So many years after the demise of Mars Hill I was hoping this
range of topics could have been fully retired from Wenatchee The Hatchet but
things just keep happening:
https://julieroys.com/mark-driscoll-cult-like-actions-24-7-surveillance-loyalty/
Monday, May 10, 2021
Julie Roys has coverage of a new report about Mark Driscoll's The Trinity Church, on-site surveillance and dealing with members--revisiting Mars Hill era claims from Driscoll to "see things" and to be able to pray that God would kill sinners for him as background for his leadership approaches
Ethan Hein on music not being a universal language, Leonard Meyer back in the 20th C on the Western theoretical scholarly penchant to synthesize Romantic ideology with 20th C scientistic positivism in music theory
...Anyway. The idea of “musical universals” very quickly devolves into “Western European music is universal”, and that is some white nonsense. There might be some broad overlaps between disparate forms of human music, just as there are similarities in our cooking and clothing and languages and so on. But the particulars are always going to be culturally specific.
Back in the last century Leonard Meyer made some comments about the legacy of Romanticism and its quest for musical "oneness":
Ethan Hein discusses "Green Onions", a case for persistent but subtle polytonality in the song in its signature opening
"Green Onions" is indisputably a classic blues number that I heard throughout my life and that opening guitar vamp has stuck with me for decades.
This song presents an interesting case study in applied harmonic rhythm as a foundation for understanding what makes the guitar vamp so identifiable. The song is in F but the guitar chord that hits at the tail end of the last beat of every measure always lands a perfect fourth above the root of whatever chord is prevailing at the downbeat of each measure. Ethan Hein describes that as blues tonality, which is true, but one of my music theory professors once said that the beauty of music theory is that you can disagree with the teacher and you "could" still be right. So ... I have an alternative explanation for how to understand those unique chord vamps the guitar is playing in the song, that should be explicable for both classical and blues fans.
Polychords.
The guitar vamp is so staccato and steady on the weak half of the weak end-beat of the measures we can't call this "polytonality" but that is also why I don't think of any of the chords as thirteenth chords. The second inversion chordal pattern is too persistent across the piece for that to be how to explain what's going on. But if you had the guitar vamping those chords on the weak beat of every beat of every measure then the effect would be polytonal, where the keyboard vamps along F dorian while the guitar functionally cruises along in B flat major. Cropper hitting the pure triad of whatever chord Booker lands on at the end of each measure doesn't changing the prevailing harmonic rhythm at the downbeats, but the quasi-polytonality that results from that decision of Cropper's gives "Green Onions" a quasi-bitonality of F and B flat simultaneity that defines the song.
If you want to find out just how important this dual-tonality element is to "Green Onions" try playing the chords that are "supposed" to be in the key based on the root movements of the downbeats! Where ever you see F at the downbeat play F, where ever you see B flat at the downbeat play B flat and so on. Remove that perfect fourth displacement where the guitar is consistently in the subdominant key in relationship to the minor tonic key and what do you get? You will find that "Green Onions" becomes more "Russet Potatoes"! Sure, once the opening is played through the song proceeds to F blues, which is wonderful, but the joyfully ambiguous polytonality of the introduction is what set the mood and gave us a mysterious question as to "what key is this really in? The guitarist seems to be deliberately playing in a completely different key from the rest of the band" The reason for that "can" be explained in terms of blues tonality but that isn't the "only" way to explain it. In any event, the song is a great song.
It "is" too short but that's why it was a good idea to go hear Booker T. play this song in concert. I was fortunate to hear a double feature of Booker T. and John Lee Hooker at the start of this century and I can tell you that in live performance "Green Onions" could go on for minute after glorious minute. :)
Saturday, May 08, 2021
German Dzhaparidze Prelude & Fugue No.24 in B moll (Esteban Colucci, guitar) w score
Just because ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKzyUceu1dM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKzyUceu1dM
The Prelude starts at 0:00. The Fugue starts at 01:47.
There a couple of noteworthy things about this piece that you can read along with in the score as you listen. The first is how beautifully idiomatic the writing is, particularly in the use of slurs, portamento and glissandi. This is not music that you can really replicate on a keyboard instrument to the same effect as having it on the guitar with the various hammer-ons, pull-offs, and the slidings up and down the strings.
The second thing that's significant is this is a two-voiced fugue. George Oldroyd and other scholars of fugue have highlighted again and again that there's no good reason to add extra voices to your fugal texture at the expense of good voice-leading practices.
Don't believe the theory teachers who tell you that if there are only two voices then it's a two-part invention rather than a fugue. The difference between a two-part invention and a fugue is generally explained by Kennan and Verrall and other specialists as being defined not by the two-voice texture but by at what pitch the second voice enters. If the second voice enters at the octave in canonic response to the first voice it's a two-part invention. If the second voice enters at the fifth then it should be regarded as a fugue. If the voice enters at any other interval and is strict we could think of it as a canon but for practical purposes an answer at the fifth shows that we're looking at a fugue and that's what happens here. Dzhaparidze has, of course, helped us a great deal by calling this fugue what it is!
If you want to hear more of the cycle go get the double CD release at the guitarist's website.
As with other projects I hope to blog through this beautiful cycle in the future but the Koshkin cycle is both partly recorded and the scores published so that took priority but that hardly means I've forgotten about this beautiful cycle.
I really, really wish a publisher would get behind this cycle and run with it! I could probably write an actual book-length project on fugal writing for solo guitar in the early twenty-first century if anyone thought there was the least bit demand for such a book.
Ferdinand Rebay: Sonata in One Movement (Guitar Sonata No. 7)
There are two performances of this Rebay sonata you can check out.
