Classical Music

Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

Glass Rules

With at least 135 recordings (by my quick count) now in circulation, one would think there wasn’t much Philip Glass music that hasn’t already been submitted for the judgment of history.  One would be wrong. 

Orange Mountain Music has just released the second of a planned series of 10 CDs winnowed from the vast archives that Glass has assembled over the past 40 years.  The recordings—most of them captured during live performances–span the entire range of Glass’ work and include music for film, theater, dance, and concert hall in a wide variety of scores including chamber music, solo instruments and orchestral works.

archive1.jpgThe first CD in the series, From the Philip Glass Archive –Theater Music Vol. 1, was released a few months back and contains two atypical Glass pieces in that there are few repeating arpeggios, not much of a driving pulse, and a lot of intimate touches.  The first is a suite from Glass’ 2003 opera, The Sound of a Voice, the setting of two stories of Japan from a libretto by David Henry Hwang.  Scored for violin, cello, flute, and pipa, the suite combines Eastern and Western in a light, engaging manner despite a few nasty coughs from sickly audience members.  (Stay home, people!)  

The second suite is drawn from music created for Jane Bowles’ 1953 play, In the Summer House, which was directed by Glass’ first wife Joanne Akalaitis.  Scored for violin and cello, the piece is divided into 18 short movements, each more ravishing than the one before it.  There is something to be said for being young and in love.

archive2.jpgFrom the Philip Glass Archive – Vol. 2: Orchestral Music dips into Glass’ “world music” bag for Days and Nights in Rocinha, a 23-minute musical tribute to the Brazilian neighborhood that is home to the world-famous “samba school” and a place that Glass’ frequented often in the 1980’s and 1990’s. The piece was premiered in 1998 as a Dance for Dennis Russell Davies and Orchestra by the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra.  It’s an engaging piece that demonstrates once again that Glass coasting is better than most composers trying their damnedest.

The second work on the disc is titled Persephone and is a challenging 5-movement, 27 minute tour-de-force for orchestra and voices, created for a Robert Wilson theatrical installation from 1994. Astute listeners will note that the dramatic high point of the piece—the fourth movement “Cocktail Party”–is borrowed from Glass’ Piano Etude No. 6 but, hey, if you can’t steal from yourself… The piece is performed admirably by The Relache Ensemble.

So today’s musical question is this:  What is the best strategy for managing your compositional “brand?”  Put it all out there and let history sort it out (like Glass, Martinu and many others) or publish and record only those things you think future generations will hear favorably (like, say, Varese).

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

Nancarrow: Ten Years After

Conlon Nancarrow died 10 years ago today in Mexico City.  Pliable has a nice writeup, and quotes György Ligeti praising Nancarrow as the most important composer of the second half of the twentieth century.  I like Nancarrow but that strikes me as generous and raises the question–important to whom?  To other composers?  Maybe.  To the small percentage of human beings who like contemporary classical music?  No way. 

UPDATE:  Here’s the Kyle Gann link I was looking for. 

 

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, Festivals

August in New York

Verbier3.jpg                                I don’t ski.  Asthma.  And fear.  Mostly fear.

I used to party a bit though and because many of my companions were ski buffs, I have socialized, but not skied, at some of the best places in the world.  I have not skied Kitsbuehl and Chamonix and Lillehammer, for example.  I have not skied Aspen and Telluride and Jackson Hole.   Especially, I have not skied Verbier, the favorite hangout of some rowdy Norwegians of my acquaintance.  We have been thrown out of the Feed Club, Verbier’s most lively nightspot, not once, but twice over the years, not a record I’m sure but respectable for middle-aged businessmen.

Alas, I have never attended the Verbier Festival, which has become one of the best music festivals in Europe in recent years.  Fortuntately for all of us, they have a terrific web site when you can view all of the performances, including the August 1 premiere of our familiar Avner Dorman’s Spices, Perfumes and Toxins, under the direction of Zubin Mehta.  For more Dorman, check out the Metropolis Ensemble’s performance last May of his Mandolin Concerto.

