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On June 30, Naxos releases its first recording devoted to three chamber masterworks by the Shanghai-born composer Ge Gan-ru performed by ModernWorks (Airi Yoshioka, Mayuki Fukuhara, violins; Veronica Salas, viola; Madeleine Shapiro, cello): String Quartet No. 1, Fu; String Quartet No.4, Angel Suite and his String Quartet No. 5, Fall of Baghdad.

For anyone not familiar with this wonderful composer, you can meet him and hear his music performed by ModernWorks at Le Poisson Rouge on Wednesday, July 8 at 9:30 PM.

Born in 1954, the young Ge Gan-ru studied the violin until the onset of the Cultural Revolution, during which he was sent to a labor camp to plant rice. When the Shanghai Conservatory reopened at the end of the Revolution in 1974, Ge matriculated as a violin student, but, three years later, he shifted his focus to composition, studying with Chen Gang. During this time, he became familiar with scores by 20th-century Western composers including Schoenberg, Stockhausen, Cage, and Crumb, as well as music by the Japanese composer Takemitsu. In 1980, when British composer Alexander Goehr became the first Western composer to visit China after the Revolution, Ge was among the few students to receive lessons from him. Upon his graduation in 1981, Ge was appointed assistant professor of composition at the Conservatory. At that time, Chinese composers were still basing new works on traditional Western styles. The controversial 1983 Shanghai premiere of Ge’s Yi Feng (Lost Style; 1982)—a work for “radically detuned” solo cello—served as the “opening salvo” in what was to become the Chinese musical avant-garde movement.

In 1983, Ge began work on his String Quartet No. 1 – Fu (Prose-Poem), but before he could complete it, he relocated to New York City, recruited by Chou Wen-chung at Columbia University. While supporting himself as a restaurant deliveryman, Ge managed to complete the piece, and the Kronos Quartet—celebrated for its commitment to new music—soon made it part of their repertoire. Fu and Yi Feng are both milestones in Ge’s canon, as they represent the development of his individual style: “They are the first of their kind in China, exploring individualism and the essence of Chinese music characteristics while avoiding sentimental melodies then prevalent in China … Fu in Chinese refers to descriptive prose interspersed with verse. In this piece, I tried to express some of the most basic aesthetic feelings typical of Chinese classical poetry and calligraphy, such as subtlety, free form, and masterly strokes.”

The interval of the minor second figures prominently in Fu and generates much of its musical content. Unorthodox means of tone production dominate this work (though instruments are conventionally tuned), including snap pizzicato, harmonics, glissandi, tremolos, and various combinations of these techniques. Moreover, throughout the work, unmeasured, rhythmic passages alternate with more regularly-patterned music.

Some of the same sounds from Fu are prominent in the introductory measures of Angel Suite – String Quartet No. 4 (1998). And, interestingly, the minor second also figures significantly in its second, third and fourth movements. The composer writes: “Of all my works, this piece is the closest to the Western classical music tradition, and it offers a contrast to my other music … The title comes from my interest in Christianity … In this work, I try to express my curiosity in, and observation of, various aspects of Christianity. The titles of the movements (Cherub, Gnomes, Prayer, and Angel’s March) refer to the subjects that I wanted to represent musically. For instance, in the first movement, the harmonic glissando represents a cherub; the second movement focuses on dance rhythm … In the prayer movement, I use contrasting consonant and dissonant chords to draw out feelings of purity and sincerity in praying. In the middle section, I also use the beginning few notes from Schubert’s Ave Maria. For the last movement I chose to write a march, as I always imagine an angel as young and vibrant.”

Fall of Baghdad – String Quartet No. 5 is at once a tribute to George Crumb’s Black Angels for electric string quartet (1970) and an expression of the composer’s own feelings about the war in Iraq. Like Crumb’s work before it, the music comprises three long sections divided into thirteen shorter ones. “Hair-raising squeals” produced by “applying pressure to the strings behind the bridge to create a scraping sound of indefinite pitch” open the work. In this quartet, Ge uses extended techniques neither as cultural relics, as in Fu, nor as suggestions of ethereal spirits, as in Angel Suite, Instead, he uses his unique musical language to symbolize the devastation and despair associated with war. (For contrast and relief, the middle section, “Music from Heaven,” incorporates light percussion; the “Heaven” to which this movement refers, incidentally, is a different paradise than the one Ge depicts in Angel Suite.) Ge employs microtonal inflections to suggest Middle Eastern music (which shares some of its idioms with the music of his native country) and also makes use of (as he explains): “glissandi and distorted sound to create the ‘hellish’ effects; playing col legno (striking the strings with the [wooden part of the] bow) both in front of and behind the bridge for the Caliph’s drum and using extreme high notes on low strings for ‘moaning’ sounds.”

This is certainly a true testament as to the effectiveness of Facebook as a networking tool for it was there that I actually found out that my friend (and legendary fetish photographer) Steve Diet Goedde together with Austrian composer / musician Robert Waechter had created this very special project together. I’ve known Steve as both friend and inspiration in my own photography work for quite a few years now, Steve and I have followed very similar interests & paths throughout our lives both in music and visual kink so as soon as I became aware of this project I had to experience it. As soon as I received my copy I popped it on and was immediately taken but Robert’s form of Romantic Minimalism, the music he created does indeed set the perfect mood for the intimate and sensual photos that Steve has been creating all these years. So now it’s with great excitement and pride that I am able to present both he and Robert’s project to the NOA blog and it’s readers in the form of these short interviews.