Luiz Mantovani
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQnmGytl2sQ
Leopoldo Saracino
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdB9UAQjhbo&list=OLAK5uy_lNAeoV92HNW8h12BRykL-P4_aWEbJ64zI&index=7
Leopoldo Saracino
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdB9UAQjhbo&list=OLAK5uy_lNAeoV92HNW8h12BRykL-P4_aWEbJ64zI&index=7
It is called a sonata in one movement but it has a multi-movement structure hidden inside of a single movement. It's, uh, kind of like Franz Liszt that way only not nearly so bombastic!
Ferdinand Rebay: Guitar Sonata in D major (Guitar Sonata No. 6)
Sonate in
D Major: I. Thema mit variationen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gty1i3U1DKQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gty1i3U1DKQ&list=OLAK5uy_lNAeoV92HNW8h12BRykL-P4_aWEbJ64zI&index=1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gty1i3U1DKQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gty1i3U1DKQ&list=OLAK5uy_lNAeoV92HNW8h12BRykL-P4_aWEbJ64zI&index=1
Sonate in
D Major: II. Scherzo
Sonate in
D Major: III. Rondò
for a full performance, go here. full
performance starts at 0:58
Ferdinand Rebay: Guitar Sonata in D minor (Guitar Sonata No. 5)
Guitar
Sonata in D Minor: I. Allegro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXObOyeb-Eg
Guitar Sonata in D Minor: II. Variationen uber ein Thema von Schubert
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXObOyeb-Eg
Guitar Sonata in D Minor: II. Variationen uber ein Thema von Schubert
Guitar
Sonata in D Minor: III. Scherzo. Presto
Guitar
Sonata in D Minor: IV. Finale. Alla breve
I'm particularly fond of this one from the cycle and it's no surprise to me it was one of the first of the Rebay solo guitar sonatas to get recorded. The two E major sonatas are as yet unrecorded. That first one with the quasi Brahms 2nd Symphony opening movement is a real charmer, though, so somebody should tackle recording that one!
Ferdinand Rebay: Guitar Sonata in A minor (Sonata No. 2)
This was one of the first of Rebay's solo guitar sonatas that was recorded and made commercially available, alongside the D minor guitar sonata. Both of them are fun pieces and, of course, I hope to discuss the entire cycle sonata by sonata in more detail some time in the future but for the time being I'm linking to performances so that if you've never heard of him or heard his work before you have an opportunity to do that.
Guitar
Sonata in A Minor: I. Gut bewegt
Guitar
Sonata in A Minor: II. Ruhig und zart
Guitar
Sonata in A Minor: III. Scherzo. Lebhaft und mit Humor
Guitar
Sonata in A Minor: IV. Lustig bewegt
Ferdinand Rebay: Sonata in A (minor) for Guitar (Sonata No. 1)
Where in the orchestral literature German and Austrian music tends to have an outsized influence, those sounds are almost completely marginal in the guitar literature. Normally when we think of classical guitar works that are in the canonized literature we think of Spanish, Italians and French guitarists (with some Austrian and Bohemian figures, to be sure). Sor, Giuliani, Coste and Diabelli were early and seminal figures in the centuries of guitar history we have. But the canonized works tend to be defined, for better and worse, by the Segovia legacy.
That means that guitar music written in a Brahmsian style with echoes of Schubert is paradoxically under-represented in the literature in contrast to the saturation of Brahms in piano literature or Schubert in lieder.
Thus we get to one of the seven solo guitar sonatas composed by the Austrian composer Ferdinand Rebay
Sonate in
A für Gitarre: I. Allegro moderato
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZmBu7ZmcTM&list=OLAK5uy_lNAeoV92HNW8h12BRykL-P4_aWEbJ64zI&index=4
Sonate in
A für Gitarre: II. Variationen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9rTXfqYZbo&list=OLAK5uy_lNAeoV92HNW8h12BRykL-P4_aWEbJ64zI&index=5
Sonate in
A für Gitarre: III. Tanz - Rondò
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDn5esDpnB4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDn5esDpnB4&list=OLAK5uy_lNAeoV92HNW8h12BRykL-P4_aWEbJ64zI&index=6
All seven sonatas are not yet accounted for in commercially available recordings but as the years go by this is, thankfully changing. I'm hoping to blog through the seven solo guitar sonatas of Rebay with more analytical comments some time in the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZmBu7ZmcTM&list=OLAK5uy_lNAeoV92HNW8h12BRykL-P4_aWEbJ64zI&index=4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9rTXfqYZbo&list=OLAK5uy_lNAeoV92HNW8h12BRykL-P4_aWEbJ64zI&index=5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDn5esDpnB4
Thursday, May 06, 2021
Warren Throckmorton proposes Mars Hill past could be a prologue to The Trinity Church future, now might be a time to recall that Driscoll boasted from the Mars Hill pulpit of threatening 20 guys if they talked to his girlfriend in his Peasant Princess series
In August 2014, 21 former elders from Mars Hill Church brought formal charges under the bylaws of the church against Mark Driscoll. Recently, I have been listening to people talk about their experiences at The Trinity Church in Phoenix. To quote Yogi Berra, it feels like deja vu all over again.
For those who complain that I am unnecessarily bringing up the past, I will reply with Shakespeare that, at times, past may be prologue. The charges are linked below; those who are currently involved or recently left Trinity Church may want to compare notes with past Mars Hill elders who wrote in 2014. Anything seem familiar?
Not being in a position to hear what people from The Trinity Church have been through I can't comment about that. But what I can help them learn, if they come here, is the history of Mars Hill governance and associated governance battles and the kangaroo court proceedings that happened. There are at least 144 posts that deal with governance in terms of history and bylaws and so on.
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/search/label/governance
Joyful Exiles would also be a good place to start if you want to read primary source documents chronicling the termination and trials of Bent Meyer and Paul Petry.
