With all of the discussion of the new pope and his views on everything under the sun, including music, I just thought I'd put in a good word for my favorite ruler:
The Emperor of Ice-Cream
Wallace Stevens
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
21.4.05
14.4.05
Style and Performance
I wanted to write a post on style and performance, and then I remembered the following review from the November/December 2000 American Record Guide. In re-reading it, I can see the beginnings of some of the ideas I explored in the unpublished piece on criticism I wrote for ARG as well as the genesis of the 101 project. Here it is, with some changes.
DAVIDOVSKY: Selections
New York New Music Ensemble; Speculum Musicae; Susan Narucki, s; Peggy Pearson, ob; Bayla Keyes, v; Mary Ruth Ray, va; Rhonda Rider, vc; David Starobin, gt
Bridge 9097 (Koch) 67 minutes
If musical modernism (I mean “modernism” with a capital “M”, but I’m not going to capitalize it) was a failure, as many would have us believe, who is to blame? Is it composers for writing music “people” can’t understand (though many people can and do understand it, whatever that means, if anything), or for getting too far “out in front” of audiences, performers, and (especially?) critics, or for merely not being Beethoven or Tchaikovsky?
Before assigning blame if blame must be assigned, the “failure” of modernism should be defined, rather than merely asserted. Many writers and others point to the small audience for modernist music as a sign of its artistic failure: If it was any good, people would want to hear it, so the familiar argument goes. This kind of market theory of artistic value puts our music on a slippery slope, as classical music as a whole is not terribly popular with a large, general public. And besides that, I remain unconvinced that audiences for modernist music are necessarily small when compared with other art music audiences.
Proponents of modernism often claimed that once their music was heard enough, the public would follow, even to the point of Webern’s famous declaration that one day his music would be “sung in the streets”. This has not come to pass, as readers of ARG well know. There are now regular performances of the central composers and works of the modernist movement, so it would seem that if mere exposure to the music was to convert the public, it would have been converted by now.
What if those who claimed that composers were too far ahead of performers were right, but that as the gap between composers’ conceptions and performers’ ability to realize them shrank, the public would begin to find connections with the music?
Happily, there is anecdotal evidence that this phenomenon may be taking hold. Recent concerts featuring the music of Elliott Carter have drawn large crowds and the attention of the world press, and England’s Proms series continue to include major modernist pieces and play to big crowds.
The new disc of chamber music by Argentina-born Mario Davidovsky represents another aspect of this nascent trend. Here we have difficult, uncompromising music played with care, understanding, and most importantly, expression.
Modernism, it is clear at this late date, was not as absorbed with “obliterating” the past as it often seemed, or even as many of its practitioners declared. The kinds of performances on this disc show that there is a clear connection with the past in this music. The performers, including members of Speculum Musicae and the New York New Music Ensemble, as well as soloists and members of other ensembles, shape his sometimes lyrical, sometimes angular phrases as though they were as easy and direct as phrases by Mozart, Wagner, or Chopin.
Each piece on the program has its moments, at least. Flashbacks (1995) is a colorful and evocative work scored for Pierrot* ensemble plus percussion. Lyrical lines stand beside dramatic, angular gestures in this piece, as they do in Festino (1994), for guitar, viola , cello, and percussion. The 1983 song cycle Romancero (if the poet is credited in the notes, I missed it) too combines long lines with sharply-etched instrumental gestures. The Quartetto 2 (1996) for oboe and string trio is reminiscent of the Carter Oboe Concerto in the playfulness and serious lightness of the oboe line against a sterner accompaniment. Peggy Pearson captures the spirit wonderfully.
Davidovsky is probably best known for the Synchronisms series in which instrumentalists, usually soloists, though some of the pieces have ensembles, play with and against pre-recorded electronic tapes. David Starobin, one of the foremost interpreters of contemporary guitar music, gives a powerful performance of Synchronisms No. 10 (1992). Part of the tension and drama in this piece lies in the fact that the guitar has a full four and a half minutes of virtuoso music before the tape ever enters. As in all of the pieces in the series, the implacability of the tape set against the expressively flexibility of the instrumental music provides contrast and drama.
Much of Davidovsky’s music has the surface volatility associated with modernism, to be sure. This volatility comes to the fore through much of the course of the String Trio (1982). Longer lines and delicate harmonics mediate the volatility, making the piece an expressive study in contrast.
What this disc embodies, then, is a new approach to the performance of modernist music. In the past, the “strangeness” or “otherness” of the music was emphasized in performance, to the detriment of the traditional musical values given equal status here. The dialogue between the past and the present was/is an integral part of the modernist movement.
These performers make a strong case for Davidovsky’s music, as does Bridge, with its excellent sound. That is all any composer can ask for, and the least they should be able to expect.
*Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire (1912) is scored for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, in addition to voice. This combination became semi-standard (often including percussion) in the 20th century, because of the wide range of timbres available with a small number of players.
DAVIDOVSKY: Selections
New York New Music Ensemble; Speculum Musicae; Susan Narucki, s; Peggy Pearson, ob; Bayla Keyes, v; Mary Ruth Ray, va; Rhonda Rider, vc; David Starobin, gt
Bridge 9097 (Koch) 67 minutes
If musical modernism (I mean “modernism” with a capital “M”, but I’m not going to capitalize it) was a failure, as many would have us believe, who is to blame? Is it composers for writing music “people” can’t understand (though many people can and do understand it, whatever that means, if anything), or for getting too far “out in front” of audiences, performers, and (especially?) critics, or for merely not being Beethoven or Tchaikovsky?
Before assigning blame if blame must be assigned, the “failure” of modernism should be defined, rather than merely asserted. Many writers and others point to the small audience for modernist music as a sign of its artistic failure: If it was any good, people would want to hear it, so the familiar argument goes. This kind of market theory of artistic value puts our music on a slippery slope, as classical music as a whole is not terribly popular with a large, general public. And besides that, I remain unconvinced that audiences for modernist music are necessarily small when compared with other art music audiences.
Proponents of modernism often claimed that once their music was heard enough, the public would follow, even to the point of Webern’s famous declaration that one day his music would be “sung in the streets”. This has not come to pass, as readers of ARG well know. There are now regular performances of the central composers and works of the modernist movement, so it would seem that if mere exposure to the music was to convert the public, it would have been converted by now.
What if those who claimed that composers were too far ahead of performers were right, but that as the gap between composers’ conceptions and performers’ ability to realize them shrank, the public would begin to find connections with the music?
Happily, there is anecdotal evidence that this phenomenon may be taking hold. Recent concerts featuring the music of Elliott Carter have drawn large crowds and the attention of the world press, and England’s Proms series continue to include major modernist pieces and play to big crowds.
The new disc of chamber music by Argentina-born Mario Davidovsky represents another aspect of this nascent trend. Here we have difficult, uncompromising music played with care, understanding, and most importantly, expression.
Modernism, it is clear at this late date, was not as absorbed with “obliterating” the past as it often seemed, or even as many of its practitioners declared. The kinds of performances on this disc show that there is a clear connection with the past in this music. The performers, including members of Speculum Musicae and the New York New Music Ensemble, as well as soloists and members of other ensembles, shape his sometimes lyrical, sometimes angular phrases as though they were as easy and direct as phrases by Mozart, Wagner, or Chopin.
Each piece on the program has its moments, at least. Flashbacks (1995) is a colorful and evocative work scored for Pierrot* ensemble plus percussion. Lyrical lines stand beside dramatic, angular gestures in this piece, as they do in Festino (1994), for guitar, viola , cello, and percussion. The 1983 song cycle Romancero (if the poet is credited in the notes, I missed it) too combines long lines with sharply-etched instrumental gestures. The Quartetto 2 (1996) for oboe and string trio is reminiscent of the Carter Oboe Concerto in the playfulness and serious lightness of the oboe line against a sterner accompaniment. Peggy Pearson captures the spirit wonderfully.
Davidovsky is probably best known for the Synchronisms series in which instrumentalists, usually soloists, though some of the pieces have ensembles, play with and against pre-recorded electronic tapes. David Starobin, one of the foremost interpreters of contemporary guitar music, gives a powerful performance of Synchronisms No. 10 (1992). Part of the tension and drama in this piece lies in the fact that the guitar has a full four and a half minutes of virtuoso music before the tape ever enters. As in all of the pieces in the series, the implacability of the tape set against the expressively flexibility of the instrumental music provides contrast and drama.
Much of Davidovsky’s music has the surface volatility associated with modernism, to be sure. This volatility comes to the fore through much of the course of the String Trio (1982). Longer lines and delicate harmonics mediate the volatility, making the piece an expressive study in contrast.
What this disc embodies, then, is a new approach to the performance of modernist music. In the past, the “strangeness” or “otherness” of the music was emphasized in performance, to the detriment of the traditional musical values given equal status here. The dialogue between the past and the present was/is an integral part of the modernist movement.
These performers make a strong case for Davidovsky’s music, as does Bridge, with its excellent sound. That is all any composer can ask for, and the least they should be able to expect.
*Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire (1912) is scored for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, in addition to voice. This combination became semi-standard (often including percussion) in the 20th century, because of the wide range of timbres available with a small number of players.
6.4.05
Sax, but no violins
I've added saxophonist Brian Sacawa's new 'blog to the 'blogroll. Give him a read. Or a reed.
4.4.05
Influences
A number of composers around the 'blogosphere are responding to Lawrence Dillon's question: What pieces from the 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s have changed the way composers think about composing?
I don't know what pieces may or may not have changed the way composers composed, but I do have some idea for myself of the pieces that changed how I heard/studied/experienced/composed/performed music. The pieces came to mind based on when I heard/performed/studied them, rather than when they were written. Here then are lists from the '60s and '70s (as Rodney Lister suggests, it is somewhat harder to think of these kinds of pieces from the '80s and '90s).
'60s:
Ligeti: Atmospheres, Lux Aeterna
'70s:
Stockhausen: Hymnen, Stimmung
Feldman: False Relationships and the Extended Ending, The viola in my life, Rothko Chapel
Ligeti: Volumina
Carter: Concerto for Orchestra, String Quartet 3
Lutoslawski: Livre pour orchestre, String Quartet
Cage: 4'33"
Satie: Pages mystique
Ives: Symphony 4
Beethoven: Quartet in B-flat, Op. 130
Webern: Sechs Stucke, Op.6
Berg: Wozzeck
Riley: In C
Reich: Clapping Music, Drumming, Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices, and Organ
Berio: Sinfonia, Sequenza V
I don't know what pieces may or may not have changed the way composers composed, but I do have some idea for myself of the pieces that changed how I heard/studied/experienced/composed/performed music. The pieces came to mind based on when I heard/performed/studied them, rather than when they were written. Here then are lists from the '60s and '70s (as Rodney Lister suggests, it is somewhat harder to think of these kinds of pieces from the '80s and '90s).
'60s:
Ligeti: Atmospheres, Lux Aeterna
'70s:
Stockhausen: Hymnen, Stimmung
Feldman: False Relationships and the Extended Ending, The viola in my life, Rothko Chapel
Ligeti: Volumina
Carter: Concerto for Orchestra, String Quartet 3
Lutoslawski: Livre pour orchestre, String Quartet
Cage: 4'33"
Satie: Pages mystique
Ives: Symphony 4
Beethoven: Quartet in B-flat, Op. 130
Webern: Sechs Stucke, Op.6
Berg: Wozzeck
Riley: In C
Reich: Clapping Music, Drumming, Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices, and Organ
Berio: Sinfonia, Sequenza V
O Brother
I wrote my Six Landscapes for solo clarinet after Wallace Stevens as a belated NNth birthday present for my brother, Les Hicken, Director of Bands at Furman University. Les premiered the pieces last week at a faculty chamber music concert. He did a wonderful job, giving a sensitive and expressive performance of pieces that were “kicking [his] butt” earlier in the week.
This kind of music isn’t really his thing: He’s a late romantic early modernist kind of musician. But the pieces were inspired in part by a very good performance he gave of the Stravinsky Three Pieces back in the mid 70s. What stayed with me from that performance was his control of dynamics and ability to shade timbre.
We view quite a few musical issues differently, though our taste overlaps a lot. Whenever we are able to get together we have wonderful listening/discussion sessions. At any rate, I wanted to take this opportunity to say how proud I am to be his younger brother.
This kind of music isn’t really his thing: He’s a late romantic early modernist kind of musician. But the pieces were inspired in part by a very good performance he gave of the Stravinsky Three Pieces back in the mid 70s. What stayed with me from that performance was his control of dynamics and ability to shade timbre.
We view quite a few musical issues differently, though our taste overlaps a lot. Whenever we are able to get together we have wonderful listening/discussion sessions. At any rate, I wanted to take this opportunity to say how proud I am to be his younger brother.
27.3.05
Florida State Opera: Werther
The following is reprinted with permission from the Tallahassee (FL) Democrat, 27 March 2005.
Sumptuous music, colorful costumes, striking scenery, outsized emotions, and some really fine singing. All of these and more are on tap in the Florida State Opera’s production of Jules Massenet’s Werther running this weekend and next at Florida State University’s Opperman Music Hall.
Massenet’s 1892 drama is an adaptation of Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther, one of the founding documents of Romanticism. The production team (stage director Matthew Lata, scenic and lighting designer Peter Dean Buck, costume designer Colleen Muscha, and wig and makeup designer Kathy Waszkelewisz) made the telling decision to set the action in the 1840’s, when the ideas in Goethe’s story (written during the Enlightenment and in part in reaction to it) had reached their full flower in the culture.
Mr. Buck’s sets and lighting were evocative, and his use of the vertical space over the small Opperman stage created a sense of openness that would not have been possible otherwise. Ms. Muscha’s striking costumes and Ms. Waszkelewisz’ wigs and makeup lent an air of authenticity to the proceedings.
As usual, Mr. Lata (of the FSU opera faculty) moves his characters around the stage with a balance of natural action and theatricality. There is always something to look at in this production.
And then there is the music. Director of Opera Activities Douglas Fisher led a very good student orchestra in a performance that gave voice to the full-throated late Romanticism of the score while maintaining a pace that kept the action moving along. Orchestral intonation and ensemble quality were solid.
Tenor Daniel Gerdes was a compelling Werther. His big, clear voice and expressive phrasing communicated the anguish of the doomed young man.
Melissa Garvey was a sweet-voiced and sympathetic Charlotte, and Lianne Coble was touching as a bystander to the tragedy.
