Contemporary Classical

CDs, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Piano, Recordings

Andrew Lee plays Ryan Oldham (CD Review)

Pianist R. Andrew Lee has released a new EP on Irritable Hedgehog. It is a recording of composer/improviser Ryan Oldham’s Inner Monologues (Venn Diagram of Six Pitches). The hexachord in question is presented in slow-paced fashion, appearing throughout the keyboard in configurations of varying densities. There certainly are links between Oldham and the Wandelweiser Collective and Morton Feldman in terms of the slow unfolding and deft touch with which material is deployed. One also might infer nods to both Linda Catlin Smith and Tom Johnson, the first in terms of a willingness to allow the proceedings simultaneously to drift and grid to an underlying pulse; the second via the process-based treatment of pitch and spacing. Inner Monologues is both an impressive and beguiling work.

As is so often the case, Lee is a dedicated advocate and compelling performer, cannily exploiting the resonance of the instrument, never pushing the proceedings but instead trusting the piano’s decay to be a guidepost, and exhorting the listener to live in the space of that decay far longer than is customary. When I recently heard Lee’s performance of a piece by Jürg Frey at New Music Gathering 2017 in Bowling Green, Ohio, he demonstrated a similar patient intensity that is perfectly suited to experimental and post-minimal repertoire. See and hear him in person when you can. But in the meantime, let his Irritable Hedgehog releases be a valuable stand-in for the live experience.

by Christian Carey
Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, File Under?, Microtonalism, Percussion, Recordings

Pateras, Noetinger, and Synergy (Review)

Beauty Will Be Amnesiac Or Will Not Be At All

Immediata (Digital)

Anthony Pateras

On Beauty Will be Amnesiac Or Will Not Be At All, composer/pianist Anthony Pateras and composer/sound artist Jérôme Noetinger join forces to create an hourlong work for Synergy Percussion and improvised electronics. Its conceit is a clever one: the piece is of similar scope to Iannis Xenakis’ work Pleïades and utilizes a similarly gargantuan battery of percussion instruments, over 100, notably Xenakis’ 17-pitch microtonal metallophones, the Sixxen. These are used to particularly fine effect in the accumulating washes of sound in the piece’s first movement.

Jérôme Noetinger

Pateras’s notated music and Noetinger’s electronics blend well together, with an emphasis on merging their respective sonic terrains rather than juxtaposing them. Along with many textural diversions, the percussion combines pulse-driven mixed meter passages with polymetric sections of considerable complexity. Noetinger finds his way inside this space admirably, teasing out contrasting rhythmic figures of his own and adding layered textures with refreshing subtlety. That said, his electronics cadenza in movement four is a standout. Haloed in a soft-mallet gong roll, he employs static to mirror the hypercomplex rhythms found in the previous movement’s percussion parts. Added to this is a duet of sustained high pitches, whose call and response fleshes out the frequency spectrum. Drum rolls return, piano this time, to reassert the place of unpitched percussion in the proceedings.Synergy performs with dedication to the subtlest details of Pateras’s score and with responsive attention to Noetinger’s contributions as well. Thus, the recording is a truly successful amalgam of notated and spontaneous music-making.

by Christian Carey
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles

Synchromy Concert at Boston Court Pasadena

On Saturday, June 3, 2017 Music@Boston Court hosted Broken Rivers, a concert of piano trio music presented by the composer collective Synchromy. Pianist Vicki Ray, Cellist Timothy Loo and Alyssa Park on violin performed no less than eight pieces, including three premiers. Also featured were compositions selected from a call for scores that drew over 240 respondents. Narration for several of the pieces was provided by actor Ray Ford. Only a few vacant seats remained in the Branson performance space with the audience looking forward to a full program.

The first piece was the premiere of a new version of Broken River Variations by Nick Norton. This began with a strong flowing feel from repeating figures in the piano and cello. The violin entered with long sustained tones above but the overall sense was of an rapidly rushing river or stream. About midway through the pace diminished significantly, and the repeating figure in the piano was confined to the higher registers as if the river had become deeper and slower with just a few small ripples on the surface. The violin then took up the rapid figure while the cello and piano remained in the lower registers. The balance of sounds coming from the trio was admirably managed in both the score and the playing. Broken River Variations artfully captures the character of a river in different places, and so eloquent was the music that this piece could well have been extended to describe still more of the river’s course.

