example22 | Reading

Tuesday's Prom was already a sell-out in the seats, and I wasn't surprised at the longer queue for the arena. This time I found myself in the third row, so nothing to be dissatisfied with.
The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, conducted by Andris Nelsons, began with Arvo Pärt's Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten. It's a piece I have seen performed before, quite a long time ago, in 2007 it seems. The bell was truly sonorous, perhaps even melodious simply of itself, but where was it coming from? It took a while to work out it was hidden at the back of the flat part of the stage, behind the strings. It was also satisfyingly bell-shaped, rather than tubular. Intuitively I feel that bells are individual instruments, not mass-produced, and so finding the harmonic blend between the strings and the bell is tricky. The final strike of the bell was audible, but it didn't really matter. As the final toll decayed, Nelsons held the silence well. Clearly the audience were a serious lot.

The central work in the programme, Dvořák's Violin Concerto, was new to me - I think. Isabelle Faust was a late replacement as the soloist for Hilary Hahn, due to injury. She certainly seemed to have a rapport with the orchestra and conductor. The work was immediately familiar, if not entirely distinctive. Maybe I have heard it - or excerpts from it - before - or maybe it just sounds generic in places, I'm not sure. It doesn't suffer from over-longevity the way the composer's cello concerto does, but it probably isn't quite up there with its approximate contemporaries, concertos by Brahms or Tchaikovsky. Faust gave a solo encore which the arena considered likely to be Bach, but which BBC Sounds attributes to Nicola Matteis. So you learn something new every day.

The second half was a performance of Sibelius's Symphony No 2, another work I have seen a few times, most recently in 2018. Several things were quickly apparent. The difference antiphonal seating can make, with the way the sound moves through the different string sections. The difference between a good orchestra and a truly great one, with the absolute clarity and sound quality. The confidence of the brass section. The sometimes esoteric movements of the conductor. The feeling of flying, or perhaps skimming the water's surface, in the final movement. True joy is a serious matter, and the Leipzig Gewandhaus were serious indeed.

denise posting in

dw_news

I'll start with the tl;dr summary to make sure everyone sees it and then explain further: As of September 1, we will temporarily be forced to block access to Dreamwidth from all IP addresses that geolocate to Mississippi for legal reasons. This block will need to continue until we either win the legal case entirely, or the district court issues another injunction preventing Mississippi from enforcing their social media age verification and parental consent law against us.

Mississippi residents, we are so, so sorry. We really don't want to do this, but the legal fight we and Netchoice have been fighting for you had a temporary setback last week. We genuinely and honestly believe that we're going to win it in the end, but the Fifth Circuit appellate court said that the district judge was wrong to issue the preliminary injunction back in June that would have maintained the status quo and prevented the state from enforcing the law requiring any social media website (which is very broadly defined, and which we definitely qualify as) to deanonymize and age-verify all users and obtain parental permission from the parent of anyone under 18 who wants to open an account.

Netchoice took that appellate ruling up to the Supreme Court, who declined to overrule the Fifth Circuit with no explanation -- except for Justice Kavanaugh agreeing that we are likely to win the fight in the end, but saying that it's no big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime.

Needless to say, it's a big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime. The Mississippi law is a breathtaking state overreach: it forces us to verify the identity and age of every person who accesses Dreamwidth from the state of Mississippi and determine who's under the age of 18 by collecting identity documents, to save that highly personal and sensitive information, and then to obtain a permission slip from those users' parents to allow them to finish creating an account. It also forces us to change our moderation policies and stop anyone under 18 from accessing a wide variety of legal and beneficial speech because the state of Mississippi doesn't like it -- which, given the way Dreamwidth works, would mean blocking people from talking about those things at all. (And if you think you know exactly what kind of content the state of Mississippi doesn't like, you're absolutely right.)

Needless to say, we don't want to do that, either. Even if we wanted to, though, we can't: the resources it would take for us to build the systems that would let us do it are well beyond our capacity. You can read the sworn declaration I provided to the court for some examples of how unworkable these requirements are in practice. (That isn't even everything! The lawyers gave me a page limit!)