And, welcome back to the S21 blogging fold Judith Lang Zaimont.

by Jerry Bowles
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, Festivals

Hello, Nonino

Seems like only yesterday we reported that Matthew Cmiel, one of our favorite boy wonders, had put together a new band called Formerly Known as Classical.  (Actually, it March 15, 2006, but let’s not quibble.) Looks like the group has done okay since last we checked in; on Sunday, August 5, they’re appearing in a concert at the Cabrillo Music Festival with Marin Alsop, the conductor and music director of the Baltimore Symphony and recent MacArthur Prize winner. 

Matthew–now a sobering 18-years-old–will conduct the group in Osvaldo Golijov’s Last Round, an exciting piece of music which gets its title from a story about boxing by Julio Cortazar and is an homage to Astor Piazzolla the late master of neuvo tango.  

Then, recent Juilliard graduate, cellist Drew Ford and San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra pianist Preben Antonsen will play Matthew’s piece Macho, Cool and Dangerous, which was inspired by the music of Golijov and Piazzolla.

The concert is Sunday, August 5 at 8:00 PM in the Sant Cruz Civic Auditorium, 307 Church Street, Santa Cruz.  If you’re in the neighborhood, write us a review.

Hey, the Steve Layton Songbook is coming along nicely.  Check out Prufrock (T.S. Eliot) 2007.

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, Odd

Monday Who’s Dead Wrapup

Frank Zappa has a street named after him in Berlin.  Frank Zappa Strasse is in Marzahn, a district on the eastern fringe of the capital made up of communist-era housing blocks. 

Can’t think of any connection to music except for famous interviews with John Lennon and Johnny Rotten but Tom Snyder was the man for whom talk radio and TV was invented.  Nobody did it better except, perhaps, for Dan Aykroyd doing his impression of Tom Snyder. 

Ingmar Bergman died at 89.  There are lots of connections between Bergman and opera and classical music, both through productions he directed and the use of composers and musicians as characters in his films.  That’s today’s topic.  

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, Opera

Die Meisterbators

From today’s Deutsche Welle:

Germany’s annual Bayreuth Festival of Wagner operas began on Wednesday with a highly anticipated, make-or-break production by the 29-year-old great-granddaughter of the composer Richard Wagner.

And while the applause after the first two acts of Wagner’s only “comic” opera was friendly, the audience — which included a smorgasbord of German political and social elite — was less amused by the third and final act, which featured a few minutes of full frontal nudity, a bizarre sight of Richard Wagner dancing in his underwear and a bunch of master singers horsing around the stage with oversized penises.

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Contemporary Classical

Bonfire of the Vandalists

After we arrived in New York in 1968, my first freelance gig was writing previews of upcoming art exhibitions for Arts Magazine.  For five bucks a review, I would trot around the area that is now Soho, climbing rickety, dangerous stairs to look for the next Jackson Pollock.  Lofts were illegal for living in those days so I learned a lot about fake walls and how to cleverly hide bedrooms and kitchens from prying building inspectors.   

I thought of those days this morning when I read the strange news of the lady who besmirched a bone-dry white Cy Twombly painting on exhibition in France by planting a lipstick-drenched kiss on it.  I remember meeting Twombly in his loft on the Bowery one fall day around 1970.  Twombly was not one of the illegal dwellers; he was well-known even then and living in Rome, as I recall.  I loved his work then; still do, and remember thinking to myself:  if only I had a couple of hundred bucks I bet he would sell me a little drawing.  But, alas, those were lean times and the opportunity passed. 

On the other hand, artists are incredibly generous people and I have many pieces that were given to me during this period, including works by Sol LeWitt, Jasper Johns and Arakawa.  I still regret the Twombly though.

But, I digress.  The topic of the day is music vandalism.  Any famous examples?  Any obscure examples?