Tarantella Carbine, by Caroline Louise Miller followed, a piece for solo cello and electronics. This began with a series of chirps and other anxious tones emanating from the speaker, answered by cellist Timothy Loo with a series of squeals and trills. Further tension was added by the electronics from a string of ominous beeps and the cello responded with a flurry of strong passages that brought to mind the vivid expressionism of the early 20th century. The mood turned darker still from a run of deep pizzicato notes and then a sequence of low solemn tones in the cello. More scratching and scraping sounds in the electronics provided a good contrast here, enhancing the sense of anxiety. Tarantella Carbine is complex and difficult cello piece that fittingly captures our present angst, and a challenging one for both the performer and the listener.

The west coast premiere of fold by fold, by Michael Gilbertson followed, and this was one of the pieces selected from the Synchromy call for scores. Narrator Ray Ford explained that Gilbertson’s inspiration for writing this piece came from a painting by an acquaintance – who had subsequently died of bone cancer at a young age. Accordingly, fold by fold opened with slow, solemn chords in the strings and single notes or short chords in the higher registers of the piano. The feeling was introspective and sad, but never melancholy. As the piece progressed some lovely harmonies in the strings were heard, joined by the piano in an engaging counterpoint. Later, an active, repeating figure appeared in the violin and this was matched against sustained tones in the cello below. The flow and texture of this piece were impressively scored and played – the sound often seemed bigger than just a trio. fold by fold came to a quiet finish, a fitting musical tribute to a friendship ended too soon.

East Broadway, by Julia Wolfe was next, and for this Vicki Ray returned to the piano accompanied by only a boom box which began the piece by issuing a series of steadily repeating rhythms that sounded distantly mechanical. The piano joined in with a fluidly recurring melody in the higher registers that added a bit of humanity to the mechanized feel from the electronics. The pace of all this was frenetically fast, and brilliantly captured the lively wit and free form spectacle of the New York street scene. Ms. Ray kept up with all of it, and East Broadway lurched to an appropriately fitful conclusion amid much applause.

Wake the Dead by Dante De Silva followed, and this was preceded by a narrative reading from Ray Ford about death and burial, setting a pertinent tone. Wake the Dead began with several deliberately sharp chords in the strings, separated by silence. This was heard again, a bit faster, as the piano entered with an active repeating figure, adding to a purposeful feel. The strings soon joined in this, interweaving layers of busy notes in a complex tapestry. As the piece continued, this compound texture gave way to dark, deep tones in the piano which combined with pizzicato figures in the strings to create a more subdued and mysterious feel. A change back to the shifting syncopated passages and a lively rhythm highlighted the precise playing of the trio and the evocative quality of the score. At just this point, however, the tempo slowed dramatically, and some lovely sustained harmonies were heard in the strings along with a simple counterpoint in the piano. The feeling was peaceful and serene, like a sleepy lullaby, as the piece glided to a quiet close. Wake the Dead is beautifully written and this was a warmly performed depiction of what will always remain unknown.

Following an intermission, gone into night are all the eyes by Thomas Kotcheff was performed by the piano trio in three movements. This opened with a bit of poetry read by Ray Ford, accompanied by quiet passages in the cello. As the poem ended, pizzicato in the cello and sustained tones in the violin were accompanied by rapid piano figures ending in brisk trills. The cello and violin then took up a duet, with only scattered piano notes heard and this resulted in a somewhat remote and lonely feeling. More trills in the piano introduced some tension, but a strong melody in the strings evoked a sense of the lovely and the mystical as the first movement faded to a close.

The second movement was more complex and dynamic, with a quicker tempo and a purposeful feel. The ensemble playing here was accurate and precise given the busy syncopation and a doubled melody line in the strings; a nice contrast with the opening movement. Towards the finish, strong cello notes were answered by the violin as this movement faded to silence. The third movement was slower with a quiet harmony in the strings that suggested sadness. The piano then took up the somber melody as a solo in the lower registers with the violin and cello entering to create some beautiful harmony. More piano followed and then a violin solo and a stronger tutti section that felt darkly mournful. A slightly brighter feeling emerged from an ascending scale figure and this combined with more warm harmonies in the strings at the finish. gone into night are all the eyes is a beautiful work, well founded in its structure and strong emotional exposition.

