Concert review

Composers, Concert review, Conductors, Contemporary Classical, New York

New York Philharmonic performs Kraft by Magnus Lindberg

Magnus Lindberg before the show

[As part of my residency at the NEA Journalism Institute for Classical Music and Opera, I had to write an overnight review with a word limitation–something I hadn’t done in 15 years. What follows was my original story; an edited version appeared on our private web site where our reviews were posted.

I was very impressed with how the NY Phil turned a performance of a relatively obscure 25-year-old work into a must-attend event. The last time I saw that much excitement about a contemporary orchestral instrumental work was back in the late 1980s in San Diego, when a Soviet arts festival brought composers, musicians, and actors to town for a year-long festival. How did the NY Phil get the city so excited about an old work by its composer in residence?  When I get a chance between my current assignments, I hope to post an essay about that.]

Strident steel tintinabulations and dull metallic clanking invaded Avery Fisher Hall Tuesday evening (Oct. 12), where, minutes earlier, the music of Debussy and Sibelius, and the virtuosity of violinist Joshua Bell had delighted audience members.

That clangor wasn’t the 1 Train filtering up through the floor; it was the New York premiere of Magnus Lindberg’s Kraft. Fortunately the New York Philharmonic’s front office had prepared listeners for these sounds through videos and feature stories documenting Lindberg’s shopping trip at a local junkyard, turning this chapter of his two-year residency into a cause célèbre.

Alan Gilbert’s humorous but earnest explanations before Kraft also broke the ice for nervous patrons sitting near a 50-gallon storage drum or a large tam-tam suspended from the ceiling, providing them with aural signposts in Lindberg’s wild soundscape.

Lindberg’s style these days, although clearly modern, is also accessible to audiences, a polished language marked by rhythmic propulsion and dissonant but perceptible harmonies. Lindberg was an enfant terrible when he completed Kraft in 1985; its brute primitive force, imaginative orchestration, and exuberant theatricality immediately distinguished him from the droves of European modernists trying to emerge from the shadows of Boulez, Xenakis, or Ferneyhough.

Kraft is a contemporary concerto grosso, where the soloists not only play piano (magnus Lindberg), clarinet (Chen Halevi), cello (Carter Brey), timpani (Markus Rhoten), and percussion (Christopher Lamb and Daniel Druckman), but also hammer and scrape found objects from the New York area, most of them appearing to be old auto parts and iron gas cylinders. These solos are then spatialized on speakers (done skillfully by Juhani Liimatainen).

(more…)

by Christian Hertzog
Composers, Concert review, Conductors, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, File Under?, New York, Orchestras

Magnus Lindberg on Kraft + Einstürzende Neubauten

My tweet right after the concert on Thursday: “Magnus Lindberg’s Kraft: some very beautiful passages + intriguing spatial effects amidst a joyously chaotic maelstrom of sound.”

It’s a fascinating piece and a gutsy one for the New York Philharmonic to present. I do question the wisdom of programming it alongside Joshua Bell playing the Sibelius Violin Concerto. It threw some of the more conservative ticket-holders a curveball, as they had no idea (unless they’re checked out the promo videos on YouTube) what the Lindberg had in store for them.

There were far more than the “handful” of walkouts Anthony Tommasini noted in his otherwise superlative review in the New York Times. From where we were sitting in the Third Tier of Fisher Hall, we had a birds-eye view of a steady exodus of disgruntled patrons: perhaps 10-15%.

On Friday, I talked about the walkout phenomena with my analytical studies class. One issue we discussed was the notion that many orchestras seem to have of “one audience” vs. the possible lifesaving way forward of cultivating “many audiences.” The former notion seems pretty entrenched at the Phil. I’m glad to see that Alan Gilbert and some of the folks in the press office are exploring ways to curate and cultivate multiple kinds of music-making at the NYPO and leverage social media to find new audience sources. Last year, Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre was a terrific example of that.

But Thursday’s concert seemed to me to be a holdover of the former way of thinking. Get people to come to hear Joshua Bell, and then have the conductor give a lecture explaining why they should like a loud piece with oxygen tanks and multiple gongs in the midst of the audience. I don’t entirely blame the folks who stormed out for being upset, although I do wish they’d taken the hint and left after the concerto if they weren’t up for an adventure.

Still, for those who stayed, it was quite an adventure. Here’s Lindberg discussing the piece.


