The Original New Music Community
Happy 87th birthday Philip Glass!
Composers who live into their late octogenarian years would be justified in resting on their laurels. Glass, however has returned to playing his earlier piano music, releasing a new recording, Philip Glass Solo (Orange Mountain) of older pieces such as Mad Rush, Metamorphosis, and Truman Sleeps. Below is the video for Opening.
William Byrd and John Bull
The Visionaries of Piano Music
Kit Armstrong, piano
Deutsche Grammophon CD
In The Visionaries of Piano Music, Kit Armstrong plays two of the greatest English keyboard composers active during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I on the modern piano, aiming to show what he calls “a seamless line of development” between this repertory and more recent music written explicitly for the piano. William Byrd (ca. 1540-1623) and John Bull (ca. 1562-1628) wrote for very different instruments from the piano, the harpsichord and its smaller companion the virginal; Christofori developed early versions of the ‘pian e forte’ around 1700, and these were still a far cry from today’s instruments. Armstrong doesn’t pretend that a piano sounds like a harpsichord, but he observes phrasing and tempos that resemble period-informed performance. He excels at works like Byrd’s “The Battell: The Flute and the Droome,” in which each hand imitates an instrument. The dance music so prevalent among these works, pavans and galliards, is delivered with jubilant élan.
Delving into the rich tapestry of piano music often begins with foundational music lessons that cultivate an appreciation for historical compositions and their evolution. Just as Kit Armstrong explores the seamless development from Elizabethan keyboard compositions to modern piano music, aspiring musicians can benefit immensely from structured music lessons. Institutions like Pianos & More offer comprehensive programs designed to introduce students to a diverse repertoire, from early keyboard works to contemporary compositions.
In these music lessons, students not only learn technical proficiency but also develop an understanding of historical context and performance practices. Much like Armstrong’s approach to interpreting Byrd and Bull’s compositions with sensitivity to historical instruments, music instructors at Pianos & More emphasize phrasing, dynamics, and the stylistic nuances that define each era of piano music.
Images
Claude Debussy,
Complete Piano Music from 1903-1907
Mathilda Handelsman, piano
Sheva Collection
Claude Debussy wrote several pivotal works for piano from 1903-1907: Books 1 and 2 of Images, Estampes, Masques, D’un cahier d’esquisses, and L’isle joyeuse. Pianist Mathilda Handelsman creates eloquent recordings of some of the composer’s best work. In addition to her sculpted touch and excellent musical judgment, Handelsman has another ally, an 1875 Steinway that seems tailor made for ideal tone colors in Debussy, supplying a shimmering sound. Her approach to tempo variations, supple but subtle, lends this recording a magical aura.
On DSCH
Works by Dmitri Shostakovich and Ronald Stevenson
Igor Levit
Sony Classical 3xCD
The 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87, by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) are some of the most imposing piano works of the twentieth century. Igor Levit has distinguished himself on record both in watershed works by Bach and Beethoven and, on 2020’s Encounter, a mixed program of romantic music and Palais de Mari by Morton Feldman.
This 3-CD set includes Op. 87 plus the gargantuan 1962 work Passacaglia on D.S.C.H (Shostakovich’s musical signature – D, Eb, C, B), by composer-pianist Ronald Stevenson (1928-2015). Detailed voicing, such as the double octaves in the E major prelude, bring out the orchestral aspects of the music, while counterpoint found in at times lengthy and thorny subjects, as in the C# minor and F# minor fugues are clearly delineated. The B major fugue is bucolic and brilliantly rendered. The D minor Prelude and Fugue that culminates the set is probably Shostakovich’s best known solo piano piece. Under Levit’s hands, it is magisterial and impeccably paced. Stevenson is a figure who should be better known. Levit’s riveting account of the Passacaglia, which references both Bach and Shostakovich and a host of baroque variation and dance forms, rivals Stevenson’s own scintillating performances of the work. Kudos for reviving this compelling composition.
For those inspired by Levit’s mastery and eager to delve deeper into the realm of piano music, exploring a diverse range of compositions becomes essential. Accessing sheet music through platforms like https://hsiaoya.com facilitates this journey, providing a convenient avenue to acquire scores and embark on enriching musical exploration. Whether it’s delving into the complexities of Stevenson’s compositions or venturing into other realms of piano repertoire, the availability of sheet music serves as a gateway to realizing one’s musical aspirations with greater ease and efficiency.
-Christian Carey
Bernhard Lang
Piano Music
Wolfram Oettl, piano
Kairos Music CD
Bernhard Lang (b. 1957) writes in a number of different media, from chamber music to theatre works. His solo piano music is reflective of the composer’s omnivorous interest in various musical styles and his adroit sense of scoring, which allows the piano to have an orchestral impact in the two multi-movement works on his latest Kairos CD.