Well-Spent, by Eve Beglarian was next and this was a solo violin piece accompanied by a recording of a violin from the speaker. Inspired by the notebook of Leonardo Da Vinci, for this piece Alyssa Park tuned her violin down half a step. Well-Spent began in a flurry of double-stopped notes from the violin amid a solid outpouring from the speakers. At times it seemed that the sound was coming from all directions and in all registers, like being caught in a swiftly flowing stream. As the piece progressed, a slower melody emerged in the recording that formed a cantus firmus around which Ms. Park wove a compelling counterpoint. More sounds boiled out from the speakers and the intricacy of the playing by Ms. Park was impressive. At the finish the melody from the recording began to slur downward in pitch, fading out at the close. Well-Spent is an intense experience in tuning and rhythm, adroitly played by Alyssa Park.

The final work on the program was the US premiere of the atrocity exhibition, by Anton Svetlichny, a composer based in Russia. This music was probably the most technically challenging piece  selected from the call for scores, having meter markings of 10/16, 12/16, 6/16, 7/16 or 4/16 that alternated between measures, and a bright tempo based on rapid sixteenth note passages. Appropriately, Ray Ford began with a reading from J.G. Ballard’s poem of the same name. the atrocity exhibition then began with a sharp repeating piano figure and the strings responded with a needle-sharp, syncopated accompaniment. The notes were harsh and dissonant, producing an immediate sense of anxiety and stress. The piano managed to hold the ensemble in a tight rhythmic groove while the complex figures in the strings evoked a sense of disconnection with reality.

As the piece progressed, the cello takes up the repeating figure and the piano answers in counterpoint. A cello solo full of trills and glissandos follows that adds greatly to the disorienting feel. As the piece drew to a finish the repeating figure was taken up by the entire ensemble and the sense of frustration and futility was complete. The score required all the players to end end on the same pulse – a specification made all the more demanding given the rapid tempo and the changes in metering with almost every measure. This was accomplished with perfect precision, however, and the atrocity exhibition was received with a standing ovation and loud cheering.

Broken Rivers brought new and established pieces for the piano trio together in a single concert program that united cutting edge composition with musicians capable of exceptional technique. Another landmark event for new music in Los Angeles.

by Paul Muller
Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles, Songs

Contemporary Art Song at Monk Space

On Tuesday, May 30, 2017 Tuesdays@Monk Space hosted a concert titled Vicki Ray and Richard Valitutto present New Song. Every seat was filled in the cozy Koreatown performance space with an audience looking forward to an evening of contemporary art songs from some of the finest musicians and composers in Los Angeles.

Four Elemental Songs (2014), by Vicki Ray was first and this consisted of four short movements based loosely on the natural elements of air, fire, water and earth. Elissa Johnston was the vocalist, accompanied by the composer at the piano. Luftpause, the first movement, began with a light, airy strumming of the piano strings that was soon joined by Ms. Johnston singing in German to create an alluring, mystical feel. The simple piano gestures involved just a few conventional key strokes, and Ms. Ray often reached into the piano touching or plucking the strings to achieve additional effects. Luftpause ended on a quietly gentle note, in great contrast to the strident opening of the second movement, Fire Song. Rapid trills in the piano plus the shifting and changing phrasing recalled the dancing flames of a fire. Ms. Johnston’s strong singing heightened the drama, perfectly capturing the powerful text by Susan Stewart.

Siren Song followed, adapted from a poem by Margaret Atwood, and based on the familiar myth of mermaids luring sailors to a watery death by beautiful singing. Ms. Ray again reached into the piano, producing an unexpected series of notes that sounded more like a harp or guitar. In fact nowhere in this movement were conventional keystrokes heard and the unorthodox sounds nicely complimented the mysteriously beguiling vocals. Siren Song was masterfully realized but equaled in inventiveness by the last movement, Pritam Basat, which began with a thumping, percussive effect in the lower piano keys. The rolling, rhythmic character of the music felt south Asian, in keeping with the Sanskrit text “My beloved dwells in the cave of my heart.” As the piano grooved along, forceful vocal passages arced overhead to provide a strong finish. Four Elemental Songs is a remarkable combination of extended piano techniques and solid singing that brings a fresh perspective to the venerable art song form.