How often does a promo video (and indeed, program booklet) from the NY Philharmonic namecheck experimental industrial postpunk collective Einstürzende Neubauten? This is perhaps the first time! But one can really see the connections between the group’s aesthetic and Magnus Lindberg’s Kraft in the videos below: check out their percussion setup!




There’s one more performance of Kraft on Tuesday. If you’re in New York, I heartily recommend checking it out!

by Christian Carey
Boston, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, File Under?

Knussen Marches to his own Drum at Tanglewood


Knussen conducts Maderna. Photo credit: Hilary Scott

The 2010 Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood has moved away from its recent model of having a solo curator conceive the festival. Instead, the curatorial duties are shared by three of its longtime faculty members: Gunther Schuller, Oliver Knussen, and John Harbison. The focus this year is on Tanglewood’s past and present faculty composers. Far from feeling like ‘old home week,’ the programming has demonstrated a wide range of stylistic diversity among those who’ve taught at Tanglewood. In addition, one can observe how each successive generation of Tanglewood students has benefited from their instruction here and, in several cases, returned to mentor the Festival’s next generation of up and coming composition fellows.

Thursday August 12’s concert felt the curatorial presence of Gunther Schuller looming large, although the composer himself wasn’t present (apparently, he has a conflicting commitment at the Edinburgh Festival). One could hear why he might be attracted to George Perle’s Concertino for piano, winds, and timpani (1979). Though Perle isn’t generally known for jazziness in his music, the Concertino mixes some lushly voiced verticals – recalling Gershwin or, indeed Schuller in Third Stream mode – amidst the otherwise prevailingly neoclassical ambience. William McNally played the solo piano part with dextrous execution. Both he and the ensemble, led by Cristian Macelaru, provided a well prepared account of the Concertino, sensitively shading its complex harmonic palette.

Theodore Antoniou’s Concertino for Contrabass and Orchestra (2000) was a virtuoso showcase for soloist Edwin Barker. Rhythmically propulsive and harmonically eclectic, it demonstrated a host of playing techniques for the instrument. Barker rose to every challenge, suggesting that the bass fiddle is not just some lumbering beast to be kept confined to anchoring the orchestra’s low end. Rather, in Barker’s hands, it proved nimble, wide-ranging, and capable of thrilling effects: one especially noticed the brilliant glissandi harmonics.

Schuller’s Tre Invenzioni (1972) an angular piece for five spatially dispersed chamber groups, was conducted by Oliver Knussen, who artfully shaped its often punctilious, angular surface. One didn’t envy the students for having to tackle some of the exposed and punishing altissimo lines Schuller put in their paths. But it was an impressive rendering of this unforgiving and formidable piece.

Written in 1922, it’s somewhat curious to find Paul Hindemith’s Kammermusik No. 2, an incisive but conservatively neoclassical work, on a festival devoted to contemporary music. But Hindemith did indeed serve on Tanglewood’s compositional faculty back in 1940-41. That connection alone might not suffice for some, who might wonder why they couldn’t program one of his more daring works. But the piece was well worth hearing if only to enjoy pianist Nolan Pearson, who played with dazzling virtuosity and impressive, almost Mozartean, elegance, as well as the fine support he received from an ensemble conducted by the youthful up and comer Alexander Prior.

The highlight of the evening was a thrilling performance of Bruno Maderna’s Il Giardino religioso (1972), led by Oliver Knussen. Dedicated to longtime Tanglewood patron Paul Fromm (the title’s religioso is a pun on the meaning of Fromm: “devout”), this chamber orchestra piece contains quasi-aleatoric complexity and bold theatricality.

Things began with a bit of a snag. In the midst of the work’s hushed introduction for antiphonally seated solo strings, an audience member took a cell phone call, interrupting the proceedings. Sans histrionics, Knussen stopped the performance, tramped offstage, and returned after a moment. “Let’s try again,” he said.

One was certainly glad that he did, as the delicate balance of the resumed opening brought the now raptly attentive audience into a fascinating labyrinth of sounds. Knussen got to do double duty as a performer, first playing chimes, then drums, and finally celesta. The piece builds to a ferocious climax which is punctuated by two large cymbals being flung to the ground. In a gradual denouement, it returns to gently haunting antiphony. Incantatory music, magically rendered. Makes me want to hear much more Maderna!