Here we go!

Steve, can you give us a bit of a history on how this music project actually came about?
Robert had contacted me initially as a fan of my work and was looking for some way of collaborating on a project. Since music is linear, Robert was hoping that I made films or videos which could benefit with the addition of custom classical musical soundtracks. Unfortunately I’m not much of a linear art kinda artist. I’m better at making artistic statements which only exist at a 60th of a second. Video requires a beginning, middle, and end. It’s a completely different art form for me. It’s like asking me to do sculpture. However, I DID just accidentally make a 20-second film a few months ago which Robert happily composed and recorded the original motion picture soundtrack. It will be released online within the next month or two.

What is your personal connection to the music? To classical music in general? Why do you feel this was the right genre / setting for your photographs?
I have a very strong connection with music but most of my appreciation of classical music is on a textural level. I’m somewhat tone deaf so it’s very difficult for me to pick out instruments which are played simultaneously. As a result, I mainly pick up on texture and the general emotional temperature of any given piece. So because I ’see’ music texturally, I find it very visual when I close my eyes. I see tactile landscapes and compositional patterns which flow across my inner vision from right to left. So when choosing a style of music which best represents my photography, it definitely has to be non-vocal and textural, like classical or experimental music. To me, many of my photographs are already music. I like using a narrow depth of field which creates out-of-focus elements in my photographs. These elements act as bass tones and anything that pops into focus from these fields act as percussive points. And then there’s the whole compositional layout of the photograph which of course, to me, acts as the compositional structure of a piece of music.

What kind of connection do you and Robert hold outside of the project?
Robert and I have never met nor have talked on the phone. All our communication has been through email. I’m really amazed that when I hold a physical copy of GoeddeConcerto in my hands, that it was created by two people who have never talked or met in person.

I own all of your books, your DVD, and now your CD. What in the world is next in the life of Steve Diet Goedde? What are those future goals? (if you don’t mind sharing).
I’ve have a new book of photographs all designed and edited. I intend to self-publish it once the economy starts to bounce back. It will be mass-produced in duotone and will NOT one of these DIY digitally-printed-on-demand books.

Robert, Can you describe for me the inspiration and the process in creating this beautiful tribute to Steve and his work?
I am violinist in an symphony orchestra and I noticed that many violin-solos in late-romantic symphonic repertoire are a charakterization or a sumblimation of femininity. For example Richard Strauss portaited his wife as in a violin-cadenza titled “A hero’s life”. There is a lot of violin in “Sheherazade” by Rimsky-Korsakov, “Thais” by Massenet, the list could be long. Often there are just a few notes to give the music a parfum ,like in the introduction of “Maria” from West Side Story by Bernstein .

What is it about Steve’s work that inspires you?
It is the obsession in the quest for ultimate beauty and the fact, that he comes quite close.

How did this project come about?
Originally we planned a video-collaboration but a hundred e-mails later the project had turned out to be an unorthodox Violin Concerto in the form of “pictures at an exhibition”.

What is your connection to photography as a medium? What other visual artists inspire you?
I have a rather uneducated artistic eye. I love the palette of greys in B/W photography. I prefer drawing to painting, I like pure lines and I am not sensitive to colors. One of my favorite artists is Egon Schiele, but I would not say that he inspires me.

Robert, I find these pieces to be both romantic and dramatically post-modern, can you tell us of your musical inspirations and motivations?
Music did always exist and will always exist, but as an independent art (”art pour art”) it had his apogee during four hundred years and this time is sadly but definitively over. So I write without scruple just what I like to play . On one hand I love romantic melodies, because the violin is a bel-canto instrument. On the other hand I am fascinated by very strict musical structures, like counterpoint and minimal music-like patterns. It is this eternal opposition of subject and object, nature and art,model and fetish object, which seems to me of interest.

What will be your next project?
I wrote nine songs on the poetry of the english writer Max Hillman and I am looking for a singer who loves my music as much as I love her voice.

More about the aritsts:
Steve Diet Goedde has been a fine art fetish photographer for nearly 18 years. He is known for his subtle approach to photographing the high-gloss fetish world in a very non-gloss, down-to-earth style. His attention to composition and black and white tonal quality has given him the title of the Ansel Adams of fetish. Steve established his photographic style in the early 1990s in Chicago where he photographed the contents of his first book “The Beauty of Fetish” (Edition Stemmle) which was released in 1998. That same year, Steve relocated to Los Angeles where he continued to define his evolving style. This west coast work was later compiled in his second Edition Stemmle book “The Beauty of Fetish: Volume II” in 2001. In 2006, Slish Pix released a DVD compilation of his work entitled “Living Through Steve Diet Goedde”.

Vienna-born Robert Waechter learned to play violin by the age of 8. By the time he turned 20, he had already played in the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under such notable conductors as Karajan, Bernstein, Böhm, and Kleiber. In 1980, Robert became the concertmaster of the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra. Since 1984, he has been the concertmaster of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Nice/Opera de Nice. GoeddeConcerto is his fourth recording following Fragments, Stillness, and Broken Guru. His influences include Fritz Kreisler and Steve Reich.