The west coast premiere of kennen schon nicht mehr (2017), by Nicholas Deyoe followed and for this soprano Justine Aronson joined piano accompanist Richard Valitutto on the stage. Written for the performers and based on poems by Rainer Maria Rilke, kennen schon nicht mehr began with a simple descending scale in the piano, followed several quiet chords. This was soon supplemented with a bit of dissonance and a series of dark, thick chords that created a faint sense of the ominous. The vocal entrance by Ms. Aronson was deliberate, but subdued, matching the pensive tone of the text: “We don’t know what we spend: All that’s named is past and each being Invents itself at the last second And will hear nothing.” The words were sung in German, and this added to the expressive feeling as the piece proceeded along its somber path. About midway through a series of solemn piano chords in the lower register rang out like church bells, further darkening the mood, while sustained tones in the voice soared overhead with a beautiful combination of strength and fluidity.

As the piece concluded, the church bell tones returned, but with a more hopeful feel from a masterful adjustment to the original chords. “Now we wake up with our memory And fix our gazes on that which was: Whispering sweetness, which once coursed through us. Sits silently beside us with loosened hair.” kennen schon nicht mehr is ideally matched to the sentiment of the text, and to the formidable talents of the performers for whom it was written. Every nuance of language and music was expertly portrayed in this highly evocative work.

(more…)

by Paul Muller
Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Los Angeles, Review

Cazan, Gloss and Anderson at Betalevel in Los Angeles

On Saturday, May 27, 2017 Betalevel was the venue for a concert of experimental music, spoken text and radio sounds as created and performed by Scott Cazan, Pauline Gloss and Casey Anderson. A nice crowd ventured into the colorful subterranean performance space on a quiet holiday evening in the Chinatown district of Los Angeles.

The first piece on the program was Grammar, by Scott Cazan, who presided over a computer table filled with cables leading to mixers and speakers. A section of the floor in front was filled with symbols and letters chalked onto the cement prior to the start of the performance. These markings acted as the score and represented the computer keystrokes to be applied as the piece progressed. Grammar began with a steady rhythmic beat, followed by a series of continuing trills in something like a marimba, all of which established a nice groove. After a few moments, a short burst of white noise was heard and this recurred on intervals of a few seconds. A deep bass tone entered, sforzando, and this was heard again after a somewhat longer interval. The result was to establish a congenial and layered texture, propelled along by the various recurring elements.

About a third of the way through a soft hissing was heard, increasing in volume until it obscured all but the low growls in the sforzando bass. The regular rhythmic elements became overwhelmed – leaving the listener without that reassuring reference – and the hissing sound became more menacing, like the scream of an out-of-control steam vent. A high metallic screeching was added to the mix, and the intensity increased to something approaching the sound of a dentist drill. The confined spaces of Betalevel amplified the piercing sounds – almost to the threshold of pain – but at just that point the squealing subsided and then ceased, allowing the bass tones and then the percussion to reappear. The original elements from the beginning reasserted themselves, restoring order, and slowly faded out in a peaceful ending. Grammar is an artful mix of the reassuringly familiar and the totally terrifying, with both possibilities hanging in the balance – a metaphor for these uncertain times.

Pauline Gloss was next with three text/sound works, First Piano Lesson, Trauma Response and An Integration, presented serially and without pause. This began with First Piano Lesson, a recording of a spoken piece, played through the speaker system. The stream of words first came singly, and then were repeated in various combinations and permutations; each phrase a clue that added to the total picture. The speech was processed through self-oscillating band-pass filters and this gave the text a thin aura of musical tones. As described on the sonospace.org website: “First Piano Lesson is a compressed coming of age story produced from accreted and recombinant language. The majority of the piece is built out of the materials of one 8 word sentence, whose purpose is to act as a sort of DNA of boyhood, both in terms of its syntax and language material. As the language repeats and is recombined, a story emerges.” This technique is surprisingly effective – the listener concentrates, parsing out the information embedded in the stream of words, while at the same time responding to the tone coloring and shape of the recited text.

About halfway through, the recording ceased and Trauma Response began, delivered live by the composer from the stage. The same process was employed – minus the acoustic filtering – and now the spoken words had a more immediate and intimate feel. The contour of the phrases depended more on the shape and sound of the words, and the patterns were assembled to convey different weights and textures. At times, even individual words were broken down into syllables and used in the stream of text. All of this was confidently delivered by Gloss, who had to contend with low lighting and the varied patterns of words and phrases in the score.

