Chamber Music

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Quartet for the End of Time at Merkin on Tuesday

Charles Neidich and friends are performing Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time and music by Israeli composers. The program is below, and you can check out the notes over at my blog.

Moshe Zorman – Hora

Arnaud Sussmann, Violin; Vincent Balse, Piano 

Menachem Wiesenberg – Like Clay in the Potter’s Hand

Gal Nyska, Cello; Vincent Balse, Piano 

Paul Ben Haim – Pastorale Variee Op. 31b

Moran Katz, Clarinet; Vincent Balse, Piano 

Olivier Messiaen – Quartet for the End of Time 

Charles Neidich, Clarinet; Arnaud Sussmann, Violin; Gal Nyska, Cello; Vincent Balse, Piano

by Christian Carey
Chamber Music, Just Intonation, Los Angeles, Microtonalism

The Seventeen Lyrics of Li Po of Harry Partch

Harry Partch playing the adapted viola, photo by Fred Lyon

 

So with all pleasures of life.

All things pass with the east-flowing water.

I leave you and go—when shall I return?

Let the white roe feed at will among the green crags,

Let me ride and visit the lovely mountains!

How can I stoop obsequiously and serve the mighty ones!

It stifles my soul.

His Dream of the Skyland – A Farewell Poem.

 

Li Po (Li Bai) (~701-763 CE) is universally recognized as one of the greatest Chinese poets of the Tang period, or for that matter, of the entire Chinese literary tradition. His poetry shows the influences of the interwoven philosophical religions of his time, Taoism, Neo Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism, as well as a particular fondness for nature and wine. Well educated, highly regarded by everyone, he had lifelong trouble securing a post and spent his life as a wanderer, preternaturally creative and prolific. Over one thousand poems remain, along with the stories of his improvisations, drunkenness and generosity. Legend has it that he drowned while trying to grasp the moon in the water, but he is generally regarded to have committed suicide after leaving a farewell poem (partially quoted above). (This poem is the 10th of the set of 17 Lyrics).

 

The parallels between Partch and Li Bai are so striking as to imagine that they are the same person, re-cycled after a period of 1200 years. Hoboes, brilliant, often drunk, deeply admired, suspicious of authority, unable to find peace or security, and spectacularly creative, they are the irritating grain of sand in society’s eye that add the full dimension to our humanity – the rememberers of forgotten things.

“I am first and last a composer. I have been provoked into becoming a musical theorist, and instrument builder, a musical apostate, and a musical idealist, simply because I have been a demanding composer. I hold no wish for the obsolescence of the widely heard instruments and music. My devotion to our musical heritage is great — and critical. I feel that more ferment is necessary for a healthy musical culture. I am endeavoring to instill more ferment.” –Harry Partch 1942

 

In 1930, the composer Harry Partch (1901-1974) broke with Western European tradition and forged a new music based on a more primal, corporeal integration of the elements of speech, rhythm and performance using the intrinsic music found in the spoken word, the principles of acoustic resonance and just-intonation. Borrowing from the intonation systems of the ancient Greeks, he created a scale of 43-tones per octave, in part to enable him to capture the nuances of speech in his music, and to forge purer harmony. (more…)

by Ted Mook
Chamber Music, Microtonalism

Interpretations Season 20: Artist Blog #2 — Ted Mook

This Fall marks the twentieth season of provocative programming in New York City brought to you by Interpretations. Founded and curated by baritone Thomas Buckner in 1989, Interpretations focuses on the relationship between contemporary composers from both jazz and classical backgrounds and their interpreters, whether the composers themselves or performers who specialize in new music. To celebrate, Jerry Bowles has invited the artists involved in this season’s concerts to blog about their Interpretations experiences. Our second concert this season, on 16 October, features cellist Ted Mook, who has put together a program celebrating Ezra Sims’ 80th birthday on one half and promoting the music of Daniel Rothman on the other half:

Pansonority/Luminance: Music of Ezra Sims and Daniel Rothman

The two composers sharing this program have several things in common, things which are easy to talk about, write about and argue about. Sadly, some of these things can also be used as labels, to either wave as a standard of allegiance or a category to avoid. Neither composer has an institutional association, both composers work quietly in the calm, away from the frenzy of self-promotion. Both composers write meticulously considered music, consciously keeping the past in mind, but always stepping away from their last piece. Neither composer is on the tip of anyone’s tongue, but they are as well regarded as any similarly controversial artist. They are comfortable writing music that departs from the 12 note equal-tempered scale that dominates music today, though they can and do otherwise. Hence, pansonority.