To obtain your CD and learn more about Steve Diet Goedde:

• Steve’s site (All copies purchased will be signed by Steve)

This week composer Sean Hickey, Naxos’ National Sales and Business Development Manager, weighs in on the growing trend in alternative performance venues, a subject which has been covered at length in The New York Times and many other publications including the June issue of Gramophone.  On May 18 at 8 PM in Alice Tully Hall, pianist Xiayin Wang will perform the world premiere of Sean Hickey’s Cursive, a work commissioned for the pianist. Her program also will feature a world premiere of Richard Danielpour’s The Enchanted Garden, Preludes Book II.

I just finished reading Laurence Vittes’ article in the June Gramophone on alternative classical venues. Since it’s a topic that I have a particular interest in, I felt compelled to post something on the topic. First, it’s nice to see a mainstream classical music publication take on the trend. Though they’re a bit late to the party, I’m glad to see it get covered. What is most interesting is that, for those of us that live in New York and sample the diversifying concert scene here, this is not news. The alt-classical scene has been taking off in New York, London and Berlin for quite some time. I felt the need to chime in on the topic, not because I take issue with anything said in the article, but to underscore what I think is a hugely important development in classical music presentation over the past few years. Greg Sandow has written eloquently on the topic several times.

Last week I attended a release party for composer/conductor/arranger Peter Breiner and the release of his latest Naxos disc, a wonderful recording of orchestral suites arranged from the operas of Leos Janacek. The event, like others we at Naxos have done, took place at Le Poisson Rouge, specifically in the bar portion. I can’t overstate the pleasure in listening to great music in a public drinking space, and on an excellent sound system that manages to not sound obtrusive but succeeds in cutting through any conversation. LPR’s Justin Kantor has invested heavily in this crucial aspect which naturally means that they’re a great place for events centered around listening. Through LPR’s extensive social network we turned out a respectable crowd, many of them Czechs interested in the music of this fascinating composer. LPR, along with many other venues, have found real success in promoting their events not by advertising in the traditional print publications, but relying on their extensive fan and friend lists on Facebook, MySpace, LastFM and others to spread the word on concerts and gatherings. I’ve attended several shows there and I’ve never seen anything that wasn’t sold out or nearly. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen a concert there where I’ve been able to sit down. Amazing how alcohol and interesting music seem to bring people together.

Like many of my friends, I came to classical music through the back door. I grew up playing the electric guitar in imitation of the guitar gods like Jimmy Page and Eddie Van Halen. In my mid-teens I discovered the progressive rock of King Crimson and the punk spirit of the Clash. At some point around then I heard the Rite of Spring for the first time and, though it might sound cliche, it changed my life forever. The Shostakovich Fifth, especially in context of what I learned of the composer’s life, had a similar effect. Even more life-changing was a trip to see the Chicago Symphony for the first time when I was sixteen. The sight of a primarily empty orchestra stage as a setting for Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments will always stay with me. The unique sound world of that particular piece still has the echoes of Symphony Hall in my ears. At that moment, at least in my mind, I set down the guitar and decided to become a composer. All of this is to say that, if such places as LPR existed in my hometown way back when, I might have taken in my first non-rock concert not on a stiff-back chair, but on a barstool. Okay, that doesn’t sound like the right place for a teenager.

In terms of New York, Vittes could have listed many more places such as The Stone, Barbes, Galapagos, the Nabi Gallery and others, all of them regularly showcasing chamber music, opera and most importantly, new music. I’m amazed at the reception of new works by these audiences, especially in comparison to the crowd at Avery Fisher who can often only manage polite applause for a new piece after unwrapping their throat lozenge. It’s of course important to note that many composers, in great DIY fashion, got their start performing or having their works performed in alternative spaces (some of them private or semi-private and many certainly non-commercial) from the 60’s through the 80s.

All of this is to say that I applaud any venue of any kind that programs classical music or invites new music to be a part - however small - of the overall programming and presentation of music of any kind. My hope is that these kind of multi-genre, multi-generational venues proliferate elsewhere.

An Interview with Magnar Åm

 
In May, Naxos of America begins distribution of 2L, a Norwegian label known for releasing the world’s first audio-only Blu-Ray recording, Divertimenti, which subsequently received three Grammy® nominations. Founded in 2001 by Morten Lindberg, 2L’s mission is to achieve state-of-the-art sound and packaging within all future formats of classical music. “What we are seeing is a completely new conception of the music experience,” said Lindberg. “Recorded music is no longer a matter of a fixed two-dimensional setting, but rather a three-dimensional enveloping situation. Stereo can be described as a flat-canvas, while surround sound is a sculpture that you can literally move around and relate to spatially.”

Of 2L’s many high quality and unique releases, one in particular jumped out at my colleague Collin Rae. He shared it with some of us and I was immediately taken by not only the recording and the music, but with the concept behind it and how it directly correlates to Morten’s statement above. The SACD hybrid/Blu-ray recording that I am speaking of is SONaR, a collaboration of Norwegian composer Magnar Åm and harpist Ellen Sejersted Bødtker. The sound on this recording is immaculate, the compositions and performances are beyond words (for lack of a better description).

