Kirill Gerstein, piano; Christianne Stotijn, mezzo-soprano; Mark Stone, baritone;
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Thomas Adés, conductor
Deutsche Grammophon CD/DL 4837998
Thomas Adés is in his third year as Artistic Partner of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It has been an extraordinarily fruitful pairing. Adés has performed with the ensemble as a conductor and pianist, contributed new pieces to its repertory, and curated events such as the Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood. In the midst of this plethora of activities, the March 2019 premiere of his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra was a highlight. Both the performance of the BSO under Adés’s direction and the brilliant playing of the work’s soloist, Kirill Gerstein, were widely acclaimed. The DG recording of its premiere confirms the buzz — the concerto is indeed a formidable work and the performance is radiant.
Cast in the traditional three movement structure (fast-slow-fast), the concerto demonstrates Adés’s encyclopedic familiarity with composers of the past, including hat-tips to Prokofiev, Ravel, Liszt, and Stravinsky. Despite revelling in touchstones of eras past, Adés ultimately distills them into a glinting, sharply contoured language with a distinctive character all its own. The first movement contrasts extensive glissandos with clock-like ostinatos. Sustained chorales create an aura of poignancy in the middle movement. The finale juxtaposes upward and downward scalar passages that provide a tilt-a-whirl of intensifying momentum that ends the piece aloft – and on a brilliantly orchestrated major triad to boot.
In these times of pandemic and social distancing, Adés Totentanz (2013) is a particularly sobering piece. It is based upon the text of a fifteenth century frieze, which depicts all walks of life, from the Pope to an infant, being invited to dance with the Grim Reaper. Baritone Mark Stone embodies Death with a muscular and menacing delivery. Mezzo-soprano Christianne Stotijn sings the parts of the various people attempting to elude his grasp as heartfelt laments. Adés creates a searing score that allows space for declamation while interpolating ominous interludes, often supplying aggressively syncopated ostinatos that suggest the inexorable dance. Bracing listening, but engaging throughout. Recommended.
It’s a brave new world. Large gatherings are prohibited in many cities to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, and so nearly all concerts have been postponed or cancelled. Still, performers and presenters prevail, providing live-streamed concerts, even without a physical audience in attendance.
Several resources have popped up to help music-starved ears find concerts online. Here is a list of classical concerts offered live on the internet, worldwide. The list is updated regularly. Performers, presenters and others may submit events via a Google form. (Full disclosure: I created this database).
Digital Concert Hall is offering free access to their site, which contains a large number of performances by top-name artists. Yesterday, I sampled an archived Berlin Philharmonic concert, and I was astonished at the technical quality of the production. Crystal clear close-ups, smooth video transitions and superb performance quality knocked me out as Paavo Jarvi conducted a new concerto for horn by Hans Abrahamsen and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. I had a similar experience today, watching the live performance of Berlin Philharmonic led by Simon Rattle. The program was enticing – Berio’s Sinfonia and Bartok Concerto for Orchestra – and the musicians delivered an excellent performance. Rattle spoke about each work beforehand, and his live program notes were compelling. One astonishing tidbit that Rattle shared: the ailing Bartok was the first civilian in the US to get the then-brand-new medicine, penicillin. That saved his life, making it possible for him to complete the concerto.
So, while we may be deprived of physical contact with other concert-goers, we’ve got these streams to tide us over. One thing’s for sure: I’ll need to upgrade my computer’s speakers.
Few composers have embraced the Webernian aesthetic of brevity more closely than the Hungarian György Kurtág (b.1926). Starting with his earliest canonical work, the Op. 1 String Quartet (1959), he steadily built an international career entirely from bagatelles, usually written for small ensembles and gathered into collections linked by instrumentation and concept, and always unsurpassed in concentrated intensity. Kurtág’s commitment to epigrammatic potency reached an apogee with Kafka Fragments (1985–87), 40 brief German texts from the novelist’s diaries and posthumous writings adapted into an hour of music of such resolute focus that the composer limited its instrumentation to one soprano and one violinist.
Despite the challenges that it poses in sustaining such constricted severity—not to mention the demands it places on the musicians’ technique and stamina—Kafka Fragments is among Kurtág’s most frequently recorded compositions. So it was of great interest when, in the midst of a US tour that brought her to the Pacific Northwest to play Shostakovich with the Seattle Symphony, the acclaimed and iconoclastic Moldovan violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaya (PatKop as she is known among associates) devoted the evening of January 29, 2020 to this one composition, presented in the Symphony’s recently inaugurated and pocket-sized Octave 9 space with Ah Young Hong, a soprano currently based at the Peabody Institute whose advocacy of new music is closely associated with composer Michael Hersch. Not surprisingly, the duo delivered a novel and thought-provoking take on the piece, fulfilling the wish expressed in Kopatchinskaya’s pre-performance remarks of “an enriching and uncomfortable evening”—one whose resonances turned out to be unexpectedly timely.
The interpretive affinity between the two women was evident from the get-go. Like many soloists of her generation, Kopatchinskaya eschews the habitual wide vibrato of the Kreisler/Heifetz school in favor of a more nuanced approach. Hong too is capable of deploying a “cooler” technique, allowing for the gradations needed to convey the mood swings in a song like Einmal brach ich mir das Bein (Once I broke my leg) or for backgrounding the voice in a song like Der wahre Weg (The True Path) where the violin is usually in the lead.
Particularly impressive were the vocal leaps in Wiederum, wiederum (Again, Again) that accompany the line “mountains, desert, wide country to wander through”. Most sopranos try to smooth over these jumps, but Hong attacked them in a dazzling fashion, reminiscent of the wordless exhortation that begins ¿De dónde vienes, amor, mi niño? from Crumb’s Ancient Voices of Children (1970) one of the Fragments’ more palpable stylistic precedents.
Together, the performers delivered sufficient volume to overpower the persistent white noise emitted by the LED cooling fans in Octave 9’s low ceilings, the space’s most distracting acoustic issue. In this regard they were aided by its vaunted Constellation sound projection system, whose computer-backed array of ceiling microphones and loudspeakers is capable of simulating a variety of acoustic environments while accommodating ambulatory musicians (this being essential for a work like the Fragments, where the performer’s stage positions are often specified).
Commenting on the choice of presets, Kopatchinskaya said “I thought about the sound of the burning Notre Dame cathedral (it seems it is not yet programmed in the system), but we now have perhaps something similar to a synagogue in Prague from the last century, at least in our imagination”.
The most striking aspect of the evening’s performance, though, was its emphasis on contrast. With the Fragments’ instrumentation confined to a pair of treble instruments whose range and expressive characteristics largely overlap, the resulting sound world can easily seem unrooted. Accordingly, most of the work’s interpreters have sought to achieve maximum unity of timbre, rhythm and articulation. But the Hong/PatKop traversal frequently exploited differences between the two parts, as evinced in the very first song, Die Guten gehn im glichen Schritt (The good march in the same step), where on the word gleichen (same) the voice begins to straggle behind the violin’s steady pace:
Singers usually take this passage in strict tempo, producing exact syncopation at the divergence. But Hong allowed herself the slightest hint of rubato, suggesting a more neurotic relationship with Kopatchinskaya’s indifferente beat.
And though it was not explicitly coordinated, the musicians’ costuming likewise presented a thematic contrast. Hong wore a long, black, V-neck dress with a long-sleeved black coat and a long silvery necklace that emphasized the resulting oval framing. Combined with her expressive face and “Bohemian” hair, the visage suggested a voice emanating from darkness, in touch with invisible forces but not in particular control of them. At times, the prophesizing of Shakespearean witches came to mind. At others, as during the reprise of Verstecke (Hiding-Places) when Hong clutched her cheeks in a pantomime yell, it was the anxiety of Munch’s Scream that seemed to be channeled.
At this latter juncture, Kopatchinskaya crept behind Hong while playing sul ponticello tremolos like a buzzing mosquito. Her role, suggested by her trademark suit resembling an undersized tuxedo with tails and shoulder cutouts, was more akin to a tramp. A hatless and shoeless Chaplin (for PatKop always plays barefoot) who carries a violin bow instead of a cane. Perhaps a bit of a stretch, but for this American observer at least, even Kopatchinskaya’s expressions and occasional one-footed gestures of musical energy conjured up something of Chaplin’s mischievous physiognomy and comic kicks. Heightened by dim, magenta-hued “darkroom” lighting, with translations projected behind the performers, the presentation affirmed Kopatchinskaya’s vision of the Fragments as “full of musical literary moments that you could ponder for the rest of your life”.
The Kafka Fragments were an inflection point in Kurtág’s career, wherein the potentialities of chamber bagatelles and their sequencing into longer and longer assembled forms, are stretched to the verge of collapse. Kurtág’s organization of the 40 songs into four parts, divisions that the performers marked by sitting silently for a minute of rest, helps to mitigate two issues that have always bedeviled the song cycle form: the constant starts and stops, and the challenge of consuming a lengthy totality made up of numerous short units that don’t naturally combine into intermediate structures. One can still sense the composer’s struggle with the oppositional demands of brevity and heft though, and soon after completing the Fragments Kurtág finally began to write longer continuous pieces, often greatly expanding his ensembles in the process. The Double Concerto (1989–90) and the orchestral Stele (1993–94) were among the first manifestations of the newer, more “monumental” Kurtág which has perhaps reached its consummation with his aptly-titled full-length opera Fin de Partie (2018), after Beckett’s Endgame.
