This Will Make Bill Happy

From an interview with Neil Portnow regarding the upcoming Grammy Awards:

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A GRAMMY FIELD SO DOMINATED BY R&B AND HIP-HOP AS THERE IS THIS YEAR. WHAT'S THE REASON FOR THIS HUGE EXPLOSION?

Neil Portnow: The fact is that the culture in this country has shifted and is changing. The acceptance of hip-hop culture is not something that's fringe or niche-specific anymore -- it's in the mainstream of American life. You see it music, you see it in film, you see it in television and you very much see it in fashion. Lastly, you see it reflected in Madison Avenue's choice of music beds for mainstream corporate American advertising, which really tells me that it's arrived in the culture. Certainly, our membership is also a reflection of what's happening culturally in America. We've also made a concerted effort to reach out to a variety of constituencies -- and certainly one is the urban/hip-hop community -- in recruiting membership because we want our voting members to be reflective of the reality of what's going on in music and in the world.

Sigh.

UPDATE: To the ramparts! Here is a nifty New York Review of Books interview with Alfred Brendel about Mozart's piano concerti. Money quote:

There is perfection of form, yes, but there is also the sensual beauty of the "cantabile" composer, the beauty above all of the Mozart sound. Mozart is one of the most sensuous composers ever. There is a sensuality too about his melodies. I'm reminded of a lovely sentence from Busoni, who said a few wonderful things in his aphorisms about Mozart. Bu-soni said there was no doubt that Mozart took singing as his starting point, and from this stems the uninterrupted melodiousness which shimmers through his compositions like the lovely forms of a woman through the folds of a flimsy dress. Isn't that wonderful?

Exactly right. In fact, I'm currently listening to his Piano Concerto No. 18 in B-Flat, K. 456 (Malcolm Bilson with John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists), one of my favorites. The second movement - in a haunting minor key - uses a theme very, very close to "L'ho perduta, me meschina", Barbarina's Act IV-opening aria in Le Nozze di Figaro.

Go read the rest. And skip the Grammies.