Contemporary Classical

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

PARTCH Ensemble at REDCAT – The Wayward

On June 16 -17, 2023, the Grammy Award-winning PARTCH Ensemble presented two performances of The Wayward, a concert of music by Harry Partch. The Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater – REDCAT – was completely sold out for both nights, a testament to the great popularity of Partch’s music. The stage was filled with exotic Partch instruments: the Adapted Viola, Kithera I, Bass and Diamond Marimbas, the Chromelodeon, the Castor and Pollux Canons, among others. All of the most popular Partch pieces were in the program as well as some of those lesser performed. The program notes quoted Harry Partch, who wrote that these works are “A collection of of musical compositions based on the spoken and written words of hobos and other characters – the result of my wanderings in the Western part of the United States from 1935 to 1941.” John Schneider led an ensemble of top Los Angeles musicians and Kyle Gann contributed a new original piece.

Harry Partch was born in Oakland, California in 1901 and grew up in Benson, Arizona and Albuquerque, New Mexico. He took piano lessons and was playing for silent films in theaters while still in high school. His family moved to Los Angeles in 1920 and he attended the USC School of Music for two years. Partch never completed his university training, but moved to San Francisco where he continued with self-directed study and composing. He read a translation of Hermann von Helmholtz’s Sensations of Tone, and this proved to be a turning point. Partch rejected the 12 tone equal temperament tuning of conventional Western music and began to experiment with just intonation and other systems of microtonality.

Partch supported himself with a series of odd jobs including proofreading and teaching piano. He resolved to construct new musical instruments and his first successful project was the Adapted Viola, capable of playing 29 tones to the octave. His early pieces brought recognition from other composers and in 1934 Partch received a grant from the Carnegie Corporation to travel to Europe for further research into alternate tuning at the British Museum. Despite his lack of formal education, Partch was widely read and was able to continue his tuning investigations and instrument construction projects despite the challenges of the Great Depression. The wide array of Partch instruments on the REDCAT stage are the result of his efforts.

The music in The Wayward was composed between 1941 and 1968, allowing Partch to incorporate many of his unique instruments. The pieces were mostly inspired by Partch’s experiences on the road between 1935 and 1941 and generally take the form of a musical running narrative, somewhat like an operetta. The concert opened with Cloud Chamber Music and this featured the Cloud Chamber Bowls ringing out in deep resonant tones above the voices and percussion. Kyle Gann’s Amateur California Prune Picker (2022) followed, a new piece, about which more later. Barstow, that perennial Partch favorite, was next and delighted the crowd with its portrayal of eight hitchhiker inscriptions on a desert highway railing. The performers were all in period costume and the staging, REDCAT lighting and sound systems added greatly to the production values.

San Francisco had two cast members in newsboy costumes walking the aisles of the audience, hawking copies of old 1920s newspapers. The Letter was next and is just the sort of mail you would want to receive from a long-lost friend. For all its gritty economic trauma, Partch describes the Depression with equanimity and a good dose of wit. The music is often fast-paced and rhythmic, especially in the marimbas. The playing was clear cut, and the musicians often took turns conducting to cue entrances and keep everything on track. The PARTCH Ensemble players deserve much credit for performing on the Partch period instruments. These are only accessible for practice a few weeks prior to the show, have unique layouts and are tuned to many exotic pitches. Just reading the part scores is also very demanding. The difficulties are formidable, but the playing in this concert was smooth enough that the listener’s ear soon adapts to the alternate tuning and becomes comfortably immersed the Partch sound world.

The concert program also included Amateur California Prune Picker (2022), a new piece by Kyle Gann. This was performed on a subset of the Partch instruments: Chromelodeon, Adapted Viola, Gourd Tree, Spoils of War, Bass and Diamond Marimbas and the Cloud Chamber Bowls. Gann is an experienced contemporary microtonal composer who could be considered a direct musical descendant of Harry Partch, having studied with Ben Johnston, who, in turn, helped Partch in the construction of his many instruments. Even so, the challenges of composing for original Partch instrumentation are clearly daunting and Gann confessed in the program notes to feeling like an “amateur California prune picker” – an insult often hurled by Partch himself at performers who did not meet his high standards.

While the instrument ensemble on the stage evokes some similarity to the original Partch music, there are major differences. There are no vocals in Gann’s piece – most of Partch’s pieces are lighthearted narratives of depression-era life. The Partch pieces are full of snappy rhythms and light banter and the harmonies seem almost accidental. Gann’s music is more on the cutting edge of contemporary microtonal composing, exploring the emotional power of harmony and melody, with the pitched percussion in a supporting role.

Amateur California Prune Picker begins with sustained tones and a slow tempo. The adapted viola, expressively played by Derek Stein, carries this piece forward with a solemn, introspective feeling. The Chromelodeon and Cloud Chamber add to this. By the last third of the piece the viola line dominates and is very moving. This was not accomplished without difficulty, as Kyle Gann wrote in the program notes: “…I concentrated on the microtonal relationships among the various harmonies, and had to wrestle with the fact that not all of his instruments had the same pitches.” Happily, the effort was worth it. Amateur California Prune Picker is a bridge that brings the Partch tradition up to date; contemporary efforts now are focused on building out the microtonal harmonic language so that it can best express greater emotional power.

The concert concluded with two related Partch pieces: U.S. Highball and Ulysses at the Edge of the World. U.S. Highball is an extended account of a hobo traveling on the rails between San Francisco and Chicago. All of the frustrations and dangers of long-distance travel in empty freight cars are carefully explained: Do not sleep with your head touching the front or rear walls of a box car, or the sudden jerk of a train starting up or stopping quickly could break your neck. There are rail yards that should be avoided because of heavy-handed policing, and one should know what towns have the most – or least – rail traffic so as to avoid getting stuck. How to deal with the extreme cold in an unheated boxcar as the train travels over snowy mountains. Where best to find a meal – even if you have to attend a prayer meeting. The entire route was described – from the scary descent of the train in the Eastern Sierras to the risk of getting stuck in small town Wyoming, to arriving, finally, in Chicago. It is quite a trip.