For those who don't know the history of Mars Hill there was a period circa 2007-2008 where Driscoll said from the pulpit he protected Grace emotionally in the following ways, one of which involved intercepting her emails so that she would get contacts from people he wanted her in contact with while, apparently, everything else came to him so he could delete emails at his discretion:
http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/the-peasant-princess/sweet-to-my-taste
http://web.archive.org/web/20091216134144/http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/the-peasant-princess/sweet-to-my-taste#
but since that stuff doesn't work try this link below
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2qJ614dkxw
But since the link in the old post is long dead, go here instead. Start about 33:04 and you will hear:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDdzHLxbkJ8&t=9s
... and this is an ENORMOUS part of my relationship with Grace. I mean I still remember when I first started seeing her she, uh, she went off to college, I was still in high school and they ran out of housing so they put her in a guys' dorm. And I was like, "What!?" so I got in the car and I drove to the university and I knocked on all the doors of all the guys on her floor. "Hi. My name is Mark. I love this woman. Anyone talks to her, touches her, thinks about talking about touching her I will beat them. Literally I threatened twenty guys. Just knocked on every door. No way she's gonna get messed with. No way.
Later on when she transferred to another university, WSU, she's five hours away. And she moved out there and her phone wasn't hooked up yet and we didn't have cell phones. And I told her, "When you get there, go to a pay phone. Call me. Let me know you got there safe." Well she ... didn't call so I got in the car and I drove there. Five hours. The day I had to work. And I knocked on the door. She answered it and I said, "Whu, you didn't call." She said, "I forgot." I said, "Are you okay?" She said, "I'm okay." So, okay, good, I got in the car and I drove home. Just checking. Six hundred miles. Who cares? It's Grace.
... even emotionally, people send her nasty emails, text messages, talk trash about me, leave the church and want to take parting shots at her. She has nothing to do with any of it. So I even put a white/black list on her email and some people so some people can email her and the rest come to me. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. So that she doesn't have to feel bad because people are taking shots at her. That's my girl. No shots. That's the rule.
or here, about 33:03
http://download.marshill.se/files/2008/09/28/20080928_sweet-to-my-taste_sd_audio.mp3
http://download.marshill.se/files/2008/09/28/20080928_sweet-to-my-taste_vodcast.m4v
Although the pertinent quote from Driscoll is about what he did to, as he saw it, protect his wife emotionally, the actual post was about how Mars Hill Church was purging material after I posted material. There was a stretch where if I quoted the above section of a Driscoll sermon that the Driscoll sermon went "poof". Although formally Driscoll stated the reason he took the described measure was so that nobody took shots "at her" this sermon was preached about a year after Petry and Meyer were fired by Driscoll. But for those of us who heard a lot of Driscoll sermons Grace Driscoll once told her husband, in Mark's account, that if he was like any figure in the Book of Ruth it was Elimelech.
Earlier in 2008 Grace Driscoll had no problem going on record describing her husband as a short-fused drama queen./full
http://townhall.com/columnists/thortolo/2008/03/06/the_gospel_according_to_mark_driscoll/page/full
March 6, 2008
Thor Tolo
When the Lord isn’t talking to this man, kiddingly called a short-fused drama queen by his wife, his critics are blogging about him. Some of the sharper barbs make it difficult for Driscoll to hide the hurt.
But in the 2013-2014 period some content was getting purged that shed light on Driscoll's self-attested capacity to be what some might call a control freak.
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2014/03/spiritual-warfare-series-driscoll-gave.html
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2016/09/back-in-2007-ruth-sermon-series-mark.html
http://marshill.se/marshill/media/redeemingruth/gods-hand-in-our-suffering
http://download.marshill.se/files/2007/01/07/20070107_gods-hand-in-our-suffering_sd_audio.mp3
http://marshill.se/marshill/media/redeemingruth/gods-hand-in-our-suffering
http://download.marshill.se/files/2007/01/07/20070107_gods-hand-in-our-suffering_sd_audio.mp3
Mark DriscollRuth 1:1-1:22January 07, 200701:00:20
...Elimelech is the guy--everything falls apart. It looks dark, it looks bad. He takes a poll he makes a plan. He decides Moab has a lower cost of living. Moab has more vocational opportunity. Moab has food on the table. I will make a plan, I will be the sovereign. I will take care of everything. Trust me. I know what I'm doing. He leads well. He plans well. He tries to be the sovereign (they're all going to die anyways). I am Elimelech.
I asked my wife, "Which one am I?" ... She didn't even breath, didn't even take a breath, "Oh, you're Elimelech." And his name means what? MY GOD IS KING! That was me. If you asked me, Jesus, sovereign, lord, king, God! And if I ever need Him I'll call him but I don't think I do because I've got all this taken care of.
...
And how many of you are Naomi-ish? You’re a bitter, moody, cranky, self-righteous, finger-pointing, brutally honest, frustrating person that God loves deeply, for no apparent reason. You want to know me? Here’s how I work. I start with Elimelech. If that doesn’t work, I go to Naomi. That’s me. “I’ll figure it out. I’ll make a plan. I’ll lead well. I’ll take care of everything. Give me the variables. I got it all figured out. It didn’t work? Well, God, did you not get the memo? I knew exactly what needed to be done! [emphases added] I’m not sure who to call to tattle.” And if we’re honest, we find ourselves at varying seasons in our lives identifying with each character in the story.
During the 2013-2014 period Mars Hill was actively purging content and it was also a period where my friend Steve Hays proposed at Triablogue that what Wenatchee The Hatchet had shown was that the best way to make Mark Driscoll look bad in those days was simply to quote him accurately and in context.
That Driscoll bragged from the pulpit that he literally threatened twenty guys should not be forgotten by anyone who attended Mars Hill. He has, to date, not addressed one of his more famous quips about how Paul knew that sometimes you had to put a guy through the woodchipper.
