A Shot of Sublime Dread at Bonnaroo

MANCHESTER, Tenn. â€" Hearing Swans toward the end of Bonnaroo on a day of ominous weatherâ€"a hot blue Sunday afternoon suddenly turned stone-grey and windy, with the threat of a stormâ€"makes you understand how much this festival needs its intermittent shots of sublime dread.

Can nearly all music be sweet and groovy once you put the Bonnaroo frame around it? Seemingly so: Kendrick Lamar’s in-the-club social-realism, Baroness’s southern metal, Dirty Projectors’ chopped and stuttering rhythm, Cat Power’s sad and strange ballads, Action Bronson’s syntactically rugged rapping, the banjoist Noam Pikelny’s nerdy post-bluegrass, Bjork and Paul McCartney and Tom Petty. Swans came through with grooves, in a way. But they refused to be groovy, and that felt like healthy dissent.

They were cycles, often of one kind of note and one kind of chord hit hard and long and broadly, building up in symphonic chants, timbres of steel guitar and tubular bells and trombones and electric guitars all sharing space, notes and beats repeated with ritual intensity.

Michael Gira, the New York band’s singer, guitarist, and songwriter, reanimated Swans three years ago after a 13-year layoff; he promised that the band’s second life wouldn’t be sentimental, trading on old victories, and he has kept his promise. It was a remarkable set with some new and very long songsâ€"one borrowed some lyrics from the Cramps’ “Garbageman” â€" in which Mr. Gira gradually moved away from his dry baritone toward a more physical, percussive, punctuating kind of singing. This version of Swans sounded solid from the start in 2010, but it’s growing more special. It often feels like an act of generosity, or at least an outpouring, but it retains its fortresslike quality, its sense of not becoming common emotional property.

The set was loud and intense and methodical, with Mr. Gira’s lyrics as commands or incantations; it drove some people away, just as in the old days of the group. Of course that would happen here, an enormous festival without a common aesthetic. (There were seven other bands playing at the same time on different stages, as well as Bob Saget in the comedy tent, telling genitalia jokes at the speed of light.) But the people I saw rejecting it didn’t do so categorically, in five or 10 minutes. They rejected it after 30 or 40, admitting defeat.

Mainstream Pop Amid Smaller, Obsessive Passions

MANCHESTER, Tenn. â€" Saturday at Bonnaroo started with the explosive and recondite and opened out gradually, over about twelve hours, into open, cool-headed, mass sing-alongs. At 2:15 the hip-hop band Death Grips, from Sacramento, Calif., obscure and assaultive in word and sound, appeared on one of the smaller stages without its drummer, Zach Hill, which seemed at first like a problem: he’s a pure energy driver, a combustion expert. (He’s busy working on a film, for which the band will be making soundtrack music.) But the rapper Stefan Burnett and Andy Borin on keyboards and samples pulled it off impressively on their own. Mr. Burnett has the rampaging intensity of an early punk singer â€" he seems like he’s inventing new ways to make music challenge and disobey â€" and the voice of a drill sergeant; he never let up, barking and chanting short and dark and dense lines, rocking back and forth from the waist. Performers at Bonnaroo are often flattering thir audiencesâ€"it’s both a mainstream-pop festival and one that’s built on smaller, more obsessive passions â€" but he would flatter nobody.

Bjork, her head encased in something that looked like a ski mask made of dandelion fluff, sang a greatest-hits set at sundown with a group that was both maximal and minimal: only a laptop manipulator and an electronic drummer, but also a 14-woman choir. For a main-stage set, much of it stayed fairly light and twinkly, not the heavier, instant-anthem sound she’s used before at outdoor festival shows. And yet with strong melodies, flashes of ’90s drum-and-bass rhythm, and her usual stage presence â€" playful and casual but determined body language, full-throated singing â€" it reached this audience quite directly. There was singing along, but much of it quiet: in general, people didn’t want to disturb the performance art in progress.