Evan Jones brought a considerable amount of sympathy to the dramatically thankless but musically rewarding role of Charlotte’s husband, Albert. Michael Peters (The Bailiff), Michael Hix (Johann), Oliver Mercer (Schmidt), Amanda Matson (Katchen), and Brent Arnold (Bruhlmann) contributed to the production’s quality in small roles. A well rehearsed and dramatically mischievous children’s chorus added a light touch and poignancy at the drama’s end.
The Florida State Opera will undoubtedly continue, with this production, to add to its growing reputation as one of the finest college opera programs in the country.
Sumptuous music, colorful costumes, striking scenery, outsized emotions, and some really fine singing. All of these and more are on tap in the Florida State Opera’s production of Jules Massenet’s Werther running this weekend and next at Florida State University’s Opperman Music Hall.
Massenet’s 1892 drama is an adaptation of Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther, one of the founding documents of Romanticism. The production team (stage director Matthew Lata, scenic and lighting designer Peter Dean Buck, costume designer Colleen Muscha, and wig and makeup designer Kathy Waszkelewisz) made the telling decision to set the action in the 1840’s, when the ideas in Goethe’s story (written during the Enlightenment and in part in reaction to it) had reached their full flower in the culture.
Mr. Buck’s sets and lighting were evocative, and his use of the vertical space over the small Opperman stage created a sense of openness that would not have been possible otherwise. Ms. Muscha’s striking costumes and Ms. Waszkelewisz’ wigs and makeup lent an air of authenticity to the proceedings.
As usual, Mr. Lata (of the FSU opera faculty) moves his characters around the stage with a balance of natural action and theatricality. There is always something to look at in this production.
And then there is the music. Director of Opera Activities Douglas Fisher led a very good student orchestra in a performance that gave voice to the full-throated late Romanticism of the score while maintaining a pace that kept the action moving along. Orchestral intonation and ensemble quality were solid.
Tenor Daniel Gerdes was a compelling Werther. His big, clear voice and expressive phrasing communicated the anguish of the doomed young man.
Melissa Garvey was a sweet-voiced and sympathetic Charlotte, and Lianne Coble was touching as a bystander to the tragedy.
Evan Jones brought a considerable amount of sympathy to the dramatically thankless but musically rewarding role of Charlotte’s husband, Albert. Michael Peters (The Bailiff), Michael Hix (Johann), Oliver Mercer (Schmidt), Amanda Matson (Katchen), and Brent Arnold (Bruhlmann) contributed to the production’s quality in small roles. A well rehearsed and dramatically mischievous children’s chorus added a light touch and poignancy at the drama’s end.
The Florida State Opera will undoubtedly continue, with this production, to add to its growing reputation as one of the finest college opera programs in the country.
26.3.05
24.3.05
St. Lawrence String Quartet
The following is reprinted with permission from the Tallahassee (FL) Democrat, 24 March 2005. Additions in brackets.
The 2004-2005 season of the Artist Series continued on Tuesday evening [22 March] with a riveting performance by the St. Lawrence String Quartet at Florida State University’s Rudy Diamond Auditorium.
Franz Joseph Haydn may not have invented the String Quartet as both genre and medium, but he was present at the creation. The Quartet (Geoff Nuttall and Barry Shiffman, violins, Lesley Roberstson, viola, and Christopher Costanza, cello) opened with an inspired performance of the Viennese master’s Quartet in E-flat, Op. 33, No. 2, “The Joke”.
The first movement was given with just the right balance of lilt and drive, aided by the group’s flexible tempos. This movement gave early indication of what would become clear was the Quartet’s modus operandi: performance as listening. They played every movement of every piece on the program as if deeply listening to the music, as a process of discovery. A good example of this was how they would linger over certain dissonances in this first movement before moving on to their resolution.
The E-flat Quartet has the nickname “Joke” because of the haltingly humorous way the piece ends. The St. Lawrence had set up the joke throughout their performance by emphasizing the silences that dot the piece’s surface. They were rewarded for their efforts by appreciative laughter and sustained applause.
Dmitri Shostakovich’s 15 string quartets stand as one of the great quartet cycles in history. The composer explores every aspect of his musical language and expressive terrain in these focused and intense works. The Seventh Quartet (f#-minor, Op. 108), is an essay in irony and quiet despair. The reading by the St. Lawrence was marked by great ensemble playing, and a strong sense of style, astringent and close to the vest necessary and expansive and open when called for.
The program proper closed with a taut and gripping performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Quartet in E-flat, Op. 127. This Quartet is the first of a group of five quartets Beethoven composed near the end of life, and they stand as among the most personal musical documents we have. In these works, which are both concentrated in their expression and expansive in how this expression is played out, the composer grapples with ideas and issues that are truly beyond words.
Of special note in this reading were the timbral intensity maintained virtually throughout, the excellent ensemble dynamics, and the beautifully lyrical transitions of the second, theme and variations, movement.
The Quartet returned to the stage after an enthusiastic ovation. Calling it “sherbet after that heavy meal”, Mr. Nuttall announced the Scherzo of Maurice Ravel’s Quartet as an encore. The St. Lawrence played it with flair and joy, in a ravishingly sensual reading.
[The St. Lawrence String Quartet is the Quartet-in-Residence at Stanford University. FSU, can we get one?]
The 2004-2005 season of the Artist Series continued on Tuesday evening [22 March] with a riveting performance by the St. Lawrence String Quartet at Florida State University’s Rudy Diamond Auditorium.
Franz Joseph Haydn may not have invented the String Quartet as both genre and medium, but he was present at the creation. The Quartet (Geoff Nuttall and Barry Shiffman, violins, Lesley Roberstson, viola, and Christopher Costanza, cello) opened with an inspired performance of the Viennese master’s Quartet in E-flat, Op. 33, No. 2, “The Joke”.
The first movement was given with just the right balance of lilt and drive, aided by the group’s flexible tempos. This movement gave early indication of what would become clear was the Quartet’s modus operandi: performance as listening. They played every movement of every piece on the program as if deeply listening to the music, as a process of discovery. A good example of this was how they would linger over certain dissonances in this first movement before moving on to their resolution.
The E-flat Quartet has the nickname “Joke” because of the haltingly humorous way the piece ends. The St. Lawrence had set up the joke throughout their performance by emphasizing the silences that dot the piece’s surface. They were rewarded for their efforts by appreciative laughter and sustained applause.
Dmitri Shostakovich’s 15 string quartets stand as one of the great quartet cycles in history. The composer explores every aspect of his musical language and expressive terrain in these focused and intense works. The Seventh Quartet (f#-minor, Op. 108), is an essay in irony and quiet despair. The reading by the St. Lawrence was marked by great ensemble playing, and a strong sense of style, astringent and close to the vest necessary and expansive and open when called for.
The program proper closed with a taut and gripping performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Quartet in E-flat, Op. 127. This Quartet is the first of a group of five quartets Beethoven composed near the end of life, and they stand as among the most personal musical documents we have. In these works, which are both concentrated in their expression and expansive in how this expression is played out, the composer grapples with ideas and issues that are truly beyond words.
Of special note in this reading were the timbral intensity maintained virtually throughout, the excellent ensemble dynamics, and the beautifully lyrical transitions of the second, theme and variations, movement.
The Quartet returned to the stage after an enthusiastic ovation. Calling it “sherbet after that heavy meal”, Mr. Nuttall announced the Scherzo of Maurice Ravel’s Quartet as an encore. The St. Lawrence played it with flair and joy, in a ravishingly sensual reading.
[The St. Lawrence String Quartet is the Quartet-in-Residence at Stanford University. FSU, can we get one?]
23.3.05
Zwolf at the Door
(Blame him for the title. He started it.)
Alex picks up on Kyle Gann's questionable use of the word "infertile" and gives examples of the special kind of fertility in 12-tone technique. Here's another, a very pregnant and powerful row that my teacher, William Hibbard, used a lot (starting on C in this rendering):
C F G A# D D# G# A C# E F# B
One particularly interesting feature of this row (among many) is how it can be used to change the level of dissonance (melodically and harmonically) over the course of a phrase or even on higher structural levels.
Alex picks up on Kyle Gann's questionable use of the word "infertile" and gives examples of the special kind of fertility in 12-tone technique. Here's another, a very pregnant and powerful row that my teacher, William Hibbard, used a lot (starting on C in this rendering):
C F G A# D D# G# A C# E F# B
One particularly interesting feature of this row (among many) is how it can be used to change the level of dissonance (melodically and harmonically) over the course of a phrase or even on higher structural levels.
22.3.05
1x2x2x3
Kyle Gann has posted an excellent and thoughtful piece about 12-tone technique, 12-tone music, serialism, teaching, and history. So has Tim Rutherford-Johnson.
It's hard for me to imagine someone designing a compostition curriculum without teaching the basics of 12-tone technique. The more tools you have in your box, the more likely you are to be able to make what you want to make.
And for me, 12-tonery is a constellation of techniques that can be used in combination with others. The music I am writing now doesn't directly use any of those techniques, but the influence is there in many indirect ways. I can't think of any great music that has been written since the propagation of the ideas that isn't influenced by them in some way.
It's hard for me to imagine someone designing a compostition curriculum without teaching the basics of 12-tone technique. The more tools you have in your box, the more likely you are to be able to make what you want to make.
And for me, 12-tonery is a constellation of techniques that can be used in combination with others. The music I am writing now doesn't directly use any of those techniques, but the influence is there in many indirect ways. I can't think of any great music that has been written since the propagation of the ideas that isn't influenced by them in some way.
21.3.05
Music of Laughter and Forgetting
I find the current production of Style Wars!, now playing at Composer's Forum and in its permanent run in Kyle Gann's blog (We are at war with serialism. We have always been at war with serialism.) desultory, tired, and sad.
But the worst of it is Mr. Gann's approving posting of this note from composer Art Jarvinen (whose music I like quite a bit):
Besides the inmates-running-the-asylum aspect of this move, 12-tone technique is kind of important, and 12-tonery is a precursor of minimalism in some substantive and important ways. But mainly I just want to let Mr. Jarvinen and others of like mind to know that, when they decide to remove 12-tone scores from the library, they can send them to me rather than go to the trouble of burning them.
But the worst of it is Mr. Gann's approving posting of this note from composer Art Jarvinen (whose music I like quite a bit):
I used to cover 12 tone basics in my Introduction To Composition class until a couple years ago. I realized that most of the students hate the music, don't like the technique for its own sake, didn't seem to get much out of the homework assignment, and generally find it all completely irrelevant to their own musical lives. Since I can say almost the same things for myself (with certain notable exceptions) and realized years ago that that stuff is basically dead in the water, I replaced it with another, much more amusing, topic: Plunderphonics.
Besides the inmates-running-the-asylum aspect of this move, 12-tone technique is kind of important, and 12-tonery is a precursor of minimalism in some substantive and important ways. But mainly I just want to let Mr. Jarvinen and others of like mind to know that, when they decide to remove 12-tone scores from the library, they can send them to me rather than go to the trouble of burning them.
First name o' Word. Last name o' Smith.
Call him Smitty. Alex Ross shows once again how it is done in this fine review from the New Yorker. His disappointment in one work and pleasure in another are palpable. But I come not to praise Alex, but to quote him. Among the felicitous turns of phrase, delicious puns, and just plain old damn good sentences are:
sonic thunder
hypnotically wayward narratives that reel from antic joy to frozen despair
. . . his 1998 maiden effort, “Little Women,”
The orchestral writing is often little more—or nothing less—than a play of light around the voices.
sonic thunder
hypnotically wayward narratives that reel from antic joy to frozen despair
. . . his 1998 maiden effort, “Little Women,”
The orchestral writing is often little more—or nothing less—than a play of light around the voices.
Rule Britannia
The following is reprinted with permission from the Tallahassee (FL) Democrat, 21 March 2005. Additions and corrections are in brackets.
It is a musical mystery: England produced no [concert music] composers of international renown between the death of Henry Purcell in 1695 and the emergence of Edward Elgar in the 1890s. There are undoubtedly many good reasons for this dearth, but the resurgence that began with Elgar has continued to this day.
The third concert of the Masterworks series of the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra consisted of pieces by three of England's greatest 20th-century composers: William Walton, Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams.
[Music] Director David Hoose and the orchestra began Saturday evening's concert with a spirited performance of Walton's coronation march, Crown Imperial. The orchestra's playing was crisp and lively, and Hoose's reading was well-paced and regal, with clearly etched phrases.
Britten's Peter Grimes is one of the towers of the operatic repertoire and the Four Sea Interludes the composer extracted from it are among his most popular and characteristic orchestral pieces.
The orchestra dove into the difficult work and delivered a taut and expressive performance. It was well-received by the audience, a testament to how far the orchestra has come under Hoose's leadership.
The orchestra is playing at, perhaps, its highest level ever, and the exciting programming of recent seasons is providing musical experiences that are rare in cities the size of Tallahassee.
The second half of the program was given over to a gripping reading of Vaughan Williams' strange and wonderful Sinfonia Antarctica, his seventh symphony. The Sinfonia was put together by the composer from music he had written for a film about the doomed Antarctic voyage of Robert Scott.
The Sinfonia is cast in five movements, each of which was accompanied by one or more quotations, either from Scott's journals or from literature. These quotations were provided to the audience or read by a narrator, Michael Richey in this performance.
I think the use of a narrator is essential to a good performance of this work because the descriptive texts act as a bridge from the music to the narrative. And this was a very fine performance, indeed.
The orchestra, with the help of wordless vocalises by soprano Cicily Nall and the FSU Women's Glee Club, brought out the awe and terror in this powerful piece.
[The dying away of the last chord was augmented by our old friend, the cell phone. Unless it was a reference to the famous last entry in Scott’s journal, "Can you hear me now?"]
It is a musical mystery: England produced no [concert music] composers of international renown between the death of Henry Purcell in 1695 and the emergence of Edward Elgar in the 1890s. There are undoubtedly many good reasons for this dearth, but the resurgence that began with Elgar has continued to this day.
The third concert of the Masterworks series of the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra consisted of pieces by three of England's greatest 20th-century composers: William Walton, Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams.
[Music] Director David Hoose and the orchestra began Saturday evening's concert with a spirited performance of Walton's coronation march, Crown Imperial. The orchestra's playing was crisp and lively, and Hoose's reading was well-paced and regal, with clearly etched phrases.