Or take this ... where Driscoll once said from the pulpit in his younger days he picked a fight with his own baseball team:
http://download.marshill.se/files/2003/06/01/20030601_good-bad-days_sd_audio.mp3
GOOD BAD DAYS
Part 10 of Ecclesiastes
Pastor Mark Driscoll | Ecclesiastes 7:1-14 | June 01, 2003
40.00
How many guys, honestly (you don't have to raise your hands), how many guys in their teens or twenties (I'm in my thirties now so I'm at that place where I WOULD fight but it seems like a lot of work). But especially when I was in my teens I would, just all full of myself, I would just, I liked to fight. I would LOOK for fights. Certain guys are like this.
I actually beat up a guy on my OWN baseball team during a game.[emphasis added] Usually, usually, you know, in a baseball game people why--baseball players are all wussies. They never fight. They all just run out to the middle of the field and look at each other which is, I dunno, like prom or something. They're all gazing into each other's eyes. I'm not sure what they're doing. They hardly ever fight and they NEVER take the bats which, to me, seems like the most OBVIOUS thing.
I love baseball and I can remember when I was playing ball. A guy on my own team in the dugout says something so I attacked him. Now very rarely do you see a bench-clearing brawl with just one team. Usually the other team's involved. I was a total hothead. I would fight through high school. I fight quite a bit. Guys would say something, give a cross--you got a problem? That's what he's talking about [the author of Ecclesiastes]. Especially you young guys. Some of you young guys, you're LOOKING for a fight. You want to legitimize it, you want to justify it. Some of you married people are looking for a fight. Provoke. Provoke. Provoke. Boom, off they go like the Fourth of July.
Driscoll once said he could totally be like Haman from the Book of Esther.
http://download.marshill.se/files/2012/10/28/20121028_jesus-is-a-better-servant_sd_audio.mp3
Jesus is a better servant
October 28, 2012
Mark Driscoll
36:44
…
Now, I’ll say this: this is really convicting for me, personally. I’m in a position of influence and leadership, and I know that my heart inclines toward pride, so pray for me and pray for your senior leaders that we would clothe ourselves in humility. This is a haunting reality. I look at Haman and I realize, “Man, I could be like him in an instant,” and at times, I have been. And by God’s grace, I don’t want to be. Haman’s pride is tragic. [emphasis added]
Here’s what kills me about Haman: he wants to be like his king. Wrong king. We all want to be like our king, but he’s got the wrong king. See, his king is proud, not humble. His king uses people, doesn’t love people. His king loves the glory and doesn’t love to glorify God. Who’s your king? Who do you esteem the most? Who do you want to be like? Who do you look up to? If his name isn’t Jesus, wrong king. Wrong king. So, he is the case study for pride.
42:25
...
Chapter 6, verse 12. “But Haman hurried to his house.” He ran home, “Mourning with his head covered.” This is public mourning. “And Haman told his wife Zeresh and all his friends everything that had happened to him.”
Here’s what’s weird: he’s got a better marriage than King Xerxes. [emphasis added] Esther previously said that she hadn’t even seen her husband in thirty days, and they live in the same palace. It’s possible to be a really proud, ruthless, horrible man who’s got a decent marriage. [emphasis added] He goes and talks to his wife, the one thing that the king doesn’t do.
Do you see where, perhaps, even in his own heart, he’d say, “Well, I’m not a ruthless, horrible man. I’m a good family man. You know? I’m good to my wife. I’m good to my friends”? This is how proud people justify their inconsistency. He seems to have a decent marriage and he does have some friends, and he’s going to be a mass murderer. [emphasis added] So is the human heart.
This could be a moment where Mark Driscoll testified against himself. He may be a loving husband and even a doting father, but that doesn't mean he can't be a proud, ruthless, horrible man to people in his church.
Warren Throckmorton has the interview in two parts with Dave Bruskas and Sutton Turner. It took a long time to cross reference material in that to what I was able to chronicle on my end regarding governance, governance battles and in one case a post-employment survey sent out and all of that is over in this series.
If the people at The Trinity Church don't know the last twenty years of who they're dealing with because access to who Mark Driscoll was and even said he was over the last twenty-five years is hard to get to then history may very well repeat itself.
POSTSCRIPT 5-9-2021
Without commenting directly on recently circulating reports, there was a report or rumor at one point that Wenatchee The Hatchet was investigated at the behest of Mars Hill leadership and possibly even tailed. Naturally, I hope that wasn't the case. If it were the case, however, then confirmation that such surveillance activities were undertaken might be a relevant thing to know if there are reports of authorized surveillance in a new context, if only to establish that the reported pattern is either new or has some kind of precedent. I took the rumor to be a fabrication of some kind on the part of someone who wanted to believe it was true, much like some progressives still believe Mark Driscoll said anything about Gayle Haggard when he didn't.
Atanas Ourkouzounov: Guitar Sonata No. 5
Guitar Sonata No. 5: I.
Movimento fluido
Guitar Sonata No. 5: II.
Scherzo diabolico
Guitar Sonata No. 5:
III. Partite variate
You can hear all five of these sonatas on the Naxos release that's been out for a couple of years. This is one of my favorite cycles of solo guitar sonatas in the contemporary literature.
Atanas Ourkouzounov: Guitar Sonata No. 4
Kostas Tosidis plays
Ourkouzounov - Sonata No. 4
Guitar Sonata No. 4: I.
Allegro con spirito
Guitar Sonata No. 4: II.
Lamentoso
Guitar Sonata No. 4:
III. Allegro inquieto
Atanas Ourkouzounov: Guitar Sonata No. 3 "Cycling Modes"
Guitar Sonata No. 3
"Cycling Modes": I. Vivo
Guitar Sonata No. 3
"Cycling Modes": II. Poco rubato
Guitar Sonata No. 3
"Cycling Modes": III. Presto nervoso
Atanas Ourkouzounov: Guitar Sonata No. 2 "Hommage à Bartók"
Guitar Sonata No. 2
"Hommage à Bartók": I. Allegro
Guitar Sonata No. 2
"Hommage à Bartók": II. Scherzo
Guitar
Sonata No. 2 "Hommage à Bartók": III. Interlude
Guitar Sonata No. 2
"Hommage à Bartók": IV. Toccata
Atanas Ourkouzounov: Guitar Sonata No. 1
Today's featured cycle of solo guitar sonatas is the cycle composed by Atanas Ourkouzounov
Guitar Sonata No. 1: I.