We decided that in order to really undertand all aspects of this recording, we needed to go to the source, SO we interviewed Magnar and Ellen! You will find my chat with Magnar below. His thoughts on music and sound are intriguing, scratch that, they are downright fascinating. Let’s just say that he composes pieces that no concert hall in the world can yet accomodate. Why don’t I allow him to explain…

 
You’ve said “Music matters, as it brings to matter what is of no matter”. How did you become so fascinated by sound and how to make it a physical experience?

My fascination for sound is a gift of birth and heritage. My mother was always singing, even up to the moment when she started to press me out. The inspiration to work with music as something appealing to more than feelings and moods also dates back to childhood. I discovered the sense of orientation and that this sense could be cheated willingly by my own perception. Sitting by the window gazing at the snowflakes falling densely outside, I would after a while have a strong perception that the snowflakes were the reference point hovering motionless in the air and that I instead was in the middle of an upward movement, as if I were lifted weightlessly. This was a blissfull experience which I would seek consciously over and over again during our lovely winters. It was not the beauty or the quiet of the falling snow that attracted me, but the mere physical experience of weightlessness being planted in my body when I let myself be receptable and non-judging of what my eyes were seeing.

Because of that discovery I have been working with music as something that can transfer a physical and mental experience regardless of what likes and dislikes the listener would have. To me, music is not about whether I like it or not, but only about what it does to me when I open up. What I discovered in that early childhood - though not yet consciously - was that our senses can be turned upside down dependent on our thinking about what is reality.

Music has taught me a lot through the years; it has been my friend, helping me to dive into the unknown depths of being and come up with a form to it. In this way it has shown me that my deepest reality is not what I see. Through its physical appearance as sound-waves it has portrayed something non-physical. And it has given me some new traces to follow to make it even more physical and thus more directly effective in transfering the non-physical truth to my senses. It can be used like the visual snowflakes to leave my senses with a dual choice of how to perceive reality.

Can you explain your concept of “three-dimensional sound” and how it applies to SONaR and the techniques used to record it?

Three-dimensional sound is achieved when the sound sources are placed globally around you, that is: on your sides, in front, behind, over and under you. Many of my later acoustic pieces are written for such placement, but there is so far no suitable concert halls or commercial sound format for it. Therefore, an adjustment to the two-dimensional performance is necessary, that is: with the sound sources placed around you on a horizontal level, in front, behind and on your sides. This includes the present surround formats and the possible use of some concert halls. In this connection a stereo format and a traditional performance with the musicians placed in front of the audience will be the one-dimensional version, where everything comes from different points on a single line between left and right in front of you.

On SONaR only dette blanke no (this our virgin now) is written originally for a three-dimensional performance. It is then adjusted to a two-dimensional surround format recording by Morten Lindberg. He let the spatial lines of the score be transfered to a spreading out horizontally in the room so that everything had different distance to the different directional microphones and did the recording in a church of rather long reverberation so that the feeling of a large three-dimensoinal space could be perceived.

The first track on SONaR is vere meininga (be the purpose) for which you also wrote the poetry. Explain the creative process behind this piece and its meaningful text. Had you written the poetry before you decided to set it to music? Or did the music inspire the poetry?

The poetry was born gradually together with the music, as it often is. At some points of the composition process the musical idea appearing would be a spoken word or phrase. When that arises as a musical need I know there is a poem coming, although it is yet as unknown to me as the total music, and I know it will reveal itself and its meaning parallel with the music if I just keep on letting the piece unfold.

 vere meininga was originally written for Chinese harp and string sextet. Were there any drastic changes that had to be made when developing this version for Ellen and her European harp?

The most conspicuous change is that of the cadenza. Since Ellen operates both the acoustic and the electric harp the possibilities of the electric harp and the contrast to the acoustic harp had to be made very clear here.

 
I am incredibly moved by det var mjukt written for soprano and harp. The translation of the text is heart-wrenching, yet uplifting. What prompted the composition of this piece? What mind-set must you be in to accurately musically portray text like this?

The original text is the English one, written by Clark E. Moustakas in his book HEURISTIC RESEARCH, Design, Methodology and Application. I teach a small subject called Intuitive Composition/Improvisation and Music Philosophy at Volda University College. And there we have his book on the syllabus list. When Ellen commissioned a short piece for herself and her son to be placed in between the two harp concertos of the CD I knew I would use Moustaka’s beautiful text, as I was just then citing from his book to my students. So I wrote the song to the English text and then made a translation fitting the music. When time came for the recording, her young son was already facing his break of voice and we decided to let the same soprano as in the last piece sing it.

To musically portray a text like this - or any text - you have to be able to recognize in yourself all the feelings hidden in the words, actually see yourself in the role of the author, and let music arise from there.

When Ellen commissioned dette blanke no, concerto for harp and angels, how did you settle on the concept of timelessness and weightlessness? At one point in the creative process did it become clear that two harps would be required to achieve this goal?

I have experienced that when I try to listen consciously to two or more different pulses simultanuously - and really try to keep track of all pulses, at some point my brain gives up. And as it gives up, there is a loss of sense of time, and to me that is a blissful experience, it’s like coming home. So in dette blanke no (this our virgin now), as the choir enters, to portray this side of “home-coming” there is in the harp part a set of repetitive lines with individually different pulses. For the ear consciously or unconsciously to be able to follow the different lines it was necessary to use different coloring of the harp tone in the different slow pulses and even bring in an additional harp, the electric one.

