Eugene David<br>...The One-Minute Pundit

Posted 9:47 PM by Gene

The con-CERT HALL joins in the o-pe-RA gag, this time with an LBJ Oratorio, or Tonkin Gulf Concerto, or whatever it's called, and no doubt it was written against DUBYA'S WAR, or for whatever the reason was, and our Paper of Re-CORD writer unintentionally tells us what it's no-doubt like:

The Dallas work serves as a reminder of both the pitfalls and the value of such ventures. Too much relevance can lead to political schlock, like bad Prokofiev, or cornball (if sometimes endearing) hagiography, like Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait.”

Obviously this isn't cornball (if sometimes endearing) hagiography; we're still celebrating over having ended the most unjust war in HISTORY. So we'll call it bad Prokofiev and leave it at that.

By the way, have you heard Steve Reich's Daniel Variations? We haven't, but we can imagine: a half hour of dissonant violins at extremely high pitch, rather like five hundred fingernails on blackboards. We need commissions to imagine that?

And here is why classical music is a thing of the past: the great composers looked to the future. Beethoven foresaw a day of liberty; Wagner a day of supermen. All your modern-day composer can look to is the past (and hope he isn't aping it too much), or to foundation grants. This isn't looking anywhere but navelward.

(Name of Steve Reich work corrected 9/15. According to Amazon.com it's approximately 30 minutes -- I got that right without knowing the work! It may not be violins screeching but I'd be surprised if anyone's performing it 200 years from now -- unlike Beethoven and Wagner.)