Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

The most satisfying medium of all

Why a String Quartet? What is it that has given it its exalted reputation and mystique? Why have so many composers regarded it as the perfect medium of expression, though it is perhaps the most demanding to write for? And why do distinguished artists often prefer to work as a team in a first class quartet rather than make bigger money as, say, orchestral leaders? Music means different things to different people: but for those to who music is an intellectual art, a balanced and reasoned statement of ideas, an impassioned argument, an intense but disciplined expression of emotion – the string quartet is perhaps the most satisfying medium of all.

These are the words of Elizabeth Maconchy (above) who was born one hundred years ago on March 19th 1907. She wrote a remarkable cycle of thirteen string quartets that were influenced by Berg, Bartok, Janacek and her teacher in Prague, Karel Jirak. But despite its obvious merit Elizabeth Maconchy’s music remains scandalously neglected. Which prompts On An Overgrown Path to ask, how important is a composer’s music?    

by Pliable
Chamber Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

New positions for a string quartet

Vanessa Vanessa Lann emails – Today is the world premiere of my string quartet, Landscape of a Soul’s Remembering. In this work there are six separate locations on the stage where the musicians will stand or sit throughout the performance, changing to new positions between each of the four movements. At each spot there is specific music to be played, consisting of recognizable, repeated patterns that the players will interpret in turn – on their respective instruments – during each movement. As these patterns emerge again and again in new contexts, played on different instruments by different performers, they will each be heard in a new light.

Rather than this being a string quartet where the discussion exists in real time between the players, this is a study of the discussion, or realization, that takes place in one human soul – between the present, the future and one’s understanding of Memory.

The premiere of Landscape of a Soul’s Remembering is being given by the Doelen String Quartet (photo above), in the Eduard Flipsezaal, Concertgebouw De Doelen, Rotterdam on Sunday, March 18, 2007, 8:30 pm. The concert also includes the first performance of a work by Giel Vleggaar, and John Adams’ John’s Book of Alleged Dances.

by Pliable
Click Picks, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music

Steve’s click picks #21

Settle in for a little history…

Juan Hidalgo (b.1927 –Spain),

Walter Marchetti (b.1931 — Italy),

and Zaj

Most musicians who’ve fallen for John Cage and David Tudor, also know that offspring of the 1960s and 70s, FLUXUS. Far fewer know about the Spanish version, running parallel yet independently. It’s one thing to have gone experimental in, say, England at the time; quite another to have pursued this stuff in the fascist dictatorship of Franco’s Spain. In one you ran the risk of apathy; in the other actual persecution.

hidalgo & marchetti

 In the mid-50s, Juan Hidalgo and Walter Marchetti were both young student composers. Marchetti’s friendship with Bruno Maderna led them to visit the high-modernist mecca of Darmstadt, but it was their encounter with the ideas, music, and above all the actions of Cage and Tudor (along with the general rediscovery of Marcel Duchamp) that resonated with the two.

Explorations began soon thereafter, and in 1964 the loose confederation of artists (also including the likes of Esther Ferrer, Ramón Barce, Tomas Marco and many more), officially were born under the nonsense-moniker Zaj (Castellano pronunciation “thahh“). High-profile events and confrontational polemics would have never worked in Spain at the time, but keeping everything more “guerrilla” and informal seemed to both confuse and lull the regime into thinking these “fools” weren’t worth the effort to crack down on.

For a good decade and more, the members of Zaj staged a wealth of small subversions, and had already stirred the atmosphere among quite a few key Spanish artists for the day when Franco’s death would suddenly open the country’s door to an intoxicating inrush of fresh air (followed of course later by new problems, but hey, that’s life…).

In the 1970s Gianni Sassi’s small, Italian avant-art music label Cramps would document (besides other notables like Cage, Robert Ashley, Cristina Kubisch, Demetrio Stratos, Alvin Lucier and even a free-improvising Ennio Morricone) some of Hidalgo’s and Marchetti’s work on LP, and some of that can be heard on the web, courtesy of the Universidad de Castilla – La Mancha’s Arte Sonoro website.

