Sequenza21/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly

The Chill Factor: Cleveland at Carnegie

Just got back from hearing the Cleveland Orchestra at Carnegie. On the program were pieces by Birtwistle and Dutilleux in addition to the Beethoven "Emperor" Concerto with Radu Lupu. The Birtwistle, a recent work entitled "Night�s Black Bird," while exhibiting the composer�s singular gift for atmospheric textures, pales next to the inventiveness of "Pulse Shadows" and other works. Dutilleux�s Symphony No.2 "Le Double" is charming and engaging: the work features a "mini orchestra" of twelve soloists which serves as a little "double" for the larger one. While the Symphony is a bit old fashioned, it�s a wonderful vehicle for an intense orchestra like Cleveland�s: the ensemble was fantastic.

And yet.

I recalled the Cleveland Orchestra concert I went to last year, featuring a new Dalbavie work and Bartok�s "Miraculous Mandarin." Something was missing then too: chills. For all their maturity and professionalism, in neither concert by Cleveland did I ever get the sense the orchestra was pulling out all the stops and playing their hearts out. Boston, Philly, and, yes, The Philharmonic, have all at times sent me into the stratosphere: Boston with its "Pelleas," Philly with "Turangalila," and The Phil with "Amerique." Maybe tonight�s wasn�t the right program for what I was looking for, but, darn it, Cleveland, for me, lags a little behind its east-coast brethren in something that really matters: inspiration.

posted by David Salvage 2/04/2005

Masterpieces NOW Redux

Alex Ross responds to Martin Kettle�s classical-music-is-dead-or-maybe-turning-into-rock-n-roll piece in The Guardian with a list of works he considers to be masterpieces by living composers or those still warm in their graves. His list includes:

��Nixon in China � one of the most richly melodic operas of recent times, one of the few flat-out great American operas, as deep a meditation on the psychology of power as any composer has created. See also Adams' Harmonielehre, Harmonium, Naive and Sentimental Music. Messiaen's St. Francis. Lutoslawski's Third Symphony. Takemitsu's Twill by Twilight. Golijov's St. Mark Passion. Ad�s' Asyla. Gubaidulina's Offertorium. Feldman's Piano and String Quartet. Lou Harrison's Rhymes With Silver. Ligeti's Violin Concerto. P�rt's Litany. Reich's Desert Music. Glass' Violin Concerto. Michael Gordon's Decasia, Phil Kline's Zippo Songs. For the komplexity kids, Kurtag's Stele, Magnus Lindberg's Kraft, Carter's Clarinet Concerto. Take that, Martin Kettle! Composers already rock!�

Hard to argue with most of these choices and I would vote Nixon in China and Golijov�s St. Mark Passion most likely to withstand the test of time. Hard to say if Michael Gordon�s Decasia is most durable than his Trance but that�s a success problem. Messiaen will certainly still be considered major a century for now (if we survive George Bush and there is a century from now) and probably P�rt. Phil Kline�s Zippo Songs�I doubt it.

To the list, I would add Gavin Bryars� Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet; Philip Glass� Piano Etudes, which will be the Ravel piano minatures of future generations, Steve Reich and Beryl Korot�s The Cave, Golijov�s The Dreams and Prayers of Issac the Blind and, in fact, just about every note that Golijov has ever written.

Who would you add to the list?

posted by Jerry Bowles 2/04/2005

Harrison Birtwistle at Zankel Hall, New York

The idea behind the great Making Music series at Zankel Hall is to present programs of the works of living composers. In addition to the musical performance, there is a discussion between a moderator and the composer and--at times--other guests. On Monday night, the English poet and sometime Birthwistle collaborator David Harsent joined the discussion after intermission.

As someone in the S/21 composers forum suggested not too long ago, I can't recall who, "talking about music is like dancing about architecture." There is an irony to be found here as we attempt to talk about and try to give meaning to something that, in the context of the moment, has no aural or visual example. We talk about an abstract form in abstracts. Or even more ironic; something is created that is intended to be abstract, then we discuss it to try and give it meaning.

Nevertheless, talking about music is an accepted and even necessary practice. (Indeed, the subject of much debate). The accomplished British composer Harrison Birtwistle was an engaging, fun and candid subject this evening. Ara Guaelimian, the moderator, was good as "straight man" for Birtwistle as the composer talked and answered questions. Hearing him talk about his music and musical process with ample amounts of (British) wit and humor, was insightful and inspiring. Birtwistle, whom I found to be lucid and casually articulate, talked about the process of composition, which he likened to that of a dry, stone wall builder; (just using what material you have around you knowing intuitively which pieces should go where but really hard, exhausting work), and about the pieces on the program; for instance, how he conceptualized writing for wind quintet in "Five Distances" and about his milestone work "Tragoedia" and the ancient Greek meaning of tragedy as a ritualistic dance where the dancers would adorn themselves with goat skins (the word tragedy comes from an ancient Greek word meaning goat). He talked about reading and gaining inspiration from poetry, in particular, reading verse in the "small room", as "they seemed to be just the right length" for the composing occupation.

