One of my favorite projects this past Fall was writing the program essay for American Composers Orchestra’sSONiC festival. I had the chance to interview several composers (though only a small sampling of the many fine participants) featured on SONiC, includingHannah Lash, Anthony Cheung, Keniji Bunch (an old friend – one of my classmates at Juilliard), and the National’sBryce Dessner.
All of the interview subjects proved diverting. But I was particularly glad to have a chance in the essay to spotlight Ensemble Klang, a Dutch new music group that performedOscar Bettison’sO Death on SONiC.Their performance was critically acclaimed as one of the highlights of the festival. And if you weren’t fortunate enough to be there, my recommendation would be to get thee hence to the group’s web store for a copy of the O Deathstudio recording (with liner notes by Alex Rose!).
While you’re there, I’d recommend checking out Ensemble Klang’s other studio recordings. Cows, Chords, and Combinationsa portrait disc of minimalist composer/theorist/critic Tom Johnson has proved to be an extraordinarily valuable recording to me. It has reframed my thinking about the process-based components of minimalism: how they can be crafted into quite complicated structures and how they remain a vital component of whichever post (post post?) incarnation of minimalism we’re currently experiencing. The slowly evolving, spectral-inspired structures found on Waves, a disc of music by Peter Adriaansz, is equally engaging: a collection of soundscapes that require, nay demand, immersively intensive listening. (I haven’t yet heard Ensemble Klang’s recording of music by Matthew Wright; an oversight I hope to correct shortly).
Below, I’ve included an excerpt of my interview with Bettison, in which he discusses his creative process and the collaborative genesis of O Death.
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Traditional instruments are one way to go in new music. Another is to find or create new instruments altogether. Such is often the pathway of composer Oscar Bettison. He enjoys incorporating unconventional instruments, such as those made from found objects or junk metal, into his scores.
Bettison says, “This was all a result of moving to Holland to study in the early 2000s. Before that, I had written a lot of music for traditional forces and I wanted to get away from that: to stretch myself as a composer. So, I started to play around with things, even going as far as to build some instruments; percussion mostly, but later on I branched out into radically detuning stringed instruments – there’s some of that in the guitar part of “O Death.” These things I called “Cinderella instruments: the kind of things that shouldn’t be ‘musical’ but I do my best to make them sing. And I suppose as a counterpoint to that, I shunned traditional instruments for a long time.”
Cinderella instruments, as well as references to popular music of many varieties, are signatures found in his work O Death, played on SONIC October 19, 2011 by Ensemble Klang.
Of O Death, Bettison says, “It was written for Ensemble Klang between 2005-7 and is my longest piece to date. It’s about 65 minutes long and I wrote it very much in collaboration with the group. We were lucky enough to have a situation in which I was able to try things out on the group over a long period. This was very important in writing it. The piece is in seven movements and is a kind of instrumental requiem, which references popular music elements (especially blues) and kind of grafts them on to the requiem structure. It’s something that I fell into quite naturally. This I think is tied to my idea of ‘Cinderella instruments:’ eschewing the “classical” tradition somewhat.”
Bettison continues, “The thing that a lot of people don’t know about me is that I come from a very strict classical background. I was a violinist; indeed I went to a specialist music school in London as a violinist from the age of 10. My rebellion to being in a hot-house classical music environment was getting into metal, playing the drums and listening to avant-garde classical music that was seen as outside the ‘canon’ and I think that carried on into my music. So, to psychoanalyze myself for a minute, I think I’ve done both things in a response (quite a delayed response!) to the classical tradition precisely because I feel so at home in that tradition.”
Caprichos Enfaticos
by Martin Bresnick
So Percussion; Lisa Moore, piano
Cantaloupe Music CD
It takes chutzpah to base a musical composition around an iconic piece of visual art. Francisco Goya’sLos Destastres de la Guerra (“The Disasters of War”) is a book of etchings that captures the human toll of combat (as well as its toll on the rest of creation) with a visceral impact that has seldom been equaled. Using it as the basis for a musical piece, even going so far as to use Goya’s own phrases for movement titles? A composer who does so better bring the goods or they will likely be dwarfed by comparison. Fortunately, Martin Bresnick’sCaprichos Enfaticos is eminently capable of complementing its powerful source material. Indeed, it’s one of his most affecting pieces to date, one in which there is a fluid progression from traditionally inspired material to more dissonant and abstract expression.
