Sequenza21/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly

Philip Glass--Beyond Minimalism

Philip Glass in today's Washington Post:

"I've been called a minimalist composer for more than 30 years, and while I've never really agreed with the description, I've gotten used to it," Philip Glass was saying last week. "But what I really am -- and increasingly so -- is a universalist composer. I'm interested in all kinds of music, and sooner or later most of those musics find their way into my own compositions."

The National Symphony Orchestra will play the world premiere of his Symphony No. 7, subtitled "A Toltec Symphony," Thursday night at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall under the direction of Leonard Slatkin.

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/15/2005

Friday, January 14, 2005

Dictionary of New Musical Terms

A friend just sent me this. It is attributed to Paul Wagner, at Berklee:

In an effort to keep you abreast of the ever-changing world of musical terminology, we provide you with some terms with which you should be familiar:

Adagio Fromaggio: To play in a slow and cheesy manner.
AnDante:A musical composition that is infernally slow.
Angus Dei: To play with a divine, beefy tone.
Anti-phonal:Referring to the prohibition of cell phones in the concert hall.
A Patella: Unaccompanied knee-slapping.
Appologgiatura: A composition, solo or instrument, you regret playing.
Approximatura: A series of notes played by a performer, not intended by the composer.
Approximento: A musical entrance that is somewhere in the vicinity of the correct pitch.
Bar Line: What musicians form after a concert.
Concerto Grossissimo: A really bad performance.
Coral Symphony: (see Beethoven-Caribbean period).
CornettiTrombosis Disastrous: The entanglement of brass instruments that can occur when musicians exit hastily down the stage stairs.
Dill Piccolino: A wind instrument that plays only sour notes.
Fermantra: A note that is held over and over and over and over...
Fermoota: A rest of indefinite length and dubious value.
Fog Hornoso: A sound that is heard when the conductor's intentions are not clear.
Frugalhorn: A sensible, inexpensive brass instrument.
GaulBlatter: A French horn player.
Good Conductor: A person who can give an electrifying performance, or alternative use, one who obeys the orchestra and/or chorus.
Gregorian Champ: Monk who can hold a note the longest.
Kvetchendo: Gradually getting annoyingly louder.
Mallade: A romantic song that's pretty awful.
Moltobolto: Head straight for the ending.
Opera buffa: Musical stage production by nudists.
PoochiniMusical: performance, accompanied by a dog.
Pre-Classical Conservatism: School of thought which fostered the idea,"if it ain't baroque, don't fix it."
Spritzicato:Plucking of a stringed instrument to produce a bright, bubbly sound, usually accompanied by sparkling water with lemon (wine optional).
Tempo Tantrumo: When a young band refuses to keep time with the conductor.
Tincanabulation:The annoying or irritating sounds made by extremely cheap bells.
Vesuvioso:A gradual buildup to a fiery conclusion.
ZZZfortzando: Playing REALLY loud in order to wake up the audience.

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/14/2005

What's New Today

Larry Bell checks in with an up-to-minute report on a conference on music he's attending this week at the American Academy in Rome; Joshua Cohen reports from Prague on Milan Slavicky and I say some nasty things below about James MacMillan. And ever wonder what Sullivan would sound like without Gilbert?

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/14/2005

James MacMillian Weekend at the Barbican

In the world of classical music, you usually have to be dead to get the kind of attention that James MacMillan (b. 1959) is getting this weekend. height=

The Scottish composer is the focus of this year�s annual Composers Weekend at the BBC which begins today and ends Sunday night with a series of concert, talks, films and events including a late-night ceilidh. Entitled Darkness Into Light: the music of James MacMillan, the festival will be held at the Barbican. MacMillan is Composer/Conductor with the BBC Philharmonic until September 2006.

The weekend features works that catapulted MacMillan into the limelight such as Veni, Veni, Emmanuel, which was composed for Evelyn Glennie and has received over 350 performances to date from many of the world�s leading orchestras and conductors, and The Confession of Isobel Gowdie, which catapulted him to fame after it was performed at the BBC Proms in 1990. There will also be London premieres of recent works and music by composers who taught and inspired MacMillan including Sir Harrison Birtwistle, John Casken and Sofia Gubaidulina.

