Concert review

Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Just Intonation, Los Angeles, Strings

Music of Ben Johnston in Pasadena

On Friday, March 15, 2019 the Lyris Quartet and the Kepler Viol Quartet joined forces at the Boston Court Performing Arts Center for an evening of the music of Ben Johnston. The concert was produced by Microfest and featured two of Johnston’s well known string quartets, as well as two rarely performed works. The Kepler Viol Quartet was on hand for the pre-concert talk to demonstrate the bass, tenor and treble viola da gambas used in Fugue for Viols, one of the concert pieces. The intricacies of viol construction, tuning, vibrato, intonation and bowing were explained to a surprisingly knowledgeable and engaged audience. The viola da gamba in the history of tuning was discussed and details of how Johnston re-purposed the fretting for just intonation were also covered. Ben Johnston, who studied with Darius Milhaud, Harry Partch and John Cage, was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Letters last year. At 93 years of age, Johnston may be one of our most influential but least familiar composers. His birthday falls on March 15, making this concert the perfect occasion to celebrate his music.

The first piece on the concert program was String Quartet #4, “Amazing Grace” (1973), performed by the Lyris Quartet. This is probably Johnston’s best known work and consists of a series of seven variations on the familiar hymn, all in different forms of just intonation. The opening section is the cantus firmus, in magnificent full harmony, with a rich and textured feel. Other variations featured expressive counterpoint, wistful introspection, and at times a certain stridency. The hymn tune appears just often enough to keep the audience fully connected. The ensemble playing by the Lyris Quartet was strong throughout, and also included striking solos from the violin and viola. The final variations combined complex passages with a pleasingly dense texture that was abetted by the unconventional harmony. Amazing Grace is perhaps the most over-exposed hymn of our time yet String Quartet #4 brings a vibrant new freshness to this old standard.

Duo for Two Violins (1978) was next, performed by Alyssa Park and Shalini Vijayan of the Lyris Quartet. John Schneider’s helpful program notes describe this piece as fulfilling “…one of the composer’s hidden agendas: to explore what would have happened to the traditional forms and language of Western music if the pure intervals of the Renaissance had not been abandoned.” Accordingly, Duo for Two Violins consists three movements – a fugue, an aria and toccata – lifted directly from Baroque sensibility. “Fuga”, the first movement, was anchored in the familiar formal structure, but the harmonies gave this a refreshingly modern feel. The second movement, “Aria” opened with a soft scratching sound in one violin and a quietly mournful melody underneath. The interplay between parts and the harmony produced by this combination was very alluring and the delicate playing only added to the overall charm. “Toccata” finished out the piece, and the busy opening of this movement was a nice contrast, providing an appealing bit of complexity and bounce in an uptempo finale. Duo for Two Violins is an elegant re-imagining of historical forms and tuning practice that gives new insight into the music history that might have been.

The Kepler Viol Quartet took the stage for Fugue for Viols (1991) and began the lengthy tuning protocol for the bass, treble and two tenor viola da gambas that make up the ensemble. According to the program notes “…Fugue for Viols has only ever been performed at a few early music concerts in the Midwest in the years that followed its composition…” Originally written for George Hunter, an early music colleague of Johnston’s at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne, the structure of the piece is squarely in the traditional fugal format. The subject begins in the bass and proceeds to the treble and tenors in the usual way. The audience could hear immediately that the viola da gamba quartet is a smaller and more intimate musical experience. The dark coloring in the bass added a sense of the ancient while the just intonation harmonies were warm and woody to the ear. The timbre of the viols and the unusual chords were at the same time an old curiosity and a new experience. The playing was clean, and the Kepler Quartet brought new life to the old instruments in a most satisfactory way. Fugue for Viols is an intriguing update to the rarely heard viola da gamba quartet, at once familiar and innovative.

The final work on the program was String Quartet #9 (1988), whose four movements further explored Johnson’s interest in recreating classical forms set free from equal temperament. “Strong, calm, slow”, the opening movement, is just that, with sturdy chords rising upward with a solid and settled optimism. The tutti playing was rich and full, adding to the lovely harmony. The second movement, “Fast, elated”, featured rapid phrases in the violins and viola with an appealing counter melody running through the cello. The strong, purposeful feel was supplied by a fine tutti ensemble. Always in motion, there were moments of stridency, especially with the pizzicato phrases in the cello. “Slow, expressive”, the third movement, was full of warm four-part harmony with a deep bass line adding to the sense of calm and comfort. A handsome violin solo was heard, accompanied by moving lines in the second violin and viola along with pizzicato phrasing in the cello. The playing here was precise and elegantly expressive. “Vigorous and defiant”. the final movement, opened with a strong, declarative statement that mixed in a bit of tension. Fast moving phrases in the upper strings crested to a defiant statement, then began again with a strong pulse and rapid tutti ensemble. The playing was exquisitely tight, with the quartet on a solid footing despite the fast tempo and unconventional pitches scattered through the passages. All of this built up to a big finish that was received with extended applause from an appreciative audience. String Quartet #9 is a masterful construction based on old forms while using new musical materials, brilliantly performed by the Lyris Quartet.

by Paul Muller
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Piano, Seattle

Piano Drop at Seattle’s Jack Straw

Destruction and reclamation, gimmick and avant-garde

One of the odder fads bequeathed to us by the 1960s is the ritual destruction of musical instruments. It’s a custom most famously associated with the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Pete Townshend. But what bursts out in popular culture often has precedents in the avant-garde, and the origins of this particular brand of onstage iconoclasm can be traced to the Fluxus movement, specifically its founder George Maciunas. In a nod to classical tradition Maciunas chose the piano, rather than the upstart electric guitar, as the foil for his aggression, directing performers of his 1962 Piano Piece #13 to nail down the keys of the chosen target (Sonic Youth famously performed the piece in 1999). Maciunas’s legacy was continued by fellow haute culture exponents Raphael Montañez Ortiz and Annea Lockwood, the former using an ax, the latter using an array of execution methods that included burning, burying and drowning.