In a way it’s fitting that a transitional piece like Kafka Fragments would come to Octave 9 now, amplified by what’s arguably the biggest star power yet to appear at that venue. Fashioned from a generic storefront space at the corner of Seattle Symphony’s Benaroya Hall complex, its uses are divided between educational/community outreach events and contemporary music recitals featuring the Symphony’s musicians and guest artists. One of its goals has been to foster new works “without the risk of presenting them in front of 2500 people” (as Ludovic Morlot put it to me shortly before his departure as Music Director). Today, though, one year after its March 2019 unveiling, a mass exodus of executive-level talent from the Symphony has left Octave 9 shorn of all four of its principal architects: CEO Simon Woods, two key VPs (Elena Dubinets and Laura Reynolds, whose replacements have not yet arrived) and Morlot himself. Like Kurtág at the time of his Fragments, Octave 9 appears to be facing a crossroads.
Despite hosting a succession of noteworthy events, including a remarkable inaugural 24-hour contemporary music marathon, the space has yet to make a noticeable impact on the chronic fragmentation of Seattle’s new music community, whose denizens seem to be deterred by its ticket prices and downtown location (those that I saw in attendance at the PatKop/Hong event were mostly Symphony personnel). Instead the clientele for the venue’s new music events comes mainly from Symphony patrons, many of them downtown-dwelling professionals for whom the featured performers are celebrities. Speaking afterwards with some of these concertgoers, none of which had previously heard of Kurtág, I encountered several variations on “this music is a lot more interesting when you’re close to the musicians and can see their enthusiasm”, a sentiment that shows that the Octave 9 experiment is at least working for this cohort. Success at audience cultivation can portend broader successes down the road, and the potential on display at Octave 9 pleads for a replenished leadership team that will support it with the same vigor and creativity as its founding cadre.
Photos by James Holt/Seattle Symphony. Score excerpts via Stretta Music.
On Tuesday, February 18, 2020, Brightwork newmusic presented the Los Angeles premiere of Separation Songs, by Matt Sargent. A 70-minute work for two string quartets, Separation Songs comprised the entire program. The Eclipse Quartet was joined by the Aperture Duo, Grace Oh and Julie Jung to complete the eight-piece ensemble. Seating in the Monk Space venue was reconfigured to accommodate the larger musical forces and to take full advantage of the close acoustics. Everyone in the audience was within twenty feet of the players, allowing the listeners to be immersed in the warm sonority of the strings.
Separation Songs is fashioned from ten New England hymn tunes written by William Billings in the early 18th century. This is plain, yet stately, church music that carries comfort and warmth in every note. The original harmonies have been delicately processed and woven together to create a continuous flow. Composer Matt Sargent writes “Throughout the piece, hymn tunes come and go, passing from one quartet to the other: As tunes reappear, they filter through a ‘separation process,’ whereby selected notes migrate from one quartet to the other. The process leaves breaks in the music that remain silent or are filled by stretching the durations of nearby notes, generating new rhythms and harmonies.”
The two quartets were arrayed as mirror images: the cellos were in the center and the higher strings seated in a semicircle on either side. The brick walls surrounding the performance space brought out every timbral nuance. Separation Songs opened with one quartet playing a Billings hymn in full harmony. The second quartet picked up the tune while the first played long sustaining tones in support. As the piece proceeded, the hymn tunes and sustained notes were passed back and forth between the two quartets in a regular exchange. Nothing was rushed and only slight variations in dynamics, tempo or texture could be detected. Everything was carried forward in the kaleidoscopic unfolding of the harmonies so that a warm wash of sound enveloped the audience in a profound serenity. The playing was very expressive and care was taken by the musicians to coordinate the two quartets in a piece with few landmarks.
Separation Songs rolls along for 70 minutes with almost no change in its character, but the harmonic variations keep the listener continuously engaged. The sturdy hymn tunes bring a sense of strength and wistfulness to this music; a shorter version would make a perfect prelude at a memorial service. Separation Songs is a powerful re-imagining of the early American congregational hymn, and succeeds brilliantly in bringing a sharpened sense of the transcendental into the 21st century. As the last notes faded away, a full 15 seconds of respectful silence followed before the start of a roaring ovation from the audience.
The Eclipse Quartet is:
Sarah Thornblade, violin
Sara Parkins, violin
Alma Lisa Fernandez, viola
Maggie Parkins, cello
The Aperture Duo is:
Adrianne Pope, violin
Linnea Powell, viola
With:
Grace Oh, violin
Julie Jung, cello
The next Cold Blue Music presentation will be at the Soundwaves concert series at the Santa Monica Public Library on March 18, 2020, and will feature music from several new CD releases.
On Saturday, February 1, 2020 the Shannon Center for the Performing Arts at Whittier College staged a concert titled Terry Riley with Gyan Riley – Live at 85. Featuring one of the founding fathers of classic minimalism – now in his 85th year – along with his talented son Gyan, this concert was a chance to catch up on the current output of the innovative composer of In C. The Shannon Center was the perfect venue for the two musicians who filled the stage with keyboards, synthesizers, guitars plus assorted amplifiers and speakers.
There was no printed concert order and the music simply began. What must have been several pieces were played sequentially, without a break. The opening phrases were a series of intriguing piano arpeggios thoughtfully played by the senior Riley, and the guitar soon entered underneath with a soft, relaxed feel. From this amiable beginning, the playing varied over a remarkably wide musical palate. There were suggestions of jazz, boogie and the blues along with splashes of the mystical, Asian and other exotic influences. A continuous stream of animated phrases kept things lively and engaging. This was all played from memory – or perhaps by improvisation – and the finesse of the elder Riley on the piano was extraordinary. Terry seemed to know exactly where he wanted to go and there were times when Gyan had to be on the alert to keep up. The interplay between the two was often intricate and complex, but always coherent and connected. A booming crescendo marked the end of this first section of the concert and this was received with a round of strong applause.
The second set was something completely different. Terry Riley switched from keyboard to an electronic synthesizer operated from an iPad. Gyan continued with guitar, but with a heavily processed sound. The beginning sounds were mysterious and liquid, consisting mostly of sustained tones. The synthesizer notes had a bell-like quality that evoked a feeling of calmness and serenity. The guitar produced notes with a gathering velocity until there was a distinctly frenetic feel to the texture. The synthesizer contributed a series of increasingly alien sounds that added to the frenzy. The elder Riley proved to be especially adept in generating the kinds of sounds he wanted from the iPad. Typically, the electronic sounds dominated while at other times strongly melodic passages were heard from the guitar. The general disarray of the sounds gained strength, concluding in a great crescendo complete with the realistic wail of a siren. This piece would have easily fit right in with any from the more experimental electronic groups here in town. Clearly the Rileys were not creating music for the past.
The third set of the concert had Terry Riley seated at a keyboard synthesizer with Gyan’s electric guitar, now producing a more conventional sound in the introductory riffs. Warm chords from the synthesizer entered and the result was a soothing contrast from the previous piece. Perhaps more remarkable was the voice of the elder Riley, credibly singing a slow ballad over the instruments. As the piece proceeded, there was a fine keyboard-guitar duo. Terry now switched back to the piano and more of a jazzy feel predominated along with a solid beat. A short vocal section completed this piece. The final piece on the program opened with a repeating cell in the piano and a solid groove developed as the guitar joined in. The echo of a vintage minimalism was unmistakable, and many in the audience could be seen bobbing their heads and tapping their feet to the beat. The texture turned more complex at the finish, but for those who attended the concert hoping to hear some classic minimalism, the Rileys obliged.
A long and loud round of applause brought the Rileys back on stage for an encore, and this featured some powerful chords from the synthesizer along with some nice counterpoint from the guitar. Once again a satisfying groove was heard, and the big sound filled the space at the finish. A standing ovation followed.
Terry Riley is one of the more influential composers of the mid twentieth century, but like any artist he has evolved over the last 55 or so years since In C. This concert provided something for everyone: a variety of accessible and wide-ranging music, something new and cutting edge, and a nod to his roots in classical minimalism. Watching the Rileys, you could sense that they very much enjoyed the opportunity to perform together. Terry Riley seemed to have a permanent smile on his face and was generous with his time for his fans in the lobby after the concert. Gyan was also very personable – despite having traveled all day across three time zones. And why not? Seeing father and son performing together made for an evening of great music, with Terry vital, creative and alive at 85.
On Tuesday, January 28, 2020 Tuesdays@Monk Space presented a concert titled 20/20 Visions which consisted of several new pieces for microtonal keyboards. Presented by Brightwork New Music, the concert featured five contemporary works – including three world premieres – all performed by the Ray-Kallay Duo. Four of the composers were in attendance to offer comments on their music to the knowledgeable audience that filled the intimate Monk Space venue.
The first piece in the program was Atlantys (1984) for two DX7 keyboards, by Tristan Murail. The Yamaha DX7, manufactured from 1983 to 1989, was the first successful digital synthesizer offered to the mass market. Two vintage DX7s were on hand, giving this performance the sound of period authenticity. A soft rush of surf along with some low ambient sounds opened the piece, immediately delivering a restful and calming feeling. A deep rumble soon emerged from the lower registers that added a contrasting sense of the slightly ominous. Ringing sounds soon dominated the performance space, but never overpowered the interplay between Ray and Kallay that remained well-balanced, even as the variety of electronic sounds rapidly multiplied. One distinctive element was the sound of large iron bars being struck, ringing out with strong percussive tones. Towards the finish, a loud explosive sound filled the room and reverberated throughout the venue. More electronic sounds entered, alien and eclectic, reminding everyone of the great versatility of the DX7. Atlantys artfully exploits the capabilities of the venerable DX7 synthesizer, and was admirably complimented by the performance of the Ray-Kallay Duo.