4 coversJuan Hidalgo’s Tamaran (subtitled “drops of sperm for 12 pianos“) is a 40-minute unmoored landscape, layering twelve recordings of prepared piano. Rrose Sélavy (referencing Duchamp’s female alter-ego and subtitled a la Satie “six moldy pieces for six sound sources“) collects six tracks; the first’s single line has one more semi-related line join in on each successive track, leading to a happy cacophony.

Walter Marchetti’s La Caccia (“the hunt”) uses all manner of toys, bird-calls and other improvised sound-making objects, to create a kind of loopily busy virtual “forest”. His Natura morta (“still life”) pays homage to Satie: both to the notorious Vexations (which happens to be a piece Hidalgo and Marchetti have performed), and the idea of musique d’ameublement (“furniture music”). For more than an hour the piano — buried under a huge display of fruit and flowers — plays the same simple-yet-unsettled phrase, the damper pedal constantly depressed.

Like all art movements, interests and allegiances shift, some things focus and some fall apart, time and people move on. Ferrer a well-known artist; Barce and Marco both highly-respected “establishment” composers… Hidalgo and Marchetti remained faithful to the object, action and subversion. Hidalgo turned more to Duchampian artifact, but Marchetti (now resident in Italy) has continued to produce a number of newer musical works mostly with manipulated sound and piano (though still highly conceptual), many of them issued on CD. Mimaroglu Music Sales can provide you with what’s currently for sale by both Marchetti and Hidalgo.

The link on Juan Hidalgo’s name at the top of this post goes directly to his website (where you might want to wish him a happy 80th birthday this year!); Marchetti doesn’t seem to have a full site, but the link on his name will take you to a short but good interview in English from 2000 (and for those who read Spanish, here’s a recent interview with Hidalgo). The link for Zaj will take you to a history kept at UBUWEB.

by Steve Layton
Contemporary Classical

Just Sit Back And Relâche

One of the hottest things in Philadelphia has to be the Relâche chamber ensemble.  They’ve performed and recorded work by a wide variety of composers in the Downtown tradition including Kyle Gann, Michael Nyman, Robert Ashley, Lois V. Vierk, James Tenney, and they’re about to hit the road with Elliott Sharp’s new work “Evolute.”  The piece is, to quote the  Relâche press release, “a new chamber- and electronic musical work. . . [in which] Relâche’s octet instrumentation will be processed by Sharp through live electronics, resulting in a swirling mass of acoustic and electronic sound – a live classical remix. . . Evolute’s title comes from the differential geometry of curves, referring to the ways that a new shapes can evolve out of an old one.  The work is a cascade of ideas fighting for their survival and reproduction in a veritable Darwinian celebration.”  Hot stuff.  The program also includes John King’s “Road Map,” Sophia Serghi’s “Pleiades,” and Fred Frith’s “shading my face it shall be you.”  You can hear this program on Thursday, March 22nd at 8:00 PM at the University of Delaware, or Friday March 23rd at 8:00 PM at Trinity Center in Philadelphia. 

But if you can’t stand the wait, or just can’t get out of Manhattan, you can catch the Serghi piece at Merkin Hall tonight, March 15th, at 8:00 PM.   Relâche will be rounding out an evening of Sophia Serghi’s chamber music, sharing the billing with ensembles including the Manhattan Trio, and the Williamsburg Symphonia.  The Mariner String Quartet was also slated to perform, but it seems likely that they will be forced to pull out after the tragic death of violinist and composer Phanos Dymiotis, who was killed in a car accident on Saturday.  Sad news aside, tonight’s concert sounds good and I plan to be there.