The instrument (photo: Jack Straw)

It was Ortiz that provided the inspiration for the Pacific Northwest’s most famous entry in the klavierzerstörungen tradition. To help gin up publicity for a 1968 outdoor concert benefitting two local arts organizations (including the now defunct KRAB-FM radio), promoters arranged for a secondhand upright piano (purchased for $25) to be dropped from a helicopter. The stunt succeeded in its goal, with a few thousand young attendees journeying to a rural farm in Duvall (25 miles outside Seattle) for a day of folk, rock and choreographed demolition. In the event, safety concerns limited the plummet to a modest 50 feet, producing more of a dull thud than a thunderous clang. But it was still enough to obliterate the case, keyboard, hammers and dampers, leaving only the frame, soundboard and the top five octaves of strings.

The addled contraption lay half-buried in its grade-level tomb for 50 years before being exhumed by Jack Straw Cultural Center, the successor organization to KRAB-FM and a Northwest counterpart to New York’s Harvestworks and Roulette. The carcass was deposited on an exhibition table in Jack Straw’s New Media Gallery, where it was made available for the explorations of several West Coast musicians. The missing bass strings precluded performances of “under the lid” standards by such early masters as Cowell and Crumb, and the missing keyboard ruled out what could have been an intriguing variation on Lachenmann’s Guero. So the invited artists set out to create new works for this unique instrument, working under few restrictions other than an appeal to accept its deformed intonation and to limit the duration to a Cagean 4’33”.

Amy Denio (L) and friends (photo: Levi Fuller, Jack Straw)

Thus it happened that on February 23, 2019 a standing audience assembled around the beleaguered corpse to watch 16 composers and ensembles strike, stroke and probe its innards. The acts included a folk band and an oral history reminiscence (both evoking the hippie spirit of the 1968 event), but most of the new works were composed miniatures in the American experimental tradition. Many of them emphasized standard Cowell/Crumb on-string playing techniques, occasionally aided by digital effects or EBows. But Music for a Dropped Piano by Seattle’s ubiquitous multi-instrumentalist Amy Denio stood out in its use of bowed piano technique. And Aaron Keyt’s Piano Gusting saw four performers directing their breath through straws at clip-on contact microphones attached to the strings, the signal thence fed into small handheld loudspeakers, creating a chorus of metallic piano-like tones modulated by breath rhythms—one of the evening’s most remarkable sound experiences.

Two other composers found unexpected points of reference. Luke Fitzpatrick, a violinist by trade who recently resuscitated Partch’s Adapted Viola from decades of case-bound oblivion, levered his experience salvaging moribund instruments with his piece 3144. Attacking the Duvall piano with finger taps on the soundboard and plucks and strums on the strings, Fitzpatrick directly evoked the sound world of Partch’s plectrum instruments. Simultaneously he intoned the piano manufacturer’s stamp and serial number (“Ivers and Pond Piano Company No. 5, 3144”) using the same delivery he has developed for his performances of Partch’s Li Po Songs.

Hendrix immolating his guitar (photo: Ed Caraeff 1967)

Dave Knott also found an external reference, gently laying a small guitar (that had itself been dropped and detuned) on top of the piano’s remains like a vicarious empath, conjuring up images of saplings rising from the decaying nurse logs common in the nearby forests. While Knott strummed the baby guitar, his fellow Eye Music members David Stanford and Susie Kozawa played the doomed piano like a huge prepared autoharp.

The vaunted instrument destroyers of the 1960s tended to enlist their actions as anti-war agitations, or as demonstrations of the fragility of life and culture. But the performers showcased at Jack Straw embraced a different, more redemptive tradition, one closely associated with the Pacific Coast: that of reclamation. Whether it’s Cage, Harrison and Partch making percussion instruments from junk, or Edward and Nancy Kienholz building sculptures and installations from society’s discards, the tradition is one that regards art as a regenerative act that reminds us of the essential musicality and expressiveness in the tiredest and poorest things around us.

Piano Drop featured works by Jeffrey Bowen, James Borchers, Bradley Hawkins, Ski, Gust Burns, Austin Larkin, Brandon Lincoln Snyder, Bruce Greeley, Home Before Dark, Jay Hamilton, Count Constantin and Stanley Shikuma in addition to those mentioned in the review.

by Michael Schell
Boston, Concert review, early music, File Under?, New York

Blue Heron in New York (Concert Review)

Blue Heron. Photo: Liz Linder

Blue Heron: The Lost Music of Canterbury

Music Before 1800

Corpus Christi Church

February 10, 2019

Sequenza 21 

By Christian Carey

NEW YORK – On February 10th, the Boston-based early music ensemble Blue Heron made one of its regular appearances at the Music Before 1800 series at Corpus Christi Church in Morningside Heights. Directed by Scott Metcalfe, an ensemble of a dozen vocalists performed five selections, all votive antiphons, from the Peterhouse Partbooks. 

Copied by John Bull during the reign of Henry VIII, the partbooks now reside at Peterhouse College of Cambridge University. The tenor book is missing, as are large sections of the treble book, but musicologist Nick Sandon has spent his career reconstructing pieces from the collection. Apart from a few performances and recordings made by British and Canadian ensembles, Blue Heron have been the principal advocates for this rediscovered cache of polyphonic music written for the Catholic Church. Bull compiled the music just a few years prior to the establishment of the Church of England, which brought with it entirely different liturgical practices that rendered the music obsolete. Many partbooks were destroyed during the ascendency, successively, of Anglicanism and Puritanism. This makes Sandon’s contribution all the more noteworthy, in that it restores enough music to significantly add to the choral repertoire available from the pre-Reformation period.   

Blue Heron recently released The Lost Music of Canterbury,a five-CD boxed set of music from the Peterhouse Partbooks with selections by a range of composers, from the well-known Nicholas Ludford to the entirely obscure Hugh Sturmy. The quality of both the music and recorded performances is extraordinarily high. Blue Heron have a beautiful sound custom crafted for this repertoire and display impeccable musicianship. Sadly, none of the antiphons presented on the Corpus Christi concert have yet been recorded by Blue Heron. Indeed, there is a massive amount of music left in the Peterhouse collection yet to be documented. While the group has moved on to other projects – they are currently at work on recordings of the complete songs of Ockeghem and works by Cipriano de Rore – one hopes that at some point funding might allow them to commit the votive antiphons from the Peterhouse repertoire to disc. They proved most compelling in a live setting.  