Luminance, because it’s music that, for whatever reason, glows with its own light.

Daniel Rothman’s musical and visual preoccupations wander beyond the concert hall into eccentric spaces and timescales both smaller and larger than life. I’ll be performing a work Daniel wrote for me, aptly titled For Ted, a short, simple cello monologue, composed almost exclusively on the extreme upper harmonic partials of the instrument, assembling a narrative from heard, barely heard, unheard (imagined) sounds, much in the same way that the mind assembles a darkened room’s features from wisps of information from the dark adapted eye and the mind’s fabrications rushing in to fill the void. Pianist Eric Huebner will be playing la mùsica: mujer desnuda – corriendo loca pro la noche pura — the title being a poem by Juan Ramón Jiménez in its entirety, and Telling the Bees, which Eric premiered last year, and concerns a ceremony performed by a younger member of a household when his/her master or mistress dies, who visits the beehive rattling a chain of small keys, and whispers:

Little Brownies, little brownies, your master/mistress is dead.

Little Brownies, little brownies, your master/mistress is dead.

Little Brownies, little brownies, your master/mistress is dead.

Ezra Sims is a horse of a different color, and an older one, too, since we are celebrating his 80th birthday. Born in 1928, far off the musical reservation in Birmingham, Alabama, he showed intellectual and musical precociousness as a youngster and progressed through piano, string bass, choral singer, composer, Yale student, Mills student (with Darius Milhaud), New Yorker, Guggenheim Fellow in Japan, inventor of a 72-note per octave non-symmetrical notation system, resident of Cambridge, Massachusetts, co-founder of Dinosaur Annex (a Boston based new music ensemble) and still is writing music. In the 60s, driven by his ear to write down notes that were not reproducible on the piano, he developed a tonal system of 17 irregularly spaced notes, fully transposable, resulting in a 72 note sub-division of the octave. Taking it one step beyond the flattened system of Harry Partch (based on a root-ratio), Ezra’s system evolved a harmonic language allowing for closely related and fully chromatic modulations. These vast tonal resources are tamed by a somewhat conservative, almost Brahmsian romanticism, and the resulting music is clear and expressive. Pianist Eric Moe, mezzo-soprano Mary Nessinger, and I will be playing a set of works spanning his career.

Interpretations at Roulette
20 Greene St between Canal and Grand
New York NY
8:00pm

more information

by Ted Mook
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, Experimental Music, Improv, New York

Interpretations Season 20: Artist Blog #1 — Michael Lipsey

This Fall marks the twentieth season of provocative programming in New York City brought to you by Interpretations. Founded and curated by baritone Thomas Buckner in 1989, Interpretations focuses on the relationship between contemporary composers from both jazz and classical backgrounds and their interpreters, whether the composers themselves or performers who specialize in new music. To celebrate, Jerry Bowles has invited the artists involved in this season’s concerts to blog about their Interpretations experiences. Our first concert this season on 2 October, features the Myra Melford Quartet and Henry Threadgill’s Zooid + Talujon Percussion Ensemble. Michael Lipsey of Talujon has volunteered to write about how his group worked with the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust to commission a new work from Henry Threadgill:

Contemporary music is exciting. People are trying new things, creating new works, involving new audiences members. The division between genres is the most open it has ever been. With that in mind, Talujon Percussion, Henry Threadgill and Zooid have teamed up to play on the Interpretations Series in honor of the series’ 20th season.

Henry Threadgill is one of the most unique voices in contemporary improvisatory music. His resume is breath-taking, his skills are immense and his interests are wide and varied. About two years ago, Henry called me up a day before a Talujon concert. He told me he was interested in the group and wanted to come to our performance. We were happy to meet him and honored that he would come to one of our performances.