Works by MacMillan also include Seven Last Words from the Cross for chorus and string orchestra, screened on BBC TV during Holy Week 1994, In�s de Castro, premiered by Scottish Opera and toured to Porto in 2001, a triptych of orchestral works commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra: The World's Ransoming, a Cello Concerto for Mstislav Rostropovich, and Symphony: 'Vigil' premiered under the baton of Rostropovich in 1997, and Quickening for The Hilliard Ensemble, chorus and orchestra, co-commissioned by the BBC Proms and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Recent MacMillan works include Symphony No.3: 'Silence' premiered in Tokyo in April 2003, Piano Concerto No.2 first performed with choreography by Christopher Wheeldon at New York City Ballet, and A Scotch Bestiary commissioned to inaugurate the new organ at Disney Hall with soloist Wayne Marshall and the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. Future works have been commissioned by the Minnesota Orchestra and Welsh National Opera.

The BBC web site says MacMillan�s music ��represents a deep-felt reaction to the human condition, is fired by a fusion of his Scottish heritage, his Roman Catholic faith and the influences on them by Celtic music and the traditions of the Far East, East Europe and Scandinavia.�

I�ll have to take their word for it. Having seen and heard his work performed live and listened to many recordings of his work I must confess I�ve never sensed any of those influences. What I hear is deliberately provocative, in-your-face anger that leaves me feeling like I�ve just spent an hour or so locked in an overcrowded elevator with some extremely bad dudes who were playing rap loudly on a boom box.

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/14/2005

Milan Slavicky

Milan Slavicky is probably the Czech Republic's most interesting living composer: a volcanic admixture of Elliott Carter's spiky lines and Henryk Gorecki's religious hush. His new Requiem is to be presented in Prague later this month, and the word from the rehearsals is "masterpiece". His chamber music--available on a few Czech and Swiss labels--is also highly recommended, and he has authored the definitive book on Gideon Klein, a promising young composer who was imprisoned by the Nazis in Terezin and died later in the Second World War. Joshua Cohen

posted by Joshua Cohen 1/14/2005

Thursday, January 13, 2005

What's New Today

Did the classical music establishment dis George Gershwin? The New Yorker says, yes. Lawrence Dillon says, no. And, score another one for Naxos (See below).

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/13/2005

A First for Milton Babbitt

The Boston Symphony Orchestra premieres Milton Babbitt's "Concerti for Orchestra" tonight. It is the first work by Babbitt that the orchestra has ever programmed and the credit goes to James Levine, a long-time fan of Babbitt's work, who commissioned the piece. The Boston Globe has the story.

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/13/2005

Naxos to Launch Robert Craft Collection

News of the much-publicized death of classical music recording has apparently escaped the attention of the nice folks at Naxos. Hot on the heels of the first release in its landmark collaboration with Peter Maxwell Davies on a series of 10 string quartets, everybody's favorite high-quality, low-budget label is launching next week another exciting new relationship with the release of the first four recordings in its new Robert Craft Collection. The recordings include re-issues of Igor Stravinsky�s Oedipus Rex and Les Noces and Arnold Schoenberg�s Gurre-Lieder as well as brand new recordings of Schoenberg�s Concerto for String Quartet and music by Anton Webern.

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Craft is best known for his close personal and professional relationship with Stravinsky. The Naxos re-issues bring together on one disc Craft�s seminal recordings of Oedipus Rex and Les Noces, previously released on separate volumes.

Craft has been a consistent champion of Schoenberg and Webern as well, and he has recorded Schoenberg�s Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra with the Twentieth Century Classics Ensemble and the Fred Sherry String Quartet specifically for Naxos� Collection.

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The Concerto for String Quartet is a freely orchestrated version of Handel�s Concerto Grosso Opus 6, No. 7 that Schoenberg completed in 1933 during a period in his career when he ambivalently reconciled his intuitive aesthetic of free atonal writing with the larger canon of musical tradition. The CD also includes the song cycle The Book of the Hanging Gardens with mezzo-soprano Jennifer Lane and pianist Christopher Oldfather, as well as a 1949 recording of Arnold Schoenberg in conversation with Halsey Stevens of the University of Southern California Music Department.

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Craft has also recorded a new CD of music by Webern, including the Symphony, Opus 21, the Concerto for Nine Instruments, performed by the Twentieth Century Classics Ensemble, and the Six Pieces for Orchestra, Opus 6 with the Philharmonia Orchestra. The 2-CD re-issue of Schoenberg�s Gurre-Lieder (1899-1911), an orchestral song cycle based on poems by Danish writer Jens Peter Jacobsen (1847-1885), earned an Editor�s Choice distinction from Gramophone as Re-issue of the Month in December.