Votive antiphons were extra-liturgical and traditionally performed in the evening, after Vespers and Compline, by a group of singers gathered around an altar or icon. Marian antiphons were most common and were represented on the concert by two pieces, Arthur Chamberlayne’s Ave Gratia plena Maria and Ludford’s Salve Regina. The former is a vibrant piece articulating a thoughtfully expanded trope of the “Hail Mary” text. Described by Metcalfe as “a word salad,” it does indeed contain a great number of independent lines in overlapping declamation. The sole piece attributed to its author, it provided a tantalizing glimpse of the idiosyncrasies permitted during this time of musical innovation and diversity. Ludford’s uses a more traditional text and is gentler in demeanor; as Metcalfe suggested, a valediction wishing those gathered to hear the antiphon a peaceful evening. 

The other three antiphons invoked various saints. O Willhelme, pastor bone, by John Taverner, was the lone short work here, clocking in at around three minutes; the rest were each about a quarter of an hour in duration. The piece has a fascinating backstory for those who study the history of the Tudors. It was written for Cardinal College, Oxford, where Taverner was instructor of the choirboys, to its patron Saint William, Archbishop of York. It also includes a verse uplifting Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who founded Cardinal College. Yes, that Cardinal Wolsey, the one who ran afoul of Henry VIII because of his thwarted attempts to obtain a divorce for the monarch. The piece itself is full of Taverner’s characteristic sustained high lines and contains some lovely harmonies. 

Blue Heron at Corpus Christi Church. Photo: Alex Rainer.

One of the composers that Sandon has helped to reinvigorate with his scholarly writings, as well as score restorations, is Hugh Aston. Blue Heron have been champions of Aston since 1999, their founding year. The composer is well-represented on the Lost Music of Canterbury, which, among several pieces, includes his own Marian motet, Ave Maria dive matris Anne, a work of eloquence and fervent yearning: one of the highlights of the CD set. The concert program featured Aston’s O baptista vates Christi, a supplication to Saint John the Baptist. One can see why Blue Heron would like to sing O Baptista: the text asks for protection for the choir, and what choir doesn’t sometimes need protecting? Of course, no such safeguards were necessary at Corpus Christi Church: Music Before 1800 attracts a friendly audience for the group. 

While the aforementioned antiphons impressed, the most remarkable composition on the program was the first one the group performed, O Albane deo grate by Robert Fayrfax. This piece features prominently in Fayrfax’s output. He also fashioned a setting of it dedicated to Mary, O Maria deo grata, with the same music but different words, and used its material as the basis for his parody mass Missa Albanus. The words here commemorate Saint Alban, traditionally considered the first British Christian martyr. Metcalfe usually allows the music to speak for itself, limiting himself to brief introductory remarks. However, before beginning the performance of O Albane, he gave a short demonstration of just a few of the myriad musical treatments by Fayrfax of the plainchant on which it is based. This proved most illuminating, as one could look forward to hearing the hymn fragment interwoven into the counterpoint at key places in the work. Equally enlightening was Metcalfe’s post-concert talkback, in which he fielded questions on a variety of topics, from Reformation worship practices to score restoration to sixteenth century tuning in England. I look forward to hearing Blue Heron again very soon. On March 9th,I will be making a pilgrimage to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to hear them sing Ockeghem’s Missa Prolationum. Look for coverage here on the site. 

(For more about the Lost Music of Canterbury 5 CD boxed set, see www.blueheron.org)

by Christian Carey
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Los Angeles

Southland Ensemble in Chinatown

On Saturday, February 9, 2019 the Southland Ensemble presented New Experimental Works at Automata in downtown Los Angeles. This concert was the result of Southland’s inaugural Call for Scores issued last year. With more than 200 responses, seven pieces utilizing graphic and text scores were ultimately chosen for this performance. Automata was completely filled while outside the Chinese New Year celebrations were in full swing with lanterns, firecrackers and enthusiastic crowds.

The concert opened with all are above us (2017), by Nomi Epstein the noted Chicago-based composer and educator. The program notes state that “Her music centers around her interest in sonic fragility where structure arises out of textural subtleties.” This piece opened with several performers sitting in a tight circle. All was silent at first, but breathy sounds, a soft harmonica note and a fragment of a vocal chant eventually drifted out to the audience. The sounds were only musical in the broadest sense and almost always fragmentary. There were often stretches of silence, and it was reminiscent of a quiet conversation around the campfire in some remote setting. The ambient crowd noise outside Automata in Chung King Court occasionally intruded on the “sonic fragility”, but the understated primal feel remained intact. The sparse character of all are above us invites concentration and focus, while artfully enlisting the listener’s imagination to fill in the spaces between the sounds.

Diálogos: Consecuente (2017) by Jorge Delgado Leyva followed, and this featured a group of performers in a semi-circle with a variety of sound sources constructed from found objects. Soft percussive sounds, a bell tone and then some sharp tones from a stringed instrument fashioned from a large paper cup and a length of wire were heard, all more or less continuously, as if in conversation. This continued apace, with new sounds – a short passage on a toy xylophone and the rattling of some dishes – joining the proceedings. It was like hearing some strange process that was not quite musical and not quite mechanical. The tempo and volume increased towards the finish so that a low grade chaos prevailed at the end. Diálogos: Consecuente is an inventive work that creates an engaging sequence of sounds and textures that encourage the listener to supply the context.

Next was Neither /N/Nor/N (2016), by Ben Zucker. For this piece, six performers were stationed along the walls and in the corners of Automata, designed with a minimalist architecture home styles that complemented the simplicity of the performance. All performers were equipped with small plastic megaphones, and soon a series of soft breathy sounds and the rushing of air filled the space. This gave a windswept and lonely feel that extended over the entire piece; there were no musical tones or sounds of percussion. Such a delicate piece called for concentration, and at about the midway point, the sounds of footfall from above served to activate the imagination of the listeners. This was unplanned—there are apartments above Automata, and the occupants were simply walking about—but it added a chilling element to a piece that was otherwise rural and remote in character. Neither /N/Nor/N is simple in both materials and structure, yet it proved to be the perfect canvas upon which sonic illusions could be released by the imagination.