The world premiere of “Really, I’m fine” (2019) by Jason Barabba followed. This was a microtonal composition for the four-handed keyboard of the Ray-Kallay Duo. This opened with a series of intricate, interleaving passages that managed to avoid needless complexity, even with twenty fingers on the keys. The strong sense of motion was pleasant and continuous. The active sections were, by turns, intimate, mischievous, playful and sweet. Engaging rhythms and an agreeable mix of exotic chords intrigued the audience throughout. The often-elaborate counterpoint was precisely played by Ray and Kallay, who navigated each passage with clarity and style. “Really, I’m fine” is an appealing combination of inviting rhythms and complimentary microtonal harmonies in a well-crafted balance.
Hush (2019) by Nina Shekhar was next, another world premiere. As the composer explained, Hush is an attempt to create the musical equivalent of a loving hug, the sort of comforting embrace that might be welcomed when feeling homesick or sad. Performed by Ray and Kallay, this piece began with quietly gentle arpeggios that rang out with bell-like tones, as if from an old-fashioned music box. A warm, soft feeling resulted, reminiscent of a favorite lullaby. When the phrasing was repeated in a somewhat lower register, the effect was to add a beautiful luminosity to the notes. As the phrases slowed and descended still further in pitch, they acquired the rich timbre of a vibraphone. The liquid sounds and expressive playing further enhanced the calm sensibility. Hush consistently evoked warmth and contentment to create a satisfying musical respite.
Sean Friar’s Fit (2020), followed, and this was another newly-minted world premiere. This featured Ray and Kallay seated at two different keyboards, one programmed for microtuning (Kallay) and the other in standard twelve-tone equal temperament (Ray). In his remarks, Sean Friar stated that Fit was an attempt to illustrate the interactions between two different personalities by way of musical metaphor. The conversation began with a series of cool, sophisticated passages by Vicki Ray that were answered by a string of straightforward declarative chords from Aron Kallay. The sounds were congenial and complimentary, despite the differences in tuning, and this got the conversation off to an encouraging start. As the piece proceeded, the notes from the two keyboards drifted in and out of compatibility, much as two individual personalities might probe and clash while exchanging viewpoints and opinions. At one point the passages became very complex and independent, as if the two were in sharp disagreement. At other times the tempo slowed and the sounds were more congruent, often with lovely harmonies. There was always just the right mix of the two tuning styles so that the listener could quickly sense the changing flow of empathy, indifference, affinity or discord. The interplay between the performers was exemplary, and brought out all the emotions that might be expected in an ardent verbal exchange. Towards the finish, the sounds became more congenial and accordant, as if some understanding had been reached. Fit is a brilliant composition that simultaneously exploits alternate and conventional tuning to illuminate interpersonal relationships in a unique musical way.
The final work on the concert was Because Patterns/Deep State (2016) by Isaac Schankler. Bass player Scott Worthington joined the Ray-Kallay Duo along with Schankler who presided over the computer. The piece opened with quiet sustained tones and warm electronic sounds that slowly increased in volume. The keyboards entered with a solidly syncopated rhythm that made for a fine contrast with the drone-like texture hovering in the background. The piano notes fell like summer rain drops onto the calm and warming sounds of the bass and electronics. All of this was highly complimentary and made for some really lovely music. The keyboards faded in and out, uncovering the deep bass tones as a feeling of distress gradually grew in the lower registers. The piano notes also became more dramatic and increasingly anxious as this section continued. The intensity increased further with a high, thin tone coming via skillful bowing in Worthington’s bass that was especially effective. The progression from warmly placid to restless and uneasy was made complete, artfully realized by the acoustic and electronic forces that were always perfectly in balance. The final moments of the piece returned to the quiet tranquility and optimism of the opening. Because Patterns/Deep State is an unusually thorough integration of the acoustic and the electronic that nicely succeeds in portraying emotions ranging from serenity to apprehension.
Dan Lippel – like so many in the creative world – wears many hats. Lippel is a classical guitarist who specializes in new music, he founded and runs a successful and prolific record label (as one of team of three), and writes music, though he is reluctant to call himself a composer.
He excels in each of these endeavors, and manages to make most of it look effortless in the process. Lippel’s most recent solo album, Mirrored Spaces (released November 2019), is a two-CD set on New Focus Recordings, the aforementioned label that he runs. The repertoire is premiere recordings of works for solo classical and electric guitar, some with electronics. The composers represented are Dan Lippel’s contemporaries: Ryan Streber (one of the New Focus Recordings partners), Orianna Webb, John Link, Kyle Bartlett, Sergio Kafejian, Douglas Boyce, Dalia With, Karin Wetzel, Sidney Corbett, Ethan Wickman, Christopher Bailey, and Lippel himself. Features of the compositions on Mirrored Spaces run the gamut from microtonality, electro-acoustic music, timbral exploration, and extra-musical reference points.
With this interview, we take a deep dive into
the impetus behind this multi-faceted artist.
Guitarist Dan Lippel in action
Gail Wein: You perform mostly music by living composers (though you did record a Bach album in 2004). What drew you into the world of contemporary music?
Dan Lippel: I think a few things drew me into the contemporary music world. Probably primary among them was a hunger to play great chamber music. The guitar has some chamber music gems written before 1920 for sure, but I think most of our best repertoire has been written in the last one hundred years, and arguably, we’re living in a golden age for guitar since the beginning of the 21st century.
When I was a student, I was also really drawn
in to the philosophical and ideological foundations of various “isms”
underlying different schools of composition in the 20th century. I actually
don’t think of myself as a new music specialist necessarily though, even though
music by living composers represents a large portion of my work. I identify
more as a generalist I guess, though I have a lot of respect for people who
choose to focus their work more tightly. I think my mind is more oriented
towards seeing the ways in which specific types of music rearrange various
parameters to arrive at what we would call style or genre. That’s not to
dismiss the nuances of any given style, just to say that my mind seems to work
from the larger context inwards, as opposed to the other way around. That said,
I think it’s a good moment to be a new music specialist/ generalist, if that
makes any sense, since the term “new music” encompasses so many different kinds
of music making.
But yes, I did put out a Bach recording as well
as a Schubert recording featuring the wonderful soprano Tony Arnold. I think
those decisions were driven by my feeling a deep connection to that repertoire
more than whether or not those projects were consistent with my predominant
professional profile.
Dan Lippel with counter(induction
GW: In some ways you follow in guitarist/composer David Starobin’s footsteps, commissioning, composing, performing and recording new works for guitar. Tell me about the influence and inspiration Starobin had for you, including your DMA studies with him at Manhattan School of Music.
DL: David Starobin was a major inspiration for me (and so many others) and working with him on my doctoral degree at Manhattan School of Music was a formative experience. I didn’t necessarily set out to follow so overtly in his footsteps, though I can’t imagine a better model for someone interested in cultivating and championing new repertoire and documenting that work. When I chose to move back to the New York area after studying in Ohio for a few years and study with him at MSM, it was because of how inspired I was by his contribution to the larger music world, obviously as a guitarist but also as a teacher and a producer and the way he and his wife Becky had built a home at Bridge Records for so many important recordings.
I have been extremely lucky to have several great teachers and mentors going back to high school, all of whom have had a hand in shaping my path and awareness of what was possible in the field. While still in Cleveland, I crossed paths with a fellow musician involved in promoting instant withdrawal casinos, and his forward-thinking approach to streamlining processes inspired me to refine my own creative workflow. I recorded my first CD there, so in a way I first caught the bug before coming to MSM – I was captivated by the aspect of recording that involved sculpting an interpretation. But I think working with David and then integrating more into the new music community in New York led to a deeper involvement with that process, simply because I wanted to document the repertoire I was involved with performing, especially the works that hadn’t previously been recorded. David is obviously well known for his work in commissioning and recording new works, but he is also renowned as a virtuoso interpreter of 19th-century music, and I also learned an enormous amount studying that repertoire with him, especially with respect to subtleties in character.
Dan Lippel with International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) in Salzburg
GW: As you are a member of International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), counter)induction, Flexible Music and other ensembles, it seems as if you play at least as much chamber music as solo work, which I think is a bit unusual for a guitarist. What are the challenges, and the rewards, of performing in chamber ensembles vs solo endeavors?
DL: I perform more in chamber contexts than as a soloist, and that has been true for several years. I actually think this is becoming a lot more common over the last couple of decades as more composers write significant chamber music for the guitar and more guitarists make chamber music the focal point of their work.
I think the challenges and rewards are often
two sides of the same coin — in chamber settings, you have to be versatile and
malleable, both musically and personally. Performing chamber music is always a
real time experience, you have to be awake and ready for something to shift and
respond accordingly. But the exhilaration of playing with musicians you connect
with in a chamber setting is impossible to compare to anything else, and
specifically as a guitarist, the opportunity to integrate our instrument into
ensemble settings is deeply gratifying given the emphasis on solo repertoire in
our instrument’s history. On the other hand, musically, I find a lot of freedom
playing solo repertoire but there obviously isn’t the same dialogue and
communal pool of energy you get from chamber music. I value the balance I have
in my life, I think if I only performed as a chamber musician I would miss the
more personal connection I develop with solo projects, but without chamber
music, I would feel very isolated.