After nightfall, Jack Johnson, the blue-chip sing-along artist, filled in for the last-minute cancellation of Mumford & Sons, which I’m told is the first main-stage cancellation since Bonnaroo started in 2002. Later, R. Kelly encouraged constant participation through a 45-minute string of abridged hits (and then spent a few minutes singing about how he needed a towel to wipe the sweat off his face). And at 12:30 another edition of the festival’s regular Superjam feature began, this one almost the opposite in affect of the Death Grips set. It was giant-sized classicism, engineered to reward the audience members’ consensual taste in rock and ’60s soul, giving them songs they knew the words to.

It brought together, among many others, the Meters’ drummer Zigaboo Modeliste, Jim James from My Morning Jacket, Brittany Howard from Alabama Shakes, the percussionist Cyro Baptista, the singer Bilal, and members of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band; John Oates, the singer and guitarist from Hall and Oates, served as musical director. And it was about songs a bit more than about jamming; tightly run, with an almost miraculously good sound-mix, it included the Meters’ “Hey Pocky Way,” Curtis Mayfield’s “Keep On Pushing,” John Lennon’s “Instant Karma,” and, with R. Kelly joining the assembly, Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.”

TimesTalks Luminato Festival Video: Joni Mitchell

The singer, songwriter and painter Joni Mitchell (“Both Sides Now,” “Blue,” “Court and Spark,” “Hejira”) and the drummer/bandleader Brian Blade, one of her frequent collaborators, talk with The Times’s chief pop music critic, Jon Pareles, about Ms. Mitchell’s work and life on the occasion of a concert at Massey Hall in Toronto, “Joni: A Portrait in Song,” in celebration of her 70th birthday this year.

Some Misses and Hits at Boston Early Music Festival

BOSTON - What are the chances of hearing music by Jacques Arcadelt in consecutive concerts by two different groups? Pretty good, it seems, if you’re at the Boston Early Music Festival.

The renowned Hilliard Ensemble, a male vocal quartet, performed three settings of Petrarch poems by Arcadelt on Friday night in a festival concert of secular and sacred works at Emmanuel Church called “A Hilliard Songbook.” And Convivium Musicum, a chorus conducted by Michael Barrett, sang a lovely “Ave Maria” by Arcadelt (here, as often, called Jacob) on Saturday afternoon in a Fringe festival program at the Church of St. John the Evangelist called “Brahms and Early Music.”

Not that Arcadelt, an accomplished Franco-Flemish composer of the 16th century, was anything special. In the teeming schedules of the two festivals it might have easily been many another minor master, now obscure.

The Hilliard program was loaded with them: Eustache de Monte Regali, Bernardo Pisano, St. Godric of Finchale, Sheryngham, John Plummer. I wish there were more reason to dwell on this concert, but there is strong reason not to.

Given the main festival’s theme this year, “Youth: Genius and Folly,” you might have hoped that featuring the ensemble represented a sort of canny counter-programming, designed to show that experience, too, has its place. If so, the demonstration failed.

It pains me â€" a longtime follower of the ensemble, especially through their many excellent recordings â€" to report that some of the voices are not aging well. Much of the artistry seemed intact, but sonority and control were often not.

The effect was so dire that I would have left at intermission if the program had not ended with a personal favorite never heard in live performance, Perotin’s “Viderunt Omnes,” which the ensemble recorded so beautifully. That beauty suddenly seemed a distant memory.

The Convivium concert offered instant balm, as the chorus filled the small church with rich, vital sound in Giovanni Gabrieli’s “Beata Es Virgo.” The group consists of amateurs, 19 of them on this occasion, exceptionally well trained by Mr. Barrett.

Mr. Barrett also evidently has a knack for programming. In this concert he drew on Renaissance and Baroque music found in Brahms’s wide-ranging music library, limiting the scope further to include only works that Brahms held in manuscript copies, rather than published editions, on the plausible theory that these probably meant the most to him.

Here, too, Arcadelt shared company with other obscure composers â€" Johann Eccard, Johann Walter, Johann Rudolf Ahle, Jacob Handl - among some more familiar. This brief survey suggested that Brahms favored music of warmth and complexity: no surprise there.