Britten's Peter Grimes is one of the towers of the operatic repertoire and the Four Sea Interludes the composer extracted from it are among his most popular and characteristic orchestral pieces.
The orchestra dove into the difficult work and delivered a taut and expressive performance. It was well-received by the audience, a testament to how far the orchestra has come under Hoose's leadership.
The orchestra is playing at, perhaps, its highest level ever, and the exciting programming of recent seasons is providing musical experiences that are rare in cities the size of Tallahassee.
The second half of the program was given over to a gripping reading of Vaughan Williams' strange and wonderful Sinfonia Antarctica, his seventh symphony. The Sinfonia was put together by the composer from music he had written for a film about the doomed Antarctic voyage of Robert Scott.
The Sinfonia is cast in five movements, each of which was accompanied by one or more quotations, either from Scott's journals or from literature. These quotations were provided to the audience or read by a narrator, Michael Richey in this performance.
I think the use of a narrator is essential to a good performance of this work because the descriptive texts act as a bridge from the music to the narrative. And this was a very fine performance, indeed.
The orchestra, with the help of wordless vocalises by soprano Cicily Nall and the FSU Women's Glee Club, brought out the awe and terror in this powerful piece.
[The dying away of the last chord was augmented by our old friend, the cell phone. Unless it was a reference to the famous last entry in Scott’s journal, "Can you hear me now?"]
15.3.05
Poetry
"I have nothing to say, and I am saying it, and that is poetry." So said John Cage, and I'm using that as my official reason for not posting anything of late.
I've added In the Wings, a blog from an Oakland pianist with the improbable name "Heather", to the blogroll. Give it a read.
I've added In the Wings, a blog from an Oakland pianist with the improbable name "Heather", to the blogroll. Give it a read.
1.3.05
Everything is Green (III)
I've finished a short prelude and am now into Scene I. I've changed the way I work a bit in response to how it has gone so far. In the past I've worked over passages to death before moving on, but what I'm doing with this piece is noting problems and planning to revise the passages in question in light of the piece as a whole after a first draft is finished.
I'm not sure how interesting it is to readers to see this stuff, or how much good it does me to post it, but I can rest easy in the knowledge that when A. C. Douglas writes that Everything is Green, if it is to be produced at all, could only be fully realized as an underwater pornographic Noh puppet show, he will have source material to refer to.
I'm not sure how interesting it is to readers to see this stuff, or how much good it does me to post it, but I can rest easy in the knowledge that when A. C. Douglas writes that Everything is Green, if it is to be produced at all, could only be fully realized as an underwater pornographic Noh puppet show, he will have source material to refer to.
25.2.05
Review: David Guerrier/Steven Beck
The following is reprinted, with permission, from the Tallahassee Democrat (25 February 2005). The portions in brackets did not appear in the original.
The Artist Series continued Sunday with a recital by trumpeter David Guerrier and pianist Steven Beck at Florida A&M University's Lee Hall.
The performance began with a stately reading of Arthur Honnegar's Intrada. Clarity of sound in all registers, ease of technique and a fine grasp of style marked Guerrier's playing in this piece - and throughout the concert. [I can’t say for certain if Intrada was originally written for trumpet or if it was an arrangement, because the "program notes" included no information about any of the music, only exhaustive listing of the credentials of the performers, as if the recital was an interview for a position. I’d rather be given an indication of why a composer wrote a certain piece, what to listen for in the piece, or why the performers were moved to perform it than to read a mind-numbing list of orchestras performed with, etc. ]
Paul Hindemith wrote sonatas for virtually every instrument and the sonatas for winds, in particular, are at the center of the repertoire. The piano is an equal partner in these works, and the Trumpet Sonata is no exception. Beck's performance of the difficult piano part was as effortless, clean and musical as was Guerrier's trumpet playing. Their phrasing and sense of ensemble - an essential element in a performance of this piece - were excellent.
This sense of musical partnership was taken a step further when Beck took the stage alone for a rhythmically charged performance of J.S. Bach's Italian Concerto (BWV 971). The individual contrapuntal lines were clearly articulated, as were the important structural points of the piece.
Guerrier returned for an exciting traversal of Kent Kennan's Sonata for Trumpet and Piano. The influence of Hindemith was clear and seemed, appropriately, to guide the performers' interpretation of the piece. The last movement expands the style with rhythms and melodic gestures that carry a distinctively American feeling, and the performers went where the music took them.
The second half of the concert began with performances by the winners of the Artist Series Trumpet Competition - Jessica Striano, Ashton Kimbrough and Danielle Aiken - accompanied by Beck.
Beck delivered fluid and idiomatic readings of the Berceuse (op. 57) and the first Scherzo (in B minor, op. 20) of Frederic Chopin. The Berceuse gave him his only real opportunity of the afternoon to show his lyrical side, and he responded with musicality. The virtuoso demands of the Scherzo were well in his reach, as well.
The dry, sardonic wit and rhythmic edge of the Gavotte de concert of Heinrich Sutermeister provided the musical highlight of the afternoon. Gurrier and Beck played the piece with a coolness that was wholly appropriate and expressive.
The recital closed with a strong performance of the Concerto in B-flat, by Alexander Arutiunian. It was a work of conventional virtuosity, with occasional lyrical pretensions.
[An unnamed encore was similar in style, and similarly well played.]
The Artist Series continued Sunday with a recital by trumpeter David Guerrier and pianist Steven Beck at Florida A&M University's Lee Hall.
The performance began with a stately reading of Arthur Honnegar's Intrada. Clarity of sound in all registers, ease of technique and a fine grasp of style marked Guerrier's playing in this piece - and throughout the concert. [I can’t say for certain if Intrada was originally written for trumpet or if it was an arrangement, because the "program notes" included no information about any of the music, only exhaustive listing of the credentials of the performers, as if the recital was an interview for a position. I’d rather be given an indication of why a composer wrote a certain piece, what to listen for in the piece, or why the performers were moved to perform it than to read a mind-numbing list of orchestras performed with, etc. ]
Paul Hindemith wrote sonatas for virtually every instrument and the sonatas for winds, in particular, are at the center of the repertoire. The piano is an equal partner in these works, and the Trumpet Sonata is no exception. Beck's performance of the difficult piano part was as effortless, clean and musical as was Guerrier's trumpet playing. Their phrasing and sense of ensemble - an essential element in a performance of this piece - were excellent.
This sense of musical partnership was taken a step further when Beck took the stage alone for a rhythmically charged performance of J.S. Bach's Italian Concerto (BWV 971). The individual contrapuntal lines were clearly articulated, as were the important structural points of the piece.
Guerrier returned for an exciting traversal of Kent Kennan's Sonata for Trumpet and Piano. The influence of Hindemith was clear and seemed, appropriately, to guide the performers' interpretation of the piece. The last movement expands the style with rhythms and melodic gestures that carry a distinctively American feeling, and the performers went where the music took them.
The second half of the concert began with performances by the winners of the Artist Series Trumpet Competition - Jessica Striano, Ashton Kimbrough and Danielle Aiken - accompanied by Beck.
Beck delivered fluid and idiomatic readings of the Berceuse (op. 57) and the first Scherzo (in B minor, op. 20) of Frederic Chopin. The Berceuse gave him his only real opportunity of the afternoon to show his lyrical side, and he responded with musicality. The virtuoso demands of the Scherzo were well in his reach, as well.
The dry, sardonic wit and rhythmic edge of the Gavotte de concert of Heinrich Sutermeister provided the musical highlight of the afternoon. Gurrier and Beck played the piece with a coolness that was wholly appropriate and expressive.
The recital closed with a strong performance of the Concerto in B-flat, by Alexander Arutiunian. It was a work of conventional virtuosity, with occasional lyrical pretensions.
[An unnamed encore was similar in style, and similarly well played.]
24.2.05
Transparency
I started this post a while back, during the last "simplicity/complexity" blogotempest. I put it on hold because it became clear that the simplicity/complexity axis is really beside the point. More to the point, then, is comprehensibility, which I think is different from that old bugaboo "accessibility". For my purposes here then, "comprehensibility" results when a composer's language is the right one to say whatever it is that is being said in the music. That is, when the means go with the ends, or at the very least when the difference in means and ends results in frisson rather than friction.
Steve Reich, in his 1968 essay "Music as a Gradual Process" declared:
Mr. Reich's great early works, like Clapping Music, Come Out, and It's Gonna Rain exemplify this desire in telling and expressive ways. The means (slowly phase shifting phrases) and the poetic ends are inseparable.
What results is, I think, a kind of transparency wherein the expressive intent of the composer comes through regardless of the means employed, be they complex and/or simple. One is tempted to think of this as a matter of texture--the thinner the texture, the more transparent the music. There's a relationship there, but counter-examples spring immediately to mind, like Feldman's For Samuel Beckett, Reich's Come Out (especially near the end), and the micro-polyphony of Ligeti's Atmospheres.
Complex works can be transparent, as well. Carter's Fifth Quartet, for instance, Boulez' Repons, and the late Beethoven quartets, to name a few examples.
Just as complexity for its own sake can easily lose its transparency and become mere complication, so too can simplicity become simple-mindedness and the transparency turn into nothingness.
Steve Reich, in his 1968 essay "Music as a Gradual Process" declared:
I am interested in perceptible processes. I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music.
Mr. Reich's great early works, like Clapping Music, Come Out, and It's Gonna Rain exemplify this desire in telling and expressive ways. The means (slowly phase shifting phrases) and the poetic ends are inseparable.
What results is, I think, a kind of transparency wherein the expressive intent of the composer comes through regardless of the means employed, be they complex and/or simple. One is tempted to think of this as a matter of texture--the thinner the texture, the more transparent the music. There's a relationship there, but counter-examples spring immediately to mind, like Feldman's For Samuel Beckett, Reich's Come Out (especially near the end), and the micro-polyphony of Ligeti's Atmospheres.
Complex works can be transparent, as well. Carter's Fifth Quartet, for instance, Boulez' Repons, and the late Beethoven quartets, to name a few examples.
Just as complexity for its own sake can easily lose its transparency and become mere complication, so too can simplicity become simple-mindedness and the transparency turn into nothingness.
18.2.05
17.2.05
Obomobo
I've added oboist Patricia Mitchell to the blogroll. Appropriately for today, her top post (as of this typing) is about applause. So, give her a big listen. welcome!
14.2.05
Review: Beethoven, Schwantner, Elgar
The following is reprinted from the Tallahassee Democrat (14 February 2005), with permission.
The Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra continued its 2004-2005 Masterworks season with a program of music by Ludwig van Beethoven, Joseph Schwantner, and Edward Elgar Saturday evening (12 February) at Florida State University’s Ruby Diamond Auditorium.
TSO Music Director David Hoose led the Orchestra in a strong performance of Beethoven’s "Pastorale" Symphony (No. 6 in F, Op. 68, 1808) to open the concert. The Sixth is a generally more relaxed piece than most of the composer’s other symphonies, as is indicated by the subtitle. This more "relaxed" nature is reflected in the form—there are five movements instead of the usual four, for example.
The Orchestra’s principal woodwinds (flutist Eve Amsler, oboist Eric Ohlsson, clarinetist Frank Kowalsky, and bassoonist Jeff Keesecker) and principal horn player David Cripps played their many prominent solos with skill and style. The Orchestra’s string sections were in fine form throughout the evening, playing with a warm and at times luxurious sound, and a strong sense of ensemble. Mr. Hoose was in fine form as well, shaping phrases with a light hand that allowed the players room for expression.
The best concertos provide a showcase for a virtuoso performer through a substantive musical argument. The worst ones provide neither. Schwantner’s Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra (1994) falls somewhere in between these two extremes.
Two of the biggest trends in mainstream American composition in the past twenty-five years are minimalism (wherein pieces are made from the repetition of clearly etched musical lines; cf. Philip Glass) and eclecticism (wherein pieces are made by drawing from a variety of musical styles and, in the most successful examples, integrated by the personality of the composer; cf. Leonard Bernstein). Schwantner partakes of both of these approaches and combines them in a way that leaves the listener with nothing to chew on. The patterns that are repeated (ala minimalism) don’t move against each other in the telling way they do in the best examples of the style. His eclecticism is twice removed: that is, he borrows from borrowers, so that any personality disappears.
On the other hand, the writing for the percussion solo is spectacular, and FSU professor John Parks was more than up to the task. He played a large array of pitched and unpitched instruments with flair and virtuosity. Schwantner’s writing for the unpitched instruments (drums, etc.) was far better than for the mallets and Mr. Parks brought out everything there was in the part, and more. In addition to his extraordinary playing he has a commanding stage presence that won over the audience as well as the Orchestra. He deserved the raucous and prolonged ovation he received from the large audience.
The concert closed with a sprightly reading of Elgar’s quirky and jovial Cockaigne (In London Town) Overture (Op. 40, 1901). Mr. Hoose and the Orchestra emphasized the modern urbanity of this short work, with its dense counterpoint and wealth of melodic materials.
The Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra continued its 2004-2005 Masterworks season with a program of music by Ludwig van Beethoven, Joseph Schwantner, and Edward Elgar Saturday evening (12 February) at Florida State University’s Ruby Diamond Auditorium.
TSO Music Director David Hoose led the Orchestra in a strong performance of Beethoven’s "Pastorale" Symphony (No. 6 in F, Op. 68, 1808) to open the concert. The Sixth is a generally more relaxed piece than most of the composer’s other symphonies, as is indicated by the subtitle. This more "relaxed" nature is reflected in the form—there are five movements instead of the usual four, for example.
The Orchestra’s principal woodwinds (flutist Eve Amsler, oboist Eric Ohlsson, clarinetist Frank Kowalsky, and bassoonist Jeff Keesecker) and principal horn player David Cripps played their many prominent solos with skill and style. The Orchestra’s string sections were in fine form throughout the evening, playing with a warm and at times luxurious sound, and a strong sense of ensemble. Mr. Hoose was in fine form as well, shaping phrases with a light hand that allowed the players room for expression.
The best concertos provide a showcase for a virtuoso performer through a substantive musical argument. The worst ones provide neither. Schwantner’s Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra (1994) falls somewhere in between these two extremes.