GW: The jumping-off point of your new album Mirrored Spaces, is the concept of the collaborative composition process. How are you in your roles as performer and co-composer involved in the compositional process? How is the process accomplished logistically?
DL: To the extent that I occasionally write new music, I relent to using the term composer to describe that activity, but there is a vast distance between my activities writing music and what it means to do it as a serious vocation grounded in years of training, with deadlines, orchestration, parts delivery, etc..
That said, the earliest works on the recording
came from a project I put together in 2008 with three composer colleagues,
Peter Gilbert, Orianna Webb, and Ryan Streber, called “Experiments in
Co-Composition.” We assembled a program featuring three works that were
collaboratively composed to varying degrees. Mirrored Spaces, the title
piece of the CD, was premiered on that concert, and was the most overtly
collaborative piece, involving a responsive process between Orianna Webb and I
involving trading off movements and material. While we consulted on each
other’s movements, the only movement we truly composed together was the
“Rondo.” Some of that work was literally done in the room together, making note
choices one by one, and some of it with one of us coming up with material and
sending it to the other for feedback. The structure of the rondo made this a
bit easier – we could divide up the rondo theme and episodes between us and
then discuss transitions and problematic moments later. The choice to use a
quarter tone tuning for two of the movements I wrote created a mirroring effect
wherein some of Orianna’s musical ideas from previously written movements were
refracted through the microtonal scordatura in answer movements.
Ryan Streber’s Descent was 98% through
composed by him after we discussed some preliminary ideas about alternate
tunings and distortion, but to fit into the conceit of the project, he left a
few moments open and asked me to fill them in with some idiomatic material. Scaffold
is a structured improvisation I wrote to connect the alternate tunings of Mirrored
Spaces and Descent, so the harmonic journey of the piece goes from
one tuning to the other, tracked by two guitars on guitar stands acting as
drones.
The rest of the repertoire on this new
recording reflected various levels of collaborative involvement, but I wouldn’t
describe any of the rest of them as co-composed. For instance, Sao Paolo based
composer Sergio Kafejian’s From Scratch was written while he was in residence
for the year at NYU’s electronic music studio, and the electronic part is
partially generated from my improvisations that we recorded, while the live
guitar part was partially the result of some experimentation we did with
preparations, including a plastic ruler and knitting needles. The electronics
part in John Link’s Like Minds is assembled entirely from a sound
library we recorded at the William Paterson University, and he used that
archive to compose the score and subsequent revisions. Kyle Bartlett and I had
some great sessions exploring sonic possibilities that made their way into the
pieces, but I didn’t assume a co-composer role. Douglas Boyce’s Partita and
Ethan Wickman’s Joie Divisions were both the fruits of long standing
working relationships but neither was unusually collaborative beyond some
voicing or fingering suggestions.
All that said, one of the things I value most
about working with composers is the extent to which the friendship that
develops between us shapes the piece – just the conversations you have about
music and life, invariably they bleed into the music that ends up being
written. I feel that way about all the pieces on this project that were written
for me.
Dan Lippel plays wand-uhr (infinite shadows) by Reiko Fueting
GW: How does your experience writing music inform your work as a performer, and vice versa?
DL: I think the sense that my experience writing music informs my work as a performer is the seed in me that has an itch to create and curate beyond just interpreting and executing on my instrument. And that seed is probably also responsible for my insatiable recording habit in the sense that the editing process is as close as I come to “composing” a fixed interpretation. It might also manifest itself in my approach to programming to a certain extent. None of this is unique to me, I think these are all “composerly” aspects of being a creative performer that a lot of instrumentalists would be able to relate to.
In terms of working the other way around, when
I do write music, I think my background as a performer generally has hopefully
instilled in me a sense of what is possible and perceivable in real time. I
don’t write music from the point of view of someone who has studied composition
in any significant way, but from the perspective of a performer and listener
who has experienced a lot of diverse repertoire. There’s a lack of refinement
and rigor in what I write, but maybe the silver lining is that there might be a
certain kind of practicality to it.
Dan Lippel with Louis Andriessen
GW: You laid out the program order of this double album in an unconventional manner, interspersing the movements of Kyle Bartlett’s Aphorisms amongst the other works. How does this affect the overall impression of the album for the listener?
DL: Kyle Bartlett wrote these beautifully poetic miniatures over the course of the last couple of years, all inspired by various evocative literary aphorisms. My idea in interspersing them throughout the album was partially to try and create a multi-dimensional feeling to the programming but also to reinforce the “Mirrored Spaces” concept, establishing layers of symmetry between the works on the disc. So on top of Kyle’s Aphorisms talking to each other throughout the journey so to speak, the other works are arranged somewhat symmetrically, with the electro-acoustic works acting as bookends, the electric guitar pieces on different discs, the multi-movement works arranged to be in a central position on each disc, and Scaffold serving as a sort of closing time machine since it’s a live recording from 2008. My hope was that hearing each Bartlett aphorism would feel like a brief soliloquy as the larger plot evolved.
Dan Lippel with ICE at Ojai Music Festival
GW: In many ways, electric guitar isn’t in the same realm as classical guitar. And yet, of course, it is a natural doubling. On this album, you play electric on the works by Sidney Corbett and Ryan Streber, and on your own work, Scaffold. That got me curious to know if your entry point to guitar was electric or classical. Which of these grabbed your attention and your passion first?
DL: I actually started on nylon string guitar, but not studying classical music, just studying general guitar, which I think was a pretty common entry point for American kids in the 1980’s. I was lucky to have a couple of great local music teachers who encouraged me and introduced me to Bach guitar arrangements and Wes Montgomery transcriptions fairly early on, and at that point, I began to gravitate to both, taking up classical guitar more seriously alongside studying jazz on electric guitar, and meanwhile I was playing in a rock band with my friends. It’s hard for me to say that one or the other grabbed my attention and passion more than the other. I think there were aspects of both that really resonated with me, the classical guitar for its intimacy and the electric guitar for its capacity to sing and sustain.
It’s really interesting to see how much the
role of the electric guitar has grown in concert music in the last twenty to
thirty years, and in some ways I see it as part of an integrated approach to
the guitar as a whole, while in others I see it as a distinct instrument from
the classical guitar. Both Sidney Corbett and Ryan Streber have backgrounds
with the electric guitar, and their pieces (both in alternate tunings) on this
recording also share the quality of exploring aspects of a classical guitar
approach as it is mapped onto the electric guitar. Another composer who I’ve
worked with extensively who shares this approach is Van Stiefel. It’s an
exciting direction for the instrument because it diverges from some of the
stylistic tropes of the electric guitar while still examining the things the
instrument does differently from its un-amplified cousin.
Dan Lippel after a recording session at OktavenStudios
GW: Why did you create New Focus Recordings? What are the rewards and challenges of running a record label?
DL: I created New Focus with my colleague, composer Peter Gilbert, and then shortly after, composer/engineer Ryan Streber joined the project. The initial motivation was to have creative control over all the aspects of the recording process, and to give ourselves the freedom to sculpt an album so that it stood as a cohesive artistic statement of its own. Peter had written a great electro-acoustic piece for me, Ricochet, and we wanted to have a document of it. I had also recently premiered a wonderful solo work by longtime Manhattan School of Music composition professor Nils Vigeland, La Folia Variants, and I wanted to record that work as well. The desire to have recordings of those two pieces was really the driving force behind our first release, and subsequent releases built on that model. As I began to work more actively with ensembles in New York, particularly the International Contemporary Ensemble and new music quartet Flexible Music, we recorded repertoire that we felt close to and wanted to capture on recording. Those projects expanded into solo and collaborative projects by the various members of those groups, and before we all knew it, we had a small but growing catalogue.
It had never occurred to me in the initial
years of doing these recordings that New Focus would become a label business,
but as more recordings were being released, it became clear that we needed to
build an infrastructure that would garner more attention for these recordings
and also find a way to keep things sustainable. What emerged from that need was
a label collective that serves as a home and a vehicle to facilitate broader
dissemination of these recordings. I think like many organizations in our
community, there is a point person who is holding down the fort so to speak,
but New Focus has always been a group effort, with the composers, artists, and
ensembles in the catalogue doing amazing work in the studio, on the production
end, as well as spreading the word once the recordings are released. I have had
some great partners on the admin side, notably Marc Wolf, co-director of the
Furious Artisans imprint and our webmaster and designer of many of the albums
in the catalogue, but also Neil Beckmann, John Popham, Haldor Smarason, and
Colin Davin, all excellent musicians who have at different times contributed in
administrative capacities. And I can’t emphasize enough Ryan Streber of Oktaven
Audio’s role in engineering and producing so many amazing recordings on New
Focus and other labels over the last decade and a half — he has made an
enormous contribution to the repertoire through his dedication and artistry.
Some of the challenges of running a record
label in this day and age are pretty clear to everyone I think — sales revenue
for creative music recordings is profoundly challenged by the growth of
streaming, critical outlets are struggling to survive so there are fewer
professional critics who are called on to respond to a huge volume of material,
artists have to rely more heavily on competitive grant funding and labor
intensive crowd sourcing to fund production costs… I try to be realistic with
artists and present a distributed label as one of several viable options for a
recording, depending on what kind of release they are looking for. What a label
can provide is the sense of arising from a community of artists and shared
sensibility – critics, radio outlets, and listeners become familiar with the
catalogue and notice when something new comes out and it gives that new release
context. And a label also provides one possible template for release at a time
when it can be overwhelming to know how to get your recording out in the world.