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The Robert Craft Collection, when complete, will be a comprehensive survey of works by Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and Webern, conducted and compiled by one of the most astute authorities on twentieth century music. Naxos will release over thirty CDs in this series, four to five new volumes annually over the next five to six years. The next release in the Robert Craft Collection is a re-issue of Stravinsky�s Firebird (complete Urtext edition) and Petrushka with the Philharmonia Orchestra, scheduled for March 2005.

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/13/2005

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

What's New Today

How do composers get their works performed? Beth Anderson and David Toub have some suggestions in the Composers Forum. And Larry Bell checks in from a music conference in Rome. Lucky devil. Updates all day long.

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/12/2005

Classical Music Fights Crime

Many years ago when I first moved to the West Side of Manhattan, I used to have brunch regularly on Saturday and Sundays at a eating and drinking--mostly drinking-- establishment called Armstrong's on the corner of 57th and 10th Avenue. This particular clean, well-lighted place was perched precariously on the northern end of what was then called, with good reason, Hell's Kitchen. Today, the area has become more gentrified and real estate developers have renamed it Clinton which, though less colorful, is apparently more reassuring to prospective buyers.

On the weekends, the proprietor, Jimmy Armstrong, would always have a classical guitar player perform during brunch. He insisted they play only classical, no bossa nova and anything easy. I once asked him why and he said "It keeps out the troublemakers."

Turns out Jimmy was ahead of his time.

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/12/2005

The Rest is Noise

Alex Ross writes:

Morton Feldman, the greatest American composer of modern memory, would have been seventy-nine today. I would have been seventy-nine, too, if I had been born in 1926.

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/12/2005

Minnesota Orchestra Launches �Finnish Fanfare�

The Minnesota Orchestra will begin the New Year tomorrow with a �Finnish Fanfare,� the first of two programs showcasing music and musicians of Finland. In concerts January 13-15, Music Director Osmo V�nsk� welcomes fellow countryman and composer Kalevi Aho to Minneapolis for first Minnesota Orchestra performances of Aho�s Symphony No. 7, Insect Symphony. A strong advocate of his countryman�s music, V�nsk� is currently in the process of recording Aho�s complete symphonic works with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra for the Swedish BIS label.

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Born in 1949, Aho has established himself as one of the most important Finnish composers of his generation. He completed his opera Insect Life in 1987 and reworked the orchestral score into his Seventh Symphony. The work�s six movements contrast greatly with each other, as butterflies, ants, dayflies and additional creatures are represented by music including the foxtrot, tango, military march and lullaby.

Aho wrote his own libretto for the opera, basing it on the play Insect Life by two remarkable Czech brothers, Josef and Karel Capek. Josef was a painter and cartoonist, Karel a journalist and stage manager. Together, they collaborated on several plays satiric of modern society and particularly of the condition of the worker in an increasingly automated society. These include Insect Life, written in 1922 and quickly produced in London and New York, and R.U.R. (Rossum�s Universal Robots), which introduced the term �robot.� In 1923 Karel wrote another play, The Makropulos Secret, which became the basis of Jan�cek�s opera The Makropulos Affair. Two decades later, Josef�s cartoons so antagonized the Nazis that he was sent to the concentration camp at Belsen, where he died in 1945.

Emotive content and eloquence are essential properties of music to Aho: �For me music, at least great music, is a manifestation of emotions and the soul. In music, I hear the speech of one human being to another; I hear his joy, sorrow, happiness, desperation. In a composition as a whole, I hear his attitude to life, his philosophy, his world view�his message.�

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/12/2005

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

What's New in Sequenza21 Today?

Do composers have an obligation to "explain" their work? Beth Anderson weighs in with her thoughts in the Composers Forum. And what are the components of musical experience? Lawrence Dillon ponders the question. And don't miss the 10 Questions About Morton Feldman here on the front page.

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/11/2005

10 Questions About Morton Feldman

Violinist|violist Christina Fong and pianist Paul Hersey have been working on a recording of Morton Feldman's complete works for violin, viola and piano, planned for release in July on the OgreOgress label. Sequenza21 asked them to pose 5 questions to each other regarding their project.

[Christina Fong interviews Paul Hersey]
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CF: Though early Feldman is not idiomatic of his later music, would you say that these pieces have any possible forshadowing or hints of his later works?

PH: I could not detect any indication at all.

CF: Is it possible to play the extremely complex polyrhythms completely accurately, and is it worth the much greater effort?

PH: Certainly and most definitely. They are exquisite, and can be felt. Sloshing through them does them no justice.

CF: If you were to compare Morton Feldman's music to another genre of art, what would it be and how would you compare it?

