This is a test post, as I haven't been on here in years.
As I posted on Twitter this morning, the Grammys telecast (which aired last night on CBS) used to stand out from the other awards shows by showcasing the many sometimes unprofitable genres the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences represents, by including jazz, classical and folk performances among the commercial stuff. And it always expressed a clear stand in favour of music education in public schools. While last night's show included acknowledgement of a "music educator of the year" and some advocacy for education, the show has become in recent years indistinguishable from other celebrity glitz-fests, such as the American Music Awards, the People's Choice Awards and the MTV Video Music Awards.
Some highlights: The in memoriam segment, featuring Kacey Musgraves, Mick Fleetwood, Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow and Migos' Quavo; Harry Styles receiving his award from bis biggest fan, a grandmother from Sudbury, Ont.; and a nod to the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, put together by Questlove (the Roots) and including a long list of notables, including L.L. Cool J., Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, Busta Rymes, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Missy Elliot, Big Boi and De La Soul, to name but a few. Inevitably, the omnipresent D.J. Kaled, who always manages to stake out a prominent position in these events, was everywhere.
Unknown Bonnie Raitt
Song of the Year honours went to Bonnie Raitt, who beat out Adele, Beyonce, Taylor Swift and Harry Styles. Raitt's expression of utter shock upon hearing her song title ("Just Like That") called was reminiscent of Meryl Streep's feigned astonishment at the Golden Globes a few years ago. But Raitt's incredulity was real. She was likely resigned to an honorary mention alongside the reigning stars.
No one, however, was more surprised at Raitt's win than the reporter at U.K. trash tabloid The Daily Mail, which reported: "Shock as unknown blues singer beats Beyonce, Adele and Taylor Swift to win Song of the Year."
Whose record did Beyonce break?
Beyonce set the record for total Grammys won by an artist, taking home her 31st gold gramophone. But I heard no mention made during the telecast, or since, of the incumbent record-holder: Georg Solti, the Hungarian/British symphony and operatic conductor and long-standing musical director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Born in Budapest in 1912, Solti studied with Bela Bartok and later, in the 1930s, worked under Arturo Toscanini at the Salzburg Festival. Before the Second World War, Solti fled Hungary's increasing antisemitism for London, where he conducted a season of ballet at the Royal Opera House. During the war, he found refuge in Switzerland, where, forbidden to work as a conductor, he earned a living as a pianist. After the war, he made a name for himself as a fastidious, demanding conductor with such notable companies as the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Covent Garden Opera Company in London.
Solti joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1967. He made numerous recordings with the CSO, including the complete symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner and Mahler. He made several operatic recordings with the CSO and other orchestras. Solti's recording of Wagner's "Der Ring Des Nibelungen," recorded in Vienna in 1958, has twice been voted the greatest recording ever made — by readers of Gramophone magazine in 1999, and by professional music critics polled by BBC's Music Magazine, in 2011; this is the music heard during the helicopter attack scene in the movie Apocalypse Now. Solti died in 1997.
Here's to you, Georg. It was a good run. One might say you put your own Ring on it.
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