Two of the biggest trends in mainstream American composition in the past twenty-five years are minimalism (wherein pieces are made from the repetition of clearly etched musical lines; cf. Philip Glass) and eclecticism (wherein pieces are made by drawing from a variety of musical styles and, in the most successful examples, integrated by the personality of the composer; cf. Leonard Bernstein). Schwantner partakes of both of these approaches and combines them in a way that leaves the listener with nothing to chew on. The patterns that are repeated (ala minimalism) don’t move against each other in the telling way they do in the best examples of the style. His eclecticism is twice removed: that is, he borrows from borrowers, so that any personality disappears.
On the other hand, the writing for the percussion solo is spectacular, and FSU professor John Parks was more than up to the task. He played a large array of pitched and unpitched instruments with flair and virtuosity. Schwantner’s writing for the unpitched instruments (drums, etc.) was far better than for the mallets and Mr. Parks brought out everything there was in the part, and more. In addition to his extraordinary playing he has a commanding stage presence that won over the audience as well as the Orchestra. He deserved the raucous and prolonged ovation he received from the large audience.
The concert closed with a sprightly reading of Elgar’s quirky and jovial Cockaigne (In London Town) Overture (Op. 40, 1901). Mr. Hoose and the Orchestra emphasized the modern urbanity of this short work, with its dense counterpoint and wealth of melodic materials.
11.2.05
4'33"
Today brings us two fine posts on John Cage's 4'33". Greg Sandow reports on a performance and Robert Gable offers a compendium of quotes on the work. The next issue of The High Hat will include my own article on this piece and its central position in musical life.
7.2.05
Odds/Ends
I've added composer Judith Lang Zaimont's new blog to the blogroll. By sheer coincidence, I heard the performance of her Growler she refers to in her first post. It was one of the better pieces on the program. I share her concern about the the programming of the FSU Festival, but it's always been that way--safe and regional.
Alex Ross has linked to the text of his keynote speech at the Chamber Music America National Conference. As always, he has a lot of interesting and thought-provoking things to say. This sentence struck me as shedding a particular kind of light on one important difference between concert-notational music and other kinds:
I'm not saying that the difference here is a quantitative "better-or-worse" kind of difference, but rather a qualitative "nature of the beast" difference.
* * * * *
Alex Ross has linked to the text of his keynote speech at the Chamber Music America National Conference. As always, he has a lot of interesting and thought-provoking things to say. This sentence struck me as shedding a particular kind of light on one important difference between concert-notational music and other kinds:
I can’t honestly say that Beethoven’s C-sharp minor Quartet is by any meaningful measure “better” than, say, Duke Ellington’s Come Sunday as sung by Mahalia Jackson.
I'm not saying that the difference here is a quantitative "better-or-worse" kind of difference, but rather a qualitative "nature of the beast" difference.
4.2.05
Simplicity Seniors
Alex Ross responds to my post about the trend amongst younger composers to embrace complexity in ther music. Alex has "issues" about some of my post, but there don't seem to me to be enough for a subscription.
His point that today's audiences have no more need for instant gratification than those in Mozart's day is well-taken, though I think that the plethora of styles available today may tax an audience's patience in a different way. Also, I certainly didn't mean to imply that I consider popular culture "simple-minded", but I do think there is a danger of simple-mindedness when the desire for accessibility trumps all other concerns. There reverse is true as well--complexity can and often does devolve into the merely "complicated" when the desire for complexity overwelms other artistic concerns.
Finally, don't you think Jack Bauer would make a great operatic hero?
His point that today's audiences have no more need for instant gratification than those in Mozart's day is well-taken, though I think that the plethora of styles available today may tax an audience's patience in a different way. Also, I certainly didn't mean to imply that I consider popular culture "simple-minded", but I do think there is a danger of simple-mindedness when the desire for accessibility trumps all other concerns. There reverse is true as well--complexity can and often does devolve into the merely "complicated" when the desire for complexity overwelms other artistic concerns.
Finally, don't you think Jack Bauer would make a great operatic hero?
3.2.05
2.2.05
Youth
Kyle Gann and Alex Ross both noted this past weekend that younger composers (I'm thinking they mean student age composers) may be turning to complexity in their music. I think it's safe to say that neither Mr. Gann nor Mr. Ross is entirely happy about the nascent trend. It is interesting to me to note that their misgivings seem to revolve around the simplicity/complexity axis than around the more tired and in reality moot tonality/pantonality axis of the style wars.
Mr. Gann:
We live in a musical culture ("pop" and concert-notational) where audiences expect the music to appeal to them immediately and in a personal way that is new in the postmodern era--they want the music to be part of the "soundtrack" of their lives. That is, the music should derive what meaning it has from life and musical experience of the audience, and for this to happen, simplicity or transparency are key.
Another reason, which Mr. Gann cites in his post, for younger composers (and listeners?) being drawn to complexity, is that in such a user-friendly, soundtrackofmylife musical environment, hearing music with a high degree of complexity and, to use a decidedly non-postmodern idea, authorial presence (from living authors even) is a new and bracing experience for many young people, and it is powerfully attractive. Having to delve into complex works with repeated listening and study to find the meaning can be as new and as liberating an experience as simplicity was for many when it was embodied in the minimalism of the sixties.
Here's an optimistic prediction for the near future of our music--composers now beginning to come of age will find a balance between the simplicity of much of today's music and the complexity of Modernism and create a music that is rich in challenge as well as accessibility.
Mr. Gann:
Maybe I had gotten into musical complexity too early. If I hadn’t discovered the Concord [Sonata of Charles Ives] and Variations IV [John Cage] until college, like most music students, maybe incomprehensibility wouldn’t have lost its freshness so easily. But at 19, minimalism suddenly made all that complexity seem old hat. Having used so many dozens of chromatic tone clusters by my freshman year of college, it had already become painfully apparent that there is a ceiling to meaningful dissonance. I had piled up as many minor 9ths as human hands and lips could play. The idea that I could go back to the major scale as a starting point - and still seem avant-garde and special - came as a relief.Mr. Ross:
Composers who came of age in the sixties and seventies rebelled against their elders by rejecting dissonant modernism in favor of minimalism, neo-romanticism, and other reaffirmations of simplicity. Now the world has turned upside down. The composers of the sixties and seventies generations have become the establishment; they are, to their own distress, figures of authority. Perhaps it's not surprising that some of the youngsters are headed in a different direction. As Kyle suggests, the raucous underside of the pop world — noise punk, hardcore metal, and so on — is pushing them along. And if middle-aged composers of a tonal persuasion tell them they're on the wrong path, they will surely keep on going.Critics like Mr. Ross and composer/critics like Mr. Gann have written for some time about what they hear as the "dead-end" of highly complex music. I note for the record that both writers have repeatedly praised works that are undeniably pantonal, so that's not the issue. (Mr. Gann's love for the music of, for example, Morton Feldman, gainsays that notion.) Serious listeners naturally (and rightly) have a desire to have a feeling that they are comprehending what is going on in a piece of music, and there are unquestionably a number of pieces where it is damn hard to ever hear everything that is going on. Is it possible, though, that 1) there are pieces where the musical/poetic strategy is such that trying to hear everything that's going on is counterproductive or really just beside the point, and/or 2) that full comprehension may come with multiple hearings?
We live in a musical culture ("pop" and concert-notational) where audiences expect the music to appeal to them immediately and in a personal way that is new in the postmodern era--they want the music to be part of the "soundtrack" of their lives. That is, the music should derive what meaning it has from life and musical experience of the audience, and for this to happen, simplicity or transparency are key.
Another reason, which Mr. Gann cites in his post, for younger composers (and listeners?) being drawn to complexity, is that in such a user-friendly, soundtrackofmylife musical environment, hearing music with a high degree of complexity and, to use a decidedly non-postmodern idea, authorial presence (from living authors even) is a new and bracing experience for many young people, and it is powerfully attractive. Having to delve into complex works with repeated listening and study to find the meaning can be as new and as liberating an experience as simplicity was for many when it was embodied in the minimalism of the sixties.
Here's an optimistic prediction for the near future of our music--composers now beginning to come of age will find a balance between the simplicity of much of today's music and the complexity of Modernism and create a music that is rich in challenge as well as accessibility.
1.2.05
Everything is Green (II)
Do most of you write in order? That is, when you are making a piece, be it music or words, do you tend to do the detailed compositional work more or less in order? I do, after a good bit of sketching and "planning" of every stage of the piece so I have a very good idea of what's going to happen at the important structural points, at least.
For the opera (the libretto of which is in the fourth draft and counting) I've been working on the vocal lines for the two characters and their relation to each other. And the relationship of the musical shape to the dramatic shape. At any rate, last night I started at measure one of the Prelude, which will be rather brief and include hints of the music of each of the three scenes.
More later.
For the opera (the libretto of which is in the fourth draft and counting) I've been working on the vocal lines for the two characters and their relation to each other. And the relationship of the musical shape to the dramatic shape. At any rate, last night I started at measure one of the Prelude, which will be rather brief and include hints of the music of each of the three scenes.
More later.
26.1.05
Tightrope
There's a fairly extensive chorale for brass in the last movement of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2 in c minor ("Resurrection") (1894). This chorale (beginning at rehearsal 10 in the Dover edition) starts softly, in the trombones, tuba, and contrabassoon. After three soft four-measure phrases, the trumpets and horns join in for the last, seven-measure phrase. A gradual but inexorable crescendo pushes through the first five measures, culminating in a fortissimo (ff, very loud) accent followed by an immediate reduction in volume to piano (p, soft). The final two measures combine another crescendo (with bass drum and timpani rolls) with movement towards a harmonic resolution and the beginning of a new section.
It's a very challenging passage because of the control needed to maintain the soft dynamics and intonation at the beginning of the passage, the control needed to pace the increasing dynamics and not peak too soon, and finally the control needed to keep the tone from "spreading" at the high volume levels. Though Mahler marks both of the loudest points "ff" it is normal to leave a little room at the top of the first crescendo for the second, climactic one, to be louder still. Naturally, the addition of the percussion will help with that, but the brass should be louder, too.
I heard a performance of this work by the North Carolina Symphony in the early 70s. I believe Gerhardt Zimmermann was the conductor, but I could be mistaken. At any rate, it had been a well-played, well-paced performance. When the height of the first crescendo was reached the sound was full, rich, and centered, and as loud as I'd ever heard anything. I thought they hadn't left any room.
Not so. They passed the height of the first crescendo with a full two or three beats left, and kept going. As they continued to get louder there was no loss of tone quality. In fact, the sound got ever richer. The climax was electrifying and set the stage for an extraordinary finale.
The players walked a tightrope throughout that passage. The risks they took (had the sound or intonation gone off, the spell would have been broken, probably irretrievably) took the entire performance to a new level. Not only because they succeeded--the attempt itself added tension and excitement to the sense of expectation the chorale embodies. This atmosphere of risk, of chances taken, can't be captured in a recording, no matter how expert and expressive the performance. The reason is simple--you know they are going to "make it". If there was a take where the brass had lost it, it wouldn't have been included. Besides that, once you've heard the recording you know how it's going to come out. This tightrope effect is an important part of any live performance, in any art.
I'll go a step farther. It seems to me that this tightrope effect is actually part of the expressive content of music. Not all of it, of course, but in passages like this one and much of the virtuoso repertoire the difficulty itself is expressive, especially when the limits are pushed, as in the Mahler performance I described.
PS: It's also why using microphones is always wrong in opera. The projecting of character through the unaided voice is integral to opera performance. The struggles of the character are mirrored in the achievement of the singer, or in some cases, his or her pride and/or arrogance.
It's a very challenging passage because of the control needed to maintain the soft dynamics and intonation at the beginning of the passage, the control needed to pace the increasing dynamics and not peak too soon, and finally the control needed to keep the tone from "spreading" at the high volume levels. Though Mahler marks both of the loudest points "ff" it is normal to leave a little room at the top of the first crescendo for the second, climactic one, to be louder still. Naturally, the addition of the percussion will help with that, but the brass should be louder, too.
I heard a performance of this work by the North Carolina Symphony in the early 70s. I believe Gerhardt Zimmermann was the conductor, but I could be mistaken. At any rate, it had been a well-played, well-paced performance. When the height of the first crescendo was reached the sound was full, rich, and centered, and as loud as I'd ever heard anything. I thought they hadn't left any room.
Not so. They passed the height of the first crescendo with a full two or three beats left, and kept going. As they continued to get louder there was no loss of tone quality. In fact, the sound got ever richer. The climax was electrifying and set the stage for an extraordinary finale.
The players walked a tightrope throughout that passage. The risks they took (had the sound or intonation gone off, the spell would have been broken, probably irretrievably) took the entire performance to a new level. Not only because they succeeded--the attempt itself added tension and excitement to the sense of expectation the chorale embodies. This atmosphere of risk, of chances taken, can't be captured in a recording, no matter how expert and expressive the performance. The reason is simple--you know they are going to "make it". If there was a take where the brass had lost it, it wouldn't have been included. Besides that, once you've heard the recording you know how it's going to come out. This tightrope effect is an important part of any live performance, in any art.
I'll go a step farther. It seems to me that this tightrope effect is actually part of the expressive content of music. Not all of it, of course, but in passages like this one and much of the virtuoso repertoire the difficulty itself is expressive, especially when the limits are pushed, as in the Mahler performance I described.
PS: It's also why using microphones is always wrong in opera. The projecting of character through the unaided voice is integral to opera performance. The struggles of the character are mirrored in the achievement of the singer, or in some cases, his or her pride and/or arrogance.
25.1.05
Do You Hear What I Hear?
Philip Anson, in La Scena Musicale:
Allan Kozinn, in the New York Times:
Unfortunately, Elliott Carter’s Variations for Orchestra (1953-55) was scheduled as penance. The octogenarian Carter (who was present and took bows) is the highly respected dean of American composers. All honor to his white hairs. The Variations was 23 minutes of clever but pointless academic exercise that I (and most of the audience, to judge by their restlessness), could have done without. The MET Orchestra played it perfectly.
Allan Kozinn, in the New York Times:
Mr. Carter's 25-minute work tests the orchestra more vigorously, but in this ensemble's performance, there was never a sense that hurdles were being jumped. That isn't to say that the score no longer poses them. Unlike conventional variation sets, Mr. Carter's proceeds not only from a principal theme, but from two ritornellos - a fast one that decelerates, and a slow one that picks up speed - and each variation juggles a handful of ideas. Rhythm, tempo, timbre, texture and placement (in the antiphonal Variation No. 7) are all explored. Few musical parameters are left unvisited.
