Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Works that changed the way I hear sound.

Lawrence Dillon posted, “What pieces from the 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s have changed the way composers think about composing?”

Well here is a list of works that at the time changed the way I looked at music. I had not been exposed to much music post-1945 so these works opened my ears to a new world of sounds.

XAS for Saxophone Quartet (1987) - Iannis Xenakis
This was the first work of really new music I heard. It blew me away. I had not known that sounds like that existed. It was the most exciting thing I had ever heard, even though I was listening to a poor performance by the Rascher Quartet.

Piano Concerto - Gyorgy Ligeti
Piano Etudes Book 1
Both of these works are from the early to mid 1980s. I really think they are revolutionary works. I have only heard the first two books of etudes so far. I am partial to the first book. They are amazing. The concerto is definitely a masterpiece.

Kottos for solo cello (1977) - Iannis Xenakis
Kottos is his second major work for solo cello. I enjoy it much more than his other work for cello, Nomos Alpha. Kottos is very exciting. I think Xenakis composed very lyrical music, and this is a great example of Xenakis at his most beautiful and energetic.

Black Angels (1970?) - George Crumb
I have never been as creeped out by music as I was the first time I listened to this work.
It was another work that showed me new worlds of sound possibilities. I also love Vox Balanae, Music for a Summer Evening and Mundis Canis.

Concerto for Orchestra (1969) - Elliott Carter
I was really amazed at how weird this piece was (to my ears at the time). I am still not a fan of the Concerto for Orchestra but it prompted me to listen to a lot of Carter’s other works that I do enjoy. (His 2nd & 3rd String Quartets rock!)

I guess I jumped head first into some of the more hardcore new music.
posted by Everette Minchew 8:28 AM

Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Short list of composers

Here is a short list of composers who I know little about (except Dusapin, I have done some research on him). I need to buy recordings of their works because I would like to hear more of them.

Ezra Sims - He is a microtonal composer from Alabama.
I am from Alabama also and I didn‘t really
know of any composers from my home state. I heard
one of his string quartets and I was immediately
engrossed in the work.

Brian Ferneyhough - I have heard only snippets of his music,
but I have read his Collected Writings. I really enjoyed
his essays and the few musical excerpts
I have heard were very interesting.

Morton Feldman - I don’t think I have heard anything by him,
but I have read an interview with him and Iannis Xenakis.

Pascal Dusapin - I have a couple recordings of his small chamber works
and a few orchestral works and they are amazing.
I must hear more.
posted by Everette Minchew 12:36 PM

Monday, March 28, 2005


Everyone should take a moment and read the long interview with James Levine, John Harbison and Charles Wuorinen from yesterday's NYTimes. It is wonderful.

Here is a comment by Charles Wuorinen that I enjoy.

As I've said a million times, there has been an attempt, largely successful, to confuse what you might call art and what you might call entertainment. I think there's a very simple distinction, and it doesn't diminish entertainment in any way because we all want it and we all enjoy it. Entertainment is that which you receive without effort. Art is something where you must make some kind of effort and you get more than you had before.

I recently had a discussion with a friend about this same issue, so I was very happy to see this quote. It is much more succinct than I was in that prior discussion.
posted by Everette Minchew 12:25 PM

Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Chiming in kind of late on the 12-tone argument...I love Boulez

I did not realize that Sequenza21 housed such a large chapter of the Anti-Boulez League.

-The quality or value of a work of art is objective, it is not subject to any (subjective) personal opinion.
I think that too many people are confusing the objective and the subjective. I guess some people dismiss great works of art because of a personal bias.

Disliking something does not change the inherent value of that work of art.

To make statements like, "No one listens to Boulez or buys his cds" is foolish. Also to declare "Boulez is history" is nonsense.

No one can deny the tremendous talent that Boulez possesses. he has created many fine works of art. A personal opinion does not change this.

People are free to dislike Boulez's work, but this does not change the fact that he and many other 12-tone or serial composers have created modern masterpieces.

Perhaps the Chicago audience's reaction to the performances of "Le visage nuptial" and First Piano Sonata was so positive because they realized the performances were of high caliber works.


P.S. Like Steve Hicken, I will also take any twelve tone scores that are no longer wanted.
posted by Everette Minchew 10:07 PM

Sunday, March 20, 2005
Two Quotes to begin a blog....

The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted.
-William Shakespeare


A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians.
-Frank Zappa


I have always loved these two quotes about music and composers.The Zappa quote always gives me a mental image of unsuspecting audience members sitting at a concert where works by Xenakis will be performed.
posted by Everette Minchew 10:33 AM


Composer Everette Minchew (born 1977) is consistently active in the creation, performance, and promotion of contemporary music. Moderately prolific, his catalogue includes small chamber pieces for violin, piano, various wind instruments, harpsichord and electronic music. Current commissions include a string trio and an opera based on an 11th-century crusades tale. His earliest musical training came at the age of eleven when he began playing alto saxophone; it wasn’t long until he began his first attempts in composition.

He received a Bachelor’s Degree in Music History from the University of Southern Mississippi, where he studied saxophone under world-renowned soloist, Lawrence Gwozdz.

Fearing that traditional university training would hinder his development as a progressive composer, he abandoned the idea of formal lessons in favor of an intense private study of modern masterworks.

Minchew's works are characterized by their intense timbral explorations and brutal dissonance. That is not to say, however, that the compositions are devoid of beauty. In the first of the Two Brief Pieces, for example, the harpsichord chimes stringent yet haunting chords evoking a sense of loss. Other pieces, like the Figment No. 2 "Juggler's Fancy" play upon the kaleidoscopic interaction between timbres and tones. The rapid alternation of pizzicato, arco bowing, and extreme glissandi remind the listener of Xenakis coupled with a Berio Sequenza. Minchew's Invention "Two-Part Contraption" for piano owes much to Ligeti's etudes and boogie-woogie jazz.

His music has been performed around the United States, and he was the featured composer at the 2005 Intégrales New Music Festival in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
He currently resides in Hattiesburg, Mississippi with his wife, Cheryl.

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