Relâche will round out their season on April 21st in Philadelphia with a concert of music by Eve Beglarian, David Lang, Arthur Jarvinen, Eric Moe, and a new piece by Jennifer Barker.

by Galen H. Brown
Contemporary Classical

Thile hilet ileth lethi ethil

A good time is to be had this Saturday night at Zankel Hall.  Chris Thile and The Tensions Mountain Boys will premiere his bluegrass/classical suite “The Blind Leading the Blind.” As long as your sensibilities are broader than “Sator Arepo tenet opera rotas,” you should have no problem. 

Still: let’s keep ’em honest.  If you will promise us a well-edited and not too long-winded review, Jerry and I will in turn throw our estimate clout around and get you in for free. 

You know how to reach us.

Speaking of bluegrass, how about a round of random and rapturous applause for Franco Donatoni!

by David Salvage
Contemporary Classical

Grawemeyer Discussion and Concert

New York City – On Friday afternoon, March 9, at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, music critic Tim Page of The Washington Post hosted a panel discussion between five Grawemeyer-winning composers: John Corigliano (1991), Sebastian Currier (2007), Karel Husa (1993), Aaron Jay Kernis (2002), and Joan Tower (1990).


Grawemeyer Symposium: (left to right) Tim Page, Aaron Kernis, Sebastian Currier, Karel Husa John Corigliano, and Joan Tower.

Tim Page began with a quote from Virgil Thomson stating that to be an American composer, one must simply be in America and compose. All five composer/panelists contributed their thoughts on “style” and why American composers’ compositional voices are so varied. Following the discussion, moderator Tim Page took questions from the audience.

After the discussion, and a brief intermission, Karen Little presented a new publication that catalogs the first twenty years of submissions to the Grawemeyer award. Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition: The First Twenty Years, published by Scarecrow Press, contains scores from all submissions that were retained in the Grawemeyer collection until 2005.

2007 Grawemeyer winner Sebastian Currier talks about Static. 

Sebastian Currier gave a brief talk on his winning work Static, which was followed by a convincing performance by performers from the University of Louisville: Kathy Karr, flute; Dallas Tidwell, clarinet; J. Patrick Rafferty, violin; Marlene Ballena, cello; and Brenda Kee, piano.

Brenda Kee, piano; Kathy Karr, flute; Patrick Rafferty, violin; Dallas Tidwell, clarinet; and Marlene Ballena, cello, performing Static. 


Brave New World host Daniel Gilliam with Sebastian Currier.

by Daniel Gilliam
Contemporary Classical

Free CDs

I have the following CDs available for review:

Philip Corner – Extreme Positions – The Barton Workshop

Stirling Newberry – Xaos and Capricorn -Two string quartets on each.  (Steve Hicken not eligible since he wrote the intro)

Terry Riley – In C – Ars Nova – First version with voices

Da Capo package (3 CDs) – Langgard, Pettersson, Romantic Trombone Concertos

Huang Ruo – Chamber Concerto Cyle – ICE

John Adams – Complete Piano Music

Recipients must accept (and review) a second CD of my choosing.

Serious inquiries only.

 

by Jerry Bowles
Contemporary Classical

Grawemeyer Concert at Carnegie Hall

The University of Louisville descended on to New York City this week for a big event, and I don’t mean the Big East tournament (well, they did that also and lost). Musicians from the School of Music, the symphony orchestra and wind symphony, filled Carnegie Hall with music from Grawemeyer-winning composers and the 2007 Grawemeyer winner.

To begin the concert, the University of Louisville Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Kimcherie Lloyd, presented two very distinct works by Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994) and Aaron Jay Kernis (b. 1960). Fanfare for Louisville by Lutoslawski surrounded the concert stage with brass, winds and percussion in a blast of loud tone clusters and improvisatory passages for brass. To contrast, Aaron Kernis’s Musica Celestis for string orchestra painted the hall with lush chords and slow moving harmonies.