Mr. Levine's reading presented the work as an organic, arching construction. The structural details were presented clearly, but there was also a more direct, emotional punch as well as an extraordinary level of ensemble polish that must have made the work accessible to even the most casual listener. The most innovative touches, though, were the connections Mr. Levine made with earlier music, mostly by way of unusual phrasing decisions. In the second variation, for example, a flexibly rendered woodwind passage briefly evoked the jazz of the 1940's.
Other passages sounded as if they would not be out of place in Debussy (although those gave way to rhythmically sharp, muscular stretches that Debussy would not have countenanced). There was even a touch of pure Romantic portamento in some of the string passages, certainly an odd but not unwelcome touch. Time was when the Variations for Orchestra would have received dutiful applause. This performance drew a standing ovation. Mr. Carter, who at 96 attends most of his New York performances, was on hand to acknowledge it.
24.1.05
Additions
I've added Jason Hibbard's blog on music in Houston, I Am Sitting In A Room, and the blog of composers Mark Dancigers and Martin Suckling, Musica Transatlantica, to the blogroll.
19.1.05
Who's Going to Tell the Germans?
Today I abandon my traditional one-word post titles to respond to Alex Ross' fine post on "style wars" type criticism. Mr. Ross examines reactions to some recent British music in the German press and (rightfully) finds fault in the style-based criticism, which tells the reader nothing about what the music sounds like. (Writing that a piece is "tonal" or "atonal" doesn't qualify as helping the reader know what it was like to hear the piece, as far as I'm concerned.)
After a well-argued and link-rich discussion of the state of German composition and theory, Mr. Ross makes reference to my oft-stated desire that "we have to get beyond a politicized new-music scene and celebrate the best of all traditions, 'conservative' and 'radical.' A fine idea, but how do you arrange a cease-fire? Who's going to tell the Germans?"
Given Alex Ross' prominence in music criticism, I think it is fair to say that the Germans have now been told. They will undoubtedly have to be told again--more than once, to be sure.
As will others. Jens F. Laurson of ionarts ends a post on analogies about tonality with this slap:
A. C. Douglas posted the other day on some lame poetry, a critical response to it, and a response to the response. Mr. Douglas adds:
The lack of specifics in this rant is typical--no composers, pieces, or champions are named, so no response is possible. Mr. Douglas posts like this often enough that I wonder if he has a macro for it.
At any rate, both sides in the style wars would do well to listen to a call for a cease fire.
PS: Mr. Douglas fires up his macro again, as I was writing this. Who's going to tell the Bloggers?
After a well-argued and link-rich discussion of the state of German composition and theory, Mr. Ross makes reference to my oft-stated desire that "we have to get beyond a politicized new-music scene and celebrate the best of all traditions, 'conservative' and 'radical.' A fine idea, but how do you arrange a cease-fire? Who's going to tell the Germans?"
Given Alex Ross' prominence in music criticism, I think it is fair to say that the Germans have now been told. They will undoubtedly have to be told again--more than once, to be sure.
As will others. Jens F. Laurson of ionarts ends a post on analogies about tonality with this slap:
P.S. I made someone (innocent) listen to all of Pierrot Lunaire last week. Somebody stop me before mere bystanders get hurt.Well, OK. What. Ever. Substitute Beethoven 9 for Pierrot and it still "works".
A. C. Douglas posted the other day on some lame poetry, a critical response to it, and a response to the response. Mr. Douglas adds:
Why is it, I wonder, that the dissing of Ms. Houlihan and her criticism, and the defense of "post-avant" poetry (represented here by the above quoted two "nonorganic" poems) and poets by their champions sound eerily the same as the dissing of the critics and criticism of so-called "New Music," and the defense of such music and its composers by their champions? Could the answer be that New Music and nonorganic, post-avant poetry are eerily the same; near-perfect analogues, each of the other?
The lack of specifics in this rant is typical--no composers, pieces, or champions are named, so no response is possible. Mr. Douglas posts like this often enough that I wonder if he has a macro for it.
At any rate, both sides in the style wars would do well to listen to a call for a cease fire.
PS: Mr. Douglas fires up his macro again, as I was writing this. Who's going to tell the Bloggers?
16.1.05
Tonight
Barring a Machina ex Deus I am going to miss the Moscow Philharmonic concert tonight. Car trouble.
Also tonight, the premiere of George Hunka's new play, Sustaining, in New York. Break a leg, George, and keep us posted.
Also tonight, the premiere of George Hunka's new play, Sustaining, in New York. Break a leg, George, and keep us posted.
13.1.05
All-_________
The Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra comes to town for a concert Sunday evening, and your humble correspondent will be reviewing the performance. The program is an all-Tchaikovsky evening: Capriccio Italien, the Violin Concerto, and the Fifth Symphony. This concert is being seen as the biggest musical event to hit town since Jim Morrison's arrest.
I'm not a big fan of Tchaikovsky, but I like him more than I used to (Bill Hibbard said to me "If you don't like Tchaikovsky, you are a snob"). I'm also not a big fan of one composer/one medium concerts, though there are exceptions--I heard the Guarneri Quartet traverse the Bartok Quartets over two evenings in Iowa City in 1981, for one glorious example.
At any rate, I have a few questions: Should I mention these reservations in my review? How do you all feel about Tchaikovsky? About one composer/one medium concerts?
I'm not a big fan of Tchaikovsky, but I like him more than I used to (Bill Hibbard said to me "If you don't like Tchaikovsky, you are a snob"). I'm also not a big fan of one composer/one medium concerts, though there are exceptions--I heard the Guarneri Quartet traverse the Bartok Quartets over two evenings in Iowa City in 1981, for one glorious example.
At any rate, I have a few questions: Should I mention these reservations in my review? How do you all feel about Tchaikovsky? About one composer/one medium concerts?
12.1.05
Feldman
Alex Ross reminds us that today is Morton Feldman's birthday. Mr. Ross writes that Feldman is "the greatest American composer of modern memory". I would only add to and expand on that and say that I rate him along with Elliott Carter as perhaps the two greatest composers of the second half of the 20th century.
Feldman's music deals directly with many of the central issues of Modern and postModern concert (or notational, as Mr. Ross puts it) music. For example, it is extremely dissonant by most standards, in that the intervals used are those that traditional rules of harmony would require to "resolve". Feldman overcomes these requirements through the repetition of intervals (this is akin to what theorists call "tonality by assertion", wherein a given sound begins to feel like home simply by will) and through the sheer beauty of his instrumental writing, as well as his famously low dynamic levels.
Among his works:
Rothko Chapel (a 101 piece)
the viola in my life
Why Patterns?
for Samuel Beckett
Cello and Orchestra
Feldman's music deals directly with many of the central issues of Modern and postModern concert (or notational, as Mr. Ross puts it) music. For example, it is extremely dissonant by most standards, in that the intervals used are those that traditional rules of harmony would require to "resolve". Feldman overcomes these requirements through the repetition of intervals (this is akin to what theorists call "tonality by assertion", wherein a given sound begins to feel like home simply by will) and through the sheer beauty of his instrumental writing, as well as his famously low dynamic levels.
Among his works:
Rothko Chapel (a 101 piece)
the viola in my life
Why Patterns?
for Samuel Beckett
Cello and Orchestra
10.1.05
Everything is Green (I)
George Hunka has been writing about the production of his new play, Sustaining. I am finding the process fascinating, as there are a good deal of similarities between the process Mr. Hunka describes and the process of getting a new musical composition performed.
Mr. Hunka's intrepidity has inspired me to write about the composition of my newest piece, which, as he reveals in this post, happens to be an opera.
I became fascinated with opera when I served as the stage manager for a production of Kurt Weill's Seven Deadly Sins. The excitement of performance and the intricacy of the production itself (as well as the great music) were and are intoxicating. I have a couple of ideas for full-length operas, but I wanted to do something small first, as a way of finding out if I can do it and without investing X number of years in a full-scale piece.
To that end, I recently acquired the operatic rights to David Foster Wallace's "Everything is Green", a short short story from his collection Girl With Curious Hair. It is a two character domestic drama that I have massaged into three short scenes. Right now I'm working on the end of a prelude, which will seque into the first scene.
I'll keep you posted on my progress periodically. I don't think I'll get too much into technical details, unless, of course, a particularly juicy spelling problem comes up.
Mr. Hunka's intrepidity has inspired me to write about the composition of my newest piece, which, as he reveals in this post, happens to be an opera.
I became fascinated with opera when I served as the stage manager for a production of Kurt Weill's Seven Deadly Sins. The excitement of performance and the intricacy of the production itself (as well as the great music) were and are intoxicating. I have a couple of ideas for full-length operas, but I wanted to do something small first, as a way of finding out if I can do it and without investing X number of years in a full-scale piece.
To that end, I recently acquired the operatic rights to David Foster Wallace's "Everything is Green", a short short story from his collection Girl With Curious Hair. It is a two character domestic drama that I have massaged into three short scenes. Right now I'm working on the end of a prelude, which will seque into the first scene.
I'll keep you posted on my progress periodically. I don't think I'll get too much into technical details, unless, of course, a particularly juicy spelling problem comes up.
Additions
To the blogroll:
Composers Forum
and to "Links and Resources":
Sequenza21, a contemporary concert music webzine, and The High Hat, a cultural webzine.
Please mingle with them, offer them a drink, and generally make them feel at home.
Composers Forum
and to "Links and Resources":
Sequenza21, a contemporary concert music webzine, and The High Hat, a cultural webzine.
Please mingle with them, offer them a drink, and generally make them feel at home.
6.1.05
Revision
After some holiday listening, reading, and cogitating I have revised my list of 101 essential pieces of 20th century concert music. The list is not intended to be comprehensive, a "best of" list, or even to comprise the most essential pieces. It is, rather, intended to be a list of pieces that, taken as a whole, convey the essence of 20th century concert music in its richness and variety.
Pieces deleted:
Bernstein: Symphonic Dances from West Side Story
Carter: String Quartet 1
Copland: Appalachian Spring
Hindemith: Mathis der Maler
Maw: Odyssey
Part: Tabula Rasa
Puccini: Turandot
Schoenberg: Five Pieces, Op. 23
Shostakovich: Symphony 5
Tavener: Thunder Entered Her
Vaughan Williams: London Symphony
Pieces added:
Bernstein: Suite from On the Waterfront
Bolcom: Songs of Innocence and Experience
Carter: String Quartet 5
Copland: Piano Variations
Daugherty: Metropolis Symphony
Hindemith: Six Chansons
Hyla: We Speak Etruscan
Part: Passio Domini nostri Jesu Christi secundum Johannem
Rautavaara: Symphony 7
Saariaho: Nymphea (Jardin secret III)
Shostakovich: Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk
The complete list is at the bottom of the page.
Pieces deleted:
Bernstein: Symphonic Dances from West Side Story
Carter: String Quartet 1
Copland: Appalachian Spring
Hindemith: Mathis der Maler
Maw: Odyssey
Part: Tabula Rasa
Puccini: Turandot
Schoenberg: Five Pieces, Op. 23
Shostakovich: Symphony 5
Tavener: Thunder Entered Her
Vaughan Williams: London Symphony
Pieces added:
Bernstein: Suite from On the Waterfront
Bolcom: Songs of Innocence and Experience
Carter: String Quartet 5
Copland: Piano Variations
Daugherty: Metropolis Symphony
Hindemith: Six Chansons
Hyla: We Speak Etruscan
Part: Passio Domini nostri Jesu Christi secundum Johannem
Rautavaara: Symphony 7
Saariaho: Nymphea (Jardin secret III)
Shostakovich: Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk
The complete list is at the bottom of the page.
Blogroll
Happy New Year to everyone. I hope your holidays were filled with good cheer.
I'd like to point out two additions to the blogroll: Drew McManus' blog on issues relating to cultural administration and the blog of composer Lawrence Dillon.
I'd like to point out two additions to the blogroll: Drew McManus' blog on issues relating to cultural administration and the blog of composer Lawrence Dillon.
24.12.04
Holidays
I don't expect to post again until after the holidays, so I'll take this opportunity to wish everyone a joyous season.
I'll be back after the New Year with rich, 101-related goodness. In the meantime, Robert Gable has a post up about John Cage's 4'33" and how people react to it. The next issue of The High Hat will include a new article of mine about why this piece is central to 20th century concert music.
Also, the two recent posts by Kyle Gann and Marcus Maroney concern an issue that is also central to 20th century concert music: time.
Again, Happy Holidays to all!
I'll be back after the New Year with rich, 101-related goodness. In the meantime, Robert Gable has a post up about John Cage's 4'33" and how people react to it. The next issue of The High Hat will include a new article of mine about why this piece is central to 20th century concert music.
Also, the two recent posts by Kyle Gann and Marcus Maroney concern an issue that is also central to 20th century concert music: time.
Again, Happy Holidays to all!
18.12.04
Schmihilism
Forrest Covington has the latest in a series of posts from throughout the musical blogosphere on "atonality" and "nihilism". The current spate of posts began with one by a blogger who calls him- or herself Promethean Antagonist.
Mr. Covington seems to believe that "atonality" (hereafter the more accurate "pantonal") is an ultra-rational "system" that attempts to negate the "natural" tendency of humans to hear "tonally". The argument that tonality is "natural" is a familiar one, and has some basis in science. On the other hand "art" is the root of "artificial", not "natural".
I'm open to correction here, but it sounds like Mr. Covington is equating pantonality with 12-note technique. Arnold Schoenberg developed the 12-note technique because he didn't believe he could create full-scale musical works without the kind of rational system tonal composers had at their disposal. He had created large-scale pantonal works with a text, such as the monodrama Erwartung, but he believed that pantonality was too free to be able to sustain a musical arguement without a text. Since his time, countless works have been created using the tonal system, free pantonality, serialism, chance, and countless combinations of some or all of the above.
I've been struggling with the idea that pantonality and nihilsm are close cousins. It is so foreign to me that I almost put the word "idea" in quotation marks in the previous sentence. Are there nihilists who write, play, and like pantonal music? Undoubtedly, but we can name world-class nihilists who adore(d) tonal music.
Almost everybody knows a pantonal work they enjoy or even, God forbid, love. Listen to any of the pieces in Morton Feldman's viola in my life series and come back with the nihilist line. Or Stravinsky's In memoriam Dylan Thomas. Or the Berio Sequenza V for solo trombone. Or Lee Hyla's Pre-Pulse Suspended. Listen.