Allegro assai
Guitar Sonata No. 1: II.
Adagio quasi canzone
Guitar Sonata No. 1:
III. Vivo
a brief note about Christopher Nolan's Tenet--James Cameron style time paradox with Michael Bay set-pieces in the service of the kind of plot Nolan seems incapable of pulling off, a simple heroic arc (some thoughts on why he can't do that)
Even though I've liked Nolan's films overall his films since Interstellar have had a curious trajectory. Before I comment about that I want to make a comment about how one of the shortcomings of film-by-film criticism is that people who take one movie at a time tend to lose sight of a director's catalog or a screenwriters' cumulative arc. So with that in mind I want to highlight a theme in Nolan's films running from Memento up through The Dark Knight, the self-deceiving protagonist. A director so consistently drawn to protagonists whose motivations are based on deliberate or unrecognized moments of self-deception across two decades was going to have a hard time selling us a simple and uncomplicatedly ethical protagonist even if he's played by John David Washington (who I hope has a long and hugely successful career).
Wednesday, May 05, 2021
Angelo Gilardino's Sonata di Lagonegro aka Sonata No. 5
Today's musical feature will be the five wonderful solo guitar sonatas composed by Angelo Gilardino, if you haven't followed the posts as they've gone up.
Sonata di lagonegro: I. Delle Campane
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MC5VoGbfVc
Sonata di lagonegro: II. Lauda in Santa Maria degli Angeli
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JEyxgYlnkc
Sonata di lagonegro: III. Levantina
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_OgO3JE17o
Angelo Gilardino's Sonata del Guadalquavir aka Sonata No. 4
Sonata del Guadalquivir: I. Memorias
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ffP6bjEozA
Sonata del Guadalquivir: II. Leyendas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdbHK3aLf_w
Sonata del Guadalquivir: III. Lejanias
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6nQXQ_DmbI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ffP6bjEozA
Sonata del Guadalquivir: II. Leyendas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdbHK3aLf_w
Sonata del Guadalquivir: III. Lejanias
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6nQXQ_DmbI
Angelo Gilardino's Guitar Sonata No. 2
Sonata No. 2 "Hivern florit": I. Allegretto semplice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eqj1WfBLppk
Sonata No. 2 "Hivern florit": II. Andante molto tranquillo quasi adagio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN5f8ellrsU
Sonata No. 2 "Hivern florit": III. Allegro vivo e brillante
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrfcGBNQsKk
Angelo Gilardino's Guitar Sonata No. 1
Gilardino Guitar Sonata No. 1, i
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCKkmX_rpf4
Cristiano Porqueddu's performance
movement 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur-n69VlsSI&list=PLLx3zbQD-HD0KqVjYzx1w0sgkGgTOo9m-&index=32
movement 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CemqmV7C8ys&index=33&list=PLLx3zbQD-HD0KqVjYzx1w0sgkGgTOo9m-
movement 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1ISnrcFrW4&list=PLLx3zbQD-HD0KqVjYzx1w0sgkGgTOo9m-&index=34
movement 4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzKDWDZv7-Q&list=PLLx3zbQD-HD0KqVjYzx1w0sgkGgTOo9m-&index=35
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCKkmX_rpf4
Cristiano Porqueddu's performance
movement 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur-n69VlsSI&list=PLLx3zbQD-HD0KqVjYzx1w0sgkGgTOo9m-&index=32
movement 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CemqmV7C8ys&index=33&list=PLLx3zbQD-HD0KqVjYzx1w0sgkGgTOo9m-
movement 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1ISnrcFrW4&list=PLLx3zbQD-HD0KqVjYzx1w0sgkGgTOo9m-&index=34
movement 4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzKDWDZv7-Q&list=PLLx3zbQD-HD0KqVjYzx1w0sgkGgTOo9m-&index=35
John Borstlap asks "what is the use of the symphony orchestra?" and answers that asking what its utility is is a mistaken question
http://subterraneanreview.blogspot.com/2021/04/what-is-use-of-symphony-orchestra.html
The tendency of many orchestras in the Western world to try to make themselves ‘useful’ to society, to become instruments of social change, results from the decreasing status of classical music as a whole, and especially one of its most expensive mediums: the symphony orchestra.
Justification of the costs has now to be found in some form of utility that lies outside music because music as such becomes much too difficult to see as something socially relevant. In a time when the notion of culture, and of psychological and spiritual subjects, is eroding, only the material and the financial aspects of life remain visible, and social injustices because they are understandeable by most people, including the culturally-challenged, on the most basic level.
So, in an attempt to survive in an increasing hostile environment, where classical music is seen by large groups as 'white suprematist', 'elitist', 'inaccessible', 'outdated', 'irrelevant to the modern world', a number of people at symphony orchestras think it necessary to turn away from the idea that classical music is a common good in itself and accessible to anyone, and to prostitute the medium. It is like an upperclass woman whose husband has left her and emptied the mutual bank account, and who desperately tries-out selling herself for survival.
But the idea that a symphony orchestra is not, or less, relevant to society if it is not directly connected to the needs of social change, is entirely wrong. Classical music is not an utility instrument, it is an art form which has no other ‘use‘ than being itself. In a world where so much is measured for its utility, it is the arts who offer an island where the value of a psychological and spiritual experience can be found in itself, as itself, and not in relation to some ulterior motive. Classical music addresses itself to the inner experience of man, and not to the outer world with its worldy concerns and needs. It is the opposite nature of classical music to the nature of the world that this unique art form finds its value and relevance, to compensate for the materialist, commercial, trivial and utility-saturated world of modernity, a world which tends to leave people nihilistic, depressed, exhausted and meaningless.