Ulysses at the Edge of the World forms a sort of coda to U.S. Highball. A hobo, having survived an extended trip by rail arrives in a big city. A trumpet and baritone sax are playing a cheerful improvisation and the hobo gathers himself to take in the conveniences of the town. Just then a policeman arrives, seemingly about to arrest him. A fitting end to the long and exasperating journey.

The PARTCH Ensemble is:

Erin Barnes
Alison Bjorkedal
Tim Feeney
Dustin Donahue
Aron Kallay
Dan Rosenboom
John Schneider
Derek Stein
Nick Terry
Brian Walsh
Alex Wand

by Paul Muller
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Vocals

Annika Socolofsky on New Amsterdam (CD Review)

Annika Socolofsky

Don’t Say a Word

Latitude 49

New Amsterdam Records

 

“This unapologetic profession of love and vulnerability is something I have felt denied all my life. And it’s time to reclaim it. These are love songs for the self. These are my feminist rager-lullabies for the new queer era.” – Annika Socolofsky

 

Composer/vocalist Annika Socolofsky works out a great deal of anger on her New Amsterdam recording Don’t Say a Word. She has described herself growing up as a “queer kid” being ostracized. That treatment has subsequently inspired her to examine all sorts of othering in society, from overt discrimination to the subtle indoctrination of lullabies. She is joined by longtime collaborators Latitude 49, a mixed chamber ensemble.

 

“Don’t you cry” begins with ascending echoing chants, each ending with a vibrating sob, subsequently explored in Socolofsky’s alto register. The title track opens with ominous instrumental pulsations. Socolofsky continues to examine vibrating tones, to which are added sneers and moans. These are then accompanied by glissandos, repeated string ostinatos, and reverberant sustained tones from the ensemble. Vocal sounds come to encompass fry and abstract use of language, with a broadening range. Indeed, Socolofsky’s voice encompasses everything from the chest voice chanting of the recording’s opening to high soprano lines controlled with the technique of a concert singer. The piece ends unaccompanied, with pensive reiterations of previous components of the vocal.

 

“Tinker, Tailor” and “Little Boy Blue” both interrogate nursery rhymes, with the aforementioned singing techniques and textual responses to the complex nature of childhood tales. My favorite of the songs is “Like a Diamond,” in which the singer intones warm phrases in one of the “love songs to herself” she has mentioned as a concomitant goal to the expression of her anger at the challenges for her younger self. Socolofsky’s anger is an identifiable and understandable emotion, but her love songs to herself can resonate with others too, and this is a generous gift. 

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Los Angeles, Ojai

Ojai Music Festival 2023 – Saturday Morning Concerts

The Saturday morning concert at the 2023 Ojai Music Festival was titled The Willows Are New and featured the work of contemporary Asian composers. This was inspired by the centennial next month of the birth of Chou Wen-Chung, whose influence is strongly felt even as he is largely unknown outside of Asian musical circles. The concert program consisted of four pieces, two from Chinese and two from the Persian/Iranian traditions. The music presented in this program reflects the on-going efforts of composers to synthesize contemporary musical sensibilities with long-standing cultural influences.

The first piece was Veiled, by Niloufar Nourbakhsh, and this is scored for solo cello and electronics, with cellist Karen Ouzounian perfoming. Ms. Nourbakhsh is a founder and co-director of the Iranian Female Composers Association. She is based on the East Coast and her music has been performed at many festivals as well as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. She is a strong proponent of music education and equal opportunity for women and her views have put her in opposition to the conservative cultural policies of her home country. Veiled was composed in support of the 2017 Tehran protests against the compulsory wearing of the hijab and the ban on solo female singing in public.

Veiled opens mysteriously with a series of soft, non-musical scratchings on the cello microphone. A thin, four-note phrase in a very high cello register follows, establishing a lonely feeling which quickly morphs into a repeating melody in the middle registers with a very traditional south Asian feel. This sets the mood for the piece: a strong and venerable tradition surrounds the individual now engaged in seeking greater freedom. A soft sighing is heard and then a rapid pizzicato enters that introduces a feeling of tension. The traditional melody becomes stronger, however, and begins to dominate the texture. The music is heavier now as tradition bears down into the lower cello registers. The tension increases further and ultimately the piece ends with a questioning and uncertain feel. Veiled is a passionate and expressive work that mirrors the cultural struggles of women living in a tradition-bound society. Karen Ouzounian gives an excellent performance of a piece that speaks to the heart of the current Iranian social condition.

Mother’s Songs, by Lei Liang was next and this was performed by Wu Man playing the traditional Chinese pipa, with Nathan Schram on viola. Composer Lei Liang is faculty at UC San Diego and is also the artistic director of the Chou Wen-Chung Research Center at the Xinghi Conservatory. Mother’s Songs was inspired by traditional Mongolian folk melodies that often deal with loneliness and separation. Lei Liang writes that “These songs are of a traveler’s longing for home and a daughter’s desire to be reunited with her mother.”

A high, thin viola tone opens Mother’s Songs with scattered solitary notes heard from the pipa. The viola then begins a series of deeper phrases accompanied by occasional interjections of single notes from the pipa. All of this produces a warm and reassuring feeling. Some deft strumming on the pipa – with a sound somewhat like a mandolin – adds an exotic Asian flavor. As the piece proceeds, the rich viola tones are in contrast to the more active pipa and this soon breaks into a nice groove in both instruments. The piece goes back and forth from slow and expressive to strong and animated, but is always elegant and sensitively played. At the finish, both players crescendo then retreat back to a quiet finish. Mother’s Songs manages to combine the Chinese pipa and the western viola into a coherent work that unites two cultures through the common maternal human emotion.