To remind or give the listener a trace of weightlessness - the other side of “home-coming” - I took the memory of me and the snowflakes and gave it a spatial musical setting, letting sound move three-dimensionally the same way.

When I was a child, Blackglama® Mink used to run ads on TV and in all the fashion magazines featuring movie stars, models, and famous men and women from all walks of life all bedecked in luxurious mink coats, paired with the simple caption: “What Becomes a Legend Most? … Blackglama® Mink.” The ads were direct and photographed in black and white. Whatever you may think about wearing fur, the campaign was brilliant. 

Last night, as I was watching the documentary film ‘Tis Autumn: The Search for Jackie Paris, these ads from my youth randomly popped into my head. I could see Jackie Paris wrapped in a Blackglama® Mink coat with that famous caption above his head—but, of course, that ad never happened.

The film made me think on many levels. I couldn’t help but think how operatic Jackie Paris’ story was; Jackie Paris: The Opera was the second thing that popped into my head. Of course, it would have to be a jazz opera. But the broken family with a history of drug addiction, the wives and womanizing, the refusal to cooperate with the mob, performing with the greatest jazz legends … and, of course, the last hook: wife no. 1 running off with the child he denied fathering (but had.) What a story. That’s the stuff of opera.

So, why did Jackie Paris fall into obscurity while so many other singers of the era sauntered about in Blackglama® Mink ads? (Peggy Lee and Lena Horne did, and while there were very few men who made it, Ray Charles did). The film posits several plausible theories, including his arrogance, temper, timing … and even the fact that he wouldn’t cooperate with the mob. I now have a few theories of my own.

Being a “musician’s musician” or a “singer’s singer” isn’t always the kiss of death, but it can push you to the background–just look at the career of Marni Nixon, the singing voice of so many great movie musicals, like My Fair Lady. The truth is that Paris’ singing had a certain level of sophistication and polish, which sometimes took his performances out of the realm of merely popular, and some of material he recorded didn’t scream “HIT.” Jackie Paris straddled the worlds of serious black jazz artists (with whom he performed and hung out) and the more “Hollywood” performers like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peggy Lee (who got him an audition at Capital Records), and, of course Nat King Cole. But he was never able to translate that sophistication into the movie stardom those artists achieved. Paris was in an odd position: how do you bridge the gap between Charles Mingus and Charlie Parker and Frank Sinatra or Peggy Lee? At that point in history, it probably wasn’t possible to do it successfully. And I’m not convinced after seeing the film that he exactly knew what he wanted either, which may explain why his career faltered by the mid-1970s.  

In a way, this extraordinary artist suffered a similar fate to many composers, who–though beloved by their colleagues–didn’t become legends until after their deaths. Of course, the problem for a singer is, unless there are a lot of recordings and film footage left behind, it can be pretty hard to become a legend posthumously. 

Now I can’t really talk about jazz music, as it is not my area of expertise. But I do know great singers. Jackie Paris hung with the best, sang with the best, and was able to “inhabit a song,” as I’ve come to refer to it. (When you hear it, you just know it.) And even in his seventies, when he made a comeback just before his death, he sang the song “‘Tis Autumn” like he was at the beginning of a promising career, rather than doomed to posthumous recognition. A man with a tremendous ego, he must have loved having a film made about him. And, in the end, who knows? He still may achieve the “legend” status that so eluded him during his life.

This week Naxos of America’s Collin Rae weights in on Italian movie soundtrack music of the 1960s and 1970s:
So much has already been written about Italian movie soundtrack music of the 1960’s and 70’s that I certainly won’t shed any new light on this subject, instead I will simply highlight some of the wonderful treasure from this era through a series of posts that will highlight different film genres. Where to start? Well perhaps the most well known music of this period is the stuff written for the Spaghetti Westerns. Most everyone knows the BIG 4 (all composed by Ennio Morricone) The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and Once Upon a Time in the West. These four films are to this day considered to be some of the BEST westerns ever produced however there were dozens upon dozens of other Italian westerns not so well know but with equally as wonderful scores. Here are a few of those:

Morricone has so many AMAZING soundtracks in which to draw from, a few of my other favorite western titles are:

Il Grande Silnezio (The Great Silence): a brutal and dark film with an unexpectedly Somber and BEAUTIFUL soundtrack. The main theme to this film is perhaps one of my favorite Morricone musical moments.

I Crudeli (known as The Hellbenders in the US): When I first watched this film and heard the soundtrack I was pretty so so about it…until the final scene when an aging and defeated Joseph Cotton realizes that everything has gone terribly wrong and he simply gives up and slides large dirt mound. That THEME made me rethink and rehear the entire soundtrack.

Le Resa Die Conti (The Big Gundown): Not only does Morricone draw upon the theme from Beethoven’s Fur Elise (but with a Spanish guitar twist!), but he also includes one of the most driving and harsh guitar pieces in western cinema history.

One of Morricone’s few and true equals (and also a good friend) was composer Bruno Nicolai, he and composer Marcello Giombini scored a series of films know in the US as the Sabata trilogy. In this case I can say that the scores are far superior to the films themselves (this is not uncommon for this period). Nicolai also conducted many of Morricone’s scores.

Perhaps the GROOVIEST of all of the composers of this period was Piero Piccioni. What he brought to the genre was a real zest for funk and pure acid. His scores still sound as modern and fierce as the day they were recorded.