Book of Hours by Nicole DeMaio followed with four performers sitting on the floor in a tight circle. A single player began by clearly reciting a paragraph of text that was an explanation of some complicated element of grammar. As this was repeated, a second player joined in, speaking the same text, but not in unison, and in a lower voice that was only partly intelligible. The remaining players then spoke the same text, but into closed cardboard tubes so that only muffled sounds were heard. The result was a complete jumble of sound, only partly comprehensible, forcing the listener to struggle for meaning even as the overall volume increased. A few notes from toy harmonica were heard, and a new recitation started – again by a single player speaking clearly, followed by the others as before. Several such cycles were heard, each time with more distraction. Sometimes this took the form of putting strong emphasis on every other spoken word, and at other times by the intrusive sounds of found objects. In a moment of Chinatown serendipity, a group of wandering New Year’s drummers arrived outside in Chung King Court and could be heard adding to the chaos of words and sounds in the performance space. This added the perfect sense of urgency to the need for comprehension. With so many ideas and voices coming at us in alternating layers of clarity and ambiguity, Book of Hours is an impressive metaphor for the state of communication in this age of social media and fake news.

After a short intermission AT A STEADY CONSISTENT RATE (2017), by Christine Burke, began with a lovely tutti chord from the assembled strings and woodwinds. The most musical of all the pieces in the concert, a series of long sustained chords were heard filling the performance space with a pleasing calm and serene sensibility. The players would sometimes enter at slightly different times, but this only added to the relaxed feeling. As the piece proceeded, however, the smooth sounds began to slowly dissemble. There was a scratchy sound in the cello, a flutter in the flute and a tightening in the violins. The pleasant chords of the beginning were decomposing into tension and uncertainty at a “steady and consistent rate.” Towards the finish the sounds became disconnected, ragged and strained, as one by one the players went silent. AT A STEADY CONSISTENT RATE is a brilliant  musical illustration of the oppressive nature of stress in our busy 21st century lives.

Saint-Girons (2018), by Erika Bell was next and this opened with a recording of indistinct voices and the sound of a bus pulling out into traffic. The cello sounded a long tremolo tone as the other strings made a smooth entrance. As the piece proceeded, more distinctly industrial sounds came from the speakers, and the acoustic instruments followed, crossing the line between the musical and the mechanical. Breathy sounds were heard from the flute, and the strings became tautly stressed. The effect of this transition was for the listener to continue to process the total sound as music, even as the more industrial components dominated. This unexpected search for context proved illuminating, the more so when the process reversed, with musical tones eventually prevailing. Towards the finish, there was a lush tutti chord that was almost symphonic in its grandeur. Saint-Girons is an intriguing exploration of the boundary between music and noise, inviting each listener to continually recalculate the coordinates of personal perception.

The concert concluded with Something about my Punctuation (2014 rev. 2018), by John Eagle. A performer was stationed at each of four chalk boards that were attached to the walls and began writing an extended paragraph. When the the chalk boards were about half filled with text, violinist Eric K.M. Clark sounded a sustained tone as he silently read the sentences. When a period was encountered, the tone ceased, another sentence was chosen and another tone initiated. The other performers, busy with their chalk writing, hummed a tone or struck a small bowl as they worked. The effect of four writers intently working on their texts along with the sounding of mystical tones and chant was surprisingly enthralling. It was as if we were observing the work of medieval monks laboring away in their scriptorium. There was a sense of the sacred that enveloped this activity, even though the words were not readable by the audience and the music was spare and softly played. Something about my Punctuation is an extraordinary work precisely because it manages to extract the essence of the liturgical from the simplest of musical materials and the most mundane of human activities.

New Experimental Works was a welcome and helpful overview of the breadth and intensity of the contemporary experimental pieces being created today. The call for scores and subsequent curation by the Southland Ensemble succeeded in bringing forward seven outstanding examples of what is being done by those working at the outer boundaries of music, text and sound.

The next Southland Ensemble concert will be at Automata on Saturday, April 6 at 8:00 PM and will feature the music of pioneering American composer Johanna Magdalena Beyer.

The Southland Ensemble is:

Casey Anderson, Jennifer Bewerse, Eric KM Clark, Orin Sie Hildestad, James Klopfleisch, Jonathan Stehney, Cassia Streb, Christine Tavolacci

by Paul Muller
Concert review, File Under?, jazz, Piano

Fred Hersch Trio Live at the Village Vanguard (concert review)

Fred Hersch Trio.
Photo: John Rogers.

Fred Hersch Trio

Village Vanguard

January 5, 2019

Sequenza 21

By Christian Carey

 

NEW YORK – Beginning the new year with a six-night long residency at the Village Vanguard, pianist Fred Hersch had a lot to celebrate. His current trio, in which he is joined by bassist John Hebert and drummer Kevin McPherson, has been together for a decade. They have received a Grammy nomination for their 2018 Palmetto Records CD Live in Europe. In December, Palmetto released another recording of Hersch in a trio setting, this one from 1997 with bassist Drew Gress and drummer Tom Rainey. 97 @ The Village Vanguard is the only live recording of this acclaimed ensemble. The CD also documents Hersch’s debut as a leader at the Village Vanguard.

 

Many celebrations include guests and Hersch’s residency was no exception. For the last three nights of shows, alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón, a Grammy nominee himself and a Guggenheim Fellow and MacArthur Award winner to boot, joined the trio. It proved to be a felicitous pairing. After the trio opened the set with Hersch’s meditative “Plainsong,” Zenón joined them on the pianist’s salsa original “Havana,” sending its sinuous melody soaring and building an exquisitely paced solo. Hebert and McPherson created a fulsome groove. McPherson’s ability to move from the pianissimo textural playing of “Plainsong” to the driving polyrhythms of “Havana” demonstrated versatility that turns on a dime. Hebert keenly targeted his playing too, moving between registers, engaging in melodic colloquy with Hersch, supporting the changes, and acting in concert with McPherson. All of this is even more noteworthy when one considers his uncanny ability to know exactly when and where to provide Hersch’s playing registral space.