Gong, (from Gu Yue), by GE Gan-Ru followed, performed by Gloria Cheng on prepared piano. GE Gan-Ru was born in 1954 and studied at the Shanghai Conservatory after the Cultural Revolution. He does not employ traditional Chinese instruments and his music is more closely aligned with forward-looking contemporary Western styles. Gan-Ru brings an ancient Chinese sensibility to his work, however, by using standard western instruments to evoke the spirit of his traditional culture. Gong was composed to illustrate the custom of sounding gongs in the quiet of the Chinese morning countryside.

Ms. Cheng related that while practicing this piece at home many years ago, her father unexpectedly appeared to listen. He was a civil engineer by training and had no strong affinity for music, but now for the first time he made a comment, which paraphrased was: “Gloria, you are playing this too fast. These are gongs echoing over the villages out in the country – let them ring.” Gloria realized immediately that her father was correct, and this has informed her practice of the piece ever since.

Gong requires the pianist to strike a note on the keyboard and simultaneously place a hand along the lower strings inside the piano case to better simulate bell-like tones. This requires some contortions by the pianist and Ms. Cheng remained poised and elegant as ever. The piano strings were prepared with some small screws and the piece stays mostly in the lowest registers. The work proceeds with single, ringing tones in a slow and simple melody. There is an ancient and sacred feeling to this, very much as if produced by a gong. Gong convincingly projects a traditional Chinese sound while delivering it to Western ears from the familiar piano.

The next piece was a section of The Willows Are New, by Chou Wen-Chung, the influential Chinese composer. Born in 1923, Chou Wen-Chung grew up in Shandong and settled in the US in 1946. A friend of Edgard Varèse, he became the teacher of contemporary composers such as Tan Dun, Chen Yi and Zhou Long. The Chou Wen-Chung website states that he became “…an unsung hero in the advancement of cross-cultural border-defying musical thought…” His music is informed by incorporating a traditional Chinese aesthetic into contemporary Western styles. Chou Wen-Chung died in 2019 and next month marks the centennial of his birth.

Ms. Chang opened The Willows Are New with a slow and steady melody in the lower registers of the piano. Some crisp notes are occasionally heard in the middle and upper registers, providing a nice contrast. As this proceeds, the feeling becomes somewhat restrained and melancholy, but never gloomy. This is simple music, not technically flashy or overly dramatic. Ms. Cheng brought just the right feeling and expression to this subtle piece.

The balance of the concert program was given over to an extended solo improvisation by Kayhan Kalhor on the kamanchen. The kamanchen is a bowed instrument of classical Persian origin, about the size of a violin but with a smaller, rounded body that provides a somewhat rougher and more insistent sound. The compact size of the kamanchen allows for fast bowing and rapid fingering which is quite impressive in the hands of an accomplished performer such as Mr. Kalhor.

In the program notes, Kalhor comments on the centrality of improvisation in classical Persian music: “Before we had a way to write music, this was the only way people had to memorize a melody and interpret it according to their own ideas and playing skills.” His improvisation for this concert began with a softly exotic melody that functioned as an introspective introduction to what was to follow. As the piece continued, the melody moved to a higher register in the kamanchen and gathered strength through its distinctive timbre and keen-edged notes. The tempo soon increased, with more complex rhythms and lighting fast fingering. The melody was often reinvented with multiple convoluted variations pouring out of the instrument. There were many changes in tempo, from slow and expressive to blindingly fast as the improvisations seemed to spin out wildly in every direction. All this continued for about 45 minutes, the result of pure improvisation and masterful playing by Kayhan Kalhor that left the crowd in a state of high excitement – and complete exhaustion.

A ‘Pop Up’ performance at the Libbey Park gazebo by Steven Schick brought the opportunity to hear a work by the influential composer James Tenney. Dr. Schick recounted how Tenney wanted to compose for percussion, but wasn’t sure how to start. One day a post card from Tenney arrived in the mailbox of percussionist John Bergamo. It was a complete score, containing just a single whole note with a fermata and dynamic markings. The title of the piece was Having Never Written a Note for Percussion.

Two large tam-tams were employed for this performance and Schick began with a very quiet tremolo roll on each simultaneously. This matched Tenney’s postcard score exactly and a slow crescendo followed that created a number of different sound interactions as the rumblings increased in volume. There was a remote, almost mechanical feeling to this but subtle variations in the sound could be discerned with close listening. At its peak, the booming sounds were quite impressive, eventually tailing off into silence as the piece concluded. The skillful playing of Steven Schick brought the simplicity of this James Tenney piece to life and provided a welcome contrast to the complexities of the earlier concert.

The Ojai Festival program of Asian composers who have incorporated Western instruments into their traditional aesthetic constitutes a hopeful example of cultural bridge-building at a time when our diversity calls out for greater mutual understanding.


Photos by Timothy Teague, courtesy of Ojai Music Festival

by Paul Muller
Contemporary Classical

FOR PHILIP GUSTON: A MEDITATION AND PRACTICE

Would you spend four and a half hours listening to this long piece?

Would you enter the concert hall and embark on this unknown auditory journey?

BY Di Fang

On April 12th at 2 p.m., in the Conrad Prebys Concert Hall at the University of California, San Diego, renowned percussionist Steven Schick, flutist Alexander Ishov, and pianist Liam Wooding performed together to interpret the work of 20th-century American composer Morton Feldman—”For Philip Guston” (1984). The initial experience of a four-and-a-half-hour concert with a slow, continuous pace, led by one of the world’s leading percussion masters, Steven Schick, left the audience with anticipation.

Steven Schick

Feldman’s music is slow and quiet, with an exquisite delicacy. When the first note of the piece is played, the floating melody immediately creates a sense of emptiness and mystery, leading the audience into an unknown world.

What are the performers doing? What elusive emotions are they evoking? What does Feldman want to say to his deceased closest friend Phillip Guston, the Abstract Expressionist? Where does the music lead the listener? What kind of chemical reaction will occur between the listener and the music? For the lead player Steven Schick, what does it mean to play this controversial work again after so many years? What is the difference between artists of very different ages performing together? What does this mean for the audience? What is the significance of Feldman to present and future?