The festival continues through Monday, August 16th. Stay tuned for more dispaches from Lenox.

by Christian Carey
Chamber Music, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Criticism, Post Modern, Review, Twentieth Century Composer

Bright Sheng and Anthony Newman premieres at La Jolla Summerfest

Older readers may recall with fondness Edgar Bergen, a very popular American entertainer who poured his comic routines through ventriloquist dummies named Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd. Edgar so loved the performing arts, that he created an annual celebration to showcase classical music, dance, opera, and theater, which continues and thrives to this very day: the Bergen Festival.

Okay, that’s not really what the Bergen Festival is, but after hearing a modern composer with a strong Chinese musical identity—Bright Sheng—prop up Scandinavian folk tunes on his knee, and manipulate them to entertain the public, the spirit of Charlie McCarthy—a bourgeois puppet in top hat and tails, monocle in place, spouting low vaudeville patois—was in the air…

More about the American premiere of Bright Sheng’s Northern Lights and the world premiere of Anthony Newman’s Sonata Populare here.

I am very interested in reading your views on stylistic appropriation. I recently encountered a thoughtful forum thread examining how reworking musical motifs can spark heated debates — see details near the end of that discussion — and it made me wonder: does it only creep out older dudes like me, or is it an affront to all contemporary composers? Why or why not?

by Christian Hertzog
Composers, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Women composers

Houston Mixtape #3: The Epicenter Of Noise


Outside the Eldorado Ballroom, Houston, TX (Photo by Chris Becker)

“ …(Houston is) one of the epicenters of noise bands and experimental music. Nobody even knows that, you know? ” Dan Workman of Houston’s Sugarhill Studios.

Here’s an excerpt of a recording I made of a Houston thunderstorm using a Zoom H4 recorder positioned just behind the front screen door to our house. You might want to turn down the volume about half way through if you listen to this headphones:

Houston rain and thunder

Part One

New York City – the city where I lived for twelve years before relocating to Houston, Texas – is LOUD. In my mind’s ear, I can STILL hear the car horns, the jackhammers, the fire truck sirens (we lived one block away from a fire station), the garbage trucks flipping over dumpsters filled with glass and concrete (BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!) and…the subways. Oh Lord, the SUBWAYS! Two musician friends of mine wore earplugs every time they traveled underground. My wife ALWAYS covered her ears when the trains screeched to a halt at the platforms. Loudspeakers in the stations and on the trains intermittently blared out jaunty yet nearly incomprehensible warnings about rerouted trains and “suspicious packages.” (Remember…if you SEE something, SAY something!) And microphone feedback? The MTA’s gotcha covered.

Quick! Without thinking, imitate a New Yorker! You started YELLING, right?

So being a sensitive composer with sensitive ears, the first thing I noticed about Houston once we’d moved down here is how much quieter it is compared to New York City. And what tweaked my ears my first few weeks on the ground wasn’t the omnipresent hum of the Interstate 610 loop. It was the unpredictable antiphonal chatter of Houston’s bird population. The screeches and cooing were so intriguing to me, I spent the first couple months in our new city composing a piece of “musique concrete” utilizing several recordings I’d made of the birds in our front and back yards. There is a truly rural almost wild (as in wilderness) vibe to the city outside of downtown and the aforementioned beltways.

How did a city that to my ears is so much quieter than NYC come to be known as an “epicenter of noise”? Make no mistake, some of the Houston noise artists I’ve checked out make Nine Inch Nails sound like Sting. But one thing the Houston musicians I’ve reached out to regarding the “noise” scene agree on is that one person’s “noise” is another’s poetry. The hierarchal notion that a note from a clarinet somehow contains more emotional profundity than the sound of a hammer hitting a nail doesn’t really exist in the minds of (most) 21st century musicians (One of my “non-noise” composer friends pointed out that noise just like “music” can “evoke a wide range of sentiment”). But my research yielded so MANY Texas musicians either explicitly flying the “noise” flag (Concrete Violin, Spike The Percussionist, Richard Ramirez) or so loosely attached to however one might define “noise” (the grime meets speed metal music of B L A C K I E is one such example) that I wondered who or what exactly I could write about in this dispatch.