The second half of First Piano Lesson then resumed and the recorded words seemed even more rounded and softened by the filtering in contrast to the live speech. An Integration completed the set, spoken from the microphone, and this was perhaps the most forthright piece. The contrasting sharpness and smoothness of the word combinations was more apparent, exerting a more pronounced influence in shaping the overall emotional feel. Strong declarative words, short hard words and phrases containing opposite meanings were most effective. Phrases such as “Is not” and Is so” when repeated together provide a powerful double message from both content and texture. Although created from simple materials, these text/sound works operate at the intersection of cognition and emotion, expanding the vocabulary of art into new territory.

The final work on the concert program was performed by Casey Anderson, stationed at an audio console equipped with a PC, a 1 minute tape loop, amplifiers and an AM/FM portable radio. This piece was untitled, but Anderson’s compositions invariably involve broadcast radio and the process employed here was very straightforward: tune the radios until something is heard, let this play for a few seconds, and move the tuning again. Luckily the reception in Betalevel – deep under the streets and alleys of Chinatown – was adequate, and a variety of sounds were heard and looped as the piece proceeded. Sometimes a station came in clearly and intelligibly, bringing the usual commercials, sports or news. At other times, static was heard and because this counted as a sound, it was included in the sequence. Occasionally there were random squeals and chirps, and this added something of a musical dimension. The rapidly changing sequence of sounds challenge the listener to engage cognitively or emotionally, depending on the type of signal received.

Both AM and FM stations were heard, in all their many varieties. Faint stations, as well as those in a foreign language, prompted more intense concentration as the listener tries to put the newly received sounds into some sort of context. Stations clearly heard triggered emotions that depended on the content: casual interest for sports or news or perhaps disdain for some all-too-familiar commercial. As the various stations and static washed out over the audience, the brain was kept busy reacting emotionally or sifting for context. The individual listener responds to each stimulus, and this ultimately becomes an enlightening exercise in self reflection.

More experimental music will be featured in the coming Dogstar Orchestra series of concerts, running June 3, through June 17, 2017 at various locations throughout Los Angeles.

by Paul Muller
Contemporary Classical

Quelle joy! Celebrating 20 Years of Marvin Rosen (and Beata)

Photo by Beata Rzeszodko-Rosen

 

The indefatigable Marvin Rosen is marking 20 years of broadcasting his indispensable radio program “Classical Discoveries” on WPRP in Princeton, New Jersey (and on the web) and to celebrate the occasion he is doing two special programs this week; one, tomorrow, May 29  from 5:00 till 11:00am and another broadcast on Wednesday, May 31, from  5:00 till 11:00am.   Marvin’s two main interests in music are old music–Baroque and before–and new music–composers who are still breathing or still modestly still warm in their graves.   He was probably the first person with a radio  show to begin championing the music of living composers and certainly the only one to have survived for two decades.   He even beat us (Sequenza21) by a couple of years.

Marvin became seriously interested in classical music in 1966. There was always great music playing in his home, he says, and after relatives took him to Leonard Bernstein’s “Young People’s Concerts” in New York City, he was hooked.

“That was probably the greatest inspiration for me and my love of serious music. There has ever been a better or more inspirational classical music teacher.  I don’t think we’ll ever see anyone quite like him I again. I feel very blessed to have grown during that time.”  (Ed:  I must confess I trace my love of classical music to the same source although my exposure to those concerts was entirely through television.)

Marvin went on to acquire a doctorate in music education from Columbia University and become a full-time music educator with the Westminster Conservatory in Princeton.   He was managing the record department at Princeton University’s store in 1997 when he got a chance to fulfill his childhood dream of being a disk jockey after a volunteer position opened up at WPRB.  

“I still have my first playlist,” Marvin says.  “It is handwritten, since we didn’t go online until 2001. There were works by Bach, Mozart, and Scarlatti on that program, there were also works by Philip Glass,  Richard Yardumian, and even Lennon-McCartney’s “Eleanor Rigby.”

Hundreds of playlists later, Marvin is still as enthusiastic as he was on day one.  Even the prospect of getting out of bed at 3am on a snowy day in Princeton cannot discourage him from making his appointed rounds.   He is ably abetted in this passion by his wife Beata Rzeszodko-Rosen who acts as kind of volunteer co-producer, archivist, webmaster, marketing consultant and cheerleader.  (She gets up, too.)