Definitely one of my favorite soundtracks of all time is Riz Ortalani’s score to the film “Day of Anger”. It’s a perfect combo of Morricone like orchestration with BOMBASTIC John Barry-like strings and that same amazing and harsh western surf guitar. A TRUE Masterwork.

So what is it exactly that makes this music so special? Well perhaps it’s the truly unique / postmodern approach to the compositions, the combinations of Spanish / Mexican Trumpet, gritty surf-like guitar, the lonesome whistle, the angelic choruses and ethereal voices, the almost pop melodies. All of these elements combine to make a kind of music never before heard and impossible to repeat.

Collin Rae, Naxos of America’s Marketing and Special Projects Manager, recently started a series of email discussions with composers, which have been posted on PMS #286 Appreciation Society, the Naxos of America blog. This discussion with composer David Lang yielded some interesting answers— including one heck of a 15-track music compilation!

In February of this year I began an email exchange with composer (and Bang on a Can) member David Lang. A few months previous (November of ‘08) Naxos released a fantastic and intriguing CD of David’s compositions titled Pierced. Then in January of ‘09 Medici Arts / EUROARTS released Bang on a Can’s Music for Airports DVD (a brilliant aural and visual experience based upon the Eno composition of course) which aslo came through Naxos of America. It was in fact this email exchange with David and our discussion about his music that inspired me to do this series of artist interviews.

What I find so fascinating about David’s music is its direct sonic link to what we now call “Indie Rock”. His homage to the Velvet Underground is a fine illustration of this link. It is however pieces like Pierced and Cheating, Lying, Stealing with their organic and almost awkward loops, the spaces and hesitations that flow within that circular-like sound which really grab and propell the listener. There are moments where I feel like I’m listening to some form of post-modernly abstract electronica. Enough of this! Here’s David.

CR: What are 5 recordings (different genres if possible) that shaped / shapes your personal musical landscape?
DAVID:-The Joseph Papp production of the Ralph Mannheim translation of Brecht / Weill Three Penny Opera
-The (1973?) Steve Reich recording of Violin Phase and It’s Gonna Rain
-Leonard Bernstein’s first recordings of Shostakovich’s 1st and 9th Symphonies
-The first Velvet Underground record, with the Andy Warhol yellow banana cover
-Bob Dylan - World Gone Wrong

CR: Now speaking specifically about “Classical Music” what pieces / composers have totally blown your mind and helped shape who you are sonically today?
DAVID:
Glass - Einstein on the Beach
Reich - Drumming
Stockhausen - Stimmung
Berlioz - Harold in Italy
Machaut - Messe de Notre Dame
Andreissen - De Staat
Bach - Goldberg Variations

CR: Can you give us 5 visuals that helped shape that person that is you….these could be moments, a cereal box, a toy, a piece of art, a movie, a television show…whatever…
DAVID: I am not at all a visual person.

CR: We talk a lot about cultures and sub-cultures and how it pertains to music and art, what “culture” do you see you and your music being part of? What “Sub-culture / Subcultures” do you or have you indentified with and why / how?
DAVID: My sub-culture is a kind of no-mans-land between experimental classical and experimental pop musics. One of the interesting things going on right now is that classical music’s gravitational field is pretty weak, and creative young musicians who in past centuries would have been steered towards classical music now go straight to indie pop. there is now a growing part of the pop world that wants its music to be questioning, unusual, uncompromising, not always easy or pleasant to listen to. Those are all the traits we used to want from new classical music as well….

CR: Can you put into words your creative process?
DAVID: I like to think about why I like the things I like. What this means compositionally is that a lot of my music comes from examining myself, about why certain kinds of music make me feel good or bad. the piece that won the Pulitzer - ‘the little match girl passion’ - began with me thinking about how strange it is that Jewish classical music lovers spend so much time loving music from the past that worships Jesus. Christianity is central to much of the canon of western music - I know more about Christianity than many Christians I know, simply because I love Bach and Monteverdi and Perotin. After years of thinking about how weird this was I decided to write a piece about it. Likewise, my piece ‘pierced’ came out of years of thinking about the history of the concerto - how we take it for granted that a musical form is about a certain kind of argument between an individual and a group, a heroic depiction of the struggle of one noble person changing all society. What if we wanted to make a piece that was based on a different model of human interaction? What if a concerto was about two groups of people ignoring each other, but whose mutual ignorance added up to something that neither group could achieve by itself? I wrote ‘pierced’ after years of thinking such thoughts.

CR: When do you feel you do your best work?
DAVID: When my children get off to school in the morning I am so happy to be in alone my studio that I find it very easy to work!

CR: What are you working on this very moment?
DAVID: I am rewriting Beethoven’s only opera FIDELIO - not the music, which of course is amazing and utterly untouchable, but the libretto, which has real problems, and which Beethoven himself knew needed some help. I am making my own version of the story, taking out most of the mushy love stuff and focusing on the politics.