The Perilous Life of Symphony Orchestras is literally the title of a book, and so also The Crisis of Classical Music Education. Throw in Orchestrating the Nation and Antonin Dvorak's New World Symphony by Douglas Shadle and there are writers who have pointed out that the orchestral tradition has functionally been on life support in the United States since its beginnings and that bids at developing a symphonic literature have been hamstrung by, alternatively "The Beethoven problem" and "The Wagner problem". Mark Evan Bonds referred to The Beethoven Syndrome. Bonds has written about the history of the idea of Absolute Music, as well as about Music as Thought in the last few years. Much as I admire Beethoven's piano sonatas, string quartets and other works the symphonic idiom has a history of having contenders for an American canon that fall by the wayside through a mixture of critical lack of reception and the weight of comparisons to European predecessors.
Writing as a guitarist on the West coast of the United States who doesn't actually subscribe to the tenets of German Idealism or Wagnerian variations of art religion I would venture an idea that the future of classical music, at least in the United States, is going to be more in choral music, song, and chamber music than it is going to be orchestral. The orchestra survives more in film and even video game music than in contemporary works. This is not some way of saying I haven't heard any symphonic works I've liked in the last twenty years. I like Samuel Jones' Tuba Concerto, I even liked it enough to go hear it twice in live concerts. But as I have been proposing for a few years, the symphony may, after a few centuries of prestige, be going the way of the votive mass.
Tuesday, May 04, 2021
Dusan Bogdanovic's Guitar Sonata No. 4
Guitar Sonata No. 4: I. Appassionato, ritmico, rubato, meno
Guitar Sonata No. 4: II. Lento, rubato
Guitar Sonata No. 4: III. Allegretto, meno, rubato, allegretto
Guitar Sonata No. 4: IV. Allegro ritmico, poco sostenuto
full performance at
So after spending years incubating the idea of a long-form analytical series blogging through these sonatas I haven't so much thought better of that ideas as I thought it might not be a bad idea to start posting links to performances so that people who don't already know about the Bogdanovic sonatas can hear them. Score analysis can come later.
Dusan Bogdanovic's Guitar Sonata No. 3
Sonata No. 3: I. Moderato appassionato
Sonata No. 3: II. Lento rubato
Sonata No. 3: III. Allegretto
Sonata No. 3: IV. Allegro brillante
full performance with score at
and at
Dusan Bogdanovic's Guitar Sonata No. 2
Sonata No. 2: I. Allegro deciso e appassionato
Sonata No. 2: II. Adagio molto espressivo, poco rubato
Sonata No. 2: III. Scherzo melanconico, cantabile con dolcezza
Sonata No. 2: IV. Allegro ritmico
full performance with score at
full performance by composer at
Dusan Bogdanovic's Guitar Sonata No. 1
Sonata No. 1: I.
Allegro ritmico
Sonata No. 1: II.
Adagio rubato
Sonata No. 1: III.
Moderato un poco tenebroso
Sonata No. 1: IV.
Allegro molto
full performance at
Atanas Ourkouzounov - Edin's Sketches (2021)
Atanas is performing this piece and, of course, I'm an admirer of his work. I don't know exactly when I'll blog through the five solo guitar sonatas but I intend to do that at some point. I might break down and just have posts that let people listen to the works and get around to analytical blogging about the pieces later.
Julia Duin's coverage of the epic backpedaling or "Trump is president in heaven" in American charismatic and Pentecostal prophecy scenes is something you should read
Now I ended up being ex-Pentecostal for a lot of reasons and one of thosse reasons was skepticism about the prophecy industries. I won't bore you with the details now when I could share thoughts later on Crawford Gribben's magnificently readable Writing the Rapture later (his book on survivalism and Christian reconstructionists in the Pacific Northwest is his new book out as of late March and I want to write about that one, too).
But one of the deal-breakers was paranoid style end-times prophecy and its fraternal twin utopian prophecy. We just saw an example of the latter with proclamations that Trump really won the election but Biden and company stole it. Well, that's a utopian proclamation/prophecy for those who wanted Trump to win and simultaneously affirm prophetic activity. That those people now have to contend with the reality that those prophets have proven false has lead to a rift within the U.S. Pentecostal and charismatic prophecy communities that Julia Duin has done a very good job of covering since November 2020.
The older I get the more I realize my western Oregonian Pentecostal upbringing was an aberration, what with an Assemblies of God youth pastor introducing me to the work of textual scholar Gordon Fee; introducing me to the concepts of exegesis and hermeneutics; and perhaps most unusual of all, sharing with me his ambivalence about the legacy of Kierekgaard (admired his meditations on Christian love but regarded Kierkegaard's apologetics as a complete disaster). Maybe recommending Solzhenitsyn was not so unusual for a Pentecostal youth pastor but the rest sure was, as has become more apparent to me in decades of hindsight!
Sunday, May 02, 2021
links for the weekend: The Tallis Scholars have recorded Josquin's masses (all of them); move among Christian charismatic prophets to reform movement after egregious failure in predicting Trump won 2020; and the case for a kindler, gentler Emperor Nero
It
turns out Peter Phillips and the Tallis Scholars have finally recorded all of
the masses of Josquin des Prez.
For as
often as socially conservative Protestants in the United States bewail the
epidemic of singleness it’s worth pointing out that the whiplash of economic
disruptions can make it challenging for the kids to “adult” if the job market
shifts and stable jobs are hard to come by.
So, once again, some authors at The Atlantic make a defense of the kids
these days who are charged with being slow to grow up.
Finding
your first steady job in the midst of a pandemic can’t be easy for seasoned
workers but I feel for the kids who are setting out to start careers now in the
era of covid-19.
Julia
Duin has a feature at The Roys Report on a move to establish standards for
prophetic statements in charismatic and Pentecostal scenes after the debacle of
self-designated Christian prophets claiming that Trump would win the 2020
election.