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Music Events, New York

The Issue is Money

Over the past couple of years, ISSUE Project Room has become one of the hot spots for contemporary music in the city and earned a well-deserved reputation for presenting new and artistically challenging work. It has outgrown its funky silo on the Gowanus Canal and has just launched a $350,000 capital campaign with the goal of expanding its programs and moving to a larger, more centrally-located home.

As often happens, though, a great opportunity has come along and the group needs to raise a bundle of cash by July 24 to take advantage of it.  ISSUE is one of two finalists for the right to move into a new, rent free space in one of the most beautiful buildings in downtown Brooklyn.  But, says founder and artistic director Suzanne Fiol, it must demonstrate the financial capability to develop the space if it is to secure the lease.

An anonymous donor has made a $25,000, one -for- two matching grant to be met by August 10, which means that for every dollar the group raises between now and then, it will get an an additional 50 cents.  It has already raised $10,000 and Fiol says her goal is to raise another $25,000 this week.

“The reason of the urgency is that we’re meeting with the property’s developers on July 24,” Fiol says. ‘It is crucial to our success that we have this money in hand in time for this meeting. Nothing could better help ISSUE in making its case to the property’s developers than to be able to walk into the meeting saying we have met the match.  Successfully closing this first phase of the campaign before the deadline will inspire large  donors, corporations and foundations.”

Here’s how to give:

To make a donation on line, go to http://www.nyfa.org and click “For Donors.” Be  sure to earmark your donation for the Issue Project Room.  To make a donation by check, make your check payable to the New York Foundation for the Arts . Write ISSUE Project Room in the memo line, and mail your check to: ISSUE Project Room 232 Third Street, Brooklyn N.Y. 11215.  ISSUE Project Room is under the fiscal sponsorship of the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), and all donations are tax deductible.

If you want to know more about ISSUE or have ideas about how to help, you can contact Fiol at 718-812-1129, or write to
suzanne@issueprojectroom.org.

by Jerry Bowles
CDs, Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, Orchestral, Violin

Marvin Does Hovhaness

Marvin Rosen’s Classical Discoveries program is a  special one this week involving, as it does, several members of the S21 community.  Marvin’s doing the first radio broadcast of OgreOgress’s world premiere recording of Alan Hovhaness’s Janabar, a 37-minute Sinfonia Concertante for Piano, Trumpet, Violin & Strings.  The recording features Christina Fong on violin, Paul Hersey on piano, and Michael Bowman on trumpet, with the Slovak Philharmonic, conducted by Rastislav Stur.

The piece is scheduled for Wednesday, July 18th during the 10am EST hour. The program, from Princeton, NJ, can be heard locally on 103.3 FM  or online.  Lots of details about the new recording here.

Also scheduled is the one hour Symphony No. 6, for chorus and orchestra by the Latvian composer, Imants Kalniņš in a recording produced by the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra. That piece will air beginning at around 8:00 am EST.
 
Marvin is also doing a series of special summer programs of avant-garde music titled Classical Discoveries goes Avant-Garde, which is devoted to more modern works than one normally hears on his Wednesday morning Classical Discoveries program.  Classical Discoveries Goes Avant-Garde can be heard every Friday from 11:00 am until 3:00 pm on WPRB.

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

Is This the End of New Music?

I wasn’t able to make the premiere screening on July 4 but I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about a new documentary film called The End of New Music, which follows Judd Greenstein, David T. Little, and Missy Mazzoli, the founders of Free Speech Zone, as they tour the East Coast with the groups Newspeak and NOW Ensemble, playing concerts in unlikely venues like clubs and bars and bringing new music to audiences that might not otherwise be exposed to it.  The film, directed by Stephen S. Taylor, takes a verite approach to the tour, combined with interviews and various performance footage.  You can watch video samples or buy a copy at American Beat Productions.  You can also read Steve Smith’s terrific Times review there. 

Anybody seen the film?  (I know you have, Judd.)

by Jerry Bowles