Monday, May 16, 2005

The Andre Watts Recital

"While he has always been known more for the Romantic, bravura repertoire than his introspective side, Watts' programs in recent years have been pointedly, even militantly, reticent, as was the case Saturday night at Tilles."
Read the rest here. From the same review, the critic writes this:

"Ligeti's early "Musica Ricercata," composed in 1953, deconstructs compositional technique, and listeners may recognize the second piece in the set (marked "sad, rigid and ceremonial") as the haunting, static soundtrack to Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut."

What's up with the ever increasing and utterly pretentious use of the words "deconstruction" and "deconstruct" by music critics? Doubtful they've slogged through Of Grammatology. More likely, they've just had one too many "theory" courses. At this rate, can "phallogocentrism" be too far off? I suppose one does have to stay "au courant" (or at least appear to be) but it'd be nice to see the word used, um, well rightly. It's increasingly becoming a meaningless short-hand for "criticism", "taking apart", and such. By one set of lights, it's a consequence of the bastardization of philosophy in film and literary "theory" (a word itself that iteself now pulls duty for the more pedestrian "idea"). The end result being utter rot.

A very fun game to play in the car is to tune into NPR's "On the Media" and see just how many "po-mo" buzz words get squeezed into a broadcast.

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