It occurs to me that one of my favorite recordings, “Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground,” was created by a Texan (Blind Willie Johnson in case you didn’t know). The timbre Johnson’s vocal lies somewhere between a whisper and a scream while his phrasing conveys a feeling of both defiance and resignation. Consider the title Johnson gave to this recording. Has the uniquely Southwestern connection to the earth – the dirt that we all will return to one day – disappeared in the years since the 1920’s when Johnson tracked his performance? I don’t think so. And in the noise of that recording (the slide on the guitar strings…the rumble of the grooves of the record itself…) is there some precedent for the Dadist freak outs of Houston ’s Red Krayola? Or the electric jug playing of the 13th Floor Elevators? Or the stinging strings of Lightning Hopkins, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, or Little Joe Washington?

Perhaps “noise” – that succinct descriptive noun – is actually in practice a portal to a sensory experience that isn’t so easy to describe but one we immediately feel and understand. To quote Morton Feldman: “…these moments when one loses control…and with a thrust there is no sound, no tone…nothing left but the significance of our first breath.”

Like rain and thunder. Or “cicadas making noise…” Or the crazy Houston doves that carry on their pygmy like conversations from the trees around my house from sun up to sun down.

Part Two


Alexandra Marculewicz Adshead at Labotanica (Photo by Chris Becker)

Houston’s gallery and performance space Labotanica is currently hosting a monthly concert series called hereherhear that features women in experimental music. The first concert in June included artists from Houston, Baltimore, and New York. Last Friday, I attended July’s hereherhear concert event featuring the collective Pear Prickley Pear, vocalist/ composer Alexandra Marculewicz Adshead, and DJ/Electronic artist Khrystah Gorham. On display at Labotanica was Yet Torres’ mixed media installation EYE-CANDY DELECTABLY which explores objectification and the body via Torres’ own mysterious, grotesque, and at times humorous iconography. Plenty of people turned up for the concert, and I was happy to see that at a little after 7pm the performers would be playing to a full house.

Earlier in July, Alexandra invited members of the Houston community to email her mp3s of samples that she might incorporate into her performance at Labotanica. I responded with my front and back yard bird piece and was delighted when Alexandra contacted me to say that she would indeed use it for her upcoming gig. Samples from Pear Prickley Pear and composer Steve Layton would also become a part of Alexandra’s show.

Alexandra’s recorded works blend composed structures with improvised sometimes heavily processed vocals that at times is character driven or seemingly inspired by the sounds of nature, animals, and even her one-year old daughter. What struck me when I first listened to her music online was the sound of her voice – her tone and the emotive quality it contained. A voice sometimes jumps out at you in that way.

In performance, Alexandra utilized the laptop computer to play back the composed structures of her works while processing her live vocals through a variety of unpredictable effects. In one piece, she told the story of a woman’s descent into madness with a delivery that initially sounded as if she were reading a slightly unnerving bedtime story until flange and delay transformed her spoken words into the sound of the voice you hear when your frontal lobe isn’t functioning. Her closing piece did indeed incorporate my bird (noise?) piece into multidimensional landscape where slowly looping chorale-like vocals rose to several crescendos before morphing dramatically into a texture that included percussive effects and (more) bird song from Layton. The whole set was a thoughtful and engaging blend of techniques and technologies.

Outro

I wonder if “noise” as Houston has come to know it is due for yet another wave of creative development. For a movement that is by nature very “underground” – much of Houston’s experimental artists are well documented thanks to the Internet and what I believe is a very Texan impulse to preserve history (and share some good stories) in words both written and sung. Or screamed. Houston is a comfortable and nurturing place for experimental artists. And there are probably many reasons for that fact that I have yet to sort out.

(Special thanks to Joseph Benzola, Douglas Henderson, Mark Kemp, Daniel Salazar, Ryan Supak, John Stone, Yet Torres, and Michael Vincent Waller for their sharing with me their thoughts on noise.)

by Chris Becker
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Concert review, Contemporary Classical

The astounding success of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time

There’s yet another new music series here in San Diego: Connections Chamber Music. I reported earlier this year on their concert featuring Reich, John Adams, Daugherty, and Matthew Tommasini (the series director). For their last concert, they programmed the Quartet for the End of Time. Before I went to the concert, I marvelled at how I’ve heard the Quartet more frequently than plenty of 19th century chamber works just as great such as Beethoven’s op. 132. And–well, read my thoughts and review of the concert here.

by Christian Hertzog
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

When a Berio Sequenza is your warm-up piece…

Robert Dick in Recital
Institute and Festival of Contemporary Performance
Mannes College of Music (New School University)
June 17, 2010

Robert Dick was a name we heard in graduate school, spoken by flutists and composers alike in hushed, almost reverent tones. His treatise on contemporary playing techniques, The Other Flute, has long commanded a hefty price at various online bookstores (which is somewhat puzzling, as the tome has remained more or less continuously available). I finally found one for less than a king’s ransom a few weeks ago: just in time to ‘study up’ before finally hearing Dick live in recital.