Among the folks whose music you’ll hear this week are Antonio Caldara, George Crumb, Daniel Dorff, Ross Edwards, Eriks Esenvalds, Joep Franssens, Vladimir Godar, Galina Grigorjeva, Amanda Harberg, Jennifer Higdon, Gao Hong, Alan Hovhaness, Haji Khanmammadov, Wojciech Kilar, Vladimir Martynov, Claudio Monteverdi, Robert Moran, Victoria Poleva, Jaan Raats, Arnold Rosner, Andrew Rudin, Terje Rypdal, Gaetano Maria Schiassi, Alex Shapiro, and others.

On behalf of the Sequenza21 gang, past and present, we send many congratulations and much love. Thank you for being such an important part of the now thriving new music community and for showcasing the work of so many talented people.  On a personal note, thank you for turning me on to the music of Alan Hovhaness.  The world needs more people who do what they love and love what they do.  You’re a mensch.

If you miss the show, a Playlist and MP3 File *(available after the broadcast till June 15, 2017).

 

 

 

 

by Jerry Bowles
Books, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Piano

Required Reading: The Spectral Piano

The Spectral Piano

Book review

The Spectral Piano

From Liszt, Scriabin, and Debussy to the Digital Age

By Marilyn Nonken, with a chapter by Hugues Dufourt

Cambridge University Press, 192 pp., 2014/2016 (paperback edition)

By Christian Carey

Recently reissued in paperback, pianist/author Marilyn Nonken’s book The Spectral Piano is a fascinating examination of the history of piano music beginning in the mid-1800s that leads to its use in a spectral context from the 1970s to the present. Nonken’s thesis is that the employment of the piano to imitate the harmonic series so prevalent in contemporary spectralism is a venerable practice; that composers have long sought to subvert the equal-tempered tuning of the piano with various manners of spacing and subterfuge in order to align it more closely with the deployment of overtones found in nature.

Nonken is particularly successful in this pursuit. She connects the music of Liszt, Scriabin, Ravel, Debussy, Messiaen, Boulez, and others to the project of proto-spectralism. The author is also convincing in her positioning of recent American composers, such as Joshua Fineberg (a composer whom she has championed on recording) and Edmund Campion, and British composers James Dillon and Jonathan Harvey, as heirs to the traditions of spectralism. Nonken also excels at making connections between technological advances in measuring acoustic phenomena and parallel advances in proto-spectral and spectral music.

As a matter of course, French spectralism of the 1970s-90s occupies a central role in the book. Discussion of Tristan Murail, Gérard Grisey, and Hugues Dufourt, the latter of whom contributes a chapter, “Spectralism and the Pianistic Expression,” appended at the end of the book, provides a thought-provoking survey of these composers’ spectral works. In turn, the students of this first generation of spectralists, most of whom studied at IRCAM, such as Magnus Lindberg, Kaija Saariaho, Philippe Hurel, and Marc-Andre Dalbavie, are presented as “hybrid spectralists;” heirs to a tradition, but one that they have sought to expand through the addition of non-spectral elements from new complexity, second modernity, electroacoustic, and other areas of compositional activity. A curious omission from this section is Georg Friedrich Haas, whose work flow and friction for sixteenth tuned piano four hands is organized using principles of spectralism.

In The Spectral Piano, Nonken brings to bear both her extensive knowledge of piano literature as an estimable performer of both contemporary and earlier works, as well as an impressive scholarly acumen. The result is a volume that will cause much rethinking of traditional piano music and exposure to a new and vital repertoire. Now that the book has been made available in paperback, it is a must-have for the libraries of composers and pianists.

by Christian Carey
Contemporary Classical, File Under?, New York, Orchestras

Thursday: League of Composers at Miller Theatre (7:30 Start Time)

On Thursday, May 25th at 7:30 PM, the Orchestra of the League of Composers, directed by Louis Karchin along with conductor David Fulmer, will present a program of works by Arvo Pärt, Fred Lerdahl, Lisa Bielawa, and Sheree Clement (a new piece commissioned by League of Composers/ISCM) at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre. Tickets are $25/$15 for students/seniors

Below is my program note for the concert, which should supply some background in advance of the concert.

 

Program note: Season Finale: Orchestra of the League of Composers/ISCM

By Christian Carey

 

One of the fundamental ways in which the League of Composers fulfills its mission is by programming a diverse selection of music. As with past “season finale” concerts given by the League’s orchestra, tonight’s program encompasses works from the United States and abroad in a variety of styles. Commissioning and highlighting new work is a particular focus; the concert includes a world premiere (written by Sheree Clement and commissioned by the League).

