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Language Is a Virus


I swear, this was going to be the week I finally got back on a regular blogging schedule, so of course, this would have to be the week I was whacked by a norovirus, which has made me useless for the past few days. (Here’s a great, gross norovirus fun fact for your inner 12-year-old boy:

Transmission is predominantly faecal-oral but may be airborne due to aerosolisation of vomitus

Ewwww. I spent a sleepless hour or two imagining ethereally audience-friendly Eric-Whitacre-esque five-part choral settings of that sentence, and the imaginary reaction of the equally imaginary bourgeois audience cheered me up.)

Anyway, one reason for the recent radio silence—though late-summer indolence has played a significant part, I’m not gonna lie—was in order to get a jump-start on a project which, now that all the glyphs have their requisite tittles, is no longer subject to my usual precipitately-announced-project jinx: a book on the cultural history of the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony for Alfred A. Knopf (their logo is a dog! Moe approves). Is there anything at all more to be said about such an ubiquitous warhorse? Well, yeah, as it turns out—and a lot of what already has been said is long-lost fun, to say the least. Here’s a bit from today’s efforts:

Press corps parrot abducted

NICOSIA, Cyprus—A British journalist offered a $100 reward Wednesday for the safe return of Coco, the whistling parrot of the foreign press corps who was abducted by gunmen from a west Beirut hotel in last week’s fighting.

The cash reward was made in messages sent by Coco’s owner to west Beirut newspapers.

Coco, who for 10 years has lived at the Commodore hotel frequented by foreign journalists, was locally famous for imitating the whistling of an incoming shell. It also whistled the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and the French national anthem.

—United Press International, February 25, 1987

As far as I can tell, Coco was never heard from again. For the near future, expect this space to be largely occupied by Beethovenian trivia.

Today in Supercar Pantonality


From a press release announcing the new Lamborghini Gallardo LP 550-2 “Valentino Balboni”:

Adjustments have also been made to the very heart of the Gallardo, the 5.2 litre ten-cylinder: the perfect synthesis of hi-revving pleasure, pulling power, a constantly exuberant temperament and a powerful symphony played in all keys.

I bet Charles Ives could’ve gotten you a good insurance quote on that car.

With a little Alp from my friends

Today in Intellectual Property news: copyright law invades the domain of Bavarian beer-hall yodeling.

The money-spinning power of “horlla-rü-di-ri, di-ri, di-ri”, the famous chorus of the Kufsteinlied, which is capable of making even the hardiest of lederhosen-clad Germans go weak at the knees, has been keenly felt this week in a Munich courtroom battle over who owns the copyright.

The heirs of Karl Ganzer, the Austrian composer of the 63-year-old beer-hall hit which is said to be Europe’s most-played folk song, were yesterday successful in their attempts to sue the music publisher Egon Frauenberger, who claimed he had written the song’s refrain and therefore had a right to a twelfth of the royalties.

The most famous version of the “Kufsteinlied” was recorded in 1968 by Franzl Lang, the Jodlerkönig. Here he is singing it in 1991. Now I’m thirsty.

In the ballpark

Reading that the Boston Symphony Orchestra management and players have agreed to freeze salaries at their current minimum of $128,180, Thomas Garvey asks—more to the point, asks why my Globe colleague Geoff Edgers isn’t asking, “Why is the BSO so overpaid?” The answer? Because they’re not. Here are the starting salaries for either the last or the coming season for the traditional Big Five, plus San Francisco and Los Angeles:

The BSO is right in the middle of that pack. Garvey unfavorably contrasts that pay with theater pay—for example, the minimum Actor’s Equity salary in Boston is $529/week—but given the scarcity and status of a Big-Five-or-Seven job, the better comparison might be with SAG or AFTRA rates for speaking parts, which actually are higher than the best orchestral positions: $2,634/week vs. $2,495/week for the New York Philharmonic. (And if you think about the BSO as the major leagues of orchestral playing—the starting salary in the NFL is $310,000; the starting salary in Major League Baseball is $390,000.)

Back in 2006, BSO freelancers got the short end of the stick, which was reported with due skepticism; I’m assuming that inequity continues in this extension. But the full-time players are earning pretty much what every other comparable market is paying. Is the Boston Symphony Orchestra a sweet gig? Hell, yeah. But overpaid? Not according to the going rates.