Was
Emperor Nero really as legendarily bad as has been said about him? The Guardian has a feature to the effect that
that question is germane by way of a museum exhibit.
The
new, nicer Nero is not exactly "news" in that this was something that
got some coverage last October.
But what if Nero wasn’t such a monster? What if he didn’t invent the spectator sport of throwing Christians to the lions in the Colosseum? What if he wasn’t the tyrant who murdered upstanding Roman senators and debauched their wives? Indeed, what if the whole lurid rap sheet has been an elaborate set-up, with Nero as history’s patsy? After all, we have no eyewitness testimony from Nero’s reign. Any contemporaneous writings have been lost. The ancient Roman sources we do have date from considerably after Nero’s suicide in A.D. 68. The case against Nero, then, is largely hearsay, amplified and distorted over two millennia in history’s longest game of telephone. Besides, no one really wants to straighten out the record. Who wants another version of Nero? He’s the perfect evil tyrant just the way he is.
A few lonely voices have come to Nero’s defense. In 1562, the Milanese polymath Girolamo Cardano published a treatise, Neronis Encomium. He argued that Nero had been slandered by his principal accusers. But Cardano was having his own problems with the Inquisition at the time. Sticking up for a guy who, among other things, supposedly martyred the first Christians for fun was not likely to help his own cause. “You put your life at risk if you said something good about Nero,” says Angelo Paratico, a historian, who translated Cardano’s manifesto into English.
Mark Driscoll has never stopped being a monergist, but he's pivoted a bit on what kind of monergist he'll say he is
A couple of years ago Mark Driscoll was reported saying he thought the five points of Calvinism was garbage.
This puzzled former Mars Hill media head Justin Dean who nevertheless commented (rightly, as we'll see) that he didn't think Mark Driscoll had (or would) actually change his core views.
That Driscoll was not a strictly Reformed type on the limits of the atonement goes back to his 2008 Doctrine series where he advocated for what he called "Limited Unlimited atonement", which has historically been identified within the Reformed traditions as Amyraldianism. Driscoll has lately been restating his views on soteriology and atonement in Duck, Duck, Doom (as distinct from his preferred nomenclature in the Mars Hill years of "duck, duck, damn".
Bob Smietana's at The Roys Report on Jed Ostoich's time as a Docent Group research assistant to Mars Hill, revisiting how the initial MHC response to the 2013 plagiarism controversy was to shift blame to a research assistant
Bob Smietana has something at Julie Roys Report on how a pastor was caught having plagiarized Mark Driscoll sermons who, as longtime readers will know, had his own plagiarism scandal a few years back.
Smietana also has an article about ghostwriting that mentions Jed Ostoich.
Even longtime readers of Wenatchee the Hatchet might not recall that we looked at what the inadvertent ghostwriter for Mark Driscoll had to say back in 2019 about his time with the Docent Group.
Now the reason I mention all of this is because having even a single person go on record about doing Docent Group research on behalf of Mark Driscoll in the past is salient due to the fact that when the plagiarism controversy erupted in late 2013 with Janet Mefferd's on air conversation with Mark Driscoll, an early public response on the part of Mars Hill was to admit to citation mistakes but shift them to research assistant by implication. This was something that was covered back in December 2013 when the situation had just begun:
Saturday, May 01, 2021
Prince (with Miles Davis) "Can I Play With U?" (2020 Remaster)
A song from Prince and Miles Davis is worth linking to all by itself this weekend. Heard this track recent and a bit about its background. It gets a bit weird in some spots for a pop song but gloriously weird, like Prince snuck Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, George Russell and (of course) Davis into the song aiming to sound out across a dance floor.
Friday, April 30, 2021
some general thoughts and observations about Igor Rekhin's 24 Preludes and Fugues for solo guitar--I'm afraid I have to say I respect it more than I enjoy it
So I've had Bands 1 and 2 of this cycle for years and for years I couldn't find any recordings of a performance of the entire cycle. I recall Matanya Ophee wrote that Rekhin approached him about publishing the cycle and Ophee passed. The cycle was eventually published.
I've now had time to listen to the entire cycle, which you can hear over here.
Now for some thoughts ...
Warren Throckmorton on the elderless church of Mark Driscoll in AZ parts 2 and 3 (also 4), revisiting how neither a board of directors nor a board of advisors & accountability seemed to have restrained consolidation of powers in the Mars Hill years
Warren Throckmorton now has a multi-part series on how Mark Driscoll's newest church, The Trinity Church, has no elders and a board that seems to simply exist.
That there is a board of directors that includes men who don't attend the church may remind long-time readers who know the history of Mars Hill of the Board of Advisors and Accountability that had a Board of Overseers.
Throckmorton has noted that Mark Driscoll Ministries is doing business as Real Faith.
The board members on Mark Driscoll Ministries are
(1) MARK DRISCOLL, PRESIDENT
(2) RANDAL TAYLOR, SECRETARY (TREASURER)
(3) BRANDON THOMAS, BOARD MEMBER
(4) JOSH MCPHERSON, BOARD MEMBER
For the last of these names that's a name that has, in fact, shown up a handful of times here at this blog.
Throckmorton linked to some audio that Driscoll preached at McPherson's church that went away after a while but a transcript is at the following link:
There was also a listing for Josh McPherson as a Mars Hill pastor for a while, back around September 2014.
Now for Throckmorton's part three "Where's the Board?"
Alan Jacobs on the Substackification of the net, folks that are on Substack and some thoughts on how the platform differs but the vetting process hasn't (and probably shouldn't) with a side-riff on watchdog blogs
Re: the Substackfication-of-journalism stuff I’ve been writing about lately, this interview with Ted Gioia is fascinating.