 

Hersch’s music is often rhythmically intricate. In addition to the facility of the rhythm section, Zenón proved his mettle in the abstract phrasing and polyrhythmic environments of Hersch tunes “Snape Maltings” and “Skipping.” The latter tune elicited a verve-filled solo from Hersch. The pianist and saxophonist also made great foils for each other, one developing melodic breadcrumbs that the other had strewn in a previous solo. Zenón’s playing had a bite in the post-bop material, but was smooth and suave in the Lerner and Loewe’s “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.” Zenón’s composition “Temes” was an engaging part of the set, and it was fascinating to hear Hersch go to town on material new to him, displaying  a vivid imagination.

Hersch frequently writes compositions in homage to other jazz artists. “Lee’s Dream” is a contrafact tune, using the changes of Nacio Herb Brown’s “You Stepped Out of a Dream” with a new melody. It is dedicated to Lee Konitz. “Monk’s Dream” is dedicated to Thelonious Monk. During his set at the Vanguard, Hersch had Monk in mind. The closer was a one-two punch of the pianist’s harmonically inventive version of “Round Midnight,” followed by the group playing a rousing rendition of “Let’s Cool One.” Obliged by applause to share an encore, Hersch chose Billy Joel’s “And So it Goes,” starting in eloquent simplicity and then transforming the tune with intriguing modulations into a Chopin-esque reverie. The sold-out crowd seemed delighted to share in the celebrations.

 

by Christian Carey
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles, Percussion

WasteLAnd Concert at Art Share in Los Angeles

The latest wasteLAnd concert at Art Share in downtown Los Angeles was Friday, December 14, 2018 and drew a good sized crowd for five works featuring percussion and voice. Soprano Stephanie Aston and percussionists Dustin Donahue, Sean Dowgray and Ryan Nestor were on hand for a concert whose title, Capacity, was taken from the middle movement of a work by wasteLAnd featured composer Katherine Young.

The first piece on the program was Difficulties Putting it Into Practice, by Simon Steen-Andersen. Ryan Nestor and Sean Dowgray arrived on the stage and seated themselves at a table containing a number of paper sheets and cardboard scraps, along with two microphones. They each picked up a sheet of cardboard that had been cut with evenly-placed vertical slits and began blowing as they moved these back and forth horizontally. The result was something like a puffing steam engine, with intriguing variations arising from their relative synchronization and breathing patterns. Vocal tones were added, along with chattering teeth and occasional whistling or humming to create an amazingly varied assortment of sounds. All of this was accomplished with any common pulse or beat, although at times there seemed to be coordination while other stretches had a more random character. Towards the end Nestor and Dowgray were heard scribbling loudly on some sheets of paper, like office workers stuck behind their desks on a sunny day. Difficulties Putting it Into Practice is a marvelously resourceful work, conjuring all manner of sounds from simple materials, and performed with a convincing flair by Nestor and Dowgray.

Adiantum-Capillus Veneris, by Chaya Czernowin followed, a piece for solo voice performed Stephanie Aston. This began with slow, thin breaths of air streamed over the microphone, like the whisper of a breeze in some remote canyon. Soft rising tones were heard, and despite singing with her mouth closed, Ms. Aston produced a delicate and beautifully pure sound that added to the sense of isolation. A deep breath of air followed, then more high, thin tones sung faintly, but with flawless intonation and pitch control. Adiantum-Capillus Veneris invites close listening, and the audience was drawn willingly into its private spaces by Aston’s masterfully understated realization.

Next up was Urlicht, by Richard Barrett. Nestor and Dowgray were joined by fellow percussionist Dustin Donahue, all stationed behind vibraphones with assorted drums, cymbals and bells. Urlicht began with a short series of strong tutti chords on the vibraphones that clanged loudly like large bells before softly decaying into the silence. The vibraphone plates were then bowed at all three stations, creating a dreamy, mystical feel. The bowing continued, filling the air with a lovely, rarefied mist of sound. At one point some short, thin wires welded to what seemed to be an old trombone mute were also bowed, sending out a needle-sharp high note that soared satisfyingly to the top of the texture. The playing at low dynamic levels and the coordination between the players was superb.

As all this bowing continued, solitary mallet notes appeared, like welcoming streetlights in a thick fog. Stronger vibraphone tones followed, then some drumming and cymbal clashes. At one point, a long cardboard tube wrapped with twine was stroked with a stick, and this sent a series of short, sharp rattles into the air. The sounds gradually became more powerful and more fully percussive, with complex passages passed back and forth among the players. A huge crash was followed by a return to the quiet bowing of the vibraphone plates completing the piece. Urlicht is an exquisite showcase of vibraphone bowing and contrasting percussion, skillfully performed for this concert and enthusiastically received.

Releasing Bound Water from Green Material, by Katherine Young followed the intermission. Ms. Young is the wasteLAnd featured composer for this season and her three-movement piece included videos projected over a large array of gongs, vibraphones and other percussion pieces that crowded the stage. The opening movement, “Binding-Releasing I,” was accompanied by a blurry video of what seemed to be a turtle swimming in shallow water. The music coming from the percussion stations was spare and otherworldly, as if we were observing some alien habitat. Several ominously loud strikes on the gongs signaled the end of this movement, foreshadowing an unspecified peril to this innocent ecosystem.

“Capacity”, movement II, was even more unsettling. The video displayed a close-up of a bubbling cauldron full of unidentifiable clumps of matter and noxious vapors. Tones from the gongs increased independently, becoming more and more complex, adding to the sinister atmosphere. Powerful drum beats were heard and a sudden snare roll increased the tension. The fluid in the cauldron was now boiling off while the percussion sounds became more disconnected and intense. The final images of a barren, slag-filled surface seen through waves of shimmering heat was truly frightening and a metaphor for the dire predictions of climate change. The final movement “Binding-Releasing II” had a much quieter, almost desolate feel, full of soft atmospherics. The video was of a rotating machine with wooden gears, as if civilization had retreated to a primal technology. Releasing Bound Water from Green Material is a compelling premonition of our vulnerability in a problematic future.