The program included arrangements of the hymn “Es Ist Genug” by Bach and Ahle, and it ended with Brahms’s “O Heiland Reiss die Himmel Auf,” a work seemingly modeled after Bach’s chorale cantatas. Only here, in a difficult work placed last, did the chorus show a bit of understandable fatigue and strain. For the most part, Mr. Barrett’s troops did themselves proud.

Amid Turmoil in Turkey, Musician Loses Piano

ISTANBUL â€" Late on Saturday night, the Turkish police were said to have confiscated the grand piano and vehicle of Davide Martello, the German pianist who had been playing on and off here in Gezi Park, in Taksim Square, since Wednesday evening. The police were carrying out orders of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to clear protesters from the park for a rally planned in the park for Sunday.

“I parked my car about 200 meters away from the monument where I played late Thursday, started rolling my piano down to the street and suddenly got caught in a thick cloud of tear gas. I couldn’t believe it,” Mr. Martello said in a phone interview early Sunday.

Mr. Martello said he fled in panic and returned when the cloud of tear gas had cleared. “There was no one, so I thought I would just play on the side of the street, but then police appeared,” he said. They asked him to clear his belongings from his trailer and leave the area, which he did. He left his piano and trailer behind. He said Turkish friends had offered help to track down his trailer and the piano, which took him two years to build.

“I just need my piano back before I decide whether I’ll stay here longer,” he said.

‘Man of Steel’ Is Strongest Box-Office Draw

Faster than a streak of lightning, the moody “Man of Steel” over the weekend resuscitated a director’s career (Zack Snyder), minted a new movie star (Henry Cavill) and reversed a soft streak for Hollywood’s biggest studio (Warner Brothers). With estimated ticket sales of $113.1 million, for a total of $125.1 million since a limited release on Thursday, “Man of Steel” was easily the No. 1 weekend draw at North American theaters.

Early overseas results were also strong, particularly at Imax theaters. But this Superman film, which received lukewarm reviews, was also enormously expensive, costing Warner and Legendary Pictures about $225 million to make; the global marketing bill ran about $150 million. Despite intense competition in the weeks ahead Warner expects “Man of Steel” to have staying power, noting that ticket buyers over the weekend gave the film an A-minus score in exit polls.

It was also a happy Sunday at Sony Pictures Entertainment, which scored a much-needed hit with the R-rated comedy “This Is the End.” That well-reviewed movie finished second in the United States and Canada, taking in about $20.5 million, for a total of $32.8 million since opening on Wednesday. Insiders say “This Is the End” cost about $32.5 million to make. “Now You See Me” (Lionsgate) continued its unexpectedly strong run in third place, selling about $10.3 million in tickets, for a three-week total of $80 million, according to Hollywood.com, which compiles box-office data.

TimesTalks Luminato Festival Video: Atom Egoyan

The film and stage director Atom Egoyan, whose films include “The Sweet Hereafter,” “Chloe” and the coming “Devil’s Knot,” and whose production of Guo Wenjing’s opera “Feng Yi Ting” is part of the Luminato 2013 Premiere Series, talks with Daniel J. Wakin, deputy culture editor at The Times.

Lessons in Modern Witchcraft, Minus the Broomsticks

Earl Wilson/The New York Times Classes on witchcraft are held at the Wiccan Family Temple in Lower Manhattan.

Earl Wilson/The New York Times An athame, which is used to direct energy.

Shantel Collins and Yahaira Monzon were chatting before the start of class when their conversation was interrupted by the sound of a bell.

“Ladies, ladies,” said Starr Ravenhawk, one of their instructors, “the deities demand your respect.”

Ms. Collins and Ms. Monzon, both dressed in black hooded robes with silver five-pointed stars dangling from their necks, grew quiet and settled into their seats.

“Let’s begin,” said Arlene Fried, another instructor, who sat behind a folding table that had been transformed into an altar, complete with candles, a chalice, a black-handled knife and a tiny caldron.