The opener was Luciano Berio’s Sequenza for flute. It’s a little scary to hear Dick’s rendition of this piece – he makes a fantastic virtuosic workout sound like a walk in the park. That said, his rendition of the Berio was not only technically assured, but thoughtful and musically detailed as well. Before performing Shulamit Ran’s East Wind, Dick mentioned how it had been initially difficult to secure the commission; the composer initially balked at what she viewed as a limited palette. But one heard no hesitation in the end product, a soaring, microtone-inflected essay. The Ran piece was, in its own way, every bit as technically demanding as the Berio, but exuded a passionate linear narrative that was most compelling.

Toru Takemitsu’s Itinerant was equally emotive. This time the solo flute is used as an instrument of elegy; the piece was written while Takemitsu was mourning the then recent death of artist Isamu Noguchi. While there are aspects of the piece that are evocative of the shakuhachi, one never feels like Itinerant is merely a transcription. Rather, it transports the flute into an appealingly hybridized manifestation.

Robert Morris’ Raudra is a musical sketch of the rasa (sentiment) of anger from Indian literature. It indulges the flutist’s ‘inner child’ in tantrum mode, angrily riffing up and down the entire instrument’s compass. Morris’ interest in Indian music has found a fascinating outlet here; Raudra combines an awareness of ethnomusicology with a vibrant depiction of fury!

The second half of the program was comprised entirely of compositions by Dick. According to Dick, Afterlight is the first flute piece he’s aware of where multiphonics are a structural determinant of the composition, rather than merely serving as an embellishment or special effect. Whether or not it is actually the first piece to do so, its certainly one of the best – a beguiling etude filled with one shimmering vertical after another. I very much want to get my mitts on the score and recording of this one!

Dick’s a Metallica fan (Who knew?!?). On Air is the Heaviest Metal, he reinterprets thunderous riffs and chugging rhythms for his own instrument. While its not an experiment I would’ve thought likely to work, it brought out an intriguing facet of the flutist’s playing – an abiding interest in popular music – that proved a palette-cleansing corollary to all of the avant-flute pieces surrounding it.

The last two works on the concert were for alternate members of the flute family. Heat History is written for a flute equipped with glissando head joint. “Its kind of like a whammy bar for the flute,” quipped Dick. But the sounds elicited from the instrument thus equipped weren’t just glissandi ‘on steroids.’ Dick also took advantage of many timbral shifts that can occur as a result of the moving head joint, eliciting haunting multiphonics and chirruping microtones as well as the big bends. The title of the work came from an idea suggested to Dick by his father – that objects that undergo chemical makeup changes when subjected to high temperatures have a ‘heat history.’ This made the work’s many kettle whistles and rasps resonate in both musical and programmatic fashion.

Fumarole was inspired by deep sea, sulphur breathing creatures: another evocative image for a title. It was performed on the contrabass flute, which sounds two octaves below a regular flute. Key clicks almost take on the weight of drum thwacks. Sustained notes are potent and weighty. It is an instrument that has to be seen – and heard – to be believed (we’ve included a YouTube clip from 2009 below). Fumarole was a mind-blowing conclusion to an outstanding evening of extended techniques. Anyone who thinks that ‘special effects’ can’t be used in a purposeful fashion to create well-integrated compositions needs to hear Robert Dick in recital.

IFCP is in session this week and next, with events at Mannes and at Le Poisson Rouge. See the festival’s website for more details.

by Christian Carey
Concert review, Concerts, Conductors, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, New York, Philadelphia Orchestra

Orchestra of the League of Composers at Miller Theatre

Lou Karchin leads the Orchestra of the League of Composers (photo: Ron Gordon)

The Orchestra of the League of Composers (ISCM) presented the group’s “season finale” at Miller Theatre on Monday June 7, 2010. True, this is a pickup orchestra, but you’d never know it from listening. Composer/conductor Lou Karchin confidently led the group through a wide stylistic range of pieces, including New York and World premieres. WNYC’s Jonathan Schaefer hosted, engaging the composers in brief interviews between the various pieces.