And I now see that the always-smart Megan McArdle has weighed in. One small dissent, though: She writes, “There are some reasons to think that Substack might survive a march of the incumbents” — and by “incumbents” she means (a) the major social-media platforms and (b) the major newspapers and magazines, because both (a) and (b) are getting into the newsletter game. But I’d argue that in relation to paid newsletters, Substack is the chief incumbent. The genre has been around long enough for me to say that, I think.
Well, yes, Ted Gioia, Freddie deBoer and now John McWhorter all have Substack platforms. Even though I think Gioia is embarrassingly wrong about a variety of things I look forward to reading his Substack posts. As Bryan Townsend and I discussed over at The Music Salon, Gioia could be, where we disagree with him, someone who could be considered, in Townsend's phrasing "a good faith opponent".
I'm not a Marxist but I read deBoer regularly with interest because, as he has put it, finding actual solutions is more important than feeling we're right about stuff and to the extent that finding musical convergences between "classical" and American vernacular styles has been a adult-lifelong quest of mine I hope readers of this blog can appreciate what I appreciate about these authors. I have McWhorter to thank for learning about Edward Berlin's thought-provoking and informative work on ragtime in general and Scott Joplin in particular. I think McWhorter has under-estimated the potential of ragtime for long-work and large-scale development, obviously, but if we both appreciate ragtime as a musical art form then that's the thing I consider more salient. Though not a formal academic myself what I hope scholarship, whatever form it takes, can help us arrive at musical convergences of the sort Ted Gioia suggests we look for. I am convinced we will better be able to find those convergences by altogether rejecting what I regard as Gioia's conspiracy-theory approach to music history, but on the seeking convergences across styles part, at least, we agree!
In favor of Jacobs' riffs on Substackification, Gioia has pointed out that the institutions of media are more likely to stymie creativity and innovation, more or less. On the other hand, in a nod to a more Socratic Gadfly dour take on alternative forms of media, the problem is that all the authors I've mentioned have all had their credentials vetted and demonstrated in traditional media and academic contexts. I.e. the vetting process for why these people are saying anything whose expertise we should care about to begin with has not really changed and that far it's the old conundrum of qualification to be a source for the record in journalistic terms. The problem has been acutely notable in the realm of the Christian blogosphere by way of watchdog blogs or "online discernment ministries" and the very live questions as to why any of these are run by people who, as clergy can be swift to ask, the least bit qualified to be doing blogging. The paradox, ahem, of clergy blogging and wondering why other people are qualified has its own set of questions. To put it crudely, I don't wonder how or why Jim West knows what he's talking about at his blog compared to the rebranded Mark Driscoll at Real Faith.
I'm a bit behind on stuff I've meant to blog about so for this post this much will have to do.
Monday, April 26, 2021
Warren Throckmorton has an update on the elderless The Trinity Church that Mark Driscoll is President and CEO of; revisiting the post-MHC resignation role of some board members of TTC and Driscoll on governance as "throne down not pew up"
Warren Throckmorton has noted that The Trinity Church seems to be an elderless church. There are pastors but they aren't listed as elders. If Throckmorton's account tells us anything it's that former members of The Trinity Church have indicated that the church does not have elders.
...
During the past couple of weeks, several former members of The Trinity Church in Scottsdale have contacted me to talk about about aspects of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. They contacted me due to my coverage of Mars Hill from late 2013 until 2015. They tell stories remarkably similar to those I heard from former Mars Hill members during that span of time. There is one major difference. In the current church, there are no elders who are putting on any brakes. There are no elders to whom appeals can be made. Several former members and staffers have told me that The Trinity Church does not have elders.
Some things do sound the same. Non-disclosure agreements are again being used. Money is again conditioned on silence. People are describing abrupt decisions about membership without due process. Friends and family who are considered disloyal to the church are being shunned. At some point, these stories may be told. For now, according to former members and staff, the pastors who are there in addition to Driscoll are not elders in the decision making sense of the office. If elders hold you accountable in one place, eliminate them in the next place.
...
If that means "friends and family of Mark Driscoll" who are considered disloyal to Mark Driscoll then that may be the case but is also, at the moment, impossible to verify. At some point those stories may be told but to go by the history of Mars Hill Church the likelihood is low. Few people I can think of off the top of my head have ever opted to go on record about unpleasant experiences they had at Mars Hill. They don't have to, of course. Nobody should feel compelled or coerced into going on the record about unpleasant experiences. So perhaps stories may be shared but let's not presume upon that.
Sunday, April 25, 2021
Links for the weekend: Terry Mattingly on vaccination hesitation in the American South across racial lines and declining church membership in U.S.; Eastern Orthodox DO affirm penal substitutionary atonement for the U.S. folks who would say otherwise, apparently; and Crawford Gribben's book on PNW survivalism and Christian reconstructionism is out
Terry Mattingly highlights a moment
where The New York Times could heed
the snarky advice of “you should really read your own newspaper.” Why? Because
while some coverage mentions that hesitancy about vaccination in the South
comes from white evangelicals other coverage shows that there is hesitancy
among African Americans to get Covid-19 vaccines throughout the South. There are elements of politics, perhaps, but
the vaccines were developed during the Trump administration, so Mattingly
suggests that other factors to consider are rifts between clergy and laity; and
to not forget that African Americans remember the Tuskegee syphilis malfeasance
and that these are factors to consider regarding vaccine hesitancy in the
American South. Religion may be a
variable but it is not a foregone conclusion it is “the” variable for vaccine hesitancy
among white evangelicals and African Americans in the South.
Also by Terry Mattingly, a piece looking at thoughts from Thomas Kidd and Russell Moore on how U.S. church membership has fallen to all-time lows.
Kidd highlights a trend in American
religious life where lack of formal church membership is not prima facie
evidence of being secular or secularist. In other words eve among the “none” or
“done” categories of people who won’t attend churches this is not necessarily a
sign of being irreligious. Not being an
evangelical Christian with a church membership contract doesn’t mean a person
couldn’t be one in doctrinal terms, or a deist or a pantheist or have some form
of belief in the divine.
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