Mr. Covington seems to believe that "atonality" (hereafter the more accurate "pantonal") is an ultra-rational "system" that attempts to negate the "natural" tendency of humans to hear "tonally". The argument that tonality is "natural" is a familiar one, and has some basis in science. On the other hand "art" is the root of "artificial", not "natural".
I'm open to correction here, but it sounds like Mr. Covington is equating pantonality with 12-note technique. Arnold Schoenberg developed the 12-note technique because he didn't believe he could create full-scale musical works without the kind of rational system tonal composers had at their disposal. He had created large-scale pantonal works with a text, such as the monodrama Erwartung, but he believed that pantonality was too free to be able to sustain a musical arguement without a text. Since his time, countless works have been created using the tonal system, free pantonality, serialism, chance, and countless combinations of some or all of the above.
I've been struggling with the idea that pantonality and nihilsm are close cousins. It is so foreign to me that I almost put the word "idea" in quotation marks in the previous sentence. Are there nihilists who write, play, and like pantonal music? Undoubtedly, but we can name world-class nihilists who adore(d) tonal music.
Almost everybody knows a pantonal work they enjoy or even, God forbid, love. Listen to any of the pieces in Morton Feldman's viola in my life series and come back with the nihilist line. Or Stravinsky's In memoriam Dylan Thomas. Or the Berio Sequenza V for solo trombone. Or Lee Hyla's Pre-Pulse Suspended. Listen.
14.12.04
Sandow
Greg Sandow has really gone into important territory with his last three posts: Connections, Power metal and my own composing, and Judging conservative composers.
In the last one Mr. Sandow points out that critics have frequently misjudged their conservative contemporaries. He ends with this:
In the last one Mr. Sandow points out that critics have frequently misjudged their conservative contemporaries. He ends with this:
And what their evident mistakes about Sibelius and Brahms might show is that --while we laugh at a lot at critics who can't understand advanced new music -- critics who can't understand the conservatives of their time can be equally absurd. Who are we misunderstanding now?In order to answer that last question we have to be able to say what would constitute "conservatism" in composition today. Anybody got any ideas?
11.12.04
Birthday
Today is Elliott Carter’s 96th birthday.
That he remains a controversial figure is due in part to his very longevity, and also to his continuing activity. Those who believe that Modernism is well and truly dead and buried Carter's continuing creativity (as well as the growing number of performances and recordings) is a reminder that the funeral may well have been premature. His partisans (and I admit up front that I am one) find his career an inspiration and a different kind of challenge.
My first encounter with Carter came in the early seventies, right after high school, when concert music had really started to open up for me. At that time I was intoxicated by the heroic odd numbered Beethoven symphonies, the Stravinsky ballets, and the orchestral music of Webern (especially the Sechs Stucke, op.6), Ligeti (Atmospheres), and Lutoslawski (Livre pour orchestre). I was visiting some with some older (that is, adult) musicians who taught in a summer program I had attended a couple of years earlier. They were arguing about this guy called Elliott Carter, who apparently had written some string quartets.
They put on the brand-new Composers Quartet recording of the Second Quartet. I didn’t care for it—it didn’t have the color of either Lutoslawki or Ligeti nor the outsized expressionist expression of Webern. One of the musicians then told of the premiere of the Third Quartet he had heard in New York. It didn’t make me like what I had heard any more but it made me want to follow it up.
In college I went to the library and listened to Leonard Bernstein’s recording of the Concerto for Orchestra and tried to follow along with the score. Slowly it clicked for me. Here was everything I looked for in new music—color, wildness, apparent rhythmic “chaos”.
Finally, though, it was and is the rigor and poetry of Carter’s expression that has kept him at the center of my musical life. His music speaks to me at the deepest levels, those that are reachable only by the greatest art.
Among the Carter works have meant the most to me over the years are the Quartets 1, 2, and 5, the Cello Sonata, the Concerto for Orchestra, the Elizabeth Bishop cycle A Mirror on Which to Dwell, the Oboe Concerto, the Quintet for piano and strings, and the Symphonia: sum fluxae pretium spei.
I look forward to new pieces from him and to new experiences with the pieces we already have.
That he remains a controversial figure is due in part to his very longevity, and also to his continuing activity. Those who believe that Modernism is well and truly dead and buried Carter's continuing creativity (as well as the growing number of performances and recordings) is a reminder that the funeral may well have been premature. His partisans (and I admit up front that I am one) find his career an inspiration and a different kind of challenge.
My first encounter with Carter came in the early seventies, right after high school, when concert music had really started to open up for me. At that time I was intoxicated by the heroic odd numbered Beethoven symphonies, the Stravinsky ballets, and the orchestral music of Webern (especially the Sechs Stucke, op.6), Ligeti (Atmospheres), and Lutoslawski (Livre pour orchestre). I was visiting some with some older (that is, adult) musicians who taught in a summer program I had attended a couple of years earlier. They were arguing about this guy called Elliott Carter, who apparently had written some string quartets.
They put on the brand-new Composers Quartet recording of the Second Quartet. I didn’t care for it—it didn’t have the color of either Lutoslawki or Ligeti nor the outsized expressionist expression of Webern. One of the musicians then told of the premiere of the Third Quartet he had heard in New York. It didn’t make me like what I had heard any more but it made me want to follow it up.
In college I went to the library and listened to Leonard Bernstein’s recording of the Concerto for Orchestra and tried to follow along with the score. Slowly it clicked for me. Here was everything I looked for in new music—color, wildness, apparent rhythmic “chaos”.
Finally, though, it was and is the rigor and poetry of Carter’s expression that has kept him at the center of my musical life. His music speaks to me at the deepest levels, those that are reachable only by the greatest art.
Among the Carter works have meant the most to me over the years are the Quartets 1, 2, and 5, the Cello Sonata, the Concerto for Orchestra, the Elizabeth Bishop cycle A Mirror on Which to Dwell, the Oboe Concerto, the Quintet for piano and strings, and the Symphonia: sum fluxae pretium spei.
I look forward to new pieces from him and to new experiences with the pieces we already have.
9.12.04
Freedom!
Fred Himebaugh lists "four freedoms" for composers, especially composers who are "stuck" . For the sake of completeness, I'll note that A. C. Douglas singles out two of them for endorsement: Freedom from the Masterpiece Syndrome and freedom from the quest for complexity, which are, I believe related, in that they can make the composer so self-conscious that he or she can't even decide how to spell a given note, for fear of something or other. In fact "Freedom from Self-Consciousness" is an umbrella over all of these concerns.
I would add a corollary, or flip side to the freedom from the quest for complexity: Freedom from the Ache for Accessibility. One never knows what an audience will like or dislike at any given time, so tailoring your music to try to make it "likeable" is a fool's errand, and more than a little condescending.
Why "condescending"? If you think you have to change your music (or your art in general) so that the audience will "like" or "get it", then you think the audience can't "get" what you are after in the first place. Write what you hear and what you feel. If your talent and skill are up to your inspiration there will be an audience for it.
Now, as for finding and cultivating that audience . . .
I would add a corollary, or flip side to the freedom from the quest for complexity: Freedom from the Ache for Accessibility. One never knows what an audience will like or dislike at any given time, so tailoring your music to try to make it "likeable" is a fool's errand, and more than a little condescending.
Why "condescending"? If you think you have to change your music (or your art in general) so that the audience will "like" or "get it", then you think the audience can't "get" what you are after in the first place. Write what you hear and what you feel. If your talent and skill are up to your inspiration there will be an audience for it.
Now, as for finding and cultivating that audience . . .
6.12.04
Commissions
The New York Times' Anne Midgette writes about the recent trend of well-known performers commissioning new works to perform. The trend, embraced by such luminaries as Dawn Upshaw (who has been doing it for years), Anne-Sophie Mutter, and Midori, can only be a good thing for composers and for the concert music world.
However, Ms. Midgette does mention those eternal banes of the composers' life, the revival, or the lack thereof, and perceptions about the audience:
Plus, there is the novelty of a premiere and the artistic prestige attached to having a piece written for you:
Still, this is a positive development for our music. It should be encouraged.
However, Ms. Midgette does mention those eternal banes of the composers' life, the revival, or the lack thereof, and perceptions about the audience:
Once the pieces are written and performed, many have short lives. Premieres attract media attention; revivals don't. If an artist doesn't take the time to learn a piece well for its premiere, it may not sound good enough to attract much interest. And because it is often assumed that audiences don't like modern music, presenters shy away from it.
Plus, there is the novelty of a premiere and the artistic prestige attached to having a piece written for you:
. . . there is a risk that a work commissioned by one artist can seem less attractive to others. It depends on the work, and the only way to know is to keep playing it.
Still, this is a positive development for our music. It should be encouraged.
3.12.04
Poietic
Robert Gable has a fine post on Carl Ruggles' Sun-Treader, which is a great piece.
Mr. Gable has several interesting and provocative nuggets in this post:
I think I know the answer, but I'll ask this question anyway: We love those traits in our dead artists; why do we despise them in living ones?
And:
But isn't that a poietic fallacy itself? I mean, doesn't casting an artist's work in terms of poietic fallacy overlook audience reaction: Mr. Taruskin goes on to list several of Schoenberg's works he likes, which seems to me to cancel the poieticism of Schoenberg, because it places the supposed lack of sensitivity of a potential audience above the positive reaction of a real audience (Mr. Taruskin himself).
At any rate, check out Sun-Treader.
Mr. Gable has several interesting and provocative nuggets in this post:
. . . in spite of all that occurred in the twenties, the author [Nicolas Tawa, in American Composers and their Public: A Critical View] argues this generation of composers was arrogant, un-democratic, individualistic, self-aggrandizing, out of balance, etc.
I think I know the answer, but I'll ask this question anyway: We love those traits in our dead artists; why do we despise them in living ones?
And:
. . . Richard Taruskin's opinion on Schoenberg, where the focus on the composer, his methods and tools, overwhelmed any sensitivity towards an audience. Taruskin calls this divergence the "poietic fallacy," which places the making of art ahead of how it is perceived.
But isn't that a poietic fallacy itself? I mean, doesn't casting an artist's work in terms of poietic fallacy overlook audience reaction: Mr. Taruskin goes on to list several of Schoenberg's works he likes, which seems to me to cancel the poieticism of Schoenberg, because it places the supposed lack of sensitivity of a potential audience above the positive reaction of a real audience (Mr. Taruskin himself).
At any rate, check out Sun-Treader.
1.12.04
Basics, etc.
Reader response to the post on spelling led me to look for a site with good explanations of basic music theory. I found this one, where the tutorial on intervals provides good information for those who wanted a little background to more easily follow the discussion of spelling.
I've added Fred Himebaugh's Fredösphere to the blogroll. Question, and please, give it to me straight: Does my blogroll make me look fat?
Alex Ross makes a great point in a post on Jay Greenberg:
I've added Fred Himebaugh's Fredösphere to the blogroll. Question, and please, give it to me straight: Does my blogroll make me look fat?
Alex Ross makes a great point in a post on Jay Greenberg:
How about a TV profile of a grown-up composer — say, Steve Reich on the occasion of his seventieth birthday next year, highlighting his mammoth influence on every form of contemporary music?
30.11.04
Spelling
I spent a good bit of time this past weekend entering an old piece of mine into Finale. This activity always makes me think about some of the decisions I made during the composition of the piece. In this particular work (Radiant Geometries, a fanfare for two trumpets) the issue that kept coming up was the spelling of pitch.
"Spelling" is the seemingly trivial decision about what note to write down to indicate a particular pitch. And the decision is usually so trivial that no thought need be given it. But that's not always the case. For a composer of functionally tonal music, the spelling of the notes of a harmony or a melody is often determined by the function of a note in that chord or melody. For example if a chord is leading towards A natural, the note a semi-tone below A in the chord generally will be spelled "G#", though it could also be spelled "Ab".
The spelling of pitches also affects how they are played in tonal music. Our G# would likely be pushed a little higher by string players and singers, in order to emphasize its leading tone function.
In a pantonal context, the spelling issue comes down largely to performability. My principal composition teacher, William Hibbard, inculcated two spelling principles in me. One, spell in sharps as a general rule, especially if you are writing music for strings. Sharps are more, as it were, natural for string players because the open strings are tuned to notes that are the home pitches in keys with sharps in the key signature. The other general rule is to spell tonally, even if the context isn't tonal.
Intervals are designated with two words. An adjective refers to the particular "width" of the interval, and a noun communicates the distance between the letter names of the notes involved. The interval between notes with the letter names "C" and "D" is going to be a "second" of some kind, while a "C" and another "C" is a unison, a "C" and an "E" a third, and so on. C natural and D natural are two semitones apart and are refered to as a Major second. Make the C a C# and you have a minor second. Raise the D to a D# and you are back to a Major second. If you then lower the C# to C nat, you have an augmented second (C/D#), an interval that is generally avoided in tonal music, mostly for intonation reasons. So, in non-tonal music you would most likely change the "D#" to an "Eb", with the result being a user friendly minor third.
These issues came up in composing Radiant Geometries, and they rear their head again in the data entry, with the addition of transposing for the parts. Trumpets are generally transposing instruments (don't ask) and Bb trumpets (the most common kind; really, don't ask) have parts that are written a Major second above the sounding pitch. This can lead to some spelling issues, the most interesting of which are B# and E#. B and C are only one semitone apart, as are E and F, unlike all the other letter pairs, which are two semitones apart. Therefore, B# and C natural (as well as E# and F natural) are the "same" notes (apart from the leading tone issues mentioned above, which generally don't come into play in a pantonal context).
When an A# or D# appears in the untransposed score, the software prints B# and E# in the parts, and nobody wants to play those notes unless they absolutely have to. C and F are much easier. So then you have to decide whether to renotate the line to avoid those spellings while still following the rule to spell tonally, or ask the trumpeter to play the offending notes in an unusual spelling in a fast piece.
What's a mother to do?
"Spelling" is the seemingly trivial decision about what note to write down to indicate a particular pitch. And the decision is usually so trivial that no thought need be given it. But that's not always the case. For a composer of functionally tonal music, the spelling of the notes of a harmony or a melody is often determined by the function of a note in that chord or melody. For example if a chord is leading towards A natural, the note a semi-tone below A in the chord generally will be spelled "G#", though it could also be spelled "Ab".