 

The concert begins with Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten, one of Arvo Pärt’s important first forays into the tintinnabuli style for which he has become best known. The composer’s style has often been described as minimalism (“holy minimalism” by opportunistic broadcasters and less-than-kind critics), but this strand of repetition-based composition is quite different from American varieties. Rather than being based primarily on unfolding repetitive processes, like the approach taken early on in music by Glass and Reich, or being based on the omnipresent ostinatos of post-minimalists such as John Adams and Michael Torke, Pärt’s approach is based on melodic formulations: canon and monodic stepwise melodies set against bell-like triadic sonorities. While the materials themselves are simple, they are variously combined in an accumulation of gestures that is anything but.

 

Whereas Pärt’s piece doesn’t include a single accidental, Sheree Clement’s Stories I Cannot Tell You, revels in a labyrinthine chromaticism. There is also significant attention paid to timbre: a panoply of orchestral combinations and colors supply this work with still more intricacy and mystery. The portentous quality of repeated notes from a bass drum delineates and unifies the piece’s three connected movements. While the composer avows that Stories is not specifically programmatic, her program note is filled with visceral images and powerful emotions – which are equaled by the music’s expressionist quality – descended from Schoenberg yet firmly on 21st century footing.

 

Originally composed for American Composers’ Orchestra and the pianist Anton Armstrong (who also performs the work on this program), Lisa Bielawa’s Start is the last section of The Right Weather, a four-part work whose movement titles derive from the key words of a quote from Aleksandr Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin: Roam, Wait, Beckon, Start. It is not a minimal work per se, although it shares some features with minimalist compositions. Start uses the aforementioned trope of American minimalism – the ostinato – as the motor in a variegated postmodern atmosphere. In addition to local ostinatos, there is an overarching repetitive process at work as well, a fascinating structural device that starts as a repeated single note in the slow section midway through the piece. Gradually, this “big beat” accumulates more and more pitches until it is a rearticulated chord and then – in one of the piece’s culminating gestures – an emphatically presented cluster. In a craftily enigmatic close, we are treated to an echo – a triad with a split third – presenting both major and minor in countervailing tension.

 

Fred Lerdahl supplies his own 21st century reset of a 20th century style; in this case, neoclassicism. Composed for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Time and Again is a lithely scored but powerfully articulate piece. Initially, this music was sketched for truly Spartan resources: as a duo for violin and cello called Give and Take. While there is an element of “theme and variations” here, the material isn’t exactly reiterated. Rather, continual transformations, particularly in the rhythmic domain, take place. Three large sections of development speed and slow the material in myriad ways, creating an unpredictable whorl of gestures. The coda builds a sustained unison to a cadence that is deflected by one final, puckish flourish.

Composer Christian Carey is an Associate Professor of Music at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey. He edits the contemporary classical website Sequenza 21 (christianbarey.com).

by Christian Carey
Contemporary Classical

Charleston is the New Mecca of Chamber Music. Thanks, Geoff Nuttall.

Geoff Nuttall is looking for a few good rocks. One for each hand of 60 random patrons who show up at Charleston’s Dock Street Theater this Friday at 11 am or 1 pm for the first 2017 concert of Spoleto Festival USA’s immensely popular Bank of America Chamber Music Series. The rocks will be there for a piece called Trans for Percussion Solo and Audience, written by composer Lei Liang. The percussion solo will be performed by the legendary percussionist Steven Schick; the audience part will be performed by the 60 patrons who have been armed with rocks.  The same program opens with Vivaldi’s Oboe Concerto in D Minor and closes with Glinka’s Divertimento Brilliante from themes from Bellini’s La sonnambula, with another modern piece by this year’s composer-in-residence Jaroslaw Kapuscinski, sandwiched in between.

“I am not really that thematic in approach to programming,” Nuttall says. “You want the individual pieces to work together but you also want each of them to be distinctive and stand out on their own.” He favors, what the architect Robert Venturi, once described as “a messy vitality over obvious unity.”

Nuttall is a consummate showman who has shown up just about every year with a different hair style—ranging from wavy to spiky to blond, Marcello Mastroionni to Gomer Pyle in length. Audiences love it.

But, don’t be fooled, the Spoleto chamber music schedule is a demanding one. Eleven programs, each played three times, over a 16-day period. “Not for the faint of heart,” Nuttall says.