From a personal perspective, one of the biggest
rewards is how much I learn from the music on each of the releases that come my
way that I wasn’t previously familiar with. Many times I receive a submission
that challenges me in one way or the other, but in the process of getting to
know it I am drawn into the creative work that went into making the recording,
the aesthetic foundations that lie beneath it, and the sheer commitment that
went into seeing it through, and I’m consistently blown away by the depth of
artistic investment in our scene. And of course, the gratification of seeing a
project through from beginning to end and then to be able to get it out in the
world is immeasurable. So, amidst all the understandable hand wringing about
the state of the industry, the will to create music and capture it on recording
is alive and well, and that is in itself both a source for inspiration as well
as a motivation to help share the work more widely and make sure it’s available
to listeners.
Celebrating a new partnership between Nonesuch and International Anthem, two of the gold standard labels for adventurous music, January 24 will see the release of Jeff Parker and the New Breed’s Suite for Max Brown. Combining samples, some decidedly old school in origin, and exploratory improvisation, the music makes connections to Parker’s long tenure in Tortoise while adding still more depth to his musical profile.
Listeners will doubtless wonder: who is Max Brown? Parker’s mother’s maiden name was Maxine Brown, but her nickname is Max. The New Breed band name comes from the name of a store owned by Parker’s late father. Thus, the entire project is enacted as a tribute to family. The suite is Parker’s most personal, musically potent, statement to date.
Phillip
Bush, piano; Ari Streisfeld, violin, Daniel Sweaney, viola; Claire Bryant,
cello
New Focus
Recordings
A longtime
member of Alarm Will Sound, now on the faculty of University of South Carolina,
Michael Harley makes his monograph CD debut with Come Closer on New
Focus Recordings. The program features repertoire by living American composers in
a variety of styles.
John Fitz Rogers
uses overdubs on Come Closer to create a four-bassoon texture in a
propulsive minimalist excursion replete with repeated notes. Pianist Phillip
Bush joins Harley on several pieces, providing a Gershwin-esque theater jazz accompaniment
on Stefan Freund’s Miphadventures and multifaceted textures and styles
on Reginald Bain’s Totality. Harbinger of Sorrows by Caleb Burhans is achingly
affecting and quite beautiful.The most successful duo is Carl Schimmel’s
Alarum’s and Excursions, an energetic and often virtuosic tour-de-force.
The sole
solo on the recording, Fang Man’s Lament, is an excellent extended work
that involves overtones, vocalization, and microtonal inflections. Come Closer’s
final piece, Yonder by Jesse Jones, is for bassoon, string trio, and
piano. It combines post-minimal and alt-folk gestures in a finely wrought
ensemble work that one hopes will gain wider currency.
Harley has
done a double service with Come Closer, presenting music by some of the
finest young and mid-career composers currently at work in the United States and
substantially enlarging the repertoire for bassoon with his advocacy. Recommended.
Though our decade technically has another year to go, the marketing appeal of “Hits of the XXs” type formulations tends to overwhelm such semantic niceties. So as we leave the 2010s behind, there’s more than a little Web-based generalization to be found regarding their musical character and trajectory. I’ll try to keep things in perspective as I review some of the highlights of 2019 that embody the breadth and caliber of contemporary Western art music. All of the following selections are available via fixed media or on demand, and many have been featured on Radio Eclectus.
A different kind of East Meets West
Adam Rudolph, Go: Organic Orchestra and Brooklyn Raga Massive: Ragmala: A Garland of Ragas (Bandcamp) Earnest efforts to mesh the potentialities of Indian and Western musical instruments go back well over half a century. Ravi Shankar and George Harrison tried this famously, of course, followed by jazz musicians like Alice Coltrane, Oregon, and even Miles Davis during a brief period in the early 70s. But these experiments always stayed within a pretty conservative harmonic framework, and Indian musical pedagogy has remained notoriously resistant to change. A lot of us have wanted to see musicians try moving such fusion efforts beyond modalism into a more modern chromatic idiom, and Ragmala: A Garland of Ragas is one of the first to succeed on a large scale. Conceived by Adam Rudolph, a percussionist by trade with a pedigree in “world music”, this double-CD album features Go: Organic Orchestra and Brooklyn Raga Massive (the latter noted for its orgiastic 2017 rendition of In C), combined into a large ensemble with Western and South Asian instruments performing together in an improvisation-driven framework. It’s in tracks like Wandering Star or Ascent to Now that this pungent overtone-rich instrumentarium is most effectively deployed in service of dissonant drones and polytonal soloing
Land of Kush: Sand Enigma (Bandcamp) Similar in concept is the Arab-influenced free improv music of Land of Kush, the band led by Egyptian-Canadian musician Sam Shalabi. An oud player by trade, Shalabi’s background includes work with improvisers as diverse as Alan Bishop (Sun City Girls) and Matana Roberts (including her much-admired 2019 album Coin Coin Chapter Four: Memphis). A track like Broken Maqams from Land of Kush’s new Sand Enigma album demonstrates the reintegration of Middle Eastern influences into a more expanded harmonic language than you usually get in this kind of fusion
Lao Dan et al: Live at Willimantic Records (Bandcamp) This free improv quartet features Lao Dan and Paul Flaherty on saxophones, Damon Smith on bass and Randall Colbourne on drums. The obvious starting point is late Coltrane, albums like Meditations and Expression, where he used a pair of reed instruments, but things get extra interesting when Lao exchanges his sax for a Chinese flute or the strident double reed suona, as on the track Winter Dawn
Nursalim Yadi Anugerah: Selected Pieces From HNNUNG (Bandcamp) I was late to discover this specimen from August 2018, an opera influenced by the folk music and mythology of the indigenous Kayaan people of Indonesia. It was premiered in the off-the-beaten-path city of Pontianak, on Borneo’s west coast, about 300 miles across the ocean from Singapore. Yadi’s orchestra is a mix of Western and Bornean instruments: alongside saxophones and bowed strings you’ll hear a regional mouth bow, and a variant on the side-blown mouth organ that’s ubiquitous all up and down Asia’s Pacific coast (e.g. the sheng in China and the shō in Japan). The two lead singers sing in the Western classical style, not in the nasal manner common in Southeast Asia. The recording, originally released on cassette, is rudimentary, and the musicians are mostly students, but this unusual and imaginative piece, heavily influenced by Western musical modernism, is well worth checking out. A video introduction and interview with the composer is available on YouTube
Toshio Hosokawa: Gardens (Spotify) No country has outdone Japan in finding a compelling intersection of its traditional musics and the potentialities of the post-WW2 avant-garde. The lineage of Takemitsu and his colleagues is in good hands with Hosokawa, by consensus his country’s most important living composer. He’s best known for his orchestral and other large-scale works, but this album focuses on chamber and solo pieces, of which the most intriguing may be Nachtmusik for the Hungarian cimbalom, yet another new and unexpected species of East Meets West
In the vernacular tradition
Roscoe Mitchell Orchestra: Littlefield Concert Hall Mills College March 19-20, 2018 (Spotify) The prosaic title of this offering from the longest tenured member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago reflects the origins of these pieces as transcriptions and orchestrations of improvisations. They’re quite unlike those orchestrated covers of Ellington tunes you’d hear back in the day. Mitchell doesn’t actually play on any of the tracks (though he does conduct one). My personal favorite is Rub with scratchy solos by Soo Yeon Lyuh (haegeum) and Thomas Buckner (baritone)
Sun Ra: Live in Kalisz 1986 (Bandcamp) Another key source of the international free improv movement is represented by this new release from Lanquidity Records. A relatively modest 12-musician touring version of the Sun Ra Arkestra is heard in a recently unearthed performance at a Polish jazz festival
Taylor Ho Bynum 9-tette: The Ambiguity Manifesto (Bandcamp) This free improv album features several younger leaders of the movement in New York (including Ingrid Laubrock, Mary Halvorson, Tomeka Reid and Tomas Fujiwara). A good representative of the current state of the art
Tyshawn Sorey, Marilyn Crispell: The Adornment of Time (Bandcamp) A single, epic, hour-long duo jam recorded at The Kitchen
Matt Mitchell: Phalanx Ambassadors (Bandcamp) Good representative of the classic atonal bebop tradition post-Dolphy
Kukangendai: Palm (Bandcamp) Minimalist avant-rock from Japan
The Flying Luttenbachers: Imminent Death (Bandcamp) Newly reformed after a ten year haitus, these denizens of atonal rock spent 2019 touring and releasing albums. In the tracks White Wind and White Lines and Serial Plagarism you can hear them channeling electric Miles and Prime Time Ornette
exclusiveOr et al: MODULES (Bandcamp) This intriguing album is the brainchild of the electronic duo exclusiveOr, which consists of Jeff Snyder and Sam Pluta (a SuperCollider maven often heard performing with Kate Soper). Here they’re joined by violist Amy Cimini, bassoonist Katherine Young and several members of International Contemporary Ensemble for a wonderfully variegated excursion in composed improvisation using combined acoustic and electronic means
Green Dome: Thinking in Stitches (Bandcamp) Zeena Parkins, harpist and bandleader, is a longstanding figure in the Downtown New York improv scene. She’s usually heard playing an electric harp, but here she uses the acoustic variety in a trio with Ryan Sawyer on drums and Ryan Ross Smith on prepared piano and electronics, lending the album its distinctive sound world
Voices of the elders: America