The music itself was an eye-and-ear opener starting with the aforementioned "Five Distances" a lively and playful wind quintet in which the distances of the instruments, i.e. their timbral un-connectedness is the play. Next was "Nine Settings of Lorine Niedecker", a piece for soprano and cello. It is a difficult piece for the vocalist in that the accompaniment of her angular lines by the cello, grows further and further disparate and sparse but Susan Narucki did very well as did cellist Priscilla Lee. The "Woman and the Hare" is a Birtwistle trademark piece, characterized by its staged expressiveness and musical drama incorporating a female reciter (Heather Gardner) and soprano with a nine piece ensemble. For this piece he called on David Harsent as his librettist. This is the story of two voices; different, yet the same; at once plaintive hysteria and ecstasy.

"Tragoedia", a work from 40 years past, was clear and concise showing the interplay and blurring of the lines between drama, austerity and primal instinct. Throughout the program I found several ideas reoccurring to me. Birtwistle has found a way to handle dissonance harmonically; to effectively create harmonic dissonance in chords and melodic line. His structure, while not always clear, has a distinct cadence and rhythm. And, his work's dramatic arc and the interplay of the characters and the musicians are a big part of his sensibility and creative process. Cheers, Sir Harry!

posted by Duane Harper Grant 2/04/2005

Groovin' With the London Symphony Orchestra at 100

Last year was the 100th anniverary of the founding of the London Symphony Orchestra which was born in 1904 as the UK�s first orchestra governed and managed by the players themselves.

In a city where five major orchestras compete for fans and funds, the LSO is the current undisputed heavyweight champ, drawing big name conductors, adoring audiences and critical praise�much to the consternation of its rivals.

The story of the LSO�s long battle for survival and current acendancy is told in a recently published history, The LSO: A Century of Triumph and Turbulence, by Richard Morrison, a London critic.

As Morrison tells the tale, there was only one symphonic orchestra in London in 1904, the Queen's Hall Orchestra, directed by Henry Wood, the musical mind behind 'Mr Robert Newman's Promenade Concerts,' as the Proms were then known. Wood didn�t pay all that well and musicians would frequently rehearse with him but send unrehearsed deputies on the night of the concert because they had accepted better paying gigs with hotel or music hall bands.

When Wood tried to end this practice, his players revolted, and set up the London Symphony as what they called "something akin to a musical republic." Dedicated to maintaining the players' freedom to come and go, it was to be a self-governing, profit-sharing collective.

Under Hans Richter and then Edward Elgar, the orchestra prospered for a decade but ran into serious trouble by the late 1920s, managed to survive the arrival the BBC and World War II only to nearly die in the 1950s before a young, hip, mediagenic conductor named Andr� Previn made it the hip ticket in London again. Under Previn, the LSO�s recording contracts and film work multipled and a huge middle-market was developed.

Over the past 20 years, the LSO has flourished under good management and entered its second century in better shape than ever. To mark the occasion, Andante has issued The London Symphony (1904-2004) - The Centennial Set, a box of four-CDs that brings together many of the great performances and conductors who have been part of the LSO�s long and distinguished history. The earliest performance is Weber�s Oberon Overture, led by Arthur Nikisch from 1914; the latest a 1999 performance of the Benvenuto Cellini overture led by Sir Colin Davis. Most of the great conductors and guest conductors in between are represented, including Bruno Walter, Claudio Abbado, Sir Hamilton Harty, Michael Tilson Thomas, Istv�n Kert�sz, Previn, Josef Krips, Georg Solti, and Pierre Monteux. The historical performances have all been digitally remastered and are surprisingly crisp. There is also a splendid booklet with some vintage photographs and first-hand accounts of performances by LSO musicians. Highly recommended.

posted by Jerry Bowles 2/04/2005

Thursday, February 03, 2005

What's New?