PH: Let me make a comparison not to art forms but rather to interpersonal relations and a feeling or idea of love, tenderness, careful thorough attention and gentleness.

CF: Here is a silly question. I find Morton Feldman to be an interesting looking person. Depending on whether you saw a picture of Feldman first or whether you heard his music first answer one of the following questions. If you heard or played MF's music first, did seeing a picture of him surprise you in any way? If you saw a picture of MF, did hearing his music surprise you in any way?

PH: I think I played his music first. It was surprising because the music is so tender and delicate and he has a somewhat rough appearance.

CF: When listening to MF's extended works, do you find your perspective of time altered?

PH: Definitely. An hour or two does not seem like such a long time.

[Paul Hersey interviews Christina Fong]
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PH: I began working on this project in January 2003 and finished in August 2003 and I would say that until about May or June the music seemed to me completely without interest. Did you have an immediate attraction to Feldman or like me did it take an unusually long time of immersion, six months of constant work, before awakening to its magic?

CF: The first piece I heard of Feldman's was the percussion piece "King of Denmark". I remembered that it was a very large set-up and that it was unbelievably soft. I remember very little else about this except that I liked it but that it did not make a particularly great impression on me. The next time I heard Feldman was on the radio in 1987, back in the days when there was still decent and adventuresome classical music stations. It was a movement called "Snow Falls" (from Three Voices) sung by Joan La Barbara. It was an absolutely stunning 3-minute work. All of a sudden a light went on, and I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had heard: a piece that evoked such a musical quality and at the same time so programatic of what it was. Since then, I still love the piece "Snow Falls" and appreciate the miniature quality of it, but I prefer the very large expansive pieces.

PH: Describe for me in what ways this music evokes for you anything like tenderness, kindness, careful attention or gentleness?

CF: It is hard and impossible to describe how and what it is in his music that evokes this. His dynamics are very soft, but certainly there are many pieces that are soft that do not evoke this tender quality. His rhythms are very complex, but certainly there are rhythmically complex piece that do not create the feeling of careful attention. Describing his work in words is like trying to describe what a real rose smells like with scents from an artificial air freshener.

PH: During the project we discussed how Feldman took us into a kind of time warp where the slow tempo, the careful, subtle variations, and the tremendous length of the pieces at first seemed to drag, but then made other works seem hasty, inattentive, and lacking in thoroughness. I have not played any Feldman since. Don't you miss those qualities?

CF: I do miss this.

PH: Nothing in life has ever quite engaged me mathmatico-rhythmically as some of the more twisted, or should I say sophisticated, passages featuring rhythmic ratios such as 47:49. After the project did anything seem dull to you by comparison?

CF: Yes and no. When I play good music, there is always something that speaks. When I play bad music, it always feels like I have to do the speaking for it. And if I have to talk, I'd rather not go through a bad middle-man.

PH: Bach and Mozart, for instance, can be uplifting in what is fair to call similar ways. Have you encountered any music which can transport in a manner even remotely similar to that of Feldman?

CF: You touch on an interesting point for me. Bach and Mozart don't really "uplift" me in the same or even similar ways, so I suppose I cannot really answer the question.There are several composers like Bach and Mozart who's work I would say are just as close as humanly possible to perfection. To me, it is this perfection or whatever you want to call it that transports one. What I can definitely say is that no music remotely transports me in the same way as Feldman's.

Pieces Recorded for CD:
[Sonata] for Violin and Piano (1945)
Piece (1950)
Projection 4 (1951)
Extensions 1 (1951)
Vertical Thoughts 2 (1963)
Viola in My Life 3 (1970)
Spring of Chosroes (1977)
For Aaron Copland (1981)
For John Cage (1982)
[Composition] for Violin (1984)

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/11/2005

Monday, January 10, 2005

What's New in Sequenza21 Today?

Few communities the size of Bloomington, Indiana are capable of pulling off a musical miracle as difficult as a first-rate premiere of a major new work for chorus and orchestra by a gifted young American composer but then few communities have a music school like Indiana University�s to draw from for voices and musicians. Read more... And, more what do composers do, in the Composers Forum and in Lawrence Dillon's blog.

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/10/2005

Made in America Festival Set for Seattle

The Seattle Symphony and guest artists will perform five concerts celebrating music by great American composers of the 20th century on May 6, 7, 12, 13 and 19. The Made in America Festival also includes a wide variety of lectures, performances by community partners, panel discussions and musical demonstrations before and after the performances.