CR: Can you create for me a 15 track compilation of music / sound (list the pieces you would put on this compilation)
DAVID: in no particular order:
-Kurt Weill - ballad in which macheath begs all men for forgiveness
-Pere ubu - the modern dance
-Michael Gordon - yo, shakespeare
-Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen - din tavshed
-Evan Ziporyn - tsmindao ghmerto
-Radiohead - everything in its right place
-julia wolfe - early that summer
-John Cage - six melodies
-Brian Eno - music for airports, 1:1
-Marc Blitzstein - the nickel under your foot
-X - the world’s a mess it’s in your kiss
-Frank Zappa - willie the pimp part 2, from fillmore east
-Xenakis - psappha
-Glenn Branca - lesson #1
-Meredith Monk - facing north

One of my favorite bloggers, the publicist Amanda Ameer, recently made these comments on her Artsjournal blog Life’s a Pitch:

I have found that the Grammies are a point of reference for the “outside world” about classical artists, that is, a way to let people who haven’t heard of a certain artist know he or she is “that good”. Sometimes, I’ll meet someone and the conversation will go like this: 

What do you do? Classical music PR.

Oh, that’s cool. Name someone you work for. Is it? And…Hilary Hahn?

Mmmm…don’t know her. She’s a violinist. Mmm…. She played for the Pope’s 80th birthday. Weird, OK…. She played on ‘The Village’ soundtrack. I loved ‘Sixth Sense’. She won a Grammy. Oh! Cool, great, yeah.

Amanda continues:

… the Grammies are a cultural touchstone - is this the right use of that phrase? - or, perhaps more accurately, a popular culture mile marker of success. What is that worth, though, monetarily speaking, slash, what does winning a Grammy mean for an artist’s overall profile? 

Both The Kings Singers and Hilary have won Grammies before, so I already get to slap “Grammy Award-winning…” next to their names in their bios and pop-culture-mile-marker-of-success name-drop “Grammy” to folks outside the industry.** BUT - would Grammy wins this year result in, oh, what’s the word - “album sales”? Does a shiny Grammy sticker on an album make the difference (it might), or is there more we can do to channel the win of a mainstream award into recording and concert revenue?

You’ll notice that Amanda used her blog cleverly, not failing to mention that two of her private clients—Hillary Hahn and The King Singers—received nominations. Brava.

It is easy to complain about the relevance of an award that doesn’t have the prestige, in the “classical world,” of the Grawemeyer or Pulitzer; but the GRAMMY® Award, though still largely associated with pop music, is one of the most widely-recognized awards in the U.S. music business (and, I would even say, the world). And if we are attempting to reach new audiences with some of our artists and releases, having that award attached to their names is pretty important. Additionally, the award is a sales driver, which means a great deal to the music business even in bad times.

Naxos and our family of distributed labels saw many of our wonderful artists nominated this year, including the Pacifica Quartet, whose recording of Elliott Carter’s String Quartets Nos. 1 and 5 was nothing short of astonishing. It also was fitting that this nomination came just before Mr. Carter’s 100th birthday this Thursday, December 11. The Quartet was nominated in the category of Best Chamber Music Performance and also will be honored at this year’s Musical America Awards with the 2009 Ensemble of the Year Award. And for everyone who has been asking about Volume 2 of the Carter Quartets, here goes: FEBRUARY 2009. BTW: Legendary producer Judith Sherman also picked up a nomination for Producer of the Year for her work on the Carter String Quartets on Naxos and four additional albums.

John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man received a nomination for Best Classical Contemporary Composition. For this recording, Corigliano, a Pulitzer-, Oscar-, Grammy®-, and Grawemeyer award-winning composer (yes, there are all those award listings and they ALL are important), collaborated with conductor JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic. In addition, the recording’s superb soloist, Israeli soprano Hila Plitmann, received a nomination for Best Classical Vocal Performance. She has made recordings of works by David Del Tredici, including Vintage Alice and some of his songs. For Mr. Tambourine Man, because of the re-orchestration—the work was originally written for Sylvia McNair and scored for voice and piano—the vocal part was reconceived for “amplified soprano.” Plitmann is amazing.

Chorus master Henryk Wojnarowski and conductor Antoni Wit received a Choral Performance nomination for the Naxos recording of Karol Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater with the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir. A Best Engineered Album (Classical) nomination went to engineer John Newton for his work on the Naxos recording Respighi: Church Windows, Brazilian Impressions, Rossiniana, featuring conductor JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.

Our distributed labels also did amazingly well this year.

Artists from British-based label Chandos received five nominations in multiple categories. Spotless Rose: Hymns to the Virgin Mary, featuring the Phoenix Chorale, conductor Charles Bruffy, and produced by Blanton Alspaugh, was nominated for Best Classical Album (Awards to Artists and Producer). Additionally, Mr. Bruffy and the Phoenix Chorale received a nod in the Best Small Ensemble Performance category. Spotless Rose includes choral works by Stephen Paulus, Benjamin Britten, Cecilia McDowall, Herbert Howells, Javier Busto, Healey Willan, and Jean Belmont Ford. On a personal level, I need to add that this recording is a special favorite among many of us at Naxos.

Another Chandos choral recording, Rheinberger: Sacred Choral Works, with conductor Charles Bruffy leading the Kansas City Chorale and Phoenix Bach Choir, earned nominations for Best Surround Sound Album and Best Choral Performance. Finally, a Best Orchestral Performance nomination went to conductor Rumon Gamba and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra for their Chandos recording D’Indy Orchestral Works, Volume 1.

