Composers Forum is a daily web log that allows invited contemporary composers to share their thoughts and ideas on any topic that interests them--from the ethereal, like how new music gets created, music history, theory, performance, other composers, alive or dead, to the mundane, like getting works played and recorded and the joys of teaching. If you're a professional composer and would like to participate, send us an e-mail.
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Monday, March 21, 2005
Things I'd like to find
It only occurred to me to day that I could ask about these:
1) Anybody have any idea about the whereabouts of any extant pieces by Israel Citkowitz? Citkowitz, as people may or may not know, was a protege of Copland's. Only six of his pieces--all songs to poems from Chamber Music by Joyce--were published (by Cos Cob Press). The '54 Groves lists a bunch of other pieces: A String Quartet (which was played at the first Yaddo Festival), a Piano Sonata, songs on poems of Blake and Frost. I've been able to find two pieces which were in Nadia Boulanger's papers at Harvard. As far as his family knows he destroyed everything he could, having decided it wasn't good enough, which is too bad, since, although it's maybe uneven, some of the songs are really beautiful and interesting. Anyway, if anybody has any ideas....
2) A recording of Erwin Schulhoff's setting of the Communist Manifesto. I've only recently become aware of it. ("It has long seemed strange to me that nobody has yet made an oratorio out of the Communist Manifesto of 1848 by Max and Englels. It is a text of remarkable eloquence, and for many an article of faith proudly held."--Virgil Thomson, Music With Words). I'd love to hear it. I haven't actually tried to check with his publisher to see if they have a recording, but as far as I can tell there's not a commercial one. Anybody know?
Thanks
posted by Rodney Lister
10:15 PM
Two Clarifications
1. Rodney suggests that my Reich/Babbitt story is a musical urban legend. You'd think I would have learned to cite my sources up front, but apparently I have not. (And Rodney -- I appreciate your healthy skepticism.) According to Michael Gordon himself:
"It was really an audience, people who were attracted by the 12-hour concert and were going to go check this out. So they did not know if they liked Milton Babbitt, they were not supposed to like Steve Reich. And they did not know that if they liked Steve Reich, they were not supposed to like Milton Babbitt. And you know, Milton Babbitt came in and he talked, and his piece was played and there was this huge ovation. And then he walked out the back because he didn't want to hear Steve Reich's piece. [laughs] Steve Reich, who did not want to hear Milton's piece and had been waiting outside the building until it was over came in, and then he talked, and there was a huge ovation and then Steve left. And they didn't ever meet."
2. I never meant to equate "uptown" with "serialist." Yes, serialism as an ideology is pretty much dead (Which is not to say that nobody uses the techniques. My friend Stratis Minakakis writes gorgeous music and uses a lot of serialist technique.) My grandfather is dead too, but there's still a family resemblance. Two of my former teachers David Rakowski and Lee Hyla are both fairly uptown and also both fabulous (although they're both substantially more rock-n-roll than, say, Babbitt and Carter.) Based on what music I've heard of his, Rodney Lister is himself fairly uptown. And the list goes on and on. Now the probability that I will like any given uptown piece is lower than the probability that I'll like any given downtown piece, but that is purely a statement about my own taste.
So Rodney -- I'm with you on the observation that "serialism is bad" is a straw man, but my reason for wanting that straw man dismantled is, I think, different from yours. From my perspective (and I know I helped set the straw man up with my title choice earlier) arguing about serialism takes us away from being able to all agree that there still remains an uptown and downtown divide. The food-fight going on in the comments section proves, to my mind, that the divide exists, but at the moment it seems to be illustrating the downtown prejudice against the uptowners rather than vice versa. Is everybody having fun? :)
posted by Galen H. Brown
12:18 PM
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