Unexpectedly, as the music progresses, the audience’s curiosity is not constantly either amplified or resolved, but rather follows it the nice clean emptiness, to the depths of a calm and slightly melancholic abyss. With the passage of time, I began to discard all trivial matters, let go of unnecessary emotional burdens, and gradually set aside pointless thoughts. As the performance crossed the halfway mark, I felt constrained by my seat and walked to the steps on the side of the audience, where I sat down and continued the ritual-like listening. Looking at the other listeners, some stood with their eyes closed, while others lay directly on the carpet, seemingly immersed in a dream.

Liam Wooding

Feldman infused his notes into my present and future life, and my associations became a form of insight. Hidden metaphors, buried within myself, were like a reflection in a dusting mirror, gradually revealing their pure and natural essence through listening to Feldman’s composition. The act of listening enters the realm of aesthetic contemplation and communion with the universe.

The music is extremely minimalistic period, employing minimal motives for parallelism and repetition, resembling the primitive state of life. Its structure, however, is asymmetrical and unbalanced, unadorned, and bears a longing for ephemeral existence. The composer possesses a deep understanding of instrument usage, with the orchestration more akin to the blending of similar timbres rather than mere accompaniment. Compared with the weak sense of rhythm, the patterns of the melodies are more prominent and leave a lasting impression that lingers in one’s mind. This disrupts the audience’s previous auditory expectations of percussion.

This work not only challenges the physical limits of the performers in terms of its duration but also requires a sense of mutual understanding, breath, and collaboration among them due to its rhythmic, tempo, and dynamic characteristics. The vibraphone, the glockenspiel, and the celesta intertwine with indistinguishable timbres, while the contrasting tones of the piccolo and marimba disrupt the melody, creating a “Zen” stillness in the midst of the environment, halting the music and evoking a sense of enlightenment.

Alexander Ishov

The collaboration between the two young artists Alexander Ishov, Liam Wooding, and the percussion master Steven Schick is so harmonious and reflects each other. The bodily movements of the three artists are consistent, evoking the swaying of irregular tree shadows, while the overall composition progresses rhythmically, akin to a pendulum, showcasing a cohesive structure with internal coherence. I have no intention of seeking out specific vocabulary to describe the performance style of them, emphasizing their skills, coordination, and precise control over body expression. It’s because they best embody the concepts of “performer as absent” and “performer not present.” The performers’ act of erasing personal traces allows the audience to directly confront the work itself.

This aesthetic of sound is not commonly found in contemporary compositions. In an era of sound material exploding, Feldman returns to precise notation to paint the new structure. He places importance on the presentation of material and even more on the integration of material, requiring melting and mix like pigments. The process of viewing a painting is temporal, each moment seen is always partial. Feldman maps indeterminate sounds into the stretch of time, dissolving the complete symbolic image, which allows each instrument enough time to adjust its breathing and refine its sound system in the process. At the same time, silence gained its positive status.

In fact, no other composers of his time were influenced so much by paintings and painters. Whether designing, sketching, or copying, a painter’s first consideration is the size of the painting. Feldman thinks the same thing, “up to one hour you think about form, but after an hour and a half its scale. Form is easy—just the division of things into parts. But scale is another matter.” The emergence of the best crypto casino UK parallels this focus on scale, as these platforms expand rapidly, leveraging cryptocurrency to enhance user experiences and operational efficiency. However, we can’t ignore the connection between Feldman and Guston’s abstractions, early Anatolian rugs, Robert Rauschenberg, and the textiles in Egypt’s Coptic Period. The material itself is raised to the same status as the structure. The boundaries between tool and object, form and content are blurred. The intuition is the point.

Feldman’s dissonant sounds are organized within a naturalistic rhythm and a concise arrangement of pitches, creating an abstract space with multiple dimensions. Concrete sounds such as church bells, temple wooden block, and the rhythm of bouncing after free-fall are abstracted one by one, encompassing the natural cacophony, worldly clamor, and inner whispers. In the world of sound, one experiences and engages in a “serene contemplation” (Zong Baihua, “Aesthetic Stroll”). The repetition of similar or identical sonic elements allows the listener to gain a profound sense of time, leading to a clear understanding of life and the essence of time.

Today, do we still need Morton Feldman and Philips Gaston? Perhaps what we should think about is the spatial field of this sound. What the human condition represented or mapped by the presence of this sound.

“For Philip Guston” (1984) is not merely a concert but a meditation and practice for both performers and audience members. It gives me a new understanding of the concert event itself. As the audience enters the concert hall, they entrust their time to the performers, while the performers contribute their passion and past experiences to the composer’s work. The music work becomes a medium of communication between the audience, composer, and performers, constructing a unique path for each individual to find personal significance. The performers lead the audience into an unknown world of sound. This world is not solely created by the composer or performers; it belongs to the collective human experience.

Morton Feldman

As Morton Feldman said, “This piece doesn’t give you the feeling that it’s four hours.”

The beauty of Feldman’s music is characterized by an elusive contradiction and the embodiment of “less is more” functionality, aligning with the aesthetics and analytical thinking of modernism. The journey of this concert seeks enlightenment in stillness, serving as a “spiritual practice” for the performers and a “choice” for each audience to cultivate their inner selves, which will accompany them throughout their lives.

(All photos by Robbie Bui)

Author: Di Fang

Visiting scholar at the University of California, San Diego, Music Department.

Ph.D. candidate in Aesthetics of Music, Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

by Di Fang
CD Review, Chamber Music, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

John Liberatore – Catch Somewhere (CD Review)

John Liberatore

Catch Somewhere

Zohn Collective – Molly Barth, flute; Andrew Nogal, oboe; Sammy Lesnick, clarinet; Paul Vaillancourt, percussion; Dieter Hennings, guitar; Daniel Pesca, piano/harpsichord; Hann Hurwitz, violin; Dominic Johnson, viola; Colin Stokes, cello; Robert Simon, bassoon; Ryan Berndt, trumpet; Brant Blackard, percussion, Nöel Wan, harp; Brendan Shea, violin; Philip Serna, contrabass; Zach Finkelstein, tenor; Tim Weiss, conductor

New Focus Recordings

 

Composer John Liberatore teaches at Notre Dame, and has traveled widely through the benefit of various fellowships, including those from MacDowell, Millay, Tanglewood, Yaddo, the Brush Creek Arts Foundation, and a Presser Music Award to study in Tokyo with Joe Kondo. His music has traveled widely too, with many contemporary ensembles commissioning and performing it. As a performer himself, John Liberatore has revived an old and esoteric instrument, the glass harmonica. 