A particular reference point is a chain dance that originated in Provence, called the farandula, or farandole. Its 6/8 phrases are juxtaposed with bellicose marches played on snare drums and interspersed with ruminative and achingly piteous interludes for piano and pitched percussion.
Cast in eight movements, the piece mirrors the trajectory of Goya’s etchings from a semblance of order and civilization to chthonic brutality. In successive iterations, the gestural language of the farandole and folk-like thematic material is overwhelmed by a noisier environment: populated with a diverse battery of percussion instruments and a correspondingly chaotic phraseology.
In live performances, Caprichos Enfaticos is accompanied by video projections created by Johanna Bresnickand based on the Goya works. So Percussion and pianist Lisa Moore inhabit the music with a persuasive, commanding, and detailed performance on record: one can only imagine its powerful impact coupled with Goya’s artworks in a live setting.
Not only was chutzpah an ingredient of this project, but so was a seamless collaborative spirit. Meet the Composercommissioned this piece for So Percussion and Moore, and it is a truly inspired partnership. One hopes that it is merely the beginning of a long musical relationship.
For the rest of 2011, among our coverage will be “notable” recordings, highlighting some of our favorites for the year that we haven’t as yet covered on File Under ?.
Duo Gazzana
Five Pieces: works by Takemitsu, Hindemith, Janacek, and Silvestrov
ECM New Series CD
Despite its already impressively deep catalog, Manfred Eicher’s ECM still finds new perspectives and new interpreters to present on the imprint’s recordings. Sisters violinist Nastascia Gazzana and pianist Raffaella Gazzana have been performing together since the 1990s. But they waited until 2011 to make their recorded debut, in a chamber recital CD. Surprisingly, they are the first Italian chamber group to perform on an ECM release!
The disc features works by four different Twentieth century composers, all of whom are displayed in works that operate from the more traditional side of the stylistic spectrum. Even Toru Takemitsu’sDistance de fée, from 1951, early in his catalog, displays the composer’s affinity for Impressionism overtly, with only hints of the experiments and polystylism to which he would later turn. Paul Hindemith’s E major Violin Sonata, cast in two movements, features a buoyant allegro movement followed by a sober langsam tinged with melancholy, which abruptly shifts to a brilliant finale. Both the piece, and its interpreters, are able to adjust to these rapid changes of mood without it ever seeming unnatural. Instead we are given a succinct yet complete account of a sonata’a narrative arc – in exquisite miniature. It’s worth mentioning how the shifts in timbre elicited by Nastascia are luminously detailed throughout this work.
Inspired by the clangor and rigors of WWI and begun near the outset of that conflict, Leos Janacek’s Sonata for violin and piano is filled with its own poignant twists and turns. Understandably, it displays considerably more angularity and angst than the Hindemith, and both sisters really dig in to its brash gestures while providing a detailed account of its nuanced articulations ( an aside: both pieces were programmed side by side in 1923, with none other than Hindemith performing the violin part).
But wait, there are four composers: why’s the disc called “Five Pieces?” It’s the title of the last group on the CD, a set of violin/piano duos by Valentin Silvestrov. Although there is certainly an affinity between some of the Eastern European folk inflections found in both the Janacek and Silvestrov works, there is an even wider reaching retrospective quality in the Silvestrov that seems to encompass all of the styles presented on the CD. Indeed, it mines many of the veins of tonally oriented 20th century music, providing an elegiac and Neo-romantic viewpoint that never confuses genuine emotional resonance with bald sentimentality. Raffaella brings out a warmly resonant quality from the pieces’ harmonic progressions, all the while supporting with careful balance and phrasing the long-lined legato playing of Nastascia. And while one can find many grander musical statements in Silvestrov’s oeuvre, he has distilled some of his most affecting music in these five miniatures. Indeed, the lilting Intermezzo and Barcarolle movements are truly magical microcosms.