In liner notes for the CD, Lang remarks that he is interested in free improvisation and DJ electronica as well as contemporary concert music. One can hear this in the angular digressions and motoric rhythms that populate his piece Monadologie V: Seven Last Words of Hasan (2008-2009). The introduction’s use of off-kilter repetition, the stentorian attacks on a single sonority in the piece’s second movement, Hodie mecum eris in Paradisum, and the looping arpeggiations in its fifth movement finale, all reflect an interest in uneven reiterations. Looking a little deeper underneath the surface, Lang marries these rhythms with disparate harmonic languages. The introduction features Eastern modal writing, the third Messiaen-like color chords, and the finale co-opts post-minimalism a là John Adams. An average composer might be able to juxtapose these elements without harming the end result, but Lang is anything but average in his conception of Monadologie V, in which the traversal of “cellular automata processes” is unified by cohesive formal organization designed from Franz Joseph Haydn’s Seven Last Words from the Cross. While it coheres around Seven Last Words, the piece reacts to rather than merely mimics the original Haydn work. I am not familiar with the other Monadologie pieces, and look forward to tracking them down.
The recording also includes three Intermezzi (written in 2015-2016). The use of “cellular automata processes” persists here. Instead of Haydn, some of the material deals with the figuration, metric evasions, and elusive harmonic progressions of Johannes Brahms, only fitting given his predilection for writing intermezzi as well. The spontaneity of these pieces is not happenstance. According to Lang, the first Intermezzo was entirely improvised “on a gray afternoon.” Another aspect of Lang’s musicianship, his experience as a jazz pianist, takes a role here, with extended tertian sonorities and biting seconds reminiscent of bebop. Bebop plus Brahms? Entirely plausible in Lang’s musical output. The second and third intermezzi use algorithms built from the first to develop organically related, yet disparate creations. Intermezzo 2, Abstract Machines 1, plays with strands of whole-tone scales stacked with dissonant seconds. It is like a broken crank, a bumptious deployment of the verticals from the first intermezzo in relentless fashion. In the third intermezzo, an adagio, Lang arpeggiates the original harmony, blurring offbeat treble dissonances.
Those skeptical of the yin-yang of human improvisation and algorithmic composition would do well to attend to these works, which use both techniques quite successfully.
-Christian Carey
An interview with Bernhard Lang:
(This is an expansion of an earlier post for a concert ultimately postponed due to snowstorm Jonas in January)
Augustus Arnone performs a double bill of Milton Babbitt’s solo piano works including the complete Time Series, at Spectrum, Sunday March 6, at 12-5 pm (12 and 3:30)
This year marks the centenary of the legendary composer Milton Babbitt (1916-2011). To my ears, his extensive body of piano works especially channels his singular charm as a raconteur. Over the decades a number of pianists have championed some of his major piano works, for instance Robert Helps and Robert Miller performing and recording his Partitions (1957) and Post-Partitions (1966) in early days and much more recently Marilyn Nonken did as much with Allegro Penseroso (1999). Babbitt’s Reflections for piano and synthesized tape (1975) has been performed by the likes of Anthony de Mare, Martin Goldray, Aleck Karis, and Robert Taub, the latter two of whom also recorded it. Robert Taub and Martin Goldray recorded and released full-length CDs. Alan Feinberg too presented stellar renditions of Minute Waltz (1977), Partitions (1957), It Takes Twelve to Tango (1984), Playing for Time (1979), and About Time (1982) on a 1988 CRI CD.
Yet only one pianist has earned the distinction of presenting the entire oeuvre of Babbitt’s solo piano works in concert. And that is Augustus Arnone, who performed the entire set, spread over two concerts, in 2008. In honor of the Babbitt centenary, Arnone is performing the entire set again (this time spread over three concerts) at Spectrum on Ludlow in NYC. Due to a postponement caused by storm Jonas in January, Arnone is performing the second and third concerts in one afternoon this weekend!
The largest work on the program is Canonical Form (1983) which I’ve heard several Babbitt aficionados recently describe as their “favorite” and “most beautiful” Babbitt composition. The most recent work is The Old Order Changeth (1998). Arnone’s performance also presents a rare opportunity to hear the entire ‘The Time Series’ (Playing For Time (1977), About Time (1982), Overtime (1987)), the last part of which has never been released on a commercial recording. This much constitutes concert II, the first half of this Sunday’s double bill, which starts at 12 noon.
In the final concert (concert III) which starts at 3:30, Arnone presents a variety of works spanning nearly all of Babbitt’s professional career, from the mid 1940s through the remainder of the 20th century and beyond. Tutte Le Corde (1994) represents Babbitt’s most streamlined and ingratiating late style, which is a nice inclusion for the final recital of the series. On this recital we’ll also be treated to some of Babbitt’s wittiest and pithiest: Minute Waltz (1977) and It Takes Twelve to Tango (1984), which are perhaps the only Babbitt works to clearly project rhythms associated with a familiar genre. It Takes Twelve to Tango leaves us unsure whether to imagine a single 12-legged Argentinian dancing spider or a communal square dance gone dodecahedral! Either way, brilliant sparks fly from these eccentric collisions of tradition and avant garde.