The Composers Forum has been enlivened by the arrival of the redoubtable Rodney Lister. Hop over there and don't forget to hit the "Comment" button and say "howdy" or whatever they say in your neck of the woods. Do woods actually have necks? Anyway, we got another bright young man from Columbia named Lanier Sammons who is doing some CD reviews for us. Check out his take on Pamela Z's latest.

posted by Jerry Bowles 2/03/2005

Cue the Wagner: Napalm in the Morning

Amusing story in the The Scotman about the University Of Edinburgh Lectures Series which brought together on the same stage last night lead singer Alex Kapranos of the hot rock group Franz Ferdinand with composer James MacMillan, Nigel Osborne, a composer and professor of music, and sociologist Tie DeNora. Previous lecturers have included Stephen Hawking and former Soviet head Mikhail Gorbachev so we're talking classy here.

The topic was Scotland�s role in producing modern music and Kapranos and MacMillan, the current composer/conductor of the BBC Philharmonic, managed to agree that their nation should provide some finanical support to both the high and low arts. Kapranos had the best quote of the evening when he said people should not be stereotyped by their taste in music and offered an example:

"Because I listen to Nirvana and Korn I am a troubled individual. I�m riddled with angst because I listen to Chopin and Debussy. I listen to Kylie Minogue and Scissor Sisters because I�m upbeat and I like to party. I listen to Wagner because I like the smell of napalm in the morning."

posted by Jerry Bowles 2/03/2005

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

What's New Today?

Plenty. We have a new blogger. Composer Elodie Lauten, a fixture on the New York downtown scene since she was befriended by Allen Ginsburg, will keep us up-to-date on the Music Underground...Brian Sacawa says performers shouldn't tell composers what to write...and Lawrence Dillon wonders why we all just can't get along.

We're still looking for a few good bloggers in new music hot spots like London and San Francisco. No bread, but food for the soul. If you're interested, send me a note.

posted by Jerry Bowles 2/02/2005

Is This The End of the Affair?

The Seattle Opera will open its 2005-2006 season with the revised version of Jake Heggie�s adaptation of Graham Greene�s The End of the Affair, which debuted at the Houston Opera last March to enthusiastic yawns.

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The work seemed musically taut but dramatically flawed," Cynthia Greenwood wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle. �Heggie's adaptation, though it has an intriguing musical score that blends chromatic yearning and mellifluous lyricism, renders Greene's dark, psychological mystery into a banal morality play." Charles Ward, writing in the Houston Chronicle, said the opera "drifted to..a snoozy, indecisive end."

The End of the Affair is based on Greene's 1951 novel inspired by his illicit affair with a married woman, his own muse and mistress, Lady Catherine Walston. The plot hinges on a well-kept secret. Sarah Miles, an adulterous married woman, prays that God will revive her lover, Maurice Bendrix, when he nearly dies in explosion. Believing him to be dead, Sarah bargains with God that if he survives, she will give him up forever. Moments later Bendrix appears, and Sarah remembers her spiritual contract that she feels compelled to honor. Alas, she doesn�t tell Maurice about her bargain, she simply disappears from his life.

A couple of years later, her husband, Henry, notices the change in her, and voices suspicions to Maurice that she might be cheating on him. Out of jealousy, Bendrix, in turn, hires a detective, to follow her. The detective finds her diary and, of course, Maurice learns her secret�too late. On the surface, the story has a lot more potential for soap opera than high opera, but Heggie may have been attracted to some elements from his own life�at 21, and a closeted gay, he married his 71-year-old piano teacher, Johanna Harris.

For those of you who just can�t wait to see Heggie�s re-write in Seattle, the Madison Opera is doing the revised version from April 22, 2005 to April 24, 2005.

Heggie burst onto the operatic scene in October 2000 with his adaptation of Sister Helen Prejean�s novel, Dead Man Walking, which became the most praised�and reviled�new opera in many years. I must confess that I enjoyed it although I don�t think it�s in a league with Mark Adamo�s Little Women or Tobias Picker�s Emmeline or John Corligiano�s much underrated The Ghosts of Versailles. With a libretto by Heather McDonald, The End of the Affair is much smaller in scale. There are only six singing roles, no chorus and a 24-player chamber orchestra.

posted by Jerry Bowles 2/02/2005

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Name That Tune

Martin Kettle, writing in The Guardian, poses an interesting question:

"...what is the most recently composed piece of classical music to have achieved a genuinely established place in the repertoire? I mean a piece that you can count on hearing in most major cities most years, and a performance of which is likely to bring in a large general audience.

I'll post his answer later. What's yours?

Kettle's answer: Shostakovich's first cello concerto, written in 1959, perhaps? Even that is stretching a point. A more truthful answer might be Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs, composed 56 years ago in 1948.

posted by Jerry Bowles 2/01/2005

What's New Today?