D.J. Sparr’s piece DACCA:DECCA:GAFFA featured ace new music guitarists William Anderson and Oren Fader playing steel string acoustic instruments alongside the ensemble. The title referred to a set of chord progressions that the soloists played; these were adorned by pantonal flourishes from the orchestra. During his interview with Schaefer, Sparr tried to make it sound as if the piece had an elaborate plan. Perhaps its precomposition did, but its surface seemed to come straight out of mainstream popular cinematic music. I felt it had some cowboy movie potential, while my seat partner opted for a fairytale plot. We split the difference with “Cinderella in Laredo.” For the most part, the music didn’t demand much from the soloists: lots of bar chords with the occasional filigree. With such fine guitarists on display, one wishes that Sparr, a guitarist himself, might have reached for more.

Joan Tower admits she has a complicated relationship with titles. Her penchant for using purple in the titles of several works is not an example of synesthesia, but rather an attempt to create an evocative moniker after composing the work. Still, Purple Rhapsody proved quite evocative from a musical standpoint. A lushly pastoral work, it proved a fine showcase for violist Paul Neubauer’s considerable virtuosity and versatility.

Elliott Carter waited until he was 99 years old to set the poetry of Ezra Pound. The result, On Conversing with Paradise for baritone and chamber orchestra, was well worth the wait. Carter bridges the often enigmatic character of Pound’s poems with elements of “mad scene” that hint at the poet’s own personal instability. The result is a brilliantly demanding piece for which requires the soloist to demonstrate superlative dynamic control across a wide range. Schaefer passed along bass-baritone Evan Hughes’ apologies in advance for any vocal struggle – the singer was battling a cold – but indicated that, “Hughes had no intention of missing out on the piece’s New York premiere.” While one can understand his concern, Hughes needn’t have worried: his singing was superb and his characterization spot on. The orchestra was in excellent form here as well and Karchin led a finely detailed rendition of the work, exhorting ample dramatic heft where required. The composer, now 101, was on hand to say a few words and take a bow.

Percussionist/composer Jason Treuting created a quadruple concerto for his ensemble So Percussion and string orchestra. The Percussion Quartet Concerto juxtaposed So’s avant sound effects – tearing pieces of paper and other unconventional devices – with its penchant for groove-making. Treuting suggested that each member of the quartet was affiliated with a segment of the string ensemble. In practice, one just as frequently heard a juxtaposition of drums vs strings: syncopated, dancing percussion set against sustained legato passages from the ISCM collective. Whether fractals or tutti were commanding any given segment of the work, it proved equally diverting.

From a set-changing standpoint, it made perfect sense to close the evening with the NY premiere of Milton Babbitt’s string orchestra piece Transfigured Notes. But from a programming perspective, this was a poorly considered choice. A thorny, labyrinthine, and formidably challenging work, it didn’t stand a chance following So Percussion’s zesty ebullience. Indeed, several audience members walked out mid-performance: a sour note on which to end the evening.

Given that Babbitt co-founded the League with Elliott Carter back in the 1930s, one wishes the retreating faction might have had enough respect to make their exit before the work started; but maybe that was their game all along. While this writer was saddened to hear that Babbitt was unable to attend the performance, perhaps with the rudeness on display it was best that he missed it.

This is a piece that has had a fraught performance history. The Philadelphia Orchestra commissioned it back in the 70s. Then, finding it too challenging, cancelled its premiere – twice! Gunther Schuller conducted a performance of Transfigured Notes up in Boston in the 90s and made a recording of it, but its first appearance on a NY concert required ISCM programming it in 2010 – a doffing of the cap for one of their founders.

While Karchin and company gave it their best, after a long program fatigue appeared to have set in and intonation problems marred the proceedings. Alas, Transfigured Notes remains a work that hasn’t as yet been realized in an entirely satisfactory fashion. One hopes Karchin will get another crack at it at some point, as he remains one of Babbitt’s most persuasive advocates on the podium. Still, the fact that an occasional ensemble was brave enough to tread where the Philadelphians feared to go says a lot about ISCM’s chutzpah.

The League of Composers is onto something with these orchestra concerts – same time next year?

by Christian Carey