The largest work of the night invoked the sublime talents of Paul York, as cello soloist in the concerto by Karel Husa (b. 1921), one of the composers present at the concert. Beginning with an extended aria for all cellos (in the very low register), the soloist gradually separates from the section as an independent voice. The highlight of virtuosity comes in the second movement, which asks the cellist to perform for an extended time pizzicato (Instead of a bow, using fingers to pluck and strum). Unfortunately, it was interrupted by a string popping on Mr. York’s cello. He recovered magnificently, returning with a fresh string and beginning the movement over. The entire concerto concludes in the highest registers, implying a rise from the depths to hope and freedom.

Following Husa’s concerto, the Dean of the School of Music, Christopher Doane and President of the University of Louisville, James Ramsey introduced the 2007 Grawemeyer winner Sebastian Currier for his chamber work Static. Not unlike other award ceremonies, the announcement was made with a tad bit of suspense, followed by gasps (positive ones) and immediately by cheers and applause, from what seemed to be a fan base up in the tiers. Following the announcement, the University Symphony Orchestra performed Currier’s Microsymph.

The second half of the concert, featuring the Wind Symphony, conducted by Fred Speck, began with Joan Tower’s (b. 1938) Fascinating Ribbons, followed by two works for antiphonal brass, played without pause, by Krzystof Penderecki (b. 1933) and Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996). Karel Husa returned to the program by way of a premiere of Cheetah, commissioned by the University of Louisville Division of Music Theory and Composition. As one would expect, the title evokes this “magnificent wild animal, now an endangered species – it’s colors, movements, power, speed…” Considered by many to be one of the greatest composers for the wind ensemble genre, Karel Husa’s Cheetah lives up to its creators reputation. Fred Speck’s energy and momentum concluded the concert with a gripping interpretation of John Corigliano’s (b. 1938) Tarantella from Symphony No. 1 (arranged for wind symphony by Jeffrey Gershman). This musical description of John Corigliano’s friend moving through madness and lucidity, as a result of AIDS dementia, is powerful as music, but even more so because of the subject matter. Thunderous applause from a captivated audience greeted Mr. Speck and Mr. Corigliano, proof of both performer’s and composer’s ability to move listeners.

by Daniel Gilliam
Click Picks, Composers, Contemporary Classical

Steve’s click picks #20

Our regular listen to and look at living, breathing composers and performers that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, since they’re nice enough to offer so much good listening online:

Christopher Hopkins (b.1957 — US)

Christopher HopkinsChristopher Hopkins is an assistant professor of music composition at Iowa State University of Science and Technology, where he teaches courses in composition, music technology, sound synthesis and orchestration. He is director of the Lipa Festival of Contemporary Music. As a composer he works in both experimental and traditional forms, with special interests in electroacoustic music, innovative notations and instrumental techniques, and dialectics between historical and contemporary musical forms.

Christopher’s site is rather bare-bones, but what’s there is what matters: the music.

Katharina Rosenberger (b.1971 — Switzerland, US).

Katharina RosenbergerKatharina grew up in Zurich, playing piano and singing in choir through her teens. Her formal music studies began at Jazz School Zurich, but she quickly bailed to Boston and the Berklee College of Music for her BA. Jump again to Zurich, then over to the Royal Academy of Music in London for her MA, and finally (?…) hop back over to the States and Columbia for her DMA. Her works, electronic & acoustic, are often inspired and linked with the visual arts, theater and inquiries into perceptual and phenomenological issues.

“Much of my work manifests in an interdisciplinary context and is bound to confront traditional performance practice in terms of how sound is produced, heard and seen. Taking the audience to peculiar places, ambiguous and deceiving, where the usual expectations have to be thrown overboard. Often the instrumentalists are challenged to go beyond an ‘only’ interpretative function; their corporal presence on stage is fully taken into account.”

Under the “index of works” link at her site, you’ll find descriptions of her work, along with both audio excerpts and complete recordings.

by Steve Layton