Why do younger composers prefer noise and dissonance? Get on over to the Composers Forum and join the discussion by clicking on the "Comment" button and sharing your two cents. We're not paying you folks the big bucks just to be passive readers. While you're at it, read Lawrence Dillon's take on the young noisemakers and leave him some comments, too.

posted by Jerry Bowles 2/01/2005

An Uncommon Life

My favorite newspaper stories are the obituaries and wedding announcements; the obituaries because there is something satisfying and final about having a life--even a dull life--summed up well and the weddings because they so frequently represent the triumph of hope over common sense. Nobody writes obituaries better than the Brits and there is a excellent one in The Independent today about a woman named Susan Bradshaw, who is described as a pianist, champion of modern music and 'conscience of composers.' Don't miss the final anecdote about her reaction to Cornelius Cardew's British premiere of La Monte Young's 42 for Henry Flynt. It's hysterical.

posted by Jerry Bowles 2/01/2005

Who�s Your Dada? Cage�s Number Pieces

Over the past decade, percussionist Glenn Freeman and violinist Christina Fong of OgreOrgress productions--have turned out a series of outstanding new music recordings by Morton Feldman, Maria de Alvear, Alan Hovhaness and others from their unlikely beanstalk in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The most ambitious of their projects, though, may be the four (so far) CDs dedicated to John Cage's late period "Number Pieces".

Cage wrote some 45 of these pieces over the last five years of his life, aided by software developed by his long-time assistant Andrew Culver. By then, Cage was about to turn 80 and had started to become almost respectable in proper music circles. All of the elements that had interested him as a composer throughout his mature career--indeterminacy, nonunderstanding, inconsistency, imitation, variable structure, contingency, anarchy�are present but there is something else. The pieces bear some spiritual kinship to the paintings that Wilhelm de Kooning did after he was old and certifiably mad�they weren�t bad or even that different from what he did before, but they defy conventional analysis. The artist has simply moved to a place where reality, whatever that is, is even more random and abritrary.

Rob Haskins' liner notes for One4 Four and Twenty-Nine, the latest release in the OgreOgress series, are printed in small type running around in circles on the CD itself which make them unreadable for vertigo-challenged geriatrics like me but the idea seems to be this: The title of each work in the Numbers Series is a number written out as a word (One, Two, Fourteen etc.). That indicates the number of performers for which the piece was composed. If Cage wrote several works for the same number of performers, he would make a further distinction in the title by adding a superscript numeral; for instance, Four (1989) is for string quartet, while Four4 (1991) is a quartet for percussion.

As with all the late Number Pieces, One4 Four and Twenty-Nine use what Cage called �time brackets.� The instrumentalists are assigned parts which contain mostly single notes and chance-distributed time brackets indicating the period of time (as measured by a stopwatch) within which the notes are to be played. Imagine a forest coming alive at dawn, an owl wakes up the turkeys who wake up the squirrels who wake up the birds and so on (without the stop watch, of course). A performer might begin to play, say, at any time between 0�00 and 1�00 and end somewhere between 0�30 and 1�30.

One4 is for a single percussionist--in this case, Glenn Freeman--playing a variety of percussion instruments of his own choosing, per Cage�s instructions. Four is scored for standard string quartet and was designed by Cage (through the use of a limited range of tones) so that any player can play any part. The piece is divided into three five-minute sections; at the end of each section, the players switch parts and start at the top. The piece can last ten, twenty or a full thirty minute performance, by simply omitting a section or two. Freeman and Fong have taken the idea a step further by splitting up each section with separate index points, two versions of each, to allow the listener to design his or her own performances.

Twenty-nine is scored for two timpanists, two percussionists, one pianist (bowed, with rosined string around the desired string), ten violists, eight cellists and six contrabassists, all with their own parts. This would obviously be a budget-busting array of required musical resources so Twenty-Nine is performed by only four people (Freeman; Christina Fong, violin and viola; Karen Krummel, cello; and Michael Crawford, contrabass) using overdubbing to capture all the parts. Twenty-Nine was designed so that it could be played alone, or combined with up to two other pieces, Twenty-six and Twenty-eight. Instructions are included.

Is it music? Yes. Is it important music? Maybe. Is it fun to listen to? No. Should you order a copy from OgreOgress? Absolutely, and get the other three in the series, too.

What is most encouraging is that even in George Bush�s dumbed-down America there are people like Glenn Freeman and Christina Fong who believe that ideas matter and who have the energy, commitment and talent to explore and record new music and avenues of performance that will never have a large commercial payoff. Willy Wonka described them best: "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dreams." The world needs more dreamers and music makers.

posted by Jerry Bowles 2/01/2005

Monday, January 31, 2005

The Composer as Cop

Bet you didn't know that Mozart--a composer whose music "will endure as long as there is brunch"--moonlighted as a cop on the Vienna police force. Would the New York Times put you on?

