Composers

Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

Born in the U.S.A.

Composers, painters, writers, the whole motley lot–have always depended upon the kindness of strangers. Timely financial interventions of the Lorenzo de’ Medici here, the Nadezda von Meck there, the Paul Sacher over there have greased the skids for the makers of many of the world’s great masterpieces.  Alas, those sort of patrons aren’t that plentiful nowadays and so a new “community” model of patronage has sprung up in which arts organizations pool their resources to commission new works.  I call it the “Biegel” method after S21 blogger and pianist Jeffrey Biegel.  I suspect he wasn’t the first to do it but he has turned joint financing of commissions into an art and a bustling career.

Joan Tower’s Made in America, which will be released by Naxos next Tuesday, is the latest example of the art of the deal, new music-style, and it adds an intriquing new wrinkle–a corporate sponsor. The project began as an attempt by 65 small orchestras from around the United States to pool their resources to commission a new work by a major American composer. With the help of the American Symphony Orchestra League, Meet The Composer, and Ford Motor Company Fund, (the latter patronage leading to the fortuitous branding, Ford Made in America), the project has brought Tower’s piece to towns nationwide.

Made in America, premiered in Glens Falls, New York in October 2005, and has received over 80 performances—making it perhaps the most-performed piece of new music in recent history—and is still making the rounds on the concert circuit.        

The new Naxos recording marks the first appearance of new Music Advisor Leonard Slatkin on record with the Nashville Symphony.

As for the music itself:  it’s not Ligeti but you knew that.  Made in America is more like a Copland chocolate plucked from a Whitman Americana Sampler.  Gooey and slightly pre-chewed, but you kind of like it.  

by Jerry Bowles
Click Picks, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Steve’s click picks #28

Jerry’s recent semi-dismissal of our good friend Accordion prompts me to share a couple things, less well known than the usual Pauline Oliveros / Guy Klucevsek suspects:

Stefan Hussong (b. 1962 — Germany)

Stefan is one of the top contemporary accordionists working today, playing everything from Bach to the more than 80 new works specifically dedicated to him. His website is here, but the link on his name above is where I want to send you. It’s a recording of a March 2004 Other Minds concert, where Hussong essays wonderful performances of works by Cage, Harada and Höelszky, as well as a little traditional Japanese gagaku.

Aitana Kasulin (Argentina)

I don’t know very much about Aitana, except that she teaches composition at the Catholic University in Buenos Aires, and did some study in Europe with Walter Zimmermann.

I do know that I’ve long enjoyed her piece for bandoneón (the serpentine, button cousin of our keyed accordion, and essential instrument of the Tango), Sobre los pies del azar II, the recording of which you’ll find at the bottom of the page linked above. Ana Belgorodsky puts in the fine (live) performance. Note that the MP3 is a zip file, so you have to unzip or unstuff it after downloading. And be patient; the server is not fast at all. As a bonus, you can visit Aitana’s publisher, Música Al Margen, and in their catalog find the score for this piece as a free download.

by Steve Layton
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

Down, Cujo. Down.

Okay, sports fans, here’s something you’ll like.  Today, beginning at 6 pm PST and running through midnight (That would be 9 pm to 3 am {thanks, Andrea for straightening me out} here in the Center of the Universe), KFJC radio in Los Altos Hills, CA is doing a 6-hour special focusing on Berio’s Sequenzas.

Cujo, a dj on KFJC and Sequenza21 peruser, has lined up some stellar color commentary for this one.  In addition to a live performance on flute, you’ll hear from from David Osmond-Smith, author of the only existing English Berio book (with more to come), Janet Halfyard, editor of the forthcoming Berio Sequenzas, and Brian Brandt, chief of Mode Records. (I believe I was invited to participate in some way but forgot about it–one of the hazards of being 64.) 

Cujo provides several good reasons why we should all listen.  We will:

o learn why you should be disgusted when the trombone sequenza is played in a clown costume

o learn about the beef between Rostropovich and Berio

o understand exactly how Berio learned to write so virtuosically for such uncommon instruments.  (Seriously, accordion?).

If you continue to listen beyond midnight, you will be treated to KFJC’s annual Night and Day of the Sun, a 24-hour tribute to Sun Ra on his birthday.