The spelling of pitches also affects how they are played in tonal music. Our G# would likely be pushed a little higher by string players and singers, in order to emphasize its leading tone function.
In a pantonal context, the spelling issue comes down largely to performability. My principal composition teacher, William Hibbard, inculcated two spelling principles in me. One, spell in sharps as a general rule, especially if you are writing music for strings. Sharps are more, as it were, natural for string players because the open strings are tuned to notes that are the home pitches in keys with sharps in the key signature. The other general rule is to spell tonally, even if the context isn't tonal.
Intervals are designated with two words. An adjective refers to the particular "width" of the interval, and a noun communicates the distance between the letter names of the notes involved. The interval between notes with the letter names "C" and "D" is going to be a "second" of some kind, while a "C" and another "C" is a unison, a "C" and an "E" a third, and so on. C natural and D natural are two semitones apart and are refered to as a Major second. Make the C a C# and you have a minor second. Raise the D to a D# and you are back to a Major second. If you then lower the C# to C nat, you have an augmented second (C/D#), an interval that is generally avoided in tonal music, mostly for intonation reasons. So, in non-tonal music you would most likely change the "D#" to an "Eb", with the result being a user friendly minor third.
These issues came up in composing Radiant Geometries, and they rear their head again in the data entry, with the addition of transposing for the parts. Trumpets are generally transposing instruments (don't ask) and Bb trumpets (the most common kind; really, don't ask) have parts that are written a Major second above the sounding pitch. This can lead to some spelling issues, the most interesting of which are B# and E#. B and C are only one semitone apart, as are E and F, unlike all the other letter pairs, which are two semitones apart. Therefore, B# and C natural (as well as E# and F natural) are the "same" notes (apart from the leading tone issues mentioned above, which generally don't come into play in a pantonal context).
When an A# or D# appears in the untransposed score, the software prints B# and E# in the parts, and nobody wants to play those notes unless they absolutely have to. C and F are much easier. So then you have to decide whether to renotate the line to avoid those spellings while still following the rule to spell tonally, or ask the trumpeter to play the offending notes in an unusual spelling in a fast piece.
What's a mother to do?
29.11.04
Speculation
What would happen if a composer were to arrive on the scene who wrote in the style of (say) Mozart, with as much skill and invention? Would s/he be "accepted"?
I thought of this music school lounge/theory bar type of question when I read A. C. Douglas' rave about a young composer named Jay Greenberg, who was featured on CBS' 60 Minutes yesterday evening.
A little Googling turned up a good amount of information on the composer, including this appearance on PRI's From The Top, which includes a Pittsburgh Symphony performance of Mr. Greenberg's Overture to 9/11. I won't say much about the piece, which is well-, if not imaginatively, orchestrated, and competent.
I was not bowled over by the piece (could you tell?), and I don't know how much of that was due to overselling on Mr. Douglas' part, or by the fact I don't share his desire for a Great Tonal Hope to rise up and save us all.
Could it be professional jealousy? Of course it could.
EDITED TO ADD: The question about composers writing in styles of the past came to mind because of Mr. Greenberg's music (and his publicity), not because of Mr. Douglas' post. Of course there can be, and is, very fine music to be written in styles that are essentially tonal.
I thought of this music school lounge/theory bar type of question when I read A. C. Douglas' rave about a young composer named Jay Greenberg, who was featured on CBS' 60 Minutes yesterday evening.
A little Googling turned up a good amount of information on the composer, including this appearance on PRI's From The Top, which includes a Pittsburgh Symphony performance of Mr. Greenberg's Overture to 9/11. I won't say much about the piece, which is well-, if not imaginatively, orchestrated, and competent.
I was not bowled over by the piece (could you tell?), and I don't know how much of that was due to overselling on Mr. Douglas' part, or by the fact I don't share his desire for a Great Tonal Hope to rise up and save us all.
Could it be professional jealousy? Of course it could.
EDITED TO ADD: The question about composers writing in styles of the past came to mind because of Mr. Greenberg's music (and his publicity), not because of Mr. Douglas' post. Of course there can be, and is, very fine music to be written in styles that are essentially tonal.
24.11.04
Thanksgiving
Like many people, I like to tailor my listening to the occasion. On Thanksgiving, I generally listen only to American music. The one constant is Ives' "Thanksgiving Day", from the Holidays Symphony.
As Elliott Carter is one of my obsessions, I usually listen to what I consider one or more of his most typically "American" pieces, like the Cello Sonata, the First Quartet, or the Concerto for Orchestra.
Another obsession is the string quartet, and I frequently turn to Lee Hyla's Second or Howl (which may be perfect for this year), Samuel Barber's Quartet, Ruth Crawford's marvelous Quartet, or Crumb's Black Angels.
You can't go wrong with one of Copland's ballets, his Emily Dickinson songs, or his Third Symphony. Or Roy Harris' Third, for that matter. Sousa marches. Gershwin songs.
America sings.
As Elliott Carter is one of my obsessions, I usually listen to what I consider one or more of his most typically "American" pieces, like the Cello Sonata, the First Quartet, or the Concerto for Orchestra.
Another obsession is the string quartet, and I frequently turn to Lee Hyla's Second or Howl (which may be perfect for this year), Samuel Barber's Quartet, Ruth Crawford's marvelous Quartet, or Crumb's Black Angels.
You can't go wrong with one of Copland's ballets, his Emily Dickinson songs, or his Third Symphony. Or Roy Harris' Third, for that matter. Sousa marches. Gershwin songs.
America sings.
22.11.04
Odds/Ends
The Standing Room has a review of the San Francisco Opera production of Ligeti's Le Grande Macabre.
The Standing Room and trrill have been added to the blogroll.
Perpetual Variation, like Buffalo Bill, is defunct.
The Standing Room and trrill have been added to the blogroll.
Perpetual Variation, like Buffalo Bill, is defunct.
21.11.04
Consolidation
I'm folding the other blog into this one. Several posts from there have been added here.
15.11.04
14.11.04
Review: Chanticleer
The following is reprinted from the Tallahassee Democrat (14 November 2004), with permission.
The 2004-2005 season of the Artist Series continued Friday evening with a virtuoso performance by Chanticleer at the Co-Cathedral of St. Thomas More.
Chanticleer, making its first visit to Tallahassee in 10 years, is a 12-voice men's chorus. What makes it different from other men's choruses (which normally consist of tenors and basses) is its complement of "countertenors," who sing in falsetto with full power.
Friday's concert was organized around the theme "Women, Saintly and Otherwise" and included pieces by and about women. The first group of pieces focused on Mary, and one of the highlights of the concert was the performance of the Gregorian chant "Ave Maria." Gregorian chants are unaccompanied one-voice settings of the liturgical texts of the Roman Catholic Church. The sound of 12 voices singing in perfect unison was as voluptuous in its own way as the full harmonies of most of the program.
A selection of Elizabethan and modern madrigals included a performance of Thomas Weelkes' As Vesta Was that was distinguished by balanced counterpoint and rhythmic life. The assured performance of Maurice Ravel's "Nicolette" was subtle and colorful, and Chanticleer handled the French composer's rich chromaticism with ease and style.
A performance of a selection of madrigals by Claudio Monteverdi showed off the group's strengths. Here were beautiful sounds, rendered with a strong sense of ensemble and impeccable intonation.
Robert Pearsall's Lay a Garland was the only 19th-century music on the program, and Chanticleer embraced the harmonic language, which included many melodic dissonances, beautifully emphasized and resolved in this performance.
The high point of the evening was a powerful performance of John Tavener's Song for Athene, an elegy for a family friend. Tavener is a proponent of the New Simplicity, and his music is made of elements of Russian Orthodox liturgical music. The text is a combination of lines from Hamlet and from Orthodox liturgy. The music places simple melodic lines over a drone in the basses. Chanticleer's austere reading was poignant and direct.
Selections from Augusta Read Thomas' Purple Syllables anchored the second half of the concert. These settings of Emily Dickinson poems about birds (the piece was written for Chanticleer, whose name comes from a singing rooster in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales) were subtle, colorful, and at times, playful. Chanticleer navigated the difficult pieces with expression and, as always, a beautiful sound.
The concert ended with a selection of folk songs and popular numbers, which Chanticleer performed with flair and good humor. A Stephen Foster encore sent the Tallahassee audience out into the night happy and entertained.
Chanticleer (along with ensembles like the Kronos Quartet) subscribes to a dominant contemporary performance aesthetic that emphasizes a gleaming, beautiful sound surface and the presence of the performers themselves.
There are times when this sound quality overwhelms the music, replacing the individual expression of the composer with the performers' personality and making much of the music sound the same, regardless of compositional style.
There are other times, such as in Friday's performance of the John Tavener piece, when the prodigious resources of the gifted performers are fully in the service of the music. These moments are transcendent and are a major reason we listen to music in the first place.
The 2004-2005 season of the Artist Series continued Friday evening with a virtuoso performance by Chanticleer at the Co-Cathedral of St. Thomas More.
Chanticleer, making its first visit to Tallahassee in 10 years, is a 12-voice men's chorus. What makes it different from other men's choruses (which normally consist of tenors and basses) is its complement of "countertenors," who sing in falsetto with full power.
Friday's concert was organized around the theme "Women, Saintly and Otherwise" and included pieces by and about women. The first group of pieces focused on Mary, and one of the highlights of the concert was the performance of the Gregorian chant "Ave Maria." Gregorian chants are unaccompanied one-voice settings of the liturgical texts of the Roman Catholic Church. The sound of 12 voices singing in perfect unison was as voluptuous in its own way as the full harmonies of most of the program.
A selection of Elizabethan and modern madrigals included a performance of Thomas Weelkes' As Vesta Was that was distinguished by balanced counterpoint and rhythmic life. The assured performance of Maurice Ravel's "Nicolette" was subtle and colorful, and Chanticleer handled the French composer's rich chromaticism with ease and style.
A performance of a selection of madrigals by Claudio Monteverdi showed off the group's strengths. Here were beautiful sounds, rendered with a strong sense of ensemble and impeccable intonation.
Robert Pearsall's Lay a Garland was the only 19th-century music on the program, and Chanticleer embraced the harmonic language, which included many melodic dissonances, beautifully emphasized and resolved in this performance.
The high point of the evening was a powerful performance of John Tavener's Song for Athene, an elegy for a family friend. Tavener is a proponent of the New Simplicity, and his music is made of elements of Russian Orthodox liturgical music. The text is a combination of lines from Hamlet and from Orthodox liturgy. The music places simple melodic lines over a drone in the basses. Chanticleer's austere reading was poignant and direct.
Selections from Augusta Read Thomas' Purple Syllables anchored the second half of the concert. These settings of Emily Dickinson poems about birds (the piece was written for Chanticleer, whose name comes from a singing rooster in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales) were subtle, colorful, and at times, playful. Chanticleer navigated the difficult pieces with expression and, as always, a beautiful sound.
The concert ended with a selection of folk songs and popular numbers, which Chanticleer performed with flair and good humor. A Stephen Foster encore sent the Tallahassee audience out into the night happy and entertained.
Chanticleer (along with ensembles like the Kronos Quartet) subscribes to a dominant contemporary performance aesthetic that emphasizes a gleaming, beautiful sound surface and the presence of the performers themselves.
There are times when this sound quality overwhelms the music, replacing the individual expression of the composer with the performers' personality and making much of the music sound the same, regardless of compositional style.
There are other times, such as in Friday's performance of the John Tavener piece, when the prodigious resources of the gifted performers are fully in the service of the music. These moments are transcendent and are a major reason we listen to music in the first place.
13.11.04
12.11.04
Resources
The internet has yielded a remarkable number of good resources for musicians. Two that I have found useful are this site devoted to the chorales of JS Bach (linked to by Scott Spiegelberg), and this site devoted to the identification of unordered pitch-class sets. The latter includes a good deal of fine background material on set theory.
Ligeti
Charles Downey of ionarts provides a rundown of critical reaction to the San Francisco Opera's production of Gyorgy Ligeti's Le Grande Macabre. This provocatively essential work always gets impassioned reactions, both pro and con.
Also: I look forward to Alex Ross' report on the Boston Symphony performance of Elliott Carter's Symphonia.
Also: I look forward to Alex Ross' report on the Boston Symphony performance of Elliott Carter's Symphonia.
10.11.04
Blogroll
I've added a couple of blogs to the blogroll: Composers Marcus Maroney and Forrest Covington. They both have something to say.
The blogroll here is the same as the one at my new blog, Perpetual Variation. That blog is devoted to my non-101 musical projects.
The blogroll here is the same as the one at my new blog, Perpetual Variation. That blog is devoted to my non-101 musical projects.
9.11.04
Review: Albert Herring
The following is reprinted from the Tallahassee Democrat (7 November 2004), with permission.
Benjamin Britten's Albert Herring (1947) is an intimate opera. It has a relatively small cast, a very small orchestra of 13 players, and is fairly short. Its tone is almost exclusively lyrical, its conflicts those of manners rather than those of actions. The story of moral repression and the youthful exuberance that overcomes it is told in colorful music of imagination and subtlety.
So I was curious when I saw that the Florida State Opera's production of Herring was being staged in Florida State University's Ruby Diamond Auditorium rather than in the smaller Opperman Music Hall. Not to worry: Stage director Matthew Lata, scenic and costume designer Gerry Leahy and lighting designer Victor En Yu Tan were able to use the greater space of the Diamond stage in a way that opened the visual field without making it seem to have been artificially stretched. Lata accomplished this through the use of more "supernumeraries," the operatic equivalent of extras in a movie, than usual and his decision to block most of the action at the front of the stage.
Albert Herring is a fine vehicle for young voices, and a good number of them can be heard in this production. Ryan Harper was very good as the title character. He was able to communicate both Albert's innocence and his curiosity physically as well as vocally. Harper will sing Albert again in Friday's performance. Oliver Mercer will sing the role today and Nov. 13.
Jeffrey Wienend and Megan Roth winningly portrayed the pivotal roles of the young lovers Sid and Nancy. The town elders were given with proper unctuousness by Luvada Harrison (Lady Billows), Melissa Vitrella (Florence Pike, who "scolded" the orchestra for what she considered their less-than-timely beginning of the second act), Christine Keene (Miss Woodsworth), Christopher Boulter (The Vicar) and Kyle Jones (The Mayor).