 

Catch Somewhere, a portrait CD of Liberatore’s chamber works on New Focus, is well performed throughout by the Zohn Collective, a sinfonietta-sized ensemble containing some of the most prominent contemporary performers in the United States. Various subsections of the group are utilized in the programmed selections. 

 

The recording opens with “A Very Star-Like Start,” a capriccio for eight instruments that demonstrates well Liberatore’s general approach: rhythmically vibrant with frequent ostinatos, and a chromatic pitch language that at times hews close to tonality and then veers towards shadowy post-tonal sections. “A Very Star-Like Start” is an excellent curtain-raiser, with compound melodies built between strings, winds, and percussion that then unfold into fleet ostinatos and angular lines. 

 

Flutist Molly Barth plays “Gilded Tree,” a four-movement solo piece with titles from the poetry cycle “Fable” by Randall Potts. Here as elsewhere, there is a poetic impulse that operates alongside the musical one in Liberatore’s creative approach. Even in instrumental pieces, the resonances found in word groupings provides a generative role. Barth plays in a number of demeanors: slow delicacy in “dark inside secure,” punctilious rapid passages in “black twig lips,” mysterious lyricism moving to brash high notes in “silence lost to echoes,” and liquid trills paired with repeated melodic cells in “quivering with light.” Barth’s dynamic control and virtuosity are most impressive. 

 

The title work is an eight-movement suite for guitar, prepared piano, and percussion, which alternate prominence in the various movements. Once again, a poem, Walt Whitman’s “A Noiseless Patient Spider,” which Liberatore found while at MacDowell Colony, serves as inspiration. “Catch Somewhere” includes particularly beautiful writing for prepared piano, not at all Cagean but entirely its own preparation. In the first movement, “vacant, vast, surrounding,” motives, many timbral, that will be used throughout are introduced. Pianist Daniel Pesca plays a beautiful cadenza in the second movement “surrounded, detached,” which then becomes a soft duet with guitarist Dieter Hennings.  Hennings continues with a cadenza of his own, featuring snapped pizzicato, in the third movement “little promontory.” This too is succeeded by a duet, this time with percussionist Paul Vanillancourt, whose motifs are responses to the guitar’s riffs. The movement then erupts, with piano, unpitched percussion, and guitar playing thick passages fortissimo. Repeated notes from the piano initially signal a dialing back, but the trio continues in vigorous fashion to its close. 

 

“thread 1” returns to mallet instruments and guitar harmonics, creating a brief, undulating groove. The longest movement, at six minutes, “O my soul,” begins with an arpeggiated guitar solo with rich tone from Pesca. Mallet instruments are featured in the next solo, gradually shadowed by the other instruments. The guitar’s cadenza then returns with gongs providing resonance behind it in a hushed close. “thread 2” is another brief piece for mallet instruments, once again with guitar harmonics joining, this time at the close. “filament, filament, filament” opens riotously, then juxtaposes various instrumental deployments in a brisk moto perpetuo, dissipating at its conclusion. The piece’s final movement “catch somewhere” features bright harmonies and repeated notes, particularly prominent in unpitched percussion. A strong, arcing melody presses the music forward towards its conclusion. Repeated patterns then succeed this, with thunderous repeated bass notes from the piano juxtaposed against gentle guitar lines. A denouement ensues, in a decrescendo to niente. “Catch Somewhere” is a well-crafted, engaging, and entertaining piece. 

 

The only piece that includes a singer is the CD’s final one, Hold Back Thy Hours, a setting of fragments of seventeenth century English poetry. Tenor Zach Finkelstein performs the four songs that comprise the set with precision and expressivity, his high notes suffused with easy lightness and his phrasing thoughtfully unpacking the aphoristic texts. The ensemble accompanies him with a complex thicket of pitch slides and knotty tunes, out of which offset attacks provide a sense of surprise that supports the nonlinearity of the textual fragments. My favorite among these is perhaps the most traditional, “violets pluck’d,” which includes a lamento bass. Its imaginative scoring, however, is fully of the present. 

 

Liberatore’s Catch Somewhere is one of my favorite recordings thus far in 2023. Highly recommended. 

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Los Angeles, Ojai

Ojai Music Festival 2023

The Ojai Music Festival began on Thursday, June 8, 2023 at 6:30 PM with an informal ‘Pop Up’ performance of Moon Viewing Music (2016), by Peter Garland, presented at the gazebo in Libbey Park. Percussionist Steven Schick, a familiar figure at Ojai over the years, was the solo performer, and he brought along an impressive array of gongs and tam-tams gathered for the occasion from various museums and personal collections. Moon Viewing Music consists of six short pieces, each inspired by a Japanese haiku or short poem. As described by Peter Garland’s concert notes, “This music is low and slow – an obvious correlation exists between tempo and pitch register.” The gongs and tam-tams were helpfully mic’d into a sound board and speakers so that the subtle character and interactions of their tones were not lost in the open Ojai evening air.

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Before the start of each piece, Dr. Schick read the haiku text as an introduction. The opening gong tone of the first piece was was deep and clear, ringing out with surprising authority. A second gong with a higher pitch was struck, and this produced tones that interacted with the fading vibrations of the first. Then began a sequence of single gong tones, each separated by a short interval, but always overlapping in their ringing. The tam-tam occasionally entered with a rolling crescendo, and this added additional warmth to the overall sound. The effect was most engaging and in general the feeling was both calming and mysterious.