Babbitt’s Three Compositions for Piano (1947), the earliest work in the series, is to my ears the closest Babbitt ever came to neo-classicism, its first movement being a clean perpetuum mobile and its second movement a veiled tribute to Schoenberg’s expressive piano textures. While Duet (1956) is the closest Babbitt ever came to a lullaby, his Semi-Simple Variations, of the same year, is perhaps his jazziest jaunt on the ivories, an adventure amusingly exploited in the Bad Plus and Mark Morris Dancers’ adaptation.
Of course the series wouldn’t be complete without Babbitt’s most uncompromising trailblazing Partitions (1957) and Post-partitions (1966). Nowhere is his engenius originality more startlingly on display than in these works. In Partitions in particular, the activation and deactivation of various high, low, and middle registers of the piano guides the listener through an uncanny but navigable maze of contrapuntal intricacy.
Between the two concerts, at 2:30, will be an interview-discussion between me and Indiana University composer-theorist Andrew Mead, a former student of Babbitt’s at Princeton and author of the acclaimed book An Introduction to the Music of Milton Babbitt (1994, Princeton University Press) and many articles. This will also be an opportunity for questions from the audience. Whether you’ve been merely curious about Milton Babbitt’s music and legacy, or are already a long-time follower, this is an opportunity to spend part of the afternoon in the good company of Babbitt’s music and its admirers.
Augustus Arnone: The Complete Piano Works Of Milton Babbitt, Concerts II & III
Sunday March 6, concert II at 12 pm; pre-concert discussion at 2:30; concert III at 3:30.
$20, $15 (Students/Seniors) for each concert or $30/20 for both concerts.
Spectrum, 121 Ludlow St, NYC.
More info: http://www.facebook.com/events/185521401798997/
POSTPONED DUE TO WEATHER!
Thanks to Joshua Banks Mailman for this post about Augustus Arnone’s Babbitt recitals.
Augustus Arnone performs Milton Babbitt’s Time Series and other solo piano works at Spectrum, Sunday January 24, at 2pm
This year marks the centenary of the legendary composer Milton Babbitt (1916-2011). To my ears, his extensive body of piano works especially channels his singular charm as a raconteur. Over the decades a number of pianists have championed some of Babbitt’s major piano works, for instance Robert Helps and Robert Miller performing and recording his Partitions (1957) and Post-Partitions (1966) in early days and much more recently Marilyn Nonken did as much with Allegro Penseroso (1999). Babbitt’s Reflections for piano and synthesized tape (1975) has been performed by the likes of Anthony de Mare, Martin Goldray, Aleck Karis, and Robert Taub, the latter two of whom also recorded it. Robert Taub and Martin Goldray recorded and released full-length CDs. Alan Feinberg too presented stellar renditions of Minute Waltz (1977), Partitions (1957), It Takes Twelve to Tango (1984), Playing for Time (1979), and About Time (1982) on a 1988 CRI CD.
Yet only one pianist has earned the distinction of presenting the entire oeuvre of Babbitt’s solo piano works in concert. And that is Augustus Arnone, who performed the entire set, spread over two concerts, in 2007. In honor of the Babbitt centenary, Arnone is performing the entire set again (this time spread of three concerts) at Spectrum on Ludlow in NYC. The largest work on the program is Canonical Form (1983) which I’ve heard several Babbitt aficionados recently describe as their “favorite” and “most beautiful” Babbitt composition. The most recent work is The Old Order Changeth (1998). The concert also presents a rare opportunity to hear the entire ‘The Time Series’ (Playing For Time (1977), About Time (1982), Overtime (1987)), the last part of which has never been released on a commercial recording.
Arnone’s performance begins at 3pm, but prior to that, at 2pm, will be an interview-discussion between me and the composer-theorist Robert Morris, who, in parallel with the latter half of Babbitt’s career, developed his own independent approach to serial and post-serial composition. Morris has also been an avid listener of and writer on Babbitt’s compositions over several decades. The event should be worth the trek through any rain, sleet, and slush.
Augustus Arnone: The Complete Piano Works Of Milton Babbitt, Concert II
Sunday Jan 24, at 3pm (pre-concert discussion at 2pm) $20, $15 (Students/Seniors).
Spectrum, 121 Ludlow St, NYC.
Those interested in still more Babbitt can check out the Focus Festival at Juilliard, which begins tonight and goes through next Friday. I’ll be writing about that more next week.