Unfortunately, the penalties for failing to comply with the Mississippi law are incredibly steep: fines of $10,000 per user from Mississippi who we don't have identity documents verifying age for, per incident -- which means every time someone from Mississippi loaded Dreamwidth, we'd potentially owe Mississippi $10,000. Even a single $10,000 fine would be rough for us, but the per-user, per-incident nature of the actual fine structure is an existential threat. And because we're part of the organization suing Mississippi over it, and were explicitly named in the now-overturned preliminary injunction, we think the risk of the state deciding to engage in retaliatory prosecution while the full legal challenge continues to work its way through the courts is a lot higher than we're comfortable with. Mississippi has been itching to issue those fines for a while, and while normally we wouldn't worry much because we're a small and obscure site, the fact that we've been yelling at them in court about the law being unconstitutional means the chance of them lumping us in with the big social media giants and trying to fine us is just too high for us to want to risk it. (The excellent lawyers we've been working with are Netchoice's lawyers, not ours!)

All of this means we've made the extremely painful decision that our only possible option for the time being is to block Mississippi IP addresses from accessing Dreamwidth, until we win the case. (And I repeat: I am absolutely incredibly confident we'll win the case. And apparently Justice Kavanaugh agrees!) I repeat: I am so, so sorry. This is the last thing we wanted to do, and I've been fighting my ass off for the last three years to prevent it. But, as everyone who follows the legal system knows, the Fifth Circuit is gonna do what it's gonna do, whether or not what they want to do has any relationship to the actual law.

We don't collect geolocation information ourselves, and we have no idea which of our users are residents of Mississippi. (We also don't want to know that, unless you choose to tell us.) Because of that, and because access to highly accurate geolocation databases is extremely expensive, our only option is to use our network provider's geolocation-based blocking to prevent connections from IP addresses they identify as being from Mississippi from even reaching Dreamwidth in the first place. I have no idea how accurate their geolocation is, and it's possible that some people not in Mississippi might also be affected by this block. (The inaccuracy of geolocation is only, like, the 27th most important reason on the list of "why this law is practically impossible for any site to comply with, much less a tiny site like us".)

If your IP address is identified as coming from Mississippi, beginning on September 1, you'll see a shorter, simpler version of this message and be unable to proceed to the site itself. If you would otherwise be affected, but you have a VPN or proxy service that masks your IP address and changes where your connection appears to come from, you won't get the block message, and you can keep using Dreamwidth the way you usually would.

On a completely unrelated note while I have you all here, have I mentioned lately that I really like ProtonVPN's service, privacy practices, and pricing? They also have a free tier available that, although limited to one device, has no ads or data caps and doesn't log your activity, unlike most of the free VPN services out there. VPNs are an excellent privacy and security tool that every user of the internet should be familiar with! We aren't affiliated with Proton and we don't get any kickbacks if you sign up with them, but I'm a satisfied customer and I wanted to take this chance to let you know that.

Again, we're so incredibly sorry to have to make this announcement, and I personally promise you that I will continue to fight this law, and all of the others like it that various states are passing, with every inch of the New Jersey-bred stubborn fightiness you've come to know and love over the last 16 years. The instant we think it's less legally risky for us to allow connections from Mississippi IP addresses, we'll undo the block and let you know.

qatsi

I wasn't sure how popular Friday's Prom would be: Joshua Bell is a star name, and Gorecki's Symphony No. 3 could draw a big crowd, but the UK premiere of a violin concerto might have put some people off. In the end I was in the second row of the arena, which wasn't that packed; the seats looked to have sold quite well.

The BBC Symphony Orchestra and Dalia Stasevska began with a Respighi orchestration of Bach's chorale Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland. Like all Bach orchestrations, it works because it's Bach. Great music is great music, no matter how it's rearranged, though it should be said that Respighi also had a talent for orchestration.

So, what to make of Thomas de Hartman's Violin Concerto? Well, first, with hindsight, to note the composer's dates: 1884-1956, so we are not talking about a contemporary piece. Described as a lament for the Nazi destruction of his Ukrainian homeland, in fact it was quite lyrical in places, perhaps as much a fond memorial as an anguished outburst. I'd listen again, or seek out more of this unknown composer's works. The orchestra joined Bell in an encore, an arrangement of a Chopin piece.