Other pieces followed, in more or less the same manner. In some sequences, more than two gongs were employed. The dynamics could be anywhere from a gentle softness to church-tower intensity. There were some variations in tempo, but the ‘low and slow’ pattern of the gongs was consistent. In the fifth piece an extended tremolo on the tam-tam was followed by strong gong strikes that together created a grand sound. At the conclusion of the sixth piece a great blow to the largest gong produced a memorable finish.

This is introspective and contemplative music from a composer known for radical simplification. That this is artfully accomplished strictly through the use of percussion makes Moon Viewing Music all the more remarkable.

Liquid Borders, by Gabriela Ortiz opened the main Thursday evening concert in the Libbey Bowl. This is a three-movement work commissioned by Steven Schick and was premiered at the Banff Centre in August 2014. Liquid Borders is scored for a percussion quartet and was performed on this occasion by red fish blue fish, directed by Steven Schick. Ms. Ortiz is a Mexico City-based composer who has “created a body of imaginative work animated by adventurous border crossings between strikingly different realms: folk and avant-garde, Latin American and European, acoustic and electronic.”

The three movements of Liquid Borders each portray a different facet of life in modern Mexico. “Liquid City”, the first movement, portrays Mexico City as it copes with an influx of people from the countryside seeking greater economic opportunity. This opens with quiet xylophone arpeggios that suggest the soft light of a dawning day. As the city rouses itself, a series of metallic sounds are heard that evoke the activity and bustle of the waking populace. Living conditions for newcomers to the city are often rough and ready, so the percussion builds by gradually incorporating a variety of bottles, cans and other found objects. This manages to sound both chaotic and purposeful at the same time, attesting to the skill of Ms. Ortiz in orchestrating these unusual elements. A loud bass drum enters, and the strong beat adds a sense of effort and organization to the start of the working day. A nice groove breaks out as the red fish blue fish ensemble reaches full force. The impressive assortment of found percussion perfectly captures the gritty yet lively reality of the “Liquid City.”

The second movement is “Liquid Desert” and this opens with the soft rustling of maracas and a light hand drumming that creates a remote and rural feeling. The sound of a wood block and the striking of two stones add to the sense of isolation. A bass drum roll enters quietly, and slowly crescendos into a sinister presence. The social context is the exploitation of poor women for cheap labor in the maquila factories scattered throughout the northern Mexican border towns. Women have been known to disappear from such factories and the solemn and ominous character of “Liquid Desert” reinforces the gravity of these crimes.

The final movement of the piece is “Liquid Jungle” and this takes us to the southern borders of Mexico with Central America. A series of active marimba arpeggios are heard in the opening and this develops into a nice groove that evokes the buoyant commotion of a busy border town. The driving pulse brings the music of Steve Reich to mind, and the mood is tropical with a distinctly African feel. The playing by red fish blue fish is precise and carefully coordinated throughout, and is especially impressive given the fast tempos and often intricate layering of the rhythms. As the piece continues, the dynamics ebb and surge, but the active feeling remains consistent. Towards the finish some tension creeps in as the bass drum begins beating and the rhythms become even more frenetic. “Liquid Jungle” ends with a rousing finish, expertly delivered by red fish blue fish.

Liquid Borders delivers a remarkable depiction of three different sides of contemporary Mexican life through the masterful use of unusually expressive percussion materials. The 21st century musical sensibility of Ms. Ortiz eludes regional stereotyping and offers the possibility of a better understanding across previously wide cultural divides.

After the intermission, the Attacca Quartet took the stage. ‘Attacca’ is a musical notation term that instructs to the performer to proceed immediately to the next piece. The playlist for this part of the concert program consisted of no fewer than ten pieces in styles ranging from a Haydn string quartet to pieces by Philip Glass, John Adams, David Crosby and Rhiannon Giddens. These were not in the form of medleys or arrangements, but rather complete works or movements played serially, without pause. Attacca is a standard string quartet but called on percussion, vocals, a dancer and others as each piece required.

Given the amount and wide variety of music in this program, the Attacca Quartet did a splendid job of summoning up the spirit of each style and genre. The Haydn String Quartet in F major was instantly recognizable and the more contemporary pieces in the program were played with confidence and flair. Perhaps the most impressive performance was Pallavi, by Zakir Hussain, a complex piece employing four separate ragas. As the composer wrote in the concert notes: “Unlike the traditional Pallavi based in one raga, I have used four different ragas and tried to find a way to give each instrument its own personality with a raga assigned just for it. By doing so I hoped to address the Western system, which employs counterpoint and harmony, through multi-tonal play of the four ragas working in tandem in certain passages.” The result was an exquisite combination of sounds from the conventional Western string quartet, infused with the passionate energy and exotic harmonies of the classical raga.

Lullaby, by Rhiannon Giddens was a simple and lovely folk song, beautifully sung by the composer. The “Stem and Root” movement from The Evergreen, by Carolyn Shaw was another elegant piece, inspired by coniferous trees on the Canadian border and the general climatic uncertainty. The Attacca portion of the program lasted almost an hour, a testament to their skill, adaptability and extraordinary stamina. This was rewarded with enthusiastic applause from the audience and brought the initial evening concert for the 2023 Ojai Music Festival to a satisfactory conclusion.

Photos by Timothy Teague, courtesy of the Ojai Music Festival

by Paul Muller
Composers, Contemporary Classical, Deaths, Electro-Acoustic, File Under?, Metropolitan Opera, New York

Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023)

Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023)

Kaija Saariaho
(1952-2023)
© Maarit Kytöharju

Sequenza 21 is saddened to learn of Kaija Saariaho’s passing at the age of 70. The cause was cancer. Despite the toll taken by the disease, she continued to compose nearly to the end of her life. Hush (2023) for Finnish jazz trumpeter Verneri Pohjola, was her last piece.

 

Saariaho was one of the greatest composers of her generation, and a pathbreaker who encouraged composers in the next. She composed for nearly every genre of concert music and made electronic music at top flight studios, including IRCAM. 