The opening program is a typical day at the office for the always surprising Nuttall, first violinist and co-founder of the improbably still-cool-after-28-years St. Lawrence String Quartet, lecturer and Artist-in-Residence at Stanford University, and Artistic Director of the Spoleto Festival USA Chamber Music Series, a post he inherited in 2009 from–and with the blessing of–the venerable pianist Charles Wadsworth, who guided the program for three decades (not to mention his leadership of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for many years.)

It was an inspired choice. Nuttall is one of those rare people who can explain complex music in a way that is engaging, entertaining and often downright funny. The New York Times labeled him the “John Stewart of classical music”, in fact, his comedic style is closer to that of Charleston native Stephen Colbert.

Born in College Park, Texas, Nuttall’s family soon moved to London, Ontario, Canada where he spent a few happy years skating on ponds and playing hockey until someone discovered he had violin talent and packed him off–at the age eight, while he still had his fingers and teeth–to Lorand Fenyves at The Banff Centre. He went on to the University of Western Ontario, and the University of Toronto, where he received his bachelor of arts.

Among the guest artists, Nuttall has scheduled this year are percussionist Steven Schick, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, oboist James Austin Smith, violinist Livia Sohn, pianists Pedja Muzijevic and Stephen Prutsman composer/cellist Joshua Roman, Swiss-born pianist Gilles Vonsattel, and the Rolston String Quartet, a young Canadian ensemble that won the 2016 Banff International String Quartet Competition—an award won by the St. Lawrence many years ago.

Nuttall admits his programming choices are often influenced by the guest musicians who he chooses to perform.

“I’ve wanted to feature a percussionist for awhile now and when Steve Schick, who is one of my favorite musicians, agreed to do it, I started looking for pieces that would work. But the repertory for percussion is so specific, there’s only so much to pick from. And because it is so specific there has to be a certain balance in the rest of the concert. That’s why I chose the Iannis Xenakis contemporary solo percussion piece “Rebonds” for the first concert—to really showcase Steve’s outstanding musicianship. But then it’s balanced out with Vivaldi.”

Another modern piece on the program this year was written specifically for Schick by composer Gustavo Aguilar and is called Wendell’s History for Steve: Part I. It’s a solo work in which Schick improvises on various percussion instruments while reciting poems by the cow patty poet Wendell Berry.

There’s lots of Vivaldi on the program this year which require the talents of counter tenor Anthony Roth Costanzo but also provides an occasion for what looks to be an entertaining bit of fun. On June 10 and 11, Costanzo will sing “Crying,” a song written and famously performed the counter tenor Roy Orbison.

“I learned that Roy’s widow had once asked Anthony to perform it at a benefit and I said ‘We’ve got to do that.” Steve Prutzman put together a dynamite arrangement and it’s going to be great.”

That’s the kind of surprising programming that has made the Chamber Music Series the most consistently popular and enduring element of Spoleto Festival USA.

“I am amazed at the dedication of Charleston chamber music fans,” Nuttall says. “The Dock Theater seats about 450 people. We perform to 33 different audiences during the Festival and there is rarely an empty seat during any of the concerts. I don’t know any other city in the world—big cities included—where that would happen.”

Schedule is here.

by Jerry Bowles
CDs, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Los Angeles

Daniel Corral: “Refractions” (Populist Records)

Refractions

Daniel Corral

Populist Records CD PR012

Jeremy Kerner, electric guitar; Isaura String Quartet; Corral, music box and laptop

LA-based Populist Records has released another treasure trove of unusual ambience. Daniel Corral’s Refractions, featuring the composer on music box laptop alongside electric guitarist Jeremy Kerner and the Isaura String Quartet, captures a compelling ambient composition. Delicate strains from guitar and strings are offset by bell-like interjections from Corral’s music box and swaths of sustained sounds from his laptop. The piece begins with all of these various textures and gradually is winnowed down to the music box, supplying minimal punctuations and offset repetitions in a slow ritardando until the piece’s delicate denouement and eventual close. Given the deliberate limitation of resources and lassitude of pacing, this slowly evolving piece of music is spellbinding in its execution. Rather than foregrounding the incremental shifts of material, the listener is encouraged to bask in a wash of sounds, varied and lovely timbres that are deployed with enough independence to seem to have minds of their own.

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by Christian Carey