Sequenza21

Corey Dargel’s remarkable “theatrical song cycle” Removable Parts is being reprised at the HERE Arts Center.  The run started yesterday and goes through Sunday (Jan 7-11).  The show, which is performed by Corey Dargel (voice) and Kathleen Supové (piano), is a sort of cabaret show about Body Integrity Identity Disorder which, in a strange and wonderful way, ends up dealing with questions of love, the self, and of what “normal” really means.  I saw and reviewed the show when it was premiered in September 2007, and I loved it.

The Removable Parts website has audio and video samples.

UPDATE: Corey is offering a 20% ticket discount to Sequenza21 readers.  See the comments.

Interesting piece by Martin Kettle in Friday’s Guardian, but one very strange line: “The musical establishment may continue to agonise over the important question of whether a bad man can produce a great piece of work. . .”  Are there really people who ask that question, or is it simply a rhetorical flourish?  My sense has always been that Carmina Burana is loved by audiences but doesn’t get a lot of respect from the establishment, but that the reasons are musical rather than based on Orff’s politics.  Would we think any more of Wagner’s music if he hadn’t been a raging antisemite?  If we found out tomorrow that Beethoven was secretly an axe-murdering serial killer and that the “Immortal Beloved” was, say, Voldemort, would we think any less highly of the Grosse Fugue?  I doubt it.

I thought we might talk about what musical goals y’all have for the New Year. I know I have some.

Last year, inspired by Jay Batzner, I resolved to send out two scores every month–to competitions, calls, or just musicians with whom I have some sort of connection. I am happy to say I met the goal of 24 scores in November and exceeded it by a few this month. I plan to continue this practice in perpetuity.

This year, I have three new resolutions.

1) Write some pieces that are easy to play. My last three pieces–a string quartet, large-ensemble work, and unaccompanied violin piece–were all really tough to play. I’m proud of all three, and, though I’ve revised the large-ensemble piece (thanks to Tom Myron), their virtuosity is part of their identity. But it’s time to revisit simplicity for a while and try to be a bit more practical. As I keep telling people: I’ve never regretted writing an easy piece.

2) Do more ear training. I perennially desire to get in the habit of waking up early and doing some aural skills work on my computer for about a half-hour or so. Why ear training? Because it allows you to get more out of the music you listen to. My ears improved markedly while teaching aural skills at Brooklyn College, but they really do have a ways to go before I’m satisfied with them. Why not get serious in 2009?

3) Begin establishing my music theory creds. I’ve too long just been a music theory dabbler: pleased with my expertise while not doing much original research outside seminar papers and my dissertation. Time to get some conference papers and spiff up the diss for publication. (I’ll resist for the time being speculating on the relationship between theory and composition. I’ll say right now I don’t see how they can have an essentially negative influence on one another.)

But enough about me.  How about you?

Okay, let’s put it another way.  How important is a top-of-the-line musical education to success as a composer?

Can a composer who went to, say, Houston Baptist University, Western Michigan University, and the University of Iowa be as good as your typical Sequenza21 Eli?

I ask the question because I was listening to WNYC2 (the best source of contemporary music on the Internet, if you don’t know already–playing Tehillim right now) and I heard a terrific piece called Edges by a composer named Luke Dahn, whom I’d never heard of before.  Awfully damned good piece.  So I googled him and discovered that his resume matches my hypothetical resume above.  Before you start with the “elitist” shit storm, let me say that I went to Marshall and West Virginia University and I’m sure that all of the places Dahn went have excellent music departments. But, they ain’t Julliard.

There’s a nice sample of his work here.

And so it came to pass that our Gaucho Amigo Marvin Rosen was abidin’ over his flock in a starry meadow high in the Cuspadores when an angel appeared unto him and said:  “Marvin, remember last year when you did that fabulous 24-hour music marathon on WPRB in Princeton — available around the world via the miracle of the Internet?  Man, that was cool.  You ought to do it again.”  And lo, Marvin agreed and the time and date were set.

I’ll wait while you get a pencil.

The second Marvin Rosen Post-Christmas Classical Discoveries The Hits Keep Coming Musical Marathon begins at 6:00 am Friday, December 26 and continues through (you guessed it) 6:00 am Saturday the 27th.  Marvin will play lots of our kind of music and some surprise guests will be dropping by [like in September of 2007, when this photo of S21 ringmeister Jerry Bowles, NewMusicBox honcho Frank J. Oteri and Marvin hiswunnerful self was taken — ed.].

If I had written this up earlier, you might have been able to submit your own work for possible airplay (assuming it is clear for broadcast, meaning no MP3).  But, I forgot.  Sorry.

But, you can still make recommendations for things for Marvin to play.  My suggestion is that Marvin put on John Cage’s As Slow as Possible and go home and take a nap.  What would you like to hear?

I first wrote and posted this two years ago, but maybe it will lighten the mood as everybody in the Northeast freaks out about their travel plans and the current and impending meteorological conditions.  Stay safe out there.

A Visit From J.S. Bach

By Galen H. Brown, with apologies to Henry Livingston, Jr.

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the city
The critics were trying their best to be witty;
They printed their lists of the past year’s best fare,
In hopes that their trendy young readers would care;
But the readers were nestled all snug in their beds,
While vacuous pop idols danced in their heads;
And the Maestro in PJs, and I in my drawers,
Had just settled in to examine some scores,
When out on the lawn, such cacaphonous sound,
I sprang from my desk thinking Zorn was in town.
I rushed to the window, allegro con brio,
Tore open the shutters — I just had to see!  Oh,
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what should my wondering eyes linger over,
But an old harpsichord and eight ghostly composers,
With an old kappelmeister conducting the flock –
I knew in a moment it had to be Bach.
More rapid than Valkyries, onward they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
“Now, Mozart! now, Lassus! now, Schoenberg and Dvorak!
On, Cage! on Beethoven! on, Haydn and Bartok!
To the dominant seven! To suspended six-four!
Now dash away! dash away! appoggiatur’!”
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So off to a new key they all modulated,
For Bach would leave no variation unstated.
A caseura, and then on the roof could be heard
A cadence resolved with a picardy third.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney old J.S. Bach came with a bound.
He was dressed up for Weimar in 1710
And his fingers were stained with the ink from his pen;
An un-finished score could be seen to protrude
From his pocket — the title said “Die Kunst der Fugue.”
His eyes—how they twinkled with genius – none finer!
He did, after all, write the Mass in B Minor.
His mouth was a droll as a tonicization,
His wig was a white as unspoiled glaciation;
He carried a record of naughty and niceness –
That list was as long as the Bach Werke Verzeichnis!
His belly looked like it could use a supporter
And shook when he laughed, like a Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte.
He was chubby and plump, a well tempered old master,
And I laughed when I saw him, then wished I’d thought faster;
A wink, and a line from a two-part invention,
Soon showed me that I should feel no apprehension;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to composing,
A Musical Offering – it looked quite imposing,
Then humming some bars from the St. Matthew Passion,
He rose up the chimney in a glorious fashion;
He sprang to the keys, raised his hands to the sky
And away they all flew, at Allegro Assai,
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night.”