what did bach look like

CNN posted a story on Tuesday called "What did Bach look like?" The article features a picture of what Bach might have looked like using computer generated technology. From this digital image a bust was created; this bust was displayed at Eisenach in an exhibition call "Bach Through the Mirror of Medicine."

The computer-based Bach bust seems like a mascot for irony. While it speaks of the current technological achievements, in both the sciences and arts, it also cries out to the traditional and classical: it is computerized iconography. Not only is Bach a symbol of the old-fashioned and classical in culture today, but busts are also a symbol of an old-fashioned art form. Creating this bust of Bach perpetuates his large-than-life icon status, yet humanizes him through facial reconstruction. The need to make a life-like bust today seems not only like morbid hero-worship, but also desperation, as the face of Baroque genius melds with twenty-first-century capabilities.

Why does an infusion of "technology" seem to make everything "cool?" When something isn't attracting enough attention or customers, then a .com is added, as if a digital mark is the new authority for what is or isn't. The internet is great for music, information, shopping, and creating new art, and we are in that age, yet there seems to be something rather "uncool" force digital ideas on objects just to make them so.

For example: I love that I can go to itunes or Naxos and listen to the Bach B Minor Mass, download the music, and take it with me on my ipod. I am also fascinated that we can take the shape of a deceased person's skull and virtually recreate his feature without photographs to go by. But why Bach?

The real question in not "why this was done," but "for whom." The answer to the "why" is "because we can." But who would want to see this? This does not change the way we hear his music, and it will probably not attract young listeners or influence another Bach revival. The bust was created for those already obsessed with Bach's biography and for those interested in the digital arts and sciences.

verdi's requiem in milwaukee this weekend

I am looking forward to singing in the Verdi Requiem with the MSO choir this weekend, that is if my voice will return in time. I've tried tea, vitamin C, zinc, and the Netti Pot, and although I have a lot of energy, my throat is still raspy. I sound like an alto whose smoked for sixty years, instead of a 23 year-old soprano.

Aside from my cold, I am so excited for this concert. Tonight is the first rehearsal with the orchestra! What more is there to say, except that I hope people come! And of course this concert will draw a large crowd, because Verdi is a canonical classic with recognizable tunes. This music is new to me, however, and I am rediscovering why I love to sing in choir. Oh, the emotion, the drama, the chromaticism!

I can't help but to make fun of myself for enjoying this piece so much. How often do serious music students gush in excitement over seemingly stale, "Classical" music? I love this music because I can sing it and put it into a contemporary context for myself, basing my musical judgment not on the style or time period of the requiem, but on the music itself, living in the present. I don't claim to believe that Verdi's music "speaks for itself," but it speaks to me. If only I could speak this week....