“Which of you can tell me what that star around your neck is called?” Ms. Fried said.

“A pentacle,” Ms. Collins replied.

“And what is it for?” Ms. Fried asked.

“It gives us protection against anything negative or evil; it’s kind of like a cross for Christians,” Ms. Monzon said, staring into her notebook as she spoke. “The top of the star represents the spirit. Each of the other points represent an element: earth, air, fire and water.”

Ms. Collins, 24, and Ms. Monzon, 34, are students at the Wiccan Family Temple Academy of Pagan Studies in Manhattan, where they are studying to become witches.

“I know that sounds shocking to most people because witchcraft is usually thought of as evil,” said Ms. Ravenhawk, a high priestess of the Wiccan Family Temple. “But if people really knew what we are about, they would know that studying to become a good witch is no different than studying to become a good Catholic.”

Fifteen men and women are currently studying witchcraft in the mystical shadow of Ms. Ravenhawk, who helped found the school in 2007. They are enrolled in a three-year program that includes courses like “Introduction to Wicca,” a modern pagan, witchcraft religion that worships the divinity in nature. Other courses include “History of Witchcraft,” “Introduction to Magic,” “Spells and How They Work” and “Esbats: Celebrating the Phases of the Moon.”

After a year of introductory courses, second-year students like Ms. Collins and Ms. Monzon strive to become full-fledged witches. Third-year students aspire to become high priests or high priestesses. Each school year is made up of 24 two-hour classes, with students paying $25 per class. That amounts to 144 hours of total class work and $1,800 in tuition for any student who pursues the entire three-year curriculum, which is not accredited outside the realm of Ms. Ravenhawk’s teachings and beliefs.

But none of that matters to Ms. Collins.

“People go to school to study the things that interest them most; some people go to law school, others to medical school,” she said. “I want to be a religious leader in my community, so the path I chose is to become a high priestess. I am learning how to counsel people in my community. No one is born a pastor or a reverend or a rabbi â€" you have to work at it, and that’s what I’m doing. So for me, these classes are worth every minute and every penny.”

Though Ms. Ravenhawk said her students “are people with normal lives and normal jobs,” she added that “not all of them are willing to identify themselves and talk about it for fear of what other people might think, especially in the workplace. They are not yet ready to come out of the broom closet.”

Ms. Collins, a Bronx resident and former youth counselor in Manhattan, said she first became interested in the Wiccan faith when she was 13 and learned about it from a family friend.

“I was raised Baptist, but what drew me to this religion was its respect for the earth and the way it puts me in touch with nature,” she said. “I feel a lot more liberated in this religion; it is more respectful to me as a person and as a woman. It’s basically, ‘Live as you choose as long as you don’t harm anyone.’”

Still, Ms. Collins admitted that, like many of her classmates, she has kept her newfound religion mostly a secret.

“My mother knows that I am a Wiccan witch, but most of my family does not,” she said. “People like my grandmother who are not as open-minded and do not believe in diversity, they just wouldn’t understand, but this is not an evil religion. We do not worship the devil â€" we do not even believe in the devil. This is about connecting with the natural forces to advance yourself spiritually.”

Ms. Monzon was attempting to do just that when she approached the altar and picked up the knife, which is called an athame and is used to direct energy. “Great mother and great father,” she said, “I will only use this ceremonial knife in your presence.”

Ms. Monzon then cut open an imaginary doorway and stepped through it, an act of leaving behind her world for a more spiritual realm. Ms. Collins and the two instructors did the same, and soon all four had formed a circle and were praying to both a male and a female god.

“Like people who are a part of any other religion, all we are trying to do is become better people,” Ms. Ravenhawk said. “And like most other religions, we accept the fact that there is a higher being.”

While Ms. Ravenhawk also insisted that Wiccan witches like herself do not believe in Satan, she did note that the pentacle she wears around her neck “is said to repel vampires.”

“Not those vampires who will drain your blood,” she said, “but those who will drain your energy.”