Chances are you don’t get KFJC on your radio, but thanks to the miracle of the Internets you can listen online here.  As it says on the station’s Netcast page, “Ain’t technology wonderful.”

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

Blue Jeff

The Composers Concordance is having a concert tomorrow night at 8PM at the Greenwich House Music School Renee Weiler Concert Hall, 46 Barrow Street which will star our very own Jeff Harrington.  Okay, there are some other composers on the program, too, but none as adventuresome or all-round lovable as our favorite geek-composer.  Paul Hoffmann will perform the New York premiere of Jeff’s brilliant Big Easy mashup, Blue Strider.  You’ll find the full schedule for the program here. 

by Jerry Bowles
Composers, Contemporary Classical, Just Intonation

Underrated: Ben Johnston

Ben JohnstonFor the first subject of this column I’ve picked Ben Johnston, someone who has gotten some coverage on this site but remains criminally neglected. Born in Georgia in 1926, Johnston was variously taught by Harry Partch, Darius Milhaud, and John Cage. All three composers had an obvious effect on his music, but he quickly developed his own distinct voice. Best known for expanding on Partch’s experiments with just intonation, Johnston has contributed not only as a composer, but as a theorist and writer as well.

Johnston has written for orchestra, voice, and chamber ensembles, but his most important works as a composer have been his ten string quartets. Due to the intonational flexibility of the instruments, he has been able to fully explore his ideas concerning pitch and form. His quartets are arguably (and it’s an argument I’m willing to make) the most important works by an American composer in that medium. In his earliest works with non-tempered scales (Sonata for Microtonal Piano, String Quartets 2 and 3), Johnston pulled off the nifty trick of using a basic triad based tuning (5-limit JI) with pitch choices based on serial rows. The results are fascinating, but the cognitive dissonance of such an approach didn’t last long. A major change in Johnston’s thinking was heralded in 1972 by his fourth and most popular (and populist) string quartet, a set of variations on Amazing Grace. His latest works have explored the question of how European music would have developed unconstrained by temperament.

The University of Illinois Press recently released Johnston’s compiled writings on his musical theories and philosophies (and some other miscellany), Maximum Clarity, for which NewMusicBox conducted an interview with Johnston and published an excerpt.

While many of his works are unavailable, a sizeable portion have been recorded. The most significant Johnston recording is the disc of string quartets 2, 3, 4 and 9, put out by the Kepler Quartet last year (it deservedly made Jerry’s top 10 list for 2006). Kepler intends to record all 10 string quartets when funding allows. Head over to their website to see how you can support this important project… or just buy the recording on iTunes. Also, a CD of Johnston’s chamber works is available on New World, and Philip Bush has recorded his piano works for Koch. Those wonderful people at Counterstream Radio have put most of these recordings into their regular rotation.

For those of you who can’t possibly wait to hear any of Ben’s music, the Avant Garde Project is hosting two now out-of-print CRI LPs, containing Johnston’s fantastic 6th string quartet and two very different choral works.

I imagine that many of the readers of this site have at least a passing familiarity with the tuning concepts talked about above. To anyone who isn’t as familiar, Ben’s work is a wonderful starting place for acquainting your ears with these intervals, both because of the extent of which he employs them, as well as the general accessibility of his music. For those who have further interest, I encourage them to check out Kyle Gann’s page “Just Intonation Explained”. Jim Altieri has also designed some free software for calculating and hearing any of these intervals, available at his website.

by Trevor Hunter
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical, New York

It’s Very Fancy on Old Delancey

Here’s something to put in your calendar.  Our friends at the Metropolis Ensemble, led by Artistic Director Andrew Cyr, have a fabulous program called “There and Back Again” lined up for May 24 at the Angel Orensanz Foundation Center for the Arts, highlighted by the U.S. Premiere of Avner Dorman’s Mandolin Concerto.  Mandolin virtuoso Avi Avital (for whom the work was written) and the Metropolis Ensemble Strings will do the honors.  

“The concerto’s main conflicts are between sound and silence and between motion and stasis,’ Dorman says. “One of the things that inspired me to deal with these opposites is the Mandolin’s most basic technique – the tremolo, which is the rapid repetition of notes. The tremolo embodies both motion and stasis. The rapid movement provides momentum, while the pitches stay the same.”

