Singing Against the Grain
June 29, 2018 7:34 PM   Subscribe

Playing Beethoven in the #BlackLivesMatter eraJohann Baptist Vanhal’s Concerto in D Major is a standard of the string repertoire. A Czech composer and musician who performed with Joseph Haydn, Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Vanhal most likely wrote the bright and shimmery concerto for double bass in the 1760s, around the same time that he was saving money to purchase his freedom from a Bohemian count. [CW: this is America]

Vanhal’s concerto is just the kind of piece that an extremely talented young student like Draylen Mason might have selected for his audition to the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, which asks that applicants perform, among other works, two contrasting movements of a sonata or a concerto. Playing Vanhal’s concerto requires ingenuity and flexibility, a quick and light technique, and good cheer, all qualities that Mason possessed.

Mason earned admission to study double bass at Oberlin, although he never knew it. He never will know, because on March 12, 2018 in Austin, Texas, he was murdered by a white bomber who targeted one of the city’s oldest black neighborhoods.
posted by Celsius1414 (6 comments total) 28 users marked this as a favorite
 
Jesus... this is like a gut-punch after being stabbed in the heart.
posted by Conrad-Casserole at 8:05 PM on June 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


That's a great essay. It questions broadly, answers personally, and opens to the reader to a broad range of experiences to contemplate as response. Being as it is, there's nothing I feel necessary to add but thanks for posting it.
posted by gusottertrout at 10:11 PM on June 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


I agree with gusottertrout, who expressed it better than I could have: an excellent essay.

Vanhal's Bass Concerto (YouTube).
posted by misteraitch at 11:57 PM on June 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


Oh, yeah, it isn't the point of the essay at all, but, man, I dig Vanhal and don't get many excuses to note that so I'll take that link as a rare opportunity to do so. Thanks!
posted by gusottertrout at 12:16 AM on June 30, 2018 [1 favorite]


GOD DAMN
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:30 AM on June 30, 2018


This is such an important essay. As a scholar of Afro-diasporic popular music who has to work alongside classical musicians on a daily basis, this gives me a lot to think about. It is difficult for me to square with how defiantly walled off classical repertoire (and even most musical theater) is from the musical systems and practices of Africa and the African diaspora. It is still an open question to me how much of classical music culture is irredeemably, inextricably linked to imperialism and racial terror. Yet, I stop short of considering this legacy to be all that classical music is, and this article reminds me why.

I loved that Kira Thurman ended by mentioning Tyshawn Sorey, because I saw him perform not long ago and it was profoundly moving. It points to the insistence of George Lewis and the subsequent generation of performers and scholars that he has mentored that what they do is neither exactly jazz nor Western concert music, but partakes of, expands and moves beyond both. I see this terrain as some of the more thrilling terrain today.
posted by unk gladenboot at 3:38 AM on July 1, 2018 [3 favorites]


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