Malinda LaBar was a convincingly hovering Mum to Albert, and Victoria Wilson and Arian Ashworth were also convincing as local schoolgirls. Special mention should be given to youngster Colin Wulff, who was an agile and mischievous Harry.
FSU Opera Director Douglas Fisher led the orchestra in a well-paced, exciting performance. Britten's imaginative score, with solo passages for virtually every instrument, is a difficult one, and the student performers carried it off with style.
This Albert Herring is an engaging afternoon or evening in the theater.
Benjamin Britten's Albert Herring (1947) is an intimate opera. It has a relatively small cast, a very small orchestra of 13 players, and is fairly short. Its tone is almost exclusively lyrical, its conflicts those of manners rather than those of actions. The story of moral repression and the youthful exuberance that overcomes it is told in colorful music of imagination and subtlety.
So I was curious when I saw that the Florida State Opera's production of Herring was being staged in Florida State University's Ruby Diamond Auditorium rather than in the smaller Opperman Music Hall. Not to worry: Stage director Matthew Lata, scenic and costume designer Gerry Leahy and lighting designer Victor En Yu Tan were able to use the greater space of the Diamond stage in a way that opened the visual field without making it seem to have been artificially stretched. Lata accomplished this through the use of more "supernumeraries," the operatic equivalent of extras in a movie, than usual and his decision to block most of the action at the front of the stage.
Albert Herring is a fine vehicle for young voices, and a good number of them can be heard in this production. Ryan Harper was very good as the title character. He was able to communicate both Albert's innocence and his curiosity physically as well as vocally. Harper will sing Albert again in Friday's performance. Oliver Mercer will sing the role today and Nov. 13.
Jeffrey Wienend and Megan Roth winningly portrayed the pivotal roles of the young lovers Sid and Nancy. The town elders were given with proper unctuousness by Luvada Harrison (Lady Billows), Melissa Vitrella (Florence Pike, who "scolded" the orchestra for what she considered their less-than-timely beginning of the second act), Christine Keene (Miss Woodsworth), Christopher Boulter (The Vicar) and Kyle Jones (The Mayor).
Malinda LaBar was a convincingly hovering Mum to Albert, and Victoria Wilson and Arian Ashworth were also convincing as local schoolgirls. Special mention should be given to youngster Colin Wulff, who was an agile and mischievous Harry.
FSU Opera Director Douglas Fisher led the orchestra in a well-paced, exciting performance. Britten's imaginative score, with solo passages for virtually every instrument, is a difficult one, and the student performers carried it off with style.
This Albert Herring is an engaging afternoon or evening in the theater.
Ahem
That's the subject line of an e-mail from A. C. Douglas, which e-mail is reposted with his permission:
Me, in response:
ACD:
Yes; that distinction is important. I must admit to still prefering Mr. Hunka's formulation both for its slant, however slight, towards technical analysis and for its elegance.
Re, your http://listen101.blogspot.com/2004/11/bingo.html
With all due respect to George, how is his remark more Bingo! than my prior, "And what exactly do I mean when I say that "a marriage of the two is desirable when handled in such a way as to serve a better understanding of the music under discussion"? I mean that only when the 'hardcore technical' is used to provide clarifying concrete example of an 'impressionistic' point made in general critical writing on music (as opposed to, say, critical writing for use in music theory courses or other specialist venues) is it being used as it ought to be used, and that its use in any other capacity in such critical writing is decidedly out of place, and hugely counterproductive."
I realize George's framing of the matter better suits your "hardcore technical" bias, but both say essentially the same thing, wouldn't you agree.
Me, in response:
Yes, I would say they say more or less the same thing, with a different bias, or perspective, rather.
ACD:
(You did note, I trust, that the "bias" ("perspective") you mention was due entirely my focusing exclusively on *general* critical writing; i.e., critical writing for "civilians" rather than professionals or music students.)
Yes; that distinction is important. I must admit to still prefering Mr. Hunka's formulation both for its slant, however slight, towards technical analysis and for its elegance.
8.11.04
Bingo!
George Hunka sums it up:
. . . impressions must be informed by the means with which those impressions were elicited; technical analysis is meaningless if it doesn't pay homage to the impression that technique, in the end, creates.
5.11.04
Analysis/Criticism
Art critic Dave Hickey writes about creating "communities of desire" to foster the arts we love. That's central to my mission here. I write, listen to, perform, and write about concert music because I desire it--passionately and completely. Concert music has fallen out of the lives of the vast majority of otherwise cultured people--if they belong to a community of desire for music, it is generally of the popular kind, not concert music.
This is a circuitous way of getting to what I really want to talk about today, and that is analysis and criticism. Or more precisely, what place do analysis and/or criticism have in creating a ciommunity of desire around concert music?
Recent weeks have seen music bloggers analyze passages from the classics and Moderns, discuss the content of those analyses, and criticize those analyses and discussions. And we also have an explication of some analytical tools. Analytical/critical styles have been criticized not so much for what they tell us as for how. In the simplest terms, some want audience-friendly "impressionistic" analysis and others want more hardcore technical material.
There is both room and need for both approaches, as well as any other that may be forthcoming. The community of desire for concert music has at least two sub-communities: A community of interest and a community of practice. (One hopes that every member of the community of practice is interested, of course.) For practitioners a greater or lesser degree of technical knowledge of a piece may be necessary if we are to do with the piece what we need to, be that play it, write about it, use it as a model for our own work, or teach it.
Occasionally someone will write a highly-technical piece on a composition and write so that it will be off-putting to a lay person, for whatever reason. But that is the exception. For most of us, thinking about music in a technical way--and expressing in prose (and charts) what we have learned about it--is an important part of practice.
Talking about music in the more impressionistic way has value, too, especially when it helps listeners find their way into a piece. I hope we can find meaningful ways of combining the two approaches and enriching our community of desire.
EDIT: Here's a good example of the value of analysis from the performer's point of view; in this case, Helen Radice. (7.11.04)
This is a circuitous way of getting to what I really want to talk about today, and that is analysis and criticism. Or more precisely, what place do analysis and/or criticism have in creating a ciommunity of desire around concert music?
Recent weeks have seen music bloggers analyze passages from the classics and Moderns, discuss the content of those analyses, and criticize those analyses and discussions. And we also have an explication of some analytical tools. Analytical/critical styles have been criticized not so much for what they tell us as for how. In the simplest terms, some want audience-friendly "impressionistic" analysis and others want more hardcore technical material.
There is both room and need for both approaches, as well as any other that may be forthcoming. The community of desire for concert music has at least two sub-communities: A community of interest and a community of practice. (One hopes that every member of the community of practice is interested, of course.) For practitioners a greater or lesser degree of technical knowledge of a piece may be necessary if we are to do with the piece what we need to, be that play it, write about it, use it as a model for our own work, or teach it.
Occasionally someone will write a highly-technical piece on a composition and write so that it will be off-putting to a lay person, for whatever reason. But that is the exception. For most of us, thinking about music in a technical way--and expressing in prose (and charts) what we have learned about it--is an important part of practice.
Talking about music in the more impressionistic way has value, too, especially when it helps listeners find their way into a piece. I hope we can find meaningful ways of combining the two approaches and enriching our community of desire.
EDIT: Here's a good example of the value of analysis from the performer's point of view; in this case, Helen Radice. (7.11.04)
4.11.04
Crisis
Tallahassee (FL) Symphony Orchestra Music Director David Hoose announced recently that the 2004-2005 season will be his last with the Orchestra. In a "letter" printed in the program booklet for the first concert, he made some points that I think are important to share. These are posted here with his permission, and given without comment:
Readers, how are these issues apparent in your communities? Are there others? Are there art forms thriving in your communities and others that suffer? The comments section is for you. A blog without a comments section is like art without an audience.
The biggest threat to the TSO is the one that is visiting every orchestra: whither goeth classical music? Its marginalization by a population that wants much more instant and tangible gratification should be a worry to us all, for the rapid shift that is speeding through our culture affects not just this area of music, but the fundamental quality of our lives. More and more, an embrace of reflection, subtlety, and complexity is being replaced by an addiction to visceral excitement, quick satisfaction, and simple-mindedness. We should be troubled. Serious music may be one of the first victims, for it undoubtedly demands much of us, but its illness should at the least serve as the parakeet in the mine warning us of danger. Our society is at stake. And, if I am right, so are our
souls.
. . .
. . . there are concerns that specifically affect the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra, ones I hope the leaders will ask in the years to come. Among them are:
How committed is this city to having the highest quality orchestra that it could have? What would be required to develop such?
How does a community that cannot claim wealthy, old businesses that see their own future tied to the cultural health of the community, acquire the means to thrive?
Does the community want a paid-community or a professional orchestra? What are the differences, and what are the benefits of each?
Whom does the orchestra serve? The conductor? The players? The audience? The community at large? In what ways might these interests be incompatible, and how might conflicts be
resolved?
Readers, how are these issues apparent in your communities? Are there others? Are there art forms thriving in your communities and others that suffer? The comments section is for you. A blog without a comments section is like art without an audience.
Review: Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra
Tallahassee Democrat, October 25, 2004:
Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra Music Director David Hoose announced earlier in the week that he would not return to the Orchestra after the 2004-2005 season. That season began Saturday evening at Florida State University’s Ruby Diamond Auditorium with a program of music by Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Rachmaninov.
The program, and the audience’s reaction to it, highlighted the growth of the TSO during Mr. Hoose’s directorship in addition to showing the limitations of a part-time ensemble.
Shostakovich’s First Symphony (1926) is a brash and assured debut. It has all of the earmarks of the composer’s mature style—sardonic wit, melodic ingenuity, rhythmic vitality, and colorful orchestration. The Orchestra responded to Mr. Hoose’s crisp tempos and gestures to give a taut, exciting performance of this early modern masterpiece.
The Orchestra displayed solid ensemble work throughout the Symphony, which is awash in the discontinuity that is a hallmark of Modernist art and thought. Soloists (there are too many solos in the Symphony to name all the players) handled their melodic twists and turns with panache, and the Orchestra boldly attacked Shostakovich’s dissonant harmonies, which is key to making them work for the audience.
The audience responded with a sustained and enthusiastic ovation, which indicates how far Mr. Hoose and the Orchestra have come in their programming, which is adventurous for a community-based orchestra in a city the size of Tallahassee. One selling point the TSO’s search committee will have is an audience open to unusual repertoire, in addition to the players capable of delivering fine performances of that repertoire.
Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances marks the end of the composer’s career, and in some ways, of the Romanticism he championed and even, for many, embodied. It is a colorful and expressive work, full of memorable melodies and orchestral color. Saturday night’s performance was fiery and solid. Once again the numerous soloists gave telling accounts of their parts, with principal cellist Kim Jones a standout among standouts.
Mark Rohr’s program note made much of the idea that Rachmaninov eschewed Modernism even as late as 1940, the year of the Dances. While it is true that the composer never wrote music that was anything other than unambiguously tonal, he did make use of the same kinds of discontinuities heard to such good effect in the Shostakovich. This piece was full of sudden textural changes and melodic surprises, so while it was not avant-garde, it certainly was Modern in some respects, and Mr. Hoose’s reading emphasized some of that aspect of the score.
The performance was not quite fully realized—I had the feeling throughout that, with one more rehearsal, the Orchestra could really have let go and pulled out all the stops. The Rachmaninov is a greater technical challenge for an orchestra than is the Shostakovich, and this lack of rehearsal time is a serious and inevitable limit on the artistic growth of an orchestra like the Tallahassee Symphony. This was a fine concert, but the Orchestra is capable of even more.
This concert, then, placed the potential and challenge of the TSO in relief, and it will be fascinating to watch the search for the musician who will take on the task of leading the Orchestra into the future.
Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra Music Director David Hoose announced earlier in the week that he would not return to the Orchestra after the 2004-2005 season. That season began Saturday evening at Florida State University’s Ruby Diamond Auditorium with a program of music by Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Rachmaninov.
The program, and the audience’s reaction to it, highlighted the growth of the TSO during Mr. Hoose’s directorship in addition to showing the limitations of a part-time ensemble.
Shostakovich’s First Symphony (1926) is a brash and assured debut. It has all of the earmarks of the composer’s mature style—sardonic wit, melodic ingenuity, rhythmic vitality, and colorful orchestration. The Orchestra responded to Mr. Hoose’s crisp tempos and gestures to give a taut, exciting performance of this early modern masterpiece.
The Orchestra displayed solid ensemble work throughout the Symphony, which is awash in the discontinuity that is a hallmark of Modernist art and thought. Soloists (there are too many solos in the Symphony to name all the players) handled their melodic twists and turns with panache, and the Orchestra boldly attacked Shostakovich’s dissonant harmonies, which is key to making them work for the audience.
The audience responded with a sustained and enthusiastic ovation, which indicates how far Mr. Hoose and the Orchestra have come in their programming, which is adventurous for a community-based orchestra in a city the size of Tallahassee. One selling point the TSO’s search committee will have is an audience open to unusual repertoire, in addition to the players capable of delivering fine performances of that repertoire.
Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances marks the end of the composer’s career, and in some ways, of the Romanticism he championed and even, for many, embodied. It is a colorful and expressive work, full of memorable melodies and orchestral color. Saturday night’s performance was fiery and solid. Once again the numerous soloists gave telling accounts of their parts, with principal cellist Kim Jones a standout among standouts.
Mark Rohr’s program note made much of the idea that Rachmaninov eschewed Modernism even as late as 1940, the year of the Dances. While it is true that the composer never wrote music that was anything other than unambiguously tonal, he did make use of the same kinds of discontinuities heard to such good effect in the Shostakovich. This piece was full of sudden textural changes and melodic surprises, so while it was not avant-garde, it certainly was Modern in some respects, and Mr. Hoose’s reading emphasized some of that aspect of the score.
The performance was not quite fully realized—I had the feeling throughout that, with one more rehearsal, the Orchestra could really have let go and pulled out all the stops. The Rachmaninov is a greater technical challenge for an orchestra than is the Shostakovich, and this lack of rehearsal time is a serious and inevitable limit on the artistic growth of an orchestra like the Tallahassee Symphony. This was a fine concert, but the Orchestra is capable of even more.
This concert, then, placed the potential and challenge of the TSO in relief, and it will be fascinating to watch the search for the musician who will take on the task of leading the Orchestra into the future.
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