Dorman says the piece draws from the mandolin’s vast repertoire, including Baroque, Russian folk music, Bluegrass, Indian music, Brazilian jazz and Avant-Garde.  

“When Avi approached me to write a concerto for him, my acquaintance with the mandolin was fairly limited,” he says.  “I had used it in chamber pieces only twice before, and did not know most of the repertoire for the instrument. As I got to know the instrument better, I discovered its diverse sonic and expressive possibilities.”

Also featured will be Osvaldo Golijov’s The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind for string quartet and clarinets, with clarinet soloist Tibi Cziger in collaboration with the Metropolis Ensemble Chamber Players, Arnaud Sussmann and Lily Francis, violins, Eric Nowlin, viola, Michal Korman, cello. The program will round out with Shostakovich’s masterpiece Chamber Symphony op. 110a and Bartók’s Rumanian Folk Dances.

That’s Thursday, May 24, 2007 (7:30pm) at the Angel Orensanz Foundation Center for the Arts, (172 Norfolk St, between Houston and Delancey).

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

John C. Adams, Harvard ’69

The Harvard Crimson reports on the return of a notable alumnus who has done pretty well in this composing business and had this to say about his old teacher Leon Kirchner:

[Kirchner] himself felt that no matter what he did he’d never be as good as Shubert and passed that onto the students. It became a form of self-flagellation, kills the creative spirit, and was incipient in his teaching.

Sound familiar to anyone?

by Jerry Bowles
CDs, Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

The Incredible Hipness of Carl Nielsen

For reasons I no longer remember, I had always thought of Carl Nielsen as a stodgy composer whose works were a little severe and chilly–the musical equivalent of one of Bergman’s more depressing films.  Winter Light in grainy, black and white sound.  I started to rethink (or I should say, to relisten to) Nielsen a couple of years ago when Alex Ross mentioned in one of our discussions here that he considered Uncle Carl to be one of the most “underrated” modern composers. 

Last year’s DaCapo release of the opera Maskarade convinced me that I had gotten Nielsen all wrong.  He’s really an enormously fun guy with a wicked sense of humor, a refined touch of romance, and a level of formal neoclassic chops that are matched only by Stravinsky.  Maybe. Nielsen just might be better. 

To bolster that argument, let me point to two new Nielsen releases from DaCapo that have appeared so far this year.  The first is a collection of his shorter opera and theater pieces called Orchestral Music played with unbridled enthusiasm and skill by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, under conductor Thomas Dausgaard.  Playful, refined, beautifully performed and recorded, it’s no surprise that both Gramophone and Classics Today picked the disk as their “CD of the Month.” It will certainly be near the top of our list of best recordings of the year.

As will String Quartets Vol. 1, which features two of Nielsen’s string quartets (in G minor and G major) and the only string quintet (in G major) he ever composed.  Lovingly played by the Young Danish String Quartet, with Tim Fredericksen on viola, this is moving, passionate, deeply romantic music that can, if you’re paying close attention, move you to tears by its sheer perfection.

I’m prepared to say that these are the two best Nielsen recordings ever made, although I obviously haven’t heard them all.  I simply can’t imagine recordings that could be any better.

by Jerry Bowles
CDs, Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Festivals

Have You Seen This Man?

brians.jpg

No?  Well you should, and can, this Friday night, May 4, 8PM at the Robert Miller Gallery, 524 W. 26th Street, New York, NY on the second night of a three-day music/art festival called Look&Listen.  

Finally had a chance to meet up with Brian Sacawa after all these years for lunch at Ralph’s, a New York institution since 1952.  Got to regale him with tales of having seen Dexter and Stan and Jimmy and Zoot and Gerry doing that thing they did so well while they were still doing it.  I’ve reached the age where “I was there” has become a conversation capper–one of the few perks of being old. 

Brian is good people and one of the most dedicated players and champions of new music around.  Catch the show Friday and check out his new album called american voices on innova which features works by Michael Gordon, Lee Hyla, Erik Spangler, Chris Theofanidis, Derek Hurst, Keeril Makan and Philip Glass.  Street date is July 24 but you can get it from the web site now.  You can also get a free copy from me if you volunteer to write a review.   

by Jerry Bowles