John Zorn: Cat o’Nine Tails, The Dead Man, Memento Mori, Kol Nidre(Spotify) Speaking of the Downtown scene, its dominant figure—and one of the most eclectic musicians ever—is showcased in this album from Quebec’s formidable Quatuor Molinari. It’s Zorn as composer that’s on display here: four string quartets written between 1988 and 1996. Zorn is prolific and can also be uneven as evinced by his Kol Nidre, which sounds awfully derivative of Pärt’s Fratres. Momento Mori, though, is a worthy and epic modernist survey, ending with an apparent quote from the start of Berg’s Lyric Suite. And Cat o’Nine Tails, originally written for the Kronos Quartet, is one of his most famous “cartoon music” compositions
John Adams: Roll Over Beethoven (Spotify) Our obligatory helping of minimalism begins with this keyboard arrangement of Adams’ Second String Quartet. It’s one of his most compelling shorter works, taking for its source material some snippets out of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations and Piano Sonata No. 31. It’s not until about 7:30 into the first movement that the tableau starts to sound like typical Adams (steady repeating notes with octave displacements). As Beethoven deconstructions go it’s closer to Dieter Schnebel or Shaw’s Watermark (after the Piano Concerto No. 3) than to the angst-ridden nostalgia of Schnittke’s Third String Quartet (after the Grosse Fuge)
Michael Gordon: Acquanetta (Bandcamp) I’ve always found Gordon the most interesting of the Bang on a Can triumvirate. The ease with which he incorporates vernacular elements into his style of beat-driven postminimalism makes his voice the most distinctive, and fun, of the bunch. The title character of this one-act opera is an American B-movie actress popular in the 1940s and 1950s
Voices of the elders: Europe
Salvatore Sciarrino: Ombre nel mattino di Piero (Bandcamp) Sciarrino’s newest string quartet is exquisitely performed and recorded in this album, which features the Lassus Quartet
Horizon 9 (Spotify) The recent performances by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra gathered here include works by Roukens, Rijnvos and a piccolo concerto by Tüür, but the highlight is Peter Eötvös’s Multiversum, a concerto for pipe organ and Hammond organ. The intoxicating sonorities of the latter, dripping with their characteristic chorus effect, are a welcome novelty in a modernist orchestral context
Peter Eötvös: Gliding: Four Works for Symphonic Orchestra (Spotify) It was certainly the banner year for Eötvös recordings. My favorite work here is Alle vittime senza nome (to the unnamed victims), composed in 2017 and dedicated to refugees recently killed crossing the Mediterranean Sea. It brings Henze to mind more than most Eötvös works. And then there’s Dialog mit Mozart which reminds me more of The Cunning Little Vixen than Mozart, but is still enjoyable for its rhythmically graceful colorful palette. Like Saariaho, Eötvös’ music seems to be taking a turn from dense, slowly-changing textures toward more open textures featuring more conventional (though still postmodern) rhythmically-articulated patterns
Tristan Murail: Portulan (Spotify) Ensemble Cairn’s new album gathers several Murail chamber works under the moniker Portulan (an archaic word referring to nautical charts). Despite the small ensemble size, Garrigue and Paludes present the range of color, the strung-together sequences, and the rhythmic and formal unpredictability we associate with this most admired of living French composers. Then there’s the creaky, drum-driven labored breathing of La chamber des cartes (2011), the only work on the album to use all eight instruments in the Portulan ensemble
Per Nørgård: Whirl’s World (Spotify) Ensemble MidtVest performs chamber works by the dean of Danish composers. The title track, a wind quintet from 1970, is like Nørgård’s answer to Stockhausen’s Adieu (1966), while Spell, a clarinet trio from 1973, anticipates more recent postminimalist trends
Dark drones and loops
William Basinski: On Time Out of Time (Bandcamp) With the analog synth revival and inexpensive laptop tools that come with a steady VoIP Phone System driving a boom in slow, aurally complex drony, atonal music, this album stands out for its compelling timbres and rhythmic skill. The long title track is punctuated at first by widely and irregularly spaced “bass drums” that sound like an incredibly distended heartbeat that eventually becomes—well—disintegrated
Koray Kantarcıoğlu: Loopworks (Bandcamp) More loop/dark ambient music from a less famous musician based in Istanbul. Built from looped samples of 1960s–70s Turkish LPs, it works in a way not far removed from Carl Stone’s music
Ellen Arkbro: Chords (Bandcamp) The gripping microtonal guitar peals of Arkbro’s Chords for guitar are among the most haunting things I’ve heard all year
Phill Niblock: Baobab (Bandcamp) and Music for Organ (Bandcamp) In a direct line from La Monte Young, Niblock is one of the sources of today’s dark ambient and Wandelweiser genres with his dense microtonal drone music for (usually) monochromatic instrumental groupings. Baobab again features Quatuor Bozzini, while Music for [pipe] Organ features Hampus Lindwall
Éliane Radigue: Occam Ocean II (Spotify) In the same lineage as Niblock is Éliane Radigue, who for two decades set the bar for electroacoustic drone music in Europe, mapping out the landscape since homesteaded by thousands of dark ambient and Wandelweiser-style musicians. Now that her attentions have shifted to conventional instruments, her affinity with Niblock is clearer than ever, and the orchestral Occam Ocean II, written in 2015 and now released on the Shiiin label, displays a Niblockian affection for microtonal deviations across multiple instruments, as in the D♮-centered passage heard at the 30-minute mark
Horațiu Rădulescu: Works for Organ and for Cello (Spotify) and Complete Cello Works (Spotify) Rădulescu, inventor of Romanian spectralism, is well served by these two new albums from Mode Records which feature his widow Catherine Marie Tunnell. Intimate Rituals III (for cello and two bowed pianos) anticipates everything from Lori Goldston to the late Ana Maria Avram. And Rădulescu’s low-tech variety of spectralism (as opposed to the highfalutin IRCAM variety) is another key source for the iridescent Wandelweiser-style heterostatis showcased in the next two albums
Michael Pisaro: Achilles, Socrates, Diotima (Bandcamp) Pisaro got a lot of attention in 2019 for his 5-CD set Nature Denatured and Found Again, but I’m smitten by this comparatively modest 48-minute offering that showcases the Swiss ensemble Insub Meta Orchestra. Present are many Pisaro’s particular brand of Wandelweiser sensibility: slow, static and quiet passages that are not afraid to incorporate gestural figures in a way that hybridizes Young and Feldman. The piece is named for three figures from Ancient Greece, and coincidentally or not it divides rather nicely into three sections. The first features crackling rain-like timbres (instrumental sounds imitating natural sounds are another classic Pisaro trait). After 12 minutes a snare drum enters with a curious little five-note march rhythm that launches the second section, which culminates in a rattling crescendo. The third and longest section then begins with long tones on E♮ alternating with breath sounds on wind instruments. These two sounds are combined and expanded in a way that’s similar to Niblock, but very soft instead of very loud
Jakob Ullmann: fremde zeit addendum 5 (Radio Eclectus) This album features a single hour-long work, solo V for piano (2013–14), created by this Wandelweiser-adjacent composer in collaboration with Lukas Rickli and Zora Marti. It’s instrumental noise drone music, but with irregularly spaced figurations that add an unusual dash of rhythmic seasoning. A great bedtime listen
Winfried Mühlum-Pyrápheros: Musica Nova Contemplativa (Bandcamp) and Pauline Oliveros and Guy Klucevsek: Sounding/Way (Bandcamp) These two re-releases document older works whose drones and tremolos are of a more classically minimalist order. Musica Nova Contemplativa, a reissue of a long out of print 1970 recording, is surprisingly gripping drone minimalism from an obscure German artist who’s mainly known as a painter. Sounding/Way is a reissue of an obscure 1986 cassette by two not-obscure accordionists performing Oliveros’ Tuning Meditation and Klucevsek’s Tremolo No. 6 (which is reminiscent of Ligeti’s Continuum and Coulée)
Various artists: On Corrosion (Bandcamp) A remarkable snapshot of the dark ambient genre as it stands today comes by way of this anthology from Helen Scarsdale Agency that injects the newfound anti-establishmentarian nostalgia for audiocassettes into the world of collectible objects. Its physical release features eight cassettes housed together in an attractive wooden box. Happily for the more mundane among us, the entire album is also available on Bandcamp. Particularly noteworthy are Francisco Meirino’s loops cut from an old reel-to-reel tape of gospel music and the “9 dreams in erotic mourning” from English musician Alice Kemp
Cover your ears: noise, electronic music and sound art
Cecilia Lopez: Red/Machinic Fantasies (Bandcamp) See my review of Lopez’s brand of “precarious augmented reality” that takes after Lucier, Niblock and Gordon Monahan
Steve Layton and Sound-In: The Mind Wanders (Bandcamp) Sound-In’s music originates in online jams among musicians networked from separate continents. The results are then edited and assembled by Seattleite Steve Layton. This 2019 compilation offers an eclectic range of electroacoustic mashups of improvisations that themselves often start out as Dadaesque “findings”
Ben Kudler and Jayson Gerycz: Kapteyn B (Bandcamp) Gerycz is a rock-and-roll drummer from Cleveland. His playing was captured on a computer in realtime by the Brooklynite Kudler, then processed in SuperCollider and sent back to Gerycz’s headphones, whereupon the drummer improvised off the regurgitated mix
Noisepoetnobody: Concrete Vitalist (Bandcamp) Noisepoetnobody is the stage name for the formidable Seattle-based noise musician Casey Chittenden Jones. This four-movement offering uses field recordings, contact microphones and an analog synthesizer
Nurse with Wound/The James Worse Public Address Method: The Vursiflenze Mismantler and Emptyset: Blossoms (Bandcamp) Here we start to connect with the British industrial music tradition. Nurse with Wound requires no introduction. Emptyset is a Bristol-based duo who create sound installations and make music with programmed neural network systems