A few days after the performance, Henry again called and asked if we would be willing to work on a new work. The answer was, of course, “Yes”. Henry decided to write a piece for Talujon and his ensemble, Zooid. We ended up applying to the Mary Flagler Carey Trust for the commission. We have used that commissioning vehicle in the past. Through this organization we were also able to commission a work for 4 drum sets by Julia Wolfe.

After meeting with Henry, he decided to compose a piece for each individual in Talujon.
We all gave Henry our wishlist of instruments. Henry then used our strengths in his composition. The piece that came out of this process uses four of our members, each with our own set-up. The piece is called “Fate Cues”.

We start rehearsals tomorrow and we are all excited. If you listen to Henry’s works you find that he is a fluid composer. He is continually asking more from the players. The charts are difficult, but that is not the emphasis of his works. He wants the musicians to move through the piece together as a strict unit. Each voice in individually created but maintaining its own presence. The rehearsal process is key.

Talujon is a group that has 18 seasons of unity. We know each other and feel very comfortable with each other. Much like any ensemble, we can feel our musical relationships and know how to support one another. We like to experiment and have practiced improvisation many, many times. Jazz improvisation is different than what we are used to. First, we just need to get past feeling uncomfortable about improvising in front of these great jazz masters in Zooid. I think that part will be ok. All the members have been in these situations before and as a group; Talujon thrives on making the uncomfortable, comfortable.
We like challenges and Henry is open and excited about the challenge.

It should be fun 🙂

*****

Myra Melford Quartet: Happy Whistlings; Henry Threadgill’s Zooid + Talujon: Fate Cues

Thursday October 2, 2008, 8pm at Roulette.

more information / Interpretations

by Michael Lipsey
Chamber Music, Click Picks, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, San Francisco

What Will $5 Get You in San Francisco?

Sure, a short latte, or a couple humbows & a coke… Or, just about any couple weeks through this year, that or even less will get you into any of a slew of great concerts in the sfSound series. Beginning tomorrow (!), when you can hear Steve Reich’s Four Organs (1970), Giacinto Scelsi’s Kya (1959), Salvatore Sciarrino’s Muro d’orizzonte (1997), Tom Dambly performing Mauricio Kagel’s Atem (1970) for trumpet and tape, violist Alexa Beattie performing Alan Hilario’s kibô (1997), and a new collaboratively-created piece by sfSoundGroup, directed by Matt Ingalls.

The sfSound Group consists of a central core (currently David Bithell – trumpet; Kyle Bruckmann – oboe; George Cremaschi – bass; Matt Ingalls – clarinet; John Ingle – saxophone; Christopher Jones – piano, conductor; Monica Scott – cello; Erik Ulman – violin) augmented by a whole constellation of Bay-Area-and-beyond collaborators. Together they put on a stellar (constellation-stellar… cute, huh?) series of concerts; some upcoming shows include:

  • A sampling of theatrical compositions from the 1960’s San Francisco Tape Music Center by Pauline Oliveros, Morton Subotnick, Ramon Sender, Robert Moran and others; plus Brian Ferneyhough’s In nomine a 3, Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Intercommunicazione, Chris Burns’s Double Negative, and the premiere of a new work written for sfSound by local composer Erik Ulman.
  • Toyoji Tomita Memorial Concert (wonderful trombonist and sfSound collaborator who died this year) – work(s) by John Cage, improvisations, and more.
  • Morton Feldman’s 80+ minute composition For John Cage (1982), performed by violinist Graeme Jennings and pianist Christopher Jones.
  • sfSound’s saxophonist John Ingle in a recital of new solo and ensemble compositions, improvisations, and a concerto by local composer Josh Levine; plus, NYC-based percussion duo Hunter-Gatherer (Russell Greenberg and Ian Antonio) perform the West Coast premiere of a new work by David Lang, David Bithell’s Whistle From Above for percussion and robotics, and Gérard Grisey’s Stele for 2 bass drums.

