concerto and the Lyric Suite work better. In the shorter works the listeners hear the beauty of the sound and the intriguing rhythm only one time around. As much as I like Berg, I wonder why our emotions do not respond to atonal music. I recognize beauty and darkness but not sorrow and joy. Atonal music is like a goddess standing afar for you to admire but not to know.

The stage direction was too animated, almost acrobatic. The singers moved around so much that it became distraction to the music. It warranted my doubt about opera as an art form in which, I believe, both music and drama suffer rather than enhance each other. Drama functions not only to tell a story but, more importantly, to use language reflecting on the human issues underlying it, which is difficult to do when the words must fit the music. And as for music, it reveals a world that no other arts can reach therefore does not need help from other arts, as Schopenhauer says in praising Rossini's opera, "his music speaks its own language so distinctly and purely that it needs no words, and makes its full impact when performed by instruments alone." This, I understand fully.

Farewell to the Masters

The Sound! The Sound! The Sound! Warm and lush, a farewell from the Guarneri Quartet, 45 years together in music making. Knocking enlightenment: the BALENCE of voices, not the BLEND-IN of voices, but a balance of four individual voices, together and yet each distinct as the part requires.

In quartet playing the second violin part is often lost. It usually sounds like an accommodating middle voice to the melody. Guarneri Quartet's second violinist John Dalley made the second violin part so interesting that you had to pay attention to it as ANOTHER voice, which brought out the intricacy of quartet writing. Mozart was goofy. He gave the last note of his D Minor quartet, K. 412 to the second violin. John Dalley played that note with such a flare that you'd think Mozart and he were in conspiracy together.

Except the cellist, the members of the Guarneri Quartet are in their seventies. They have reached the age at which Confucius says one shall does what his heart desires, and the Guarneri Quartet did just that. They were not trying to please anyone, the critic, the presenter, the audience, and probably even the composers. They play just to let the music out which is more effective than deliberate trying. They are sages who have the wisdom and integrity to make music without pretentiousness and artificiality.

Farewell to the masters, the kind that my generation may never produce.

Why I Go To Concerts

Siding with Glenn Gould that live performance diminishes the contemplative quality of listening to music and especially considering today's performance style that exaggerated body movements and histrionic facial expression of the performers seem to be in fashion, many of my friends have stopped going to concerts. Although I agree that animated visual movements from the stage interfere with the listener's aural sense, I have been going to concerts more frequently than ever before. I go to concerts not to watch but to listen. I go to concerts because it is my only temple.

Since the advent of recording technology, music has become less of a lived experience. A recording can be played anywhere and stopped at anytime. If music speaks for the soul as Schopenhauer claims, the optimal condition is needed for the metaphysical elements to surface. Going to concerts is like going to church where the time and the space are devoted exclusively for a specific purpose. Seneca states, “True joy is a serious matter.” All serious matters need affirmation through ritual. Going to concerts is a ritual to experience Joy and Sorrow throuogh music.

Thus I have been going to concerts with religious reverence. The sound that comes directly from instruments, especially the lush, warm sound of string instruments, is unmatchable by any machine. The vibes from a full house of audiences seem to make music spiritually and emotively all the more effective. In defense of the musicians, bodily movements and facial expression are inevitable when playing music. It is a manifestation of living through music; only the audiences can tell if a musician genuinely immerses himself into music or fakes a show.

So I have been going to concerts. I need to go to concerts. It is my sanctuary in a time when life has been robbed with nothing left but credit cards.