Displaying consummate musicality, featuring a fascinating program of repertoire that should be heard more widely, with sumptuous sonics to boot, Duo Gazzana’s debut is one of my favorite discs of 2011. Let’s hope the Gazzana sisters get right back into the recording studio with Mr. Eicher in 2012!
David Leisner’s latest solo recital disc, Favorites, is a consistently enjoyable program of repertory favorites and lesser known short works for classical guitar. Most imposing is his arrangement of J.S. Bach’s Violin Chaconne in D-minor. Written in the wake of the passing of Bach’s first wife, it is a funeral ode, albeit a non-liturgical one, like few others. Leisner wrings considerable poignancy from its wrenching harmonic passages and its long-breathed melodies: the latter are often filled with descending minor seconds, an affect that in the rhetorical terms of the 18th century signified falling tears. However, the guitarist wisely avoids maudlin tempi or syrupy rubati, instead allowing the piece to unfold at a gradual but constant pace; making for a dignified rather than overly sentimental rendering. He takes a similar approach to Benjamin Britten’sNocturnal, a set of variations on a theme by John Dowland.
Leisner is also impressive in his transcription of Nicolo Paganini’s Grand Sonata, delivering a crisply fleet-fingered rendition that favors clarity and bright articulation to the flashily mercurial (but sloppy) showiness of some other interpreters. He also champions several pieces by composer-guitarist Alexander Ivanov-Kramskoi (1912-1973), a creator of conservative but idiomatic and often technically demanding pieces for classical guitar. Ivanov-Kramskoi isn’t nearly as well known to Western audiences as he should be, and pieces like “Melancholy Waltz” and “Song Without Words” are considerably charming. Overall, Favorites provides a new context for familiar pieces – “old friends” – and contains several pleasing surprises. Recommended.
For those in need of a respite from the constant barrage of overexposed holiday ‘favorites,’ Todd Reynolds has provided just the thing. His recasting of Greensleeves into a deconstructed looping meditation manages to remain in the “festive wintry” pocket while avoiding all the tinsel-laden cloying of so much seasonal dreck. (Note: the video art behind Todd is by R. Luke Dubois).
The track can be heard on his latest Innova release, Outerborough, a double CD that is, in my opinion, one of 2011′s finest alt-classical recordings.
Or, if you prefer to grab this track a la carte, download it here for 99 cents.
New Amsterdam Records has decided to give potential donors an extra opportunity to give to their 2011 fundraiser, extending it today for an additional day. They’re also offering for free download one of the imprint’s finest recent releases (and a Grammy nominee to boot!), Jefferson Friedman’s Quartets played by the Chiara SQ (embed below). Chrismukkah comes early.
Last week, I met with cellist Frank Dodge at Lincoln Center to discuss the upcoming concert his ensemble Spectrum Concerts Berlin is giving in New York.
At 8 PM on December 7th at Weill Recital Hall, Dodge and his colleagues will present a program that celebrates the works of composer/pianist Robert Helps (1928-2001).
Helps was a virtuoso performer adept at both contemporary repertoire and warhorses from the classical music canon. He also relished championing works that had been overlooked and crafting (often fiendishly challenging) transcriptions for the piano. More than once, I heard Milton Babbitt suggest that Helps “made the unplayable playable.”
Born in the United States, Dodge relocated to Berlin in the 1980s. But he didn’t forget about his first encounters with Helps: in the late 1960s in Boston as a student at the New England Conservatory of Music.
He says, “Bob (Helps) liked to champion pieces that needed looking after. His performances of the music of John Ireland, Felix Mendelssohn, and Poulenc and, of course, his own music were truly very special to hear. We were fortunate to have him visit and perform with us in Berlin twice. I only wish that, before his passing in 2001, we could have collaborated more frequently.”