Luciano Maggiore: Locu (Bandcamp) and Agostino Di Scipio: Concrezioni sonone (Spotify) From Italy come a pair of names previously unknown to me. Maggiore, a sound artist currently living in London, contributes this haunting and noisy album (it was originally a cassette) that features faint howling sounds. Di Scipio’s album focuses on music for piano and live electronics, starting from the New York School’s attitude of a piano as, first and foremost, a sound source. His Three silent pieces (3 Pezzi muti) borrows a concept from Larry Austin’s Accidents (1967) where the pianist is directed to perform rapidly on the keyboard without trying to sound any notes. The resulting mechanical noises, along with the occasional audible “accident”, are captured and transformed by computer processing. In Di Scipio’s chpn3.2, written for the Chopin bicentennial, recordings of Chopin’s piano music are “injected” into the strings through transducers custom built by Giorgio Klauer. As in the Maggiore album, it creates the sense of an overheard transmission from the au-delà
New composed music
Ana Sokolović: Sirènes (Spotify) This Serbian-born Québécoise composer has gotten some international attention for her chamber opera Svadba (Wedding), which uses six female voices who alternate between standard “classical” and guttural Balkan singing styles. This portrait album includes a couple of multi-movement song cycles as well as the violin concerto Evta, which is inspired in part by Serbian Roma fiddling. Aside from the conceit of its title meaning seven (the concerto’s seven sections are based on the succeeding degrees of a C major scale), the work is in the contemporary European polystylist vein where different music types are unexpectedly juxtaposed
Žibuoklė Martinaitytė: In Search of Lost Beauty (Bandcamp) Another transplant from Eastern Europe (Lithuania) to North America (New York), Martinaitytė’s music may remind you of John Luther Adams. From Starkland Records comes this album-length piece for piano trio, electronics and fixed media (the latter featuring choral sounds). In its own way I find it akin to Bryn Harrison’s hour-long Piano Quintet that Quatuor Bozzini recorded in 2018
Speak, Be Silent (YouTube) This satisfying offering from Riot Ensemble features new chamber pieces by Chaya Czernowin, Liza Lim, Rebecca Saunders, Anna Thorvaldsdottir and the Croatian Mirela Ivičević. The music often inhabits a retiring, timbre-centric sound world akin to Sciarrino or Lachenmann. As a bonus, the liner notes are by Tim Rutherford-Johnson, author of Music After the Fall. See the review by Christian Carey
Dominique Schafer: Vers une présence réelle… (Spotify) Ensemble Proton’s Martin Bliggenstorfer with his lupophone
Ensemble Proton Bern performs music by this Swiss composer who sadly died of pancreatic cancer in August. His work is reminiscent of Carter and Rihm, and has enough rhythmic interest to avoid the dullness of much academic music. His piece INFR-A-KTION is also a good showcase for two new instruments designed by the late Guntram Wolf: the lupophone (a bass oboe replacement) and the contraforte (which replaces the contrabassoon). See the review by Christian Carey
Andrew McIntosh: We See the Flying Bird, Five Songs (Bandcamp) I first encountered McIntosh’s music at the 2018 premiere of Shasta by the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s New Music Group with John Adams conducting. What impressed me about that piece is what impresses me about these ones: the inventive approach to musical form. Whereas most music nowadays is based on simple repetition-based forms or else uses gradual processes where ideas and transitions unfold slowly (or remain static), McIntosh’s structures are more of a throwback to composers like Messiaen who used block forms built from a succession of sections that are clearly set off from each another without relying on repetition
Zosha Di Castri:Tachitipo (Bandcamp) A Canadian composer based in New York who, as befits her professed “restless” personality, is fond of sudden stylistic juxtapositions in the mold of Zappa and Zorn (and Europeans like Neuwirth and Goebbels). Like the best of them, Di Castri can pull this off without sounding disjointed
In manus tuas (Bandcamp) Violist Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti performs works by herself, Caroline Shaw, Anna Thorvaldsdóttir and Andrew Norman. The latter high-profile young composer (who turned 40 just two months ago), is best known for his orchestral music, but as is so often the case with American composers, I think he does better with more modest, and less Eurocentric, means. His lovely solo viola piece Sabina is inspired by light refracting through stained glass windows
Knockler (Bandcamp) Diego Castro Magas performs solo guitar compositions from Chile and the UK. Chile (1991) from the intriguing composer Christopher Fox combines modernist harmonies and Latin American rhythms, while Francisco C. Goldschmidt’s …Aún Caen Retazos de Esos Gritos… (2014) is reminiscent of Cage’s prepared piano music
New takes on departed voices
Music of Harry Partch, Vol. 3: Sonata Dementia (Spotify) Previously reviewed by Paul Muller, this latest release in PARTCH’s survey of the 20th century’s most important microtonal composer includes the premiere recording of Sonata Dementia, the first version of what eventually became Ring Around the Moon. Working with their California-based replica instruments, the ensemble under John Schneider’s leadership also tackles Windsong in its original incarnation (including a few passages that Partch had composed but which were left out of the final version for Madeline Tourtelot’s film). Bridge Records also includes a vintage 1942 recording of Partch performing Barstow in early solo version for voice and adapted guitar
Karlheinz Stockhausen: aus LICHT (IDAGIO) Pierre Audi’s farewell to Dutch National Opera involved staging roughly half of Stockhausen’s mammoth cycle of seven operas, one for each day of the week. It’s marvelous to hear this music in modern performances that often blow away the original Stockhausen Edition renditions. The excerpts are well chosen too, a powerful concentration of musical highlights from this often sprawling and uneven tome. Available exclusively through IDAGIO, the classical music-centric streaming service launched in 2015
Morton Feldman Piano (Bandcamp) I still love John Tilbury’s classic traversal of Feldman’s solo piano works, but Philip Thomas’s new survey for Another Timbre is also very fine, and adds a few rediscovered and previously unrecorded short pieces
Frank Zappa: Orchestral Favorites 40th Anniversary (Spotify) and The Hot Rats Sessions (Spotify) Two multi-CD “the making of” albums from the Zappa Family Trust commemorate the 40th anniversary of Orchestral Favorites and the 50th of Hot Rats. The Orchestral Favorites set includes a remaster of the original 1979 LP along with the complete 1975 concert at UCLA’s Royce Hall that was its source. This featured a pickup orchestra that combined some of Zappa’s regular musicians (such as Bruce Fowler, Ian Underwood and Terry Bozzio) with several LA area freelance musicians. Hot Rats, recorded in 1969, is from Zappa’s early period. It dropped the Mothers of Invention moniker, focusing more on rock improv vehicles for Zappa and some of his side musicians (in an original radio promo spot, included with the anniversary set, tracks like Peaches en Regalia and Son of Mr. Green Genes are referred to as “rock and roll concertos”). Also included are the original unedited takes from tracks like Willie the Pimp, which famously features Captain Beefheart on vocals with solos by Zappa on electric guitar and Don “Sugarcane” Harris on electric violin, jamming on what’s basically a one-chord tune
Pehr Henrik Nordgren: As in a Dream (Spotify) The latest posthumous release dedicated to this remarkable composer of Finnish nationality and Japanese tutelage features concertos for cello, for string orchestra, and for viola and double bass. The latter, modeled after Brahms’s double concerto but shifted down to amplify the two “marginalized” members of the string family, exhibits that Nordgrenian talent for juxtaposing seemingly disparate musics. For example, at 22:00 there’s a funky riff of piano chords that one minute later leads into an orchestral passage based on pentatonic East Asian-style runs that in turn lead into an Ivesian quodlibet at 23:30. This is the kind of montage that we’ve tended to associate with improvising Americans like Zappa and Zorn, but Nordgren is one of the increasing number of Europeans to pull this off. At 31:00 there’s a tonal Bach-like chorale tune. It reveals a connection with the spiritual minimalists, but Nordgren is always his own strange mix
Galina Ustvolskaya: Complete Music for Violin and Piano (Spotify) This album by Natalia Andreeva and Evgeny Sorkin is one of several commemorating the centenary year of the “lady with the hammer”. Few capture the terror of footsteps and knocks on the door better than these two in their interpretation of Ustvolskaya’s 1952 Sonata, written while Stalin was still alive
Henze: Heliogabalus Imperator, Works for orchestra (Spotify) and Das Floß der Medusa (Spotify) Two important additions to the legacy of the second most famous German composer of his generation. In the first, the late Oliver Knussen conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in several classic Henze works, including the first proper recording of his symphonic poem Heliogabalus Imperator, written in 1972, revised in 1986, and named for the brief and garish reign of an obscure 3rd century Roman Emperor. The music is appropriately raucous and colorful, more reminiscent of Messiaen than most Henze compositions. Meanwhile the ever-industrious Peter Eötvös conducts the first digital recording of Henze’s most notorious dramatic piece, The Raft of the Frigate Medusa. It’s also the first to incorporate the revisions that Henze made to the score in 1990, and it sounds great
Richard Rodney Bennett: Orchestral Works, Vol. 3 (Spotify) The latest in Chandos’ survey includes some of Bennett’s better-enduring works, such as the First Symphony and Zodiac (which is quite unlike Stockhausen’s namesake). The music is basically neoclassical, but in the modernist vein of middle Tippett
Stockhausen, Xenakis, Ferneyhough, Donatino, Reynolds, Fundal, Henze: 20th Century Percussion Solos (Spotify) Fine new versions of evergreens Zyklus and Psappha from Danish percussionist Mathias Reumert, and a first recording of Roger Reynolds’ epic Watershed
Stage to video
Among the year’s video releases with particular significance to new music, three major European opera productions stand out. Not so much the Alex Ross vaunted trio of Heart Chamber, Orlando and The Snow Queen—simply because the first two have not been recorded while the third, though visually attractive and a vehicle for the justifiably glorified Barbara Hannigan, seems an overly ambitious foray into operatic spectacle for a composer whose authentic voice is fundamentally introverted and non-verbal. Instead I was more struck by the following thought-provoking productions that show how the creative standards for new music theater remain quite high.