 

The composer had an international career with champions throughout the world. A signature example is her opera Innocence (2018), a group commission by Finnish National Opera, The Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Dutch National Opera and San Francisco Opera. Saariaho has had a significant presence in the United States as well. Oltra mar was premiered by the New York Philharmonic to celebrate the Millenium. Her opera L’Amour de loin (2000) was the first by a female composer to be performed at the Metropolitan Opera in over a century. 

 

Generous tributes from all corners of the musical community, ranging from prominent composers, conductors, and performers, to admiring students and listeners, have been pouring out since this sad news was announced. Saariaho was not only a respected creator, by all accounts she was a keen collaborator and kind person. She will be missed by many, and her music will live on.

 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
Brooklyn, CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, File Under?, jazz, Piano, Twentieth Century Composer

Ethan Iverson Curates Sono Fest; Han Chen’s Ligeti

Ethan Iverson by Keith Major.

Ethan Iverson Curates Sono Fest; Han Chen’s Ligeti

Like many listeners, I first became acquainted with pianist Ethan Iverson via The Bad Plus recording These are the Vistas, which contained strong originals and a jaw-dropping rendition of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Several albums later, Iverson moved on from The Bad Plus to a variety of projects. His blog Do the Math outlines his work as an educator (at New England Conservatory) and a variety of interests that, unsurprisingly, focus on jazz, but also encompass twentieth and twenty-first century concert music. Starting next week, he brings his omnivorous musical instincts, and significant talents as a pianist, to bear, curating Sono Fest from June 6-23rd at Soapbox Gallery (636 Dean Street, Brooklyn, NY 11238l).  

Timo Andres by Michael Wilson.

Iverson’s newsletter has been a veritable feast of material previewing the festival (sign-up is free). He doesn’t just plug events, but gives detailed discussions of the programmed music and featured artists. Essays on Timo Andres, Miranda Cuckson, and Judith Berkson are all revealing.

Miranda Cuckson, violin

Judith Berlson.

 

My favorite of the posts is about Ligeti, which discusses the piano etudes and includes a link to an interview by Benoît Delbecq with Ligeti included on DTM. Pianist Han Chen isn’t playing any Ligeti on Sono Fest, but his recital on June 17th looks tantalizing, with pieces by Berg, Corigliano, Adès, and Ravel.  

 

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Han Chen’s new Naxos recording (8.574397) is a sterling document of the Ligeti Etudes. Iverson is voluble in praising it and I will add my own acclamations. The pieces themselves are one of the finest collections of the twentieth century, abundant in variety and virtuosic in demands. Ligeti’s early modern and postmodern concerns are updated by his late career interests in minimalism, Asian, and African music. There are a number of fine recordings of the etudes, but Han Chen’s is a welcome addition. 

The pianist is tremendously fluent in the plethora of dynamics and articulations required by Ligeti. His execution of formidable polyrhythms and hairpin transitions are uniformly excellent. The first etude from Book 1, “Désorde,” in which the left hand has complex scalar patterns and the right spiky, syncopated progressions, is performed at a breakneck pace. “Galamb borong,” from Book 2, in which a gently percussive opening, evoking Balinese gamelan, gradually builds to thunderous chords, with a denouement at its close, is equally stirring. Directly following this is a rhythmically incisive performance of the polyrhythmic “Fém.” The diaphanous diatonicism of Book 3’s “White on White” is performed with superbly controlled delicacy. Its ebullient coda is a welcome surprise. Han Chen’s Ligeti CD shows that there is plenty of room to reinterpret the composer, particularly during his centennial year.

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Taka Kigawa

 

Sono Fest Schedule

 

Tickets are $25 in-person, or $15 for the live-stream, available at SoapboxGallery.org.

 

Tuesday, June 6 – Ethan Iverson and Miranda Cuckson

Wednesday, June 7 – Ethan Iverson and Chris Potter

Thursday, June 8 – Miranda Cuckson

Friday, June 9 – Taka Kigawa

Saturday, June 10 – Timo Andres

Sunday, June 11 – Sam Newsome

Monday, June 12 – Momenta Quartet

Tuesday, June 13 – Judith Berkson

Wednesday, June 14 – Marta Sánchez

Thursday, June 15 – Aaron Diehl

Friday, June 16 – Scott Wollschleger

Saturday, June 17 – Han Chen

Sunday, June 18 –Robert Cuckson (set 1); Ethan Iverson (set 2)

Friday, June 23 – “Coda Concert:” Mark Padmore, Sarah Deming, and Ethan Iverson

Mark Padmore by Marco Borgrevve.



by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, jazz

Rochford and Downes on ECM (CD Review)

Sebastian Rochford, Kit Downes

A Short Diary

ECM Records 

 

“This short diary (of loss), offered as a sonic memory,

  created with love, out of need for comfort.”

-Sebastian Rochford

 

When Sebastian Rochford’s father, the Aberdeen poet Gerard Rochford (1932-2019) passed away, the drummer decided to create a recording in his memory. He composed most of the music after his father’s death, and enlisted pianist Kit Downes as a collaborator. Downes is actually a musical switch-hitter; he is also an accomplished organist. “This Tune Your Ears Will Never Hear” opens the album mid-tempo with thick chords and snare in rhythmic unison, only to give way to a slower rendering of the tune, juxtaposed with enigmatic harmonies. “Communal Decisions” has a wayward, modal melody that becomes an overlapping duo, finally filled out with Debussyian harmonies. “Night of Quiet”  consists of slow-paced chords in intricate changes, parallel planing, and filigree phrase endings. “Ten of Us” has an ambling melody and chromatic chord progressions that recall Rimsky-Korsakov. Considerable development follows, with a floating texture that arpeggiates some of the preceding material and shares new melodic variations. The last section includes a chordal ostinato reinforced by Rochford that slows into an emphatic minor key cadence.