Details & dates for all these and many more are listed on their series webpage. So spend that pocket change where it counts…

by Steve Layton
Chamber Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

Upcoming concert by the Locrian Chamber Players

An Evening of Contemporary Chamber Music with the Locrian Chamber Players
 
Saturday, May 31st at 8 PM
Riverside Church
Entrance at 91 Claremont Avenue
(North of W. 120th Street – One block W. of Broadway)
Free Admission
 
Featured performers: Calvin Wiersma, Conrad Harris, Danielle Farina, Greg Hesselink, Diva Goodfriend-Koven, and Emily Wong
 
Henri Pousseur
Minima Sinfonia (world premiere)
Yehudi Wyner
Madrigal (NY premiere)
Louis Andriessen
Xenia
John Ross
Deux Melodies d’Aspel
Bill Douglas
Celebration IV
Christian Carey
Butterfly Flourish (world premiere)
by Christian Carey
Chamber Music, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music

Incredible Isn’t Even Close…

 

Already mentioned at Bruce Hodges’ Monotonous Forest, and soon should be buzzing all over the new-music web, but this is so absolutely inspired and well-executed that I just have to help spread it around even more: Virgil Moorefield (who was one of my click picks here not so long ago) recently directed the Digital Music Ensemble at the University of Michigan in a miniature version of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s already-audacious Helikopter-Streichquartett. To me this version is every bit as audacious as the original, subversive and absolutely respectful at the same moment… And both visually and aurally stunning, to boot. There are two Quicktime files at the page linked above; the “lo-fi” seems to be just audio, but the “hi-fi” has the full video presentation as well, and is well worth the download.

by Steve Layton
CDs, Chamber Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Recordings

Surprise!!

Toub: darfur pogrommenJust when you thought we’ve been musically laying low… There’s a brand-new online-only CD release by fellow S21 regular and composer David Toub, realized by yours truly (Steve Layton, for those of you who don’t read the bottom post tag). It just became available on iTunes (US, also now or very soon in UK/Europe, Australia and Japan) on my little NiwoSound label; expect its appearance on eMusic as well very soon. The CD is in the “electronic” genre at both places, but purely as a matter of expediting the release; if it’s not classical I don’t know what is!

David’s darfur pogrommen, composed only a few months ago, is another expansive minimalist essay; its single continuous movement clocks in at 47 minutes. There’s no real attempt at programmatic writing; rather — like many of David’s other pieces — the title is a marker of a moment, that can call up whatever associations the listener might have in relation to it.

The piece is for open instrumentation. David’s own first recorded version used synthy string sounds, but I decided to give it a kind of “old school” treatment: a Reich-Glass hybrid with a vibraphone and electric organ taking the two primary parts, and electric piano and two more organs adding secondary voices. It trades a little lushness, but finds a bright, hard and uncompromising edge.

The biggest influence is still “classic” 60s-70s Glass, but David has his own way with how figures intuitively expand and contract, the harmonies involved, and his preference for alternating and pulsing notes. But later in the piece there’s a spot that to my ears definitely pays tribute to Morton Feldman as well. Surprising and beautiful!

Though there are many clearly defined sections in the piece, like so much of David’s work there’s just no way to get the whole flow with separate tracks. So if you want it, it’s all or nothing. (You can preview 30 seconds of the beginning on iTunes, but it’s a laughably hopeless indicator of what unfolds…)

Anyone wishing to burn the download to disc can also download and print this PDF file, which gives you the entire cover art and inner notes. More musically, you can freely download the PDF of the entire score from David himself.

Oh yeah: play it LOUD.

by Steve Layton
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Contemporary Classical

In Gent

“Deze naam zegt jullie allicht niks, Marco Antonio woont nu nog in Gent, maar verhuist binnenkort naar Deinze. Als solist voor kamer- en orkestmuziek heeft Marco Mazzini internationaal opgetreden in volgende toonaangevende plaatsen : Carnegie Hall (New York), Tama Center (Tokyo), Paleis voor Schone Kunsten (Brussel), Bijloke concertzaal (België) en in het Conservatorium van Parijs.”

Terrific article about our amigo Marco Antonio Mazzini in Deinzeonline.  Alas, it appears to be in a foreign language but the pictures are nice and the video is splendid:

[youtube]y33fTZJyVlo[/youtube]

by Jerry Bowles