The musical stylings of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven come under a close lens at Charles Rosen's The Classical Style.
The Ojai Music Festival last Friday, in all its 68-year history, made a valiant attempt at bringing Rosen's never out of print, 43-year-old book from its dusty decay to a new form, this time on stage via Steven Stucky's The Classical Style: An Opera (of Sorts).
The concept and libretto are by a brilliant pianist and writer, someone you may have heard of, Jeremy Denk, the new Ojai music director.
A festival geared towards reinterpretations of the Classical era has a profound centerpiece to the gala, and something so side-splitting that a rehearsal, according to Mark Swed at the LA Times, was halted after a conductor could keep it in (his laughing stopping the show).
The Classical Style took the festival by storm, a mash-up of Glenn Gould, Bach and Rosen all hysterically contorting their theories on musical form into a blend of priceless satire.
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