Sequenza21

I’m delighted to announce that the fabulous Philadelphia based chamber ensemble Relâche will be premiering a new piece of mine during thier 07-08 concert season.  The piece is called “Waiting in the Tall Grass,” and it features totalistic 6 against 5 against 4 rhythms, aperiodic tiling, some rock-out drum kit work, and a face only a mother could love.  It’ll be played on November 30th at a location to be determined and on December 1st at the International House in Philly, and will share the billing with new pieces by Duncan Nielson and others.

But wait, there’s more!  The rest of the season looks pretty good too–seminal downtowners John Cage, Earle Brown, and Christian Wolff (including premiere by the latter) will be featured on September 22nd and 23rd; December 17th will see the annual performance of Phil Kline’s classic “Unsilent Night;” more good stuff in January and February, and then the season ends May 23rd and 24th with Kyle Gann’s “The Planets.”  (It will presumably be a no Holst barred performance.)

On August 16, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Martin Brabbins, presented a late-night concert in honor of Sir John Drummond, former director of the Proms, who died last year. The program consisted of three works which he had commissioned for the Proms: Veni, veni, Emmanuel by James MacMillan, Chantefluers et Chantefables by Witold Lutoslawski, and Panic by Harrison Birtwistle. (I was unfortunately late for the concert and missed the MacMillan.) The Lutoslawski work is a set of nine songs for soprano and a small orchestra, setting poems for children by the French surrealist poet Robert Desnos, whose poems he had used earlier in the cycle Les espace du sommeil, which he had written in 1975 for Fischer-Dieskau. In these songs, the setting of the texts is very straightforward and the imagery of each poem is realized in a equally direct, but strong, way in the sparse orchestration. Solveig Kringelborn, for whom the songs were written, and who gave the first performance at the Proms in 1991, was the soloist. For me this piece, although clearly beyond any kind of criticism, was not as striking as the other vocal works of Lutoslawki’s that I know, particularly Paroles tissees.

Panic by Birtwistle was famously commissioned by Drummond for the Last Night of the Proms in 1995. A hoary tradition, Last Night is essentially a pops concert which traditionally ends with a melange of patriotic British music, in conjunction with a good deal of flag waving and other jingoistic whoopla. The Birtwistle does not fit into that mold, and it caused something of a stir at its first performance. Birtwistle describes the piece, which is for alto saxophone and drums with orchestra, as a dithyramb, which in Classical Greece was a hymn celebrating Dionysus. In this case that means that it goes brawling along at high speed and with wild energy for its entire seventeen minutes’ duration, in a way that is vaguely reminiscent of Coltrane, maybe. The performance, by Martin Robertson and Peter Erskine, was full of suitable momentum and intensity.

The concert on August 20, by the Philharmonia and Christoph von Doknanyi, ended with a fabulous performance of Bluebeard’s Castle by Bartok and began with an equally wonderful performance of Webern’s orchestration of the Ricercar from the Musical Offering by Bach. In between was a performance of Overture, Waltz, and Finale from Powder Her Face by Thomas Ades. Powder Her Face, Ades first opera, which is about the scandals associated with the Duchess of Argyll in the 1950’s, is scored for a chamber orchestra of three clarinets, brass trio, piano, harp, accordion, percussion, and string quintet. Earlier this year, Ades arranged this suite for full orchestra, which the Philhamonia performed, with him conducting, at the Aldeburgh Festival. The excerpts that Ades chose for the suite are all concerned with dance music: waltzes, foxtrots, and tangos; and all the music has a certain kind of high style, chicness, and glamor combined with deliberate glitz and tawdriness, all appropriate to its rather sleezy story. This version, with the full panoply of orchestral resources in play, has glamorous sound and a very high class glossy sheen, while maintaining an appropriate touch of the slick and the tawdry . The performance was at the same level as the other two pieces on the concert. Earlier on, there was a ‘composer portrait’ concert which featured Ades in conversation with Andrew McGregor, and excellent performances by members of the Contemporary Consort New Generation Ensemble of the Royal College of Music, directed by Huw Watkins, of arrangements by Ades of Les baricades misterieuses by Francois Couperin and Cardiac Arrest by Madness, along with Court Studies from The Tempest, another arrangement, for clarinet, violin, ‘cello, and piano, this time of music by Ades himself, his second opera.

These concerts can be heard online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2007/.

IRIS

By evidence (stephan moore + scott smallwood)

Deep Listening (DL 35-2007)

This two-disc collection offers an audio CD with works by evidence, and a DVD that uses this audio in collaboration with videos from “video artists, VJs, vusicians, live video performers, and time-based visualists…”

Successful electronic/computer music is multi-dimensional. Chamber &Host (track 4, audio; track 1, DVD) offers a sonic depth and intricacy that allows detail and line to be felt and heard. The companion video by David Lublin & Jack Turner is simple and mesmerizing, hooking me as though it had a plot with a twist.

IRIS moves from the static and motionless to puzzling rhythmic patterns, offering sound worlds and moving, dancing lines. Most of the videos are captivating, and would do well on large screens.

3 Solos

R. Murray Schafer

Annie Tremblay, soprano

Tim Brady, guitar

Brigitte Poulin, piano

Canadian Music Centre (CMCCD/DVD 12006)

Our friends from up north at the Canadian Music Centre offer another look at their composers, with R. Murray Schafer and 3 Solos.

Music for the Morning of the World sets the text of Rumi (translated into English) for soprano and 4-channel tape. The original analog tape was restored into digital by Tim Brady. The tape is spacious and meditative, with deliberate motions that conjure up images related to the text. Soprano Annie Tremblay navigates a demanding vocal line, not always convincingly. This isn’t her fault, but rather the result of some awkward leaps that are not idiomatic.

Tim Brady returns as guitarist for Le Cri de Merlin, a work composed for Norbert Kraft. This is the first recording/performance on electric guitar. Schafer’s score asks the performer to supply a recording of birds from their native country at the end of the piece.

Concluding this album of electronic music, is a work for solo piano composed for Janina Fialkowska and commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Deluxe Suite, and all of Schafer’s works on this disc, moves from idea to idea in an improvisatory fashion, morphing between ideas with little preparation. Brigitte Poulin performs with remarkable skill.

Peter Scott Lewis

river shining through

Timothy Day, Marc Shapiro, Ciompi String Quartet, and Dorian Wind Quintet

Lapis Island Records 003

Peter Scott Lewis’s most recent release of his music on his own label Lapis Island Records is unassuming. All three performances are professional, the package is self-less and not a hint of inflated hyperbole inhabits the composer’s biography. This is all a relief from the barrage of over-dramatic, yet poorly produced homemade albums that sometimes inhabit my mailbox.

River Shining Through is well-crafted and engaging. Exploring ideal textures for string quartet, Lewis shows a knack for the medium. He gives the players some fun counterpoint through out, and spicy rhythmic ideas in the final two movements.

Lewis shows equal skill and intuition when writing for winds. Serenade for Winds is delightful and bouncy; with tender moments juxtaposed with driving chordal textures (“Serendipity”). Lewis’ works are full of contrast, alternating between complex harmonic motions and simple melodies.