Sequenza21

Columbia University’s School of the Arts has given John Zorn the William Schuman Award, a major recognition given periodically over the past twenty-five years.
    
Named for its first recipient William Schuman, the award, in the form of a direct, unrestricted grant of $50,000, is one of the largest to an American composer. In the language of the gift establishing the prize, the purpose of the William Schuman Award is “to recognize the lifetime achievement of an American composer whose works have been widely performed and generally acknowledged to be of lasting significance.” It is awarded by the Dean of the School of the Arts at Columbia University. The award was established in 1981 by a bequest from the Schuman family. Previous winners have included Schuman, David Diamond, Gunther Schuller, Milton Babbitt, and Hugo Weisgall, and, most recently in 2001, Steve Reich.

I don’t think that Zorn is quite in that league but, hey, what do I know?

Garden of Dreams

David Maslanka

Dallas Wind Symphony

Jerry Junkin

Writing for a large ensemble, especially a traditional, professional orchestra, can be a dangerous venture for today’s composer. Hours, days, and years (sometimes) of composition, orchestration, preparation of parts, and personal anguish over a score that may get two hours of concert hall rehearsal before a world premiere. However, should a wind ensemble ever ask for a commission, quickly say yes. Wind ensembles (symphonies, bands, etc), particularly collegiate groups, are gifted with practice time enviable by any orchestra and their directors tend to be excited about new music.

Jerry Junkin and the Dallas Wind Symphony have released 77 minutes of music by David Maslanka on the Reference Recordings label, proof that composers can get a break in today’s “orchestra-eat-composer” world. As far as I can tell, this recording was completely underwritten by someone other than the David Maslanka, and the performance quality leaves nothing to complain about.

The music itself combines Bach chorales as “emotional focal points” (composers words) and influences of John Adams, with long droning phrases and chords that build over time. The spaces can be wide, with little motion, but when David writes fast music, it it engaging and purposeful. A Child’s Garden of Dreams is based on the work of Carl Jung, and freely “describes” five dreams of a young girl who died of disease. In Memoriam is based on Bach’s “If Thou but Suffer God to Guide Thee.” The concluding work on this disc is a symphony, and is full of references to Bach chorales and hymn tunes, is predictable and forced (with a glaring reference to Philip Glass about two minutes into the first movement).

Lion’s Eye/Lion’s Tale

Pauline Oliveros

The Berkley Gamelan Ensemble

Carter Scholz, HTML programmer and sampler performer

Pauline Oliveros, composer-performer, has been a transforming force in music since 1961. Her broad range of activities, from Deep Listening (Oliveros’ orginal concept) to performances on her just tuned accordion, have made her a unique and compelling voice in modern composition.

By their very nature, Oliveros’ works can’t be reviewed. Each performance is different and “correct,” with limitless freedom for the performers. The Berkeley Gamelan Ensemble with Carter Scholz using a sampler, tackles the forty-five minute Lion’s Eye from 1985. Oliveros’ writes for gamelans in a way that suits each instrument. Higher pitched instruments are given more notes, while lower pitched are given longer note values. The sampler allows patterns and pitches to be repeated or sustained at impossible levels, but also participates with the ensemble as another member.

Lion’s Tale for sampler (1989) uses composer created patterns that are generated by computer, allowing for a unique performance each time.

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Common Sense Composers’ Collective

New Millennium Ensemble

Rarely does one see the intentional joining of forces between composers. The competitiveness found in the performing arena is common in the composers’ world, though more passive-aggressive. Unfortunately, our animal desire to survive and rise above the pack isolates and divides us. So when a composers collective comes along, it can be refreshing to observe the fruits of friendship as expressed in the latest release through Albany Records of the Common Sense Composers’ Collective and the New Millennium Ensemble.

The performances by the New Millennium Ensemble are exciting and energetic (not to mention the very fine sound engineering). The composers represent an era influenced by Reich and Adams, jazz and rock, filtered through Guggenheims and Ivy League educations. Nothing sounds academic or contrived, and even when the post-minimalist clichés are apparent, the intensity and motivation behind the performance makes each work on this disc worthwhile.

Watching Olga Neuwirth’s opera Lost Highway is like watching a Harry Potter movie after having read the book: the material transfers all right, but one wishes the team behind the retelling had gone further in re-imagining the original work for a new medium. Lost Highway follows David Lynch’s movie more or less scene for scene: many images from the film get repeated on stage, and many lines from the screenplay find their way – sometimes awkwardly – into the libretto (written by Neuwirth and Elfriede Jelinek). Neuwirth’s principal musical conceit is to have Fred and Renee – the dull, troubled couple – speak their lines, while Pete and Alice – the sexy, transformed version of the same couple – sing theirs. This sounds promising in the program notes, but in reality Neuwirth doesn’t follow through: the majority of the lines in the opera – including those belonging to Pete and Alice – are spoken. What lines are sung come across often as labored and sluggish, rather than fantastical and intense. Neuwirth adopts a highly melismatic approach to setting the text, and this approach, while it blends well with her very ambient score, has the undesirable consequence of suddenly retarding the action on stage. Seeing as many of the most emotive and seemingly “operatic” lines are spoken, one wonders how and why she really chose what to have sung.

But still: Lost Highway is by no means a bad time. My comments above notwithstanding, the show in general moves along with sure-footed efficiency, and the often very short scenes rarely close without making an impact. There is also much to admire in Neuwirth’s music. The murky electronic burble that underscores most of the action recedes nicely at many times to reveal a sardonic choir of brass instruments, or an intimate set of strings. She even manages to sneak in some amusingly “American” sounding bluesiness and to capture the peculiar, dreamy dread that is Lynch’s trademark. And her decision to make Robert Blake’s “Mystery Man” a countertenor is a touch of genius. I didn’t get, however, the extended quotation from The Threepenny Opera early in the show. Nor can I imagine an explanation that would convince me this was the right time for a little haranguing from Bertolt Brecht.

The Oberlin Conservatory Contemporary Music Ensemble did a splendid job in the pit, and certainly this entire project does that wonderful school proud. But if composers, artists, or playwrights are to do justice to David Lynch, they must be as imaginative as he is. Neuwirth and Jelinek might have done better by dropping the original screenplay altogether, throwing together a libretto by riffing spontaneously on Lynch’s images, themes, and language, and turning Lost Highway into a wild fantasy on a wild fantasy. What we have instead is something much more literal-minded, and, therefore, something not especially faithful to the original material at all.