The final piece in the concert program was Five Songs, by Andrew McIntosh, performed by the three percussionists and Ms. Aston. The five sections were short, just a few minutes each, but all were very expressive. The first opened with a strong chord from both vibraphones and a two-note soprano phrase that hovered lightly overhead. There was nothing loud or flashy in any of this, and the ensemble was informed with a pleasing restraint. Other sections, by turns, felt isolated, remote, questioning or mystical – but all were poised and balanced. The last section managed to be optimistic and comforting at the same time, especially in the spare soprano line and bowed vibraphone tones that quietly concluded this elegant collection of Five Songs.

The next wasteLAnd concert at Art Share LA will be Master of Disguises: Voices, instruments, love songs on February 16, 2019 at 8:00 PM.

by Paul Muller
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles

Scott Worthington, Hex Vocal Ensemble at Monk Space

The December Tuesdays@Monk Space concert was titled Grinding Sounds, Repeating Patterns and Sonorous Incantations and was curated to take advantage of the friendly acoustics of Monk Space for just such music. As Aron Kallay noted in the program notes: “Not every hall is good for every combination of instruments and in many ways Monk Space takes this to the extreme. Two things the space absolutely loves are low strings, and voice.” Accordingly, Scott Worthington was on hand with his electrified contrabass and the Hex Vocal Ensemble provided the sonorous incantations.

The first piece was I Feel Pretty, by David Lang, for acoustic or amplified double bass. Worthington’s bass was fitted with a pickup that fed directly into a PC. Sounds from the bass were recorded, processed and then broadcast from the speakers on-stage after a delay of a second or two. The opening double-stopped phrases were low, rough and gnarly as well as absent of melody. The speakers multiplied the deep texture so that it was almost as if the audience were confronted by a growling bear. At times the piece gathered itself into a nicely pulsating groove, and there were often intriguing harmonies that arose between the acoustic bass and the process electronics in the speaker. David Lang is generally known for his sensitive and empathetic music, but I Feel Pretty seemed to be joyfully the opposite. As expertly realized by Worthington, I Feel Pretty was a reminder that beauty need not be delicate to be appreciated.

Next up was Mint Conditioner by Alexandra Gardner, also for doublebass and accompanied by recorded samples from the speakers. This opened with a deep creaking sound, as if a large rope or cable were being drawn taut. This established a feeling of tension as Worthington’s acoustic bass entered with sustained low notes followed by rapid passages. The speakers then issued a series of otherworldly tones that were musically complimentary, but at the same time in stark contrast to the earthy timbre of the bass; it was an encounter of the primal with the far future. At times, the piece had a jazzy, African feel that developed a gentle groove, masterfully conjured by Worthington. Towards the end, the acoustic and recorded sounds blended together with a broad, soothing feel that turned just a bit sorrowful at the finish. Mint Conditioner skillfully blended recorded sounds with live acoustic playing, with the result often greater than the sum of its parts.

Home, by Jenny Olivia Johnson followed and this opened with slow, double-stopped tones. The electronics were configured to process the acoustic sounds, then loop them through the speakers with a one or two second delay. The low notes added an element of sadness while the electronics contributed a somewhat bleary sensibility. Various sounds followed, including some rough, sawing noises and a series very high pitches that stood out like screams from the otherwise dense texture. As the piece proceeded the drama increased, and a number of amazing effects were produced by Worthington and the computer. At the finish, high screaming tones dominated, a fitting climax to the ever-rising tension. Home is one long crescendo, artfully constructed and adroitly played. Worthington’s efforts were met with sustained applause.

After the intermission the Hex Vocal Ensemble took the stage to perform – a cappella – the Sonorous Incantations section of the program. Hex specializes in music from, and inspired by, Meredith Monk. Their first piece was After persimmons by Li-young Lee, composed by Carolyn Chen, which opened with long soprano phrases followed by the lower voices entering in counterpoint. At times, the soaring phrases by the soprano arced brilliantly overhead while the other voices continued with independent melodies. The interweaving of the various lines was precisely sung and resulted in an intriguing and constantly changing surface texture. After persimmons by Li-young Lee is beguiling music which took full advantage the vocal finesse of the Hex Ensemble.

Hee-oo-hm-ha, by Toby Twining was next, and this had a bright, up tempo and contemporary feel with vocalise in place of words. The strange syllables and phrases were crisply delivered and generally infectious. There were stretches of full harmony at times, but the sunny optimism and rhythmic groove of Hee-oo-hm-ha was pleasantly reminiscent of doo wop street singing. Strong applause followed this piece.

Dolmen Music, by Meredith Monk, followed with cellist Gina Kodel joining the singers on stage. Dolmen Music is normally learned and sung by rote, but the Hex Ensemble had notated the entire 25 minutes of vocal parts. High, thin pitches from the cello began the piece with a remote, windswept feeling as if we were in some distant and barren landscape. The higher voices entered with a sound like the far off howling of coyotes in the desert night and the lower voices answered with garbled phrases. There were no intelligible words in any of these passages and the Hex Ensemble convincingly created the sense that we were witnessing the primal incantations of an ancient culture. As the piece progressed, variations emerged in the vocal sounds including rhythmic syncopation, broad tutti stretches in full harmony, conversational passages between groups of voices and strong solos. The cello was often tacet, but deep double-stopped chords and extended techniques were regularly mixed into the vocal flow. The vocal lines were often independent and complex, but all were successfully navigated by the Hex Ensemble. At the finish, all were heard in full voice, creating a powerful climax. Dolmen Music and the Hex Ensemble delivered up a unique musical sound world, full of fundamental passion.

The final work in the program was Music for people who like the future, by Andrew Hamilton and this opened in a series of declarative passages with repeated words. It was a difficult to make out the text – it was part yelling, part cheering and part singing – all in a wonderful mix of sounds. A strong beat kept the piece on course, adding to an insistent and urgent feel. The tempo and volume increased towards the finish; a reminder that the future will not arrive quietly. Music for people who like the future brought a hopeful measure of confidence to what seems, these days, to be such a bleak uncertainty. The Hex Ensemble provided the needed flair and enthusiasm for this welcome message and sustained applause followed.

The next concert at Monk Space will be on January 8, 2019 and feature performances by the Grammy Award-winning ensemble PARTCH.

by Paul Muller
Composers, Concert review, File Under?, Minimalism, New York, Piano

Simone Dinnerstein in Recital at Miller Theatre

Photo: Lisa Marie Mazzucco.