A EuroArts production earned two nominations in the categories of Best Classical Album (Award to Artists and Producers) and Best Opera Recording (Award to Conductor, Producer, and Principal Soloists) for the DVD recording of Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of The City of Mahagonny. The performance featured conductor James Conlon, soloists Anthony Dean Griffey, Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald, and the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra and Chorus, produced by Fred Vogler. (This is the first year DVD recordings of operas are eligible for Grammy Awards. Only the audio portion of the DVD is considered in the nominating process.”)

Nominations for Best Opera Recording also went to conductors Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs for their CPO recording of Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Psyché with the Boston Early Music Festival. Mr. O’Dette and Mr. Stubbs also were nominated last year for their CPO recording of Lully’s Thésée with the same ensemble.

Renowned Italian conductor and Baroque specialist Rinaldo Alessandrini was nominated for his Naïve classique recording of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo.

Finally, violinist Elmar Oliveira earned a nomination for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra for his Artek recording of Violin Concertos by Ernst Bloch and Benjamin Lees, with John McLaughlin Williams conducting the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine.

“To have the freedom to decide what kind of repertory to record is a most exhilarating feeling a musician can experience. The establishment of the Idil Biret Archive label with worldwide distribution by Naxos is simply the realization of a wish, a dream coming true for me.”
-Idil Biret

The Idil Biret Archive contains all of the pianist’s professional recordings and many of her radio and television recordings

In December 2008 the Idil Biret Archive (IBA) will join the Naxos family of labels, IBA recordings will be distributed worldwide as well as digitally on major websites including Naxos Music Library, ClassicsOnline, iTunes, eMusic and Amazon.Biret is a prolific recording artist whose repertoire includes mastery of music from the classical to modern era. Since she began her recording career in 1949 she has made over 80 recordings for nine labels, as well as countless radio and television recordings. Many of these recordings have never been available commercially and will debut on IBA.

First four recordings will be released in December 2008
Four volumes from the 19 volume Beethoven Edition will be released first. The Beethoven Edition includes the 32 Piano Sonatas, Five Piano Concertos, Choral Fantasia, and Liszt’s transcriptions of the Nine Symphonies. The Sonatas and Piano Concertos (with the Bikent Symphony Orchestra conducted by Antoni Wit) are new recordings. The Liszt transcriptions were originally issued by EMI in 1986.Starting in February 2009, remaining recordings in the Beethoven Edition will be released on a monthly basis. Biret is the only pianist to have performed all of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas, Concertos and Liszt transcriptions of the Nine Symphonies in public concerts. She is now the first pianist to have recorded them all. A DVD film, “The Making of the Beethoven Recordings” will also be available shortly.

Major Concertos Newly Recorded
For future release, Biret has also recorded new versions of concertos by Tchaikovsky, Liszt, Grieg and Schumann. In addition to the newly recorded CDs, the legendary and long unavailable recordings Biret made for Atlantic/Finnadar in the 1970s will be released.

Awards and Publications
In 2006, “Idil Biret, A Turkish Pianist in France,” a book about Biret’s life and musical philosophy, was published by the French publisher Buchet-Chastel. Turkish and German language versions of the book are now available. English, Polish, Russian and Greek translations will be available shortly. In 2007, Biret was awarded the Distinguished Service Order - Cavalry Cross by the Polish President for her service to Polish culture through her Chopin recordings. Biret is now preparing a new edition of Chopin’s piano music for the New York publisher IMC.

Let’s face it, we haven’t been hearing a lot of good news about the economy lately. These tough times have also pushed the already strapped classical music industry into making some very tough decisions. Eleven layoffs at the City Opera, followed by workers asked to stay home for two days because there wasn’t enough money to meet payroll. Then Gerard Mortier exists. The stories continue. In general, nobody is smiling a lot about the music business right now.

However, while CD sales have been flat, downloads have done substantially better. And, at the beginning of November Naxos announced its download site, ClassicsOnline, had made its entire catalog–nearly 22,000 DRM-free albums — available at 320 kbps. This speed and quality make mp3 files virtually indistinguishable from CDs. Additionally, in the next few months COL will begin offering certain titles in lossless. COL offers over 100 independent labels and adds more than 500 new albums each month. The cost? Well, it is a great value: complete album downloads run from $6.99 - $9.99 (obviously more for multiple-CD downloads); and individual tracks are typically $.99. In addition to the Naxos catalog, some of the labels you can find on COL include Avie Records, BIS, Capriccio, Cedille, Chandos, CPO, Dacapo, Hungaroton, Ondine, Wergo, Wigmore Hall Live, Vox and many, many more. Right now for new visitors to the site who register before December 31–no, you don’t have to provide three pages of data or your credit card number–you can get 3 tracks FREE. It’s a great way to try ClassicsOnline.

There also have been changes at Naxos Music Library. NML, which is the world’s largest collection of streaming classical, jazz, windband, choral and world music, is adding Canada’s #1 independent record label, Nettwerk Music Group, to its roster of more than 75 premiere performing arts labels, thereby expanding its offerings to include more independent popular music.

Nettwerk Music Group’s extensive catalog features artists such as Barenaked Ladies, Datarock, Delerium, Griffin House, Jars of Clay, Josh Rouse, Junkie XL, Ladytron, Old Crow Medicine Show, The Submarines, Sixpence None The Richer, The Weepies, and many others.