Dodge’s stewardship has cultivated a group of champions of underrepresented repertoire. Spectrum Concerts Berlin is currently giving its twenty-fourth season of concerts. They have recently released their second recording devoted to Helps’ music: Robert Helps in Berlin (also featuring the ATOS Trio and Helps; Naxos 8.559696-97). A double CD set, it features a number of Helps’s important chamber works, including one of his first mature pieces, the 1957 Piano Trio, as well as one of his last, Piano Trio No. 2, written shortly before his passing. It’s interesting to note his return to the genre after forty years’ absence. My initial impression of the piece is one of leave-taking. I hear its angular lines, brittle articulation, and acerbic harmonies as a defiant kind of valedictory statement. Dodge, on the hand hears the trio showing evidence of new potential directions in Helps’s music; alas, unrealized.
He says, “The second Piano Trio and some of the other late pieces, such as Shall We Dance (1994)and the Piano Quartet and Quintet (both 1997), provide glimpses of Bob considering his compositional approach afresh. I find the discoveries he makes in these works to provide some of his most exciting music.”
The CD also includes a live recording of Helps at the piano; performing a recital that includes some of his aforementioned favorites: Mendelssohn, Ireland, Poulenc, Shall We Dance, and Godowsky’s Studies on Chopin’s Etudes (or, as one of my professors used to like to call them, Chopin on steroids!). One is struck by his exquisite touch and seemingly effortless virtuosity of Helps’ playing.
The impressive array of compositions and music-making displayed on the Naxos disc raises a question. Why isn’t Helps a household name here? Why don’t American-based ensembles perform more Helps and why don’t more composers know him as an important figure?
When I pose this question to Dodge, he says, “Bob did zero self-promotion: none. Even though he taught all over and was very well respected, he had a difficult time with the conventional ‘career building’ activities that many musicians take for granted as part of the business. And he also had considerable personal struggles during his lifetime, with illnesses and other challenges. There were long periods of silence, where he didn’t play or compose at all. Fortunately, these gave way to great bursts of creativity.”
“So, Helps isn’t a household name … yet! Things will change. Sometimes, when a figure is hyped during his or her lifetime, but their work is nothing special, they fade away rather quickly. With Helps, the opposite can be true. It is durable work, and its legacy will only grow. The strength of his music is what will bring performers and listeners to it over time.”
My take: if you’re in the New York area, don’t miss out on this chance to hear Spectrum Concerts Berlin on 12/7. They will make you a convert to Helps’s music in nothing flat.
Ticket Giveaway
In a very generous gesture, the ensemble is offering 20 FREE tickets to S21 readers. If you’re interested in attending the show, email Paula Mlyn at: paula@a440arts.com with your name. She will put aside a ticket for you for the December 7 performance.
On the blog tomorrow, we’ll be discussing Landscapes, Toshio Hosokawa’s first portrait CD for the ECM imprint. The new recording features an orchestral arrangement of this 1993 work, originally scored for shô and string quartet.
I certainly wouldn’t want to be compelled to prefer one to the other: Landscape V is a haunting tone poem in both its intimate and fuller incarnations.
Time Out New York’sSteve Smith is sparing with the 5-star CD reviews, but he gave his highest score to Drawn Only Once,Due East’sNew Amsterdam release. It features two beguiling multimedia works by John Supko, which feature video, electronics, Due East (Erin Lesser, flute and Greg Beyer, percussion), as well as a number of other instrumentalists and vocalists. These various elements are overlaid in a busy patchwork quilt, sometimes contemplative, at others dizzying: but it’s always a beguiling sound world. Despite the sometimes dense colloquy of events found on Drawn Only Once, the release will likely draw listeners back to fathom its depths in successive hearings.
Lesser and Beyer live in Wisconsin and Illinois, respectively. But on Monday night, they’re bringing Supko’s music to Galapagos Art Space, which will be bathed in the glow of video and the envelopment of surround sound.
Sharing the bill with them is another New Amsterdam artist – Gregory Spears – whose newly released Requiem is his debut CD. This is another disc that’s spent a lot of time in the short stack near my favorite listening spot, ready to be pressed into service for repeated hearings.
Spears combines early music instruments and singers with a 21st century aesthetic sensibility in a contemplation of mortality that eschews both dogmatism and morbidity. Although it’s a far more ambient motivated work than the Fauré Requiem, Spears’ essay in the genre shares a comforting and cautiously affirming demeanor with its predecessor, as well as a sensuousness of sound and intriguing modality that is most fetching.
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