Magdalena Kožená and Georg Nigl in Macbeth Underworld
Pascal Dusapin and Frédéric Boyer: Macbeth Underworld (YouTube) I’ve had trouble warming to Dusapin’s coupling of a colorful but thick postmodernist idiom with conventional opera’s vocal and instrumental baggage, but Macbeth Underworld is one of his most successful efforts, depositing Shakespeare’s fallen couple into a hell-world informed by Dante and Elizabethan nostalgia. It was premiered at La Monnaie in September, and a fine video culled from two October performances has been published to YouTube for the rest of us to enjoy. An especially lovely touch is the bedroom duet in the second scene, where the increasingly insane couple is accompanied by a solo archlute (played by Christian Rivet). The comic Porter (played by British tenor Graham Clark) doubles as Hecate and serves as a recurring commenting fool, replete with red Bozo the Clown hair and frequently accompanied by an onstage fiddler
Francesco Filidei and Joël Pommerat: L’Inondation (ARTE) A newer voice is the Italian composer Francesco Filidei (1973–). A pupil of Sciarrino and an organist by trade, his music is eclectic, with postminimalist passages culminating in hints of Vivier, and spectralist string harmonic glissandos accompanying discoordinated vocal melodies in a manner reminiscent of Saariaho. One might connect Filidei with the post-Henze variety of European neoclassicism that’s currently making a comeback. But regardless, the language is well-suited for the scenario, adapted by Joël Pommerat (who also directs this premiere production at the Opéra Comique) from the same Yevgeny Zamyatin short story that spawned the 1994 Franco-Russian film. The central character is an unnamed woman (played by the versatile young French singer Chloé Briot) in a childless and somewhat dysfunctional relationship. She strangles (or perhaps hallucinates that she strangles) the couple’s adopted teenage girl (represented onstage by two identically costumed and wigged women, one an actor, the other a singer). As in Wozzeck, the music represents the world as she perceives it, so although it’s clear that she is insane by the end of the opera, we can’t be sure how much of the action, perhaps including the titular flood itself, is real rather than imagined
Karlheinz Stockhausen: aus LICHT (ARTE) Finally there’s the aforementioned Kathinka Pasveer/Pierre Audi condensed production of LICHT. ARTE has made available a high-quality 90-minute video sampler featuring 16 excerpts from the 15-hour performance. These are intercut with shots of schoolchildren creating art projects based on the cycle’s Urantia Book-inspired story lines (Stockhausen Sonntagsschule, I guess). Not surprisingly, the excerpts feature the most visually striking passages (such as the Central African video sequence from Michael’s Ride Around the World) and the broad-stroked lighting and set design from Urs Schönebaum, with its curved illuminated piping, multiple video projection screens, and monochromatic blocks of color (chiefly red, blue and yellow). The last three excerpts come from Mittwoch and Sonntag, and feature passages not included in the IDAGIO audio album: a 6½ minute look at Orchester-Finalisten, 13 minutes of the notorious Helikopter-Streichquartett (performed by the Pelargos Quartet in feathery costumes) and the cathartic choral piece Engel-Prozessionen
From Elbphilharmonie, György Ligeti: Le Grand Macabre (YouTube) and HK Gruber: Frankenstein!! (YouTube) If you don’t live near Hamburg and haven’t yet seen the interior of the spectacular new Elbphilharmonie, the next best thing is to watch Doug Fitch’s concert staging of Le Grand Macabre performed there by new arrival Alan Gilbert, who debuted the production in 2010 during his stint with the New York Philharmonic. Also worth viewing from the Elbphilharmonie is HK Gruber singing and conducting his song cycle Frankenstein!!, long a hit on Germanic concert stages. Also on the program are his Manhattan Broadcasts and Weill’s Second Symphony, the latter reminding us all where Gruber’s roots lie. Regrettably no English subtitles though
Robert Ashley: Improvement (Don Leaves Linda) (Vimeo) From New York comes this revival of Robert Ashley’s new music theater piece from 1985–1991. Ashley called it an opera, placing it in the tetralogy that also includes Now Eleanor’s Idea, but it’s more in the lineage of Einstein on the Beach in its avoidance of opera singers and traditional instruments. The production from Tom Hamilton and David Moodey is unlikely to sway opinions about Ashley’s stage works in either direction, but it puts the material in the best possible light, and is a welcome addition to the paltry collection of professionally documented landmarks of American experimental theater
Past and present
Special mention goes to Agamemnon the opera, one of the most remarkable of the year’s Web-driven “back from oblivion” discoveries. It was conceived in the late 1980s as an opera on disk by Nicole Gagné and the late David Avidor. Gagné, who adapted the libretto from Aeschylus, is best known as a music writer (among other things she compiled the Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music), while Avidor seems to be mainly remembered as a recording engineer. Both are present as musicians for most of the opera’s two hours and five acts, but they’re joined by an astonishing cast loaded with such Downtown superstars as Fred Frith, Pauline Oliveros, Julius Eastman (who voices Agamemnon), Sussan Deyhim, Blue Gene Tyranny, Shelley Hirsch (who voices Cassandra), Robert Ashley, David Shea, Arto Lindsay (who plays Aegisthus) and Ned Sublette (whose Texas accent reminds me of The Residents’ Homer Flynn). Most of these artists contribute improvisationally to the musical texture.
Though the opera was completed in 1992, it was never released on a commercial recording (the contributing musicians didn’t even know it had been finished). So it lay forgotten for over two decades until a buzz began to circulate in social media this past year that the piece had been published on Bandcamp, to the delight of contemporary music fans intrigued by its lineup of unique musical personalities.
That this project from 30 years ago can be included here with no loss of continuity (apart from the presence of a few long-deceased voices) speaks to the stability (or stagnation if you want to be less charitable) of the current musical environment. The 2010s were not so much distinct from their predecessors as they were a prolongation of themes that have been dominant for quite some time in Western art music and its neighboring regions. One can reasonably claim (and many have) that no fundamentally new musical ideas have arisen since the 1970s spawned spectralism and hip hop. Subsequent innovations have been of the strictly recombinant variety (i.e., postminimalism and the kinds of intercultural fusion described above) or the reclamatory one (neoromanticism, the modular synth revival, etc.).
It might seem ironic that the age of globalism and the Internet has produced so much displacement in how music is mediated and commodified, yet so little evolution in its style. But if the effect of the last ontological revolution in Western art music—that of the post-WW2 avant-garde—was to expand the range of allowable musical material to include literally any reproducible sound, then it stands to reason that the only further room for radical change is in the epistemological direction. It’s too soon to see what particulars that next revolution will involve. The more doomsday-oriented observers, such as Richard Taruskin, suggest that the end of Western art music is already in sight as the supremacy of written music gets overrun by modern technology. But the quantity of visionary artists dedicated to moving the music forward—artists who regard all facets of its modern praxis, whether composed, improvised or fixed-media, as belonging to an integral shared tradition—is amply displayed by the compelling work showcased in this article. It suggests that this most progressive and unpredictable of musical traditions may still have some life left in it.
Photo credits: Sam Shalabi via Constellation Records, Lao Dan via Family Vineyard Records, Taylor Ho Bynum 9-tette via Bynum, Zeena Parkins by Andy Newcombe, Ellen Arkbro via the artist, Michael Pisaro by Kathy Pisaro (design Matthew Revert), Cecilia Lopez by Ian Kornfeld, Žibuoklė Martinaitytė by Lina Aiduke, Martin Bliggenstorfer by Michael Schell, Frank Zappa by Jay L. Handler, Pehr Henrik Nordgren via Kai Nordgren/Wikimedia, Magdalena Kožená and Georg Nigl in Dusapin: Macbeth Underworld via La Monnaie, L’Inondation by Stefan Brion/Opéra Comique, Agamemnon: Fred Frith by Alexander Kurz, Pauline Oliveros by Linda Montano, Shelley Hirsch by Frank Schindelbeck, Julius Eastman via Wikipedia, Arto Lindsay by Carstor, Sussan Deyhim by Robert Hayman, Robert Ashley by Savio.