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/31/2005

What's New Today

Another week in which to excel. Let's see; you're already missed episode one of the BBC's Composer of the Week program on The Minimalists but you can probably catch it later on their "Listen Again" page (see link below). Lawrence Dillon is talking about the younger generation and Brian Sacawa says anybody who thinks Philip Glass' music is easy hasn't tried to play it. Oh, Beth Anderson recommends a book about Mozart's mother that will have you in stiches.

Speaking of Philip Glass, today is his 68th birthday. Nothing happy about birthdays after you pass 60 but do the best you can, Philip.

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/31/2005

Three New Works Scheduled by Indianpolis Symphony

The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra will present three new works during the 2005-2006 season, including two world premieres. The second weekend of the season (Sept. 22-24) will feature the premiere of an ISO commissioned piece written by German contemporary composer Uwe Lohrmann titled Symphonisches St�ck (Symphonic Episode) that is dedicated to the ISO�s recent 75th anniversary season.

The second premiere will be performed October 28 and 29. The symphony was chosen to present a work of Canadian composer Brian Current that was commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University. Current won the Barlow Prize in 2003. A panel of judges reviewed 427 composer applications from 32 countries prior to selecting Current as the $17,000 commission winner. After premiering at the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the piece will be performed by the American Composers Orchestra in New York. Indianapolis Symphony audiences were introduced to Current�s music last season, when his work, this isn�t silence, was performed in October, 2004.

In addition, the orchestra has jointly commissioned (along with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Dallas Symphony Orchestra) a percussion concerto by American composer Jennifer Higdon that will be performed by Colin Currie on March 31 and April 1, 2006. More information about the 2005-2006 season.

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/31/2005

Sunday, January 30, 2005

The Minimalists Meet the Beeb

The BBC are (I love saying that...the BBC are...take that Mrs. Burnett) focusing on The Minimalists all week on the Composer of the Week program, beginning Monday morning at 7 am EST, right here. Episode one is titled �Beginnings� and is described, thusly:

Forty years ago a musical revolution took place, which was to have huge repercussions for contemporary serious music, and which has remained controversial right up to the present day. Minimalism was born in New York, and its protagonists were initially abused as charlatans. Yet their work was to attract widespread popular interest, develop a unique aesthetic, and permeate the mainstream of commercial music.

In the first program Donald Macleod looks at key works by those protagonists La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass, against the backdrop of 1960s America and play such goodies as John Adams� Short Ride in a Fast Machine; La Monte Young�s The Second Dream of the High-Tension Stepdown Transformer; Terry Riley�s In C and A Rainbow in Curved Air; Steve Reich�s Come Out; and Philip Glass� Music in Contrary Motion.

For those of you who don't do 7 am, the BBC has a Listen Again page where you can find most programs for up to seven days after the original broadcast.

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/30/2005

An Uptown Outpost for Downtown Sensibility

With composer Julia Wolfe and flutist Patti Monson on the faculty, and its contemporary music ensemble, Tactus, assuming responsibility for the US premiere of Michael Gordon�s "Decasia" last September, Manhattan School of Music seems to be becoming an uptown refuge for the downtown music scene.

Contributing to the school�s downtown edge last night was the Anechoic Chamber Ensemble. In a large dance studio on the sixth floor, a group of about twenty to thirty people listened with palpable enthusiasm as the eight-member ensemble noodled their way through a string of early Philip Glass compositions: "Strung Out," "Music in Similar Motion," "1+1" (for amplified table top), and "Music in Fifths."

With the big caveat that this music could have been much more enthralling with a little polyphony, the concert was a short and snazzy treat. The ensemble works, "Music in Similar Motion" and "Music in Fifths," exerted a sexy, groovy pull that was hard to resist. Glass�s additive rhythms compensate surprisingly well for his lack of, shall we say, melodic ingenuity, and the ensemble gelled wonderfully. This music does, however, depend on a sort of collective energy: the violin solo, "Strung Out," just sounded flat and labored.

I don�t think Glass�s music bears much substance, but at least in the early work the trashy lyricism that pervades his more recent stuff is absent. Glass�s music may only be good for daydreaming, and music should do more. But we all like to daydream now and then, and a guilty pleasure, like "Music in Fifths," is a pleasure nonetheless.

posted by David Salvage 1/30/2005