The second half, Gorecki's Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) had drawn me to this concert. Francesca Chiejina was the soprano joining the orchestra, and sang well, if a little more softly during the second movement. Watching a performance of a piece I know reasonably well, it was interesting to note the orchestral symmetry of the comings-and-goings in the first movement in particular, and the overall inclination towards minimalism, despite being an expansive piece.

After the concert I headed to High Street Kensington as usual, only to find that the Circle line was suspended due to a points failure at Edgware Road. This is something of a dead zone for alternatives, and so I embarked on rather a long hike back to Paddington. Perhaps I should have investigated bus or bike options. This meant I was at least half an hour later than expected at Paddington; by this time, even the fast trains back to Reading were not that fast. The train crawled in to Reading, where the platform was heaving with festival-goers seeking the last train to South Wales; the roads near the station were gridlocked as the first day of the Reading festival drew to a close. I reckon altogether I lost about an hour; at least it's the weekend, so some recuperation is possible.

qatsi

One of the less common motivations for selecting a Proms concert must be from hearing a track on a CD of music from Inspector Morse. Nonetheless, that is how this voyage of discovery began.

Tuesday's Prom was given by the London Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano, and was therefore likely to be popular, so I was well pleased with a space in the second row of the arena. The first half was Richard Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten - Symphonic Fantasy, a reworking of music from an unsuccessful opera. Dramatic in places and comfortably late romantic in others, I'll admit it didn't make a great impression on me, but I'd listen again.

The second half was a Proms premiere of Puccini's one-act opera Suor Angelica. Apparently this is the middle slice in a triptych, a format that turned out not to be popular with producers or audiences. The work begins lightly and light-heartedly in a convent, but the enigma of Angelica's life is revealed as she is visited by a rich family member. The tragic aria Senza mamma is deservedly the musical high point, and having seeing it in context, it's understandable why it might fit into an Inspector Morse story (I've never checked in which programme it features). The Proms has surtitles these days, and there's no printed libretto in the programme, but it still served as a useful guide, particularly for the ending of the story. Carolina López Moreno was excellent in the title role, and all the soloists, and the choirs, performed well.

qatsi

I'd picked out last night's Prom for the Steve Reich, completely unaware of the reputation or popularity of Joe Hisaishi, who was described to me by someone more knowledgeable as "the Japanese equivalent of John Williams". So it was a surprise to find out that the seats had sold out. Last Saturday I'd been unable to get an arena ticket, but this time I had no difficulty in getting an arena ticket online. Talking to people in the queue, it seems this has become a thing this year; no-one is really sure why.

Hisaishi-san was greeted in the traditional manner for newcomers to the Proms; he smiled and thanked the Prommers politely, inscrutable as to the quality of their Japanese. The first half of the concert consisted of two of his own works, beginning with his suite from the film The Boy and the Heron. He directed the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra from the piano, old-style - with the piano facing into the orchestra - in this atmospheric and sometimes whimsical music. The more substantial The End of the World was mostly darker. Motivated by a visit to the World Trade Center site in 2007, the piece was first composed in 2008, with several later revisions. Whilst I liked the first two movements in particular - the striking leitmotif of emergency vehicle sirens battling with jazz orchestrations contrasting the cataclysm with New York's inherent upbeatness, I am not so sure how well the later movements melded with them. Counter-tenor John Holiday, the BBC Singers and the Philharmonia Chorus joined in the last three movements. The final movement seemed more like an orchestrated pop ballad and somewhat mismatched - and it turns out it is an adaptation. So it was good in parts and overall I'd be interested to hear more of Hisaishi's works.

A 30-minute interval sounded generous, but in fact it was a tight schedule as the staging was rearranged for the second half. Steve Reich's The Desert Music was inspired by an earlier apocalypse - the Trinity nuclear test of the Manhattan Project - and written in the early 1980s with a cold war arms race in progress. Although I hadn't heard this piece before, immediately we were in the quintessential Steve Reich sound world of minimalism, often with percussion and vocals to the fore. According to the notes, there are at least elements of programmatic music in the piece, but to be honest it was a continuum to me. It reminded me at times of both Music for 18 Musicians and Different Trains.

With the longer interval, the concert had a slightly later ending, but when I got to Paddington I took advantage of a delayed train, so there wasn't too much waiting around.