 

Simone Dinnerstein in Recital

Miller Theatre – Columbia University

December 8, 2018

Published on Sequenza21.com

By Christian Carey

 

NEW YORK – On Saturday, December 8th, pianist Simone Dinnerstein made a return appearance to Miller Theatre to perform an intriguing and eclectic solo recital. The stage was set with subdued lighting, with electric “candles” placed throughout and, over the course of the evening, small shifts of color. Ms. Dinnerstein, dressed in elegant, flowing attire, created an atmosphere through her performance demeanor as well. The recital was announced with no intermission and the pianist paused from playing only once, midway through, to acknowledge applause and take a brief break. However, by otherwise starting each piece immediately after the final notes of the one it preceded, she communicated clearly that this was not to be an event in which musical continuity would be broken by applause between numbers. Thankfully the audience complied, mutually agreeing to allow the atmosphere to envelop them too.

 

Dinnerstein played two pieces by the Eighteenth century harpsichord composer Francois Couperin, one at the beginning and another right before the break. This is the first time she has programmed the composer. Her approach to Les Barriades mystérieueses was sonorous, eschewing ornamentation in favor of unadorned, shapely melodies. Like the Goldberg Variations, the second piece required interlacing the hands to play everything on the piano keyboard that would have required two manuals on the harpsichord. Le Tic-Toc-Choc, ou Les Mallotins featured motoric clockwork and brisk filigrees that were an excellent foil for the Philip Glass work that immediately preceded it.

 

Mad Rush (1979), one of Glass’s best known piano pieces, was first composed for the organ at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, where the composer performed it for an appearance by the Dalai Lama. Arranged for piano, the piece is forceful and filled with contrasts. Its delicate passages were played with a spacious sense of breath by Dinnerstein, while the more emphatic central section in piece’s the repeating loop was performed powerfully with fleet-fingered accuracy. Last year, Dinnerstein’s account of Glass’s Third Piano Concerto was impressive; here, she made a further case for a place in the pantheon of Glass pianists. Contrast played a large role in Dinnerstein’s rendition of Robert Schumann’s Arabesque. Once again, she emphasized the breath between phrases, allowing the audience a sense of deft transition between the various emotive sections as they unspun.

 

Erik Satie’s Gnossiene No. 3 received the mysterious performance its ambiguous markings and lack of bar-lines evokes. One part cafe music and another modal Impressionist excursion, the piece was rendered with an evasive, lilting quality.

The pianist, in general, avoids overt and flashy displays of hyper-virtuosity, preferring instead to pick distinct places in which she allows her playing to be unrestrained. Dinnerstein’s performance of Schumann’s Kreisleriana provided several excellent opportunities for effusive virtuosity, and they seemed all the more special for the way that the pianist set them in relief against the more contemplative portions of the work. Fleet arpeggiations flew and the fugal passage in the final movement was a brisk cannonade.

 

Dinnerstein’s aforementioned penchant for allowing the music to breathe, as well as the atmosphere she created for her performance, encouraged a normally bustling New York audience to truly slow down and breathe themselves: a welcome respite during the busy holiday season. When the encore she favored them with was not some barnstormer but instead a reprise of Les Barriades, allowing the program to come full circle, it seemed entirely appropriate.

 

by Christian Carey
Composers, Concert review, Opera, Premieres

György Kurtág’s “Samuel Beckett: Fin de partie” at La Scala

[Ed. note: Former S21 contributor, member, and friend David Salvage has in the last couple years pulled up his U.S. tent pegs and landed in Italy. He’s offered up his review of the latest György Kurtág premiere last month at La Scala.]
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After decades of prodding, false starts, intense study, delays, and, finally, seven years of composing, György Kurtág, at age ninety-two, has written his first opera. For its subject matter, he has chosen Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, a play he saw during its initial run in Paris in 1957 and has loved ever since. World premieres don’t get any more hotly anticipated than this, and it was a privilege to be in attendance for the opera’s final performance at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan.

Endgame takes place on one of the last days of an imperious invalid named Hamm. As he sits in his wheelchair, he gives his servant, Clov, half-pointless tasks to do, like reporting on what’s outside the windows or pushing him around the room. Stuck in the same space are Hamm’s parents, Nagg and Nell, who live in two trashcans, having lost their legs years earlier in a biking accident. There is little food left for the four of them, and outside lies a bleak landscape of post-apocalyptic desolation.

While Kurtág’s work will inevitably be referred to simply as Fin de partie, its complete title is worth keeping in mind. The opera is actually called Samuel Beckett: Fin de partie and bears the subtitle “scenes and monologues, opera in one act.” By including Beckett’s name in the title, Kurtág connects the work with his earlier Beckett setting, Samuel Beckett: What is the Word; with the subtitle, he suggests that the present is something formally more open than a traditional opera.

The result bears out both title and subtitle. The original version of What is the Word is for singer and piano, and the piano doubles the singer note for note without contributing additional harmony or counterpoint. A similar closeness marks Kurtág’s approach to the singers and orchestra in Fin de partie: while the orchestration is vast and colorful and adds harmony to the vocal lines, emphasis to the stage action, and commentary on the text, principally, the instruments serve to double the vocal lines, making for an almost monadic work that is intensely expressive. Indeed, this is the miracle of Fin de partie: Beckett’s play is quirky, intimate, and subtle—in other words, not material readily suitable for operatic adaptation. And yet Kurtág’s music captures the text’s many mercurial shifts in tone while remaining nothing if not coherent and compelling. As much as any opera in history, Fin de partie finds that magical ground where song, speech, and tone are united. Rather than an end of anything, I found it to be a beginning, an opera rich in new possibilities for composers to come.