Composers represented in Seattle Symphony performances include Ives, Riegger, Piston, Hanson, Sessions, Thomson, Gershwin, Copland, Barber, Schuman, Carter, Diamond and many others whose music helped establish a unique American style. Interesting local connections include: Virgil Thompson�s Symphony No. 2, which was given its world premiere by Seattle Symphony in 1941 under the colorful Music Director Sir Thomas Beecham and Carlos Ch�vez conducted the Seattle Symphony in the mid-20th century. Special attention will be paid during the Festival to Seattle Symphony Honorary Composer in Residence David Diamond as he turns 90 this year.

Seattle Symphony Festival guest artists include mezzo-soprano Rinat Shaham, Seattle Symphony English horn Glen Danielson, and the Faculty/Students of the University of Washington Vocal Department.

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/10/2005

Wanted: A Few Good Bloggers

Ever dream of growing up to be a blogger when you were a kid? Us neither. But, here's an opportunity for you. If you are a decent writer, live in a town with an active new music scene, and can contribute at least two or three short pieces a week, we'd like to give you a shot at stardom. There's no money involved because we don't make any but if you're good, or even pretty good, we'll make you a contributing editor and you can use our name to try to weadle free tickets to concerts and parties. Send us a note if you're interested.

If you're a composer and would like to take part in our Composers Forum, drop me a line, especially if you have a lot on your mind and plan to contribute regularly. If you're a composer or performer who would like us to build you an individual blog and host it here at Sequenza21, send me a note. If you're a reader, keep on reading and drop over to the Composers Forum and Lawrence Dillon's blog and leave some comments. We know you're out there; we can hear you humming.

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/10/2005

Adamo's Little Women Heads for Japan

Mark Adamo's Little Women gets its Asian premiere in May when New York City Opera performs his setting of the Louisa May Alcott novel during the 2005 World Exposition in Japan. Little Women was commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera and premiered by the HGO Studio in 1998. Besides Houston, which revived the work in 2000, 24 professional American companies, university programs and summer festivals have staged it.

Adamo is currently composer-in-residence at the NYCO.

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/10/2005

Sunday, January 09, 2005

Turnage Goes Scherzoid in New York

Mark-Anthony Turnage�s Scherzoid will make its world debut Wednesday as Xian Zhang leads the New York Philharmonic, which commissioned the piece. The program at Avery Fisher Hall, which also includes Britten�s Four Sea Interludes from �Peter Grimes,� is repeated on January 13, 15, and 18.

�Although the focus of the work is the scherzo, it wasn�t the light dance movement as much as the high energy aspect I was after,� Turnage says. �So, it is the ghost of Beethoven�s scherzos in the Eroica and the Ninth Symphony that hovers in the background. I wanted to write a piece that was one in a bar and drove right through.�
The pun on �scherzo� and �schizoid� is deliberate, Turnage says.

�The piece developed into something exploring changes of personality. I realised it would be too much to have one giant 17 minute scherzo, and broke things up into three scherzos divided by two trios. The scherzos have the same mood but the music is different, while the trios offer some contrast with more slow and sustained writing, particularly the second trio which introduces melodic ideas that are much more lyrical. Yet even here there is an element of schizophrenia, because the harmony relates to that of the scherzo, here being sustained rather than punched out.

�There is very little literal repetition in my music - rather I try and achieve the Stravinskian thing where everything is being constantly varied. Formally this can mean that returning music can be cut up and reordered like in a film, something Eisenstein described as �intellectual montage.��

Scherzoid is only one of three major Turnage works bowing in the 200405 season. A Man Descending, for tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano and chamber orchestra, was unveiled by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra on October 15, and has its American premiere with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra on May 6 and 7. October also brought the premiere of Turnage�s new choir and orchestra work, A Relic of, Memory conducted in Berlin by Simon Rattle.

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/09/2005

Miller Theater's Excellent Road Show

Columbia University's Miller Theater has become a New York hot spot for contemporary music over the past five years and now it's out to capture Boston.

Three programs previously seen at the Miller Theatre will visit the will visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum season, beginning on January 29 and 30, when a chamber group with violinists Jennifer Choi and Jesse Mills, violist Richard O' Neill, cellist Fred Sherry, and pianist Stephen Drury performs chamber music by the John Zorn. The Pacific String Quartet plays rarely heard music by Nicolai Roslavets, a Ukrainian composer whose music was suppressed by Stalin, on February 26 and 27. On March 26 and 27, So Percussion plays Steve Reich's Drumming and other works by the minimalist pioneer.

George Steel, the executive director of the Miller Theatere, will serve as host for the concerts and for post-concert receptions.

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/09/2005