 

“Love You Grampa” is one of the most fetching of the collaborations here, with Rochford creating a lullaby rhythm behind the drum kit and Downes playing the composition’s winsome melody with delicacy and poignant phrasing. In a shuffling rhythm and with a pentatonic melody, “Silver Light” recalls folk music. “Rochford’s playing is often economical, even restrained. Yet the textures and punctuations he provides always enhance the proceedings. 

 

The last piece on the recording, “Even Now I Think of Her,” is in a sense co-composed by Sebastian and his father, who sang the melody to his son, suggesting it for a piece. The drummer in turn shared the melody with Downes via cell phone. It is quite an intricate tune, rendered as a folk-like ballad with warmly voiced harmonies and gentle drum fills. Bringing the project full circle to Gerard Rochford is a fitting and touching conclusion to a compelling and inspired project.

 

-Christian Carey 


by Christian Carey
Chamber Music, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles, Orchestras

Mariachitlán in Ventura

On May 14, 2023 the Ventura College Performing Arts Center was the venue for The Sounds of Springtime, a concert featuring the Ventura College Chamber and Symphony Orchestras. The program included music by Tchaikovsky, Duke Ellington and Aaron Copand. The highlight of the concert was a much-anticipated performance of Mariachitlán (2016) and the composer, Juan Pablo Contreras, was in attendance. Full disclosure – I was a member of the trumpet section of this orchestra in the early 1990s, so I was curious to see how they were getting along under the direction of Conductor Ashley Walters.

The Chamber Orchestra took the stage first, with the ensemble consisting of three violins, two violas, two cellos and a double bass. They performed all four movements of Serenade for Strings in C major (1880) by Pytor Ilyich Tschaikovsky, a piece familiar to many. Even though this was written in 1880, it owes much to the earlier classical style, especially in the first movement. The musicians produced a full sound, decently balanced, and the entry of the double bass invariably added a strong foundation for the harmony. The theme and variations in movement I were solidly played and were passed around smoothly between the different string sections. Movement II was in a moderate waltz tempo and this was successfully negotiated despite the separate lines weaving in and around each other.

Movement III was slower, and the playing nicely broad and smooth. The hall acoustic tended to swallow up the higher sounds and, once again, the entry of the bass strengthened the texture. A calming, hymn-like feeling was the result. The melody in this movement was often passed around to various players, and this was accomplished with confidence and continuity. The final movement began with a purposeful andante tempo and soft pitches in the upper strings. The other players entered gradually and the ensemble soon moved ahead with a faster tempo. Transitions in tempo are often problematic, but this was adroitly handled. At times, there were intricate stretches of bright pizzicato in the upper strings, a melody in the violas and a countermelody underneath in the cellos. The final phrases of the coda were suitably slow and grand, and made for a stirring finish. There is a lot of difficult music in Serenade for Strings, but the Chamber Orchestra was never overwhelmed or intimidated. A loud and long applause was heard at the end.

After a short intermission, the Symphony Orchestra took their places on stage. With 65 musicians, every section was fully manned and they filled the big stage from the risers in the back to the ample string sections arrayed out front. Their first piece was an arrangement of Duke Ellington tunes that included familiar favorites: Don’t Get Around Much Anymore, Sophisticated Lady and It Don’t Mean a Thing (If it Ain’t Got that Swing). The sound of the big orchestra filled the hall, with the brass and woodwinds fighting through from the risers in the back. The presence of the many strings covering the front of the stage gave a smooth sheen to the overall sound, adding a further elegance to the sophisticated Ellington style. The transitions between the tunes were efficiently managed and the rousing It Don’t Mean a Thing (If it Ain’t Got that Swing) at the finish was especially well received by the audience.

This was followed by Selections from Rodeo (1942), by Aaron Copland, and this included Saturday Night Waltz, Corral Nocturne and the iconic Hoe-Down. Right from the opening chords, the spacious Copland sound was front and center. The wide prairie and big sky feeling was especially aided by the string section. All of the familiar details were present and there were no shortcuts. Corral Nocturne was realized with broadly sustained tones and a quiet gentleness. The orchestra delivered all of the Copland style with a sound big enough to fill the hall and match the music. Hoe-Down was especially well done with the brass and woodwinds leading the way. Everyone has heard this piece many times, but the performance here was lively, loud and as convincing as any television commercial for the National Beef Council. Cheering and an enthusiastic ovation from the audience followed.


The final piece on the concert program was Mariachitlán (2016), by Juan Pablo Contreras. According to the program notes. Contreras is a “Latin GRAMMY nominated composer who combines Western Classical and Mexican folk music in a single soundscape.” Mariachitlán translates to Mariachi Land and is a portrayal of the music and the culture where it originated. This piece has proven to be very popular and has been performed by orchestras in Mexico, Latin America as well as in the southwestern US. Contreras worked with the Ventura College Orchestra during rehearsals and he was present at the concert to give a short introduction.


Contreras explained that mariachi music began in the Mexican state of Jalisco and is a widely practiced folk tradition. Even small towns and villages take pride in their mariachi music, and it is central to their celebrations and festivals. Mariachitlán brings to life the raucously goodnatured musical competitions typical of local mariachis, intent on displaying superior showmanship and joyful revelry. Contreras accomplishes all this through a 21st century musical language that is artfully composed with a pleasing, youthful exuberance and combined with a mature and masterful orchestration.

Mariachitlán opens with a loud blast of bright mariachi trumpets that immediately establishes an upbeat optimism. Skillful coordination and phrasing in the brass section propelled the piece forward. The rest of the orchestra joined in with strong tutti passages, brilliant solos, and dynamic energy throughout. Contreras manages to accommodate his strong affection for Mexican folk music within a distinctively contemporary musical syntax. This is a seemingly complex piece with a mix of familiar gestures and unusual techniques, but it never loses its boisterous charm. The Ventura College Orchestra gave a strong performance and clearly won over the audience for Mariachitlán, building new cultural bridges in the process.

Hearing this concert, it is clear that Conductor Ashley Walters has brought the Ventura College Music program to a high level of accomplishment. I will now stand up a bit straighter when I tell people I once played in the brass section there many years ago.

by Paul Muller