It is with the opera’s subtitle, however, where Kurtág seems less surefooted. In creating a libretto of an appropriate length, he has very significantly reduced the role of Clov. By doing so, Kurtág has weakened the play’s dramatic heart: the complex interdependence of a master and his servant. These cuts make some important moments in the opera’s second half come out awkwardly. When Hamm laments that a stuffed dog is not in fact real, the statement is a bit baffling because Kurtág has the cut the play’s sad and comical stuffed-dog scene (which involves Clov).  When Hamm thanks Clov for all he has done for him, we might be similarly puzzled, since in the opera he does little for his master (crucial scenes mentioned above involving the windows and the wheelchair ride are also cut). Strangely, Kurtág also omits the parts where Hamm asks Clov whether it’s time for his painkiller; in the play, Clov always says that it’s not time; at the end, he finally reveals to Hamm that there is no more painkiller left. In the opera, we only get this final exchange: the result is a sudden outburst that lacks catharsis. And in the opera, Clov’s long concluding monologue (prompted by Hamm to say something “from the heart”) seems more like a set-piece than the expression of things long unspoken.

By attenuating the play’s central conflict, Kurtág’s Fin de partie becomes less unified—more “open”—than Beckett’s original. As a result, it prioritizes the expression of inwardness over the realization of drama. As the opera goes on, the monologues take over, and the drama becomes more and more suspended. Of course, monologues can heighten drama; but this depends on the characters’ being insightful about themselves, others, or their situations. Beckett’s aren’t, and he wisely never lets their stories, musings, or ramblings dominate for too long in the play.

While I loved every note of Fin de partie and found the music’s force such that I’ve had trouble composing ever since seeing it, I remain puzzled as to what was gained by the approach Kurtág took: reducing Clov cuts into the play’s very core, and giving the monologues free reign is the wrong approach for this material. (I have some speculations about this, but I’ll save them for the comments section.)

Meanwhile, what remains is a grand achievement—a new opera at an extraordinarily high level. Those who stuck their necks out to make Fin de partie happen—Alexander Pereira, sovrintendente of La Scala, perhaps foremost among them—deserve our respect and gratitude. However problematic it might be, this is a work that bestows honor on any institution who decides to mount it or any musician who participates in its performance.

by David Salvage
Choral Music, Commissions, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, early music, File Under?, New York

Tallis Scholars Premiere Nico Muhly in Midtown

Tallis Scholars. Photo: Nick Rutter.

Tallis Scholars: A Renaissance Christmas

Miller Theatre Early Music Series

Church of St. Mary the Virgin

December 1, 2018

Published on Sequenza 21

By Christian Carey

 

NEW YORK – The Tallis Scholars, directed by Peter Phillips, made their annual appearance in New York as part of Miller Theatre’s Early Music series at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Midtown. The program was billed as a dual celebration — the 45th anniversary of the Tallis Scholars and Miller Theatre’s 30th anniversary season.

 

In honor of the occasion, Miller Theatre commissioned a new piece for the Tallis Scholars by composer Nico Muhly. Muhly has, of late, garnered a great deal of attention for two Metropolitan Opera commissions  — Two Boys and Marnie — but he often talks about his first love being choral music (he began his musical career as a chorister). Muhly’s choral works are exquisitely crafted and texturally luminous. Rough Notes (2018), his new piece for the concert at St. Mary’s, took its texts from two diary entries by Robert Falcon Scott, written near the end of his ill-fated voyage to Antarctica. The first excerpt describes the aurora australis, providing words such as “arches, bands, and curtains”  that are ripe for colorful musical setting. The second was Scott’s stoic expression of confidence in his team’s ability to accept their impending deaths with dignity. Muhly’s use of lush cluster chords in the first section gave way to more sharply etched, but still glinting, harmonies in the second, as well as poignantly arcing melodies. The divided choir of ten voices was skilfully overlapped to sound like many times that number. It is always fascinating to hear the Tallis Scholars switch centuries, and thus style, to perform contemporary repertoire; for instance, their CD of Arvo Pärt’s music is a treasure. One hopes that they might collaborate on a recording with Muhly in the future.

 

The rest of the program was of considerably earlier music, but ranged widely in chronology. The earliest piece was an elegant and under-heralded Magnificat setting by John Nesbett from the late Fifteenth century that is found in the Eton Choirbook. Chant passages give way to various fragments of the ensemble that pit low register vs. high for much of the piece. It culminates by finally bringing all the voices together in a rousing climax. The Tallis Scholars has, of yet, not recorded Nesbett, but Peter Phillips has committed the Magnificat to disc in an inspired performance with the Choir of Merton College, Oxford (The Marian Collection, Delphian, 2014).  

 

Palestrina’s motet Hodie Christus natus est, and the eponymous parody mass which uses this as its source material, were the centerpiece of the concert. The motet was performed jubilantly and with abundant clarity. The mass is one of Palestrina’s finest. He took the natural zest of its source material, added plenty of contrapuntal elaborations, and made subtle shifts to supply a thoughtful rendition of the text. Although we are, in terms of the liturgical calendar, in the midst of the reflective period of Advent, being propelled forward to the midst of some of the most ebullient yet substantial Christmas music of the Renaissance was a welcome inauguration of the season.

 

The two works that concluded the concert dealt with different aspects of the Christmas story. William Byrd’s Lullaby is actually quite an unsettling piece; its text deals with the Slaughter of the Innocents as ordered by Herod. One is left to imagine the infant Jesus being consoled by Mary and Joseph in the midst of their flight from persecution. Byrd composed it in the Sixteenth century (it was published in 1588), but Lullaby was the piece on the concert most tailored to this moment, evoking concerns of our time: the plight of refugees, the slaughter of innocent bystanders by acts of senseless aggression: particularly the vulnerability of children to indiscriminate bombing abroad and the epidemic of gun violence in our own country.

 

The last piece returned to a festive spirit and brought the Tallis Scholars to the cusp of the Baroque with Hieronymus Praetorius’s Magnificat V with interpolations of two carols: Joseph lieber, Joseph mein and In dulci jubilo. During the Christmas season, interspersing carols and sections of the Magnificat was a standard practice in Baroque-era Lutheran churches; J.S. Bach might even have done so in the services he led at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. Praetorius plus two carols gave the Tallis Scholars an opportunity to share three of their most-performed Christmas pieces. From seemingly effortless floating high notes to sonorous bass singing, with tons of deftly rendered imitative passages in the inner voices, the group made a glorious sound. One eagerly awaits their return to New York during their 46th season.

 

by Christian Carey