aworks :: "new" american classical music

Adagio for String (1936). Samuel Barber /quotes/

As we sit ourselves at the bar, I sense something familiar about the frantically paced, booming electronic dance music.  It dawns on me that it is – or at least was in the distant past – Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber.  Turning in his grave, no doubt. Hemlock's Diary.

El final y el epílogo son, una vez más, el colmo de la transgresión, y no pueden dejar indiferente a nadie, y lo mismo puede decirse de la música, con el "Adagio" de Samuel Barber omnipresente y una irreverente utilización del "Happy Together" de los Turtles en uno de los momentos clave. eurocero

the vocal version of adagio for strings by samuel barber. my favourite floating lullaby. “cottonstar”

lots of laughs, lots of drama, and unbelievable percussion ensemble concerts, as well as a version of Barber's Adagio played by 4 marimbas (part of one of those final recitals)...  The Adventures of Lowa

i've been neglecting my cds since the advent of the ipod, but i asked mom to bring me a bunch of my old ones. listening to them makes me a bit nostalgic; it's encountering pieces of your old self in the music. every morning i listen to samuel barber's "adagio for strings." it's a good way to start the day :) egyptiansally

In the lecture we were talking about how sound and soundtrack affects the images on-screen. Teresa played us the beginning of Apocalypse Now as an example. She played it with the original Doors track, as normal, then she played it in silence, then she played it with Barber's Adagio for Strings, then she played it with some Prodigy-esque music nd it was awful! The Adagio for Strings one was very powerful, but it still wasn't the same without Jim Morrison's haunting voice over the beginning. glb201

The Cradle Will Rock (1936). Marc Blitzstein

A 1938 Time Magazine review (subscription) of a recording of The Cradle Will Rock:

What was vastly effective as musical scene painting is noisy & facile as music pure & simple.

Piano Percussion Music (1929). Marc Blitzstein

In the Financial Times, Allan Ulrich reviews the Marc Blitzstein Centenary Celebration at last week's Other Minds Festival and describes Piano Percussion Music:

In Sarah Cahill's committed performance, the West Coast premiere of the unpublished 1929 Piano Percussion Music heralded a sophisticated musician, attuned to the emotive power of dissonance, the imitative capabilities of the traditional keyboard, a grounding in ornamentation and, in the repeated closing of the keyboard cover, a taste for the dadaist flourishes of the day.

Ulrich makes it sound fun and interesting. Regular readers may notice I have been fascinated by the piano music of the Twenties (and soon the Thirties). Lastly, Alex Ross mentions the historical importance of Blitzstein's music and how it reflected the "strange soul" of America during those times.

Adagio for String (1936). Samuel Barber /theme/

Via musipedia, the Open Music Encyclopedia, here's the Adagio for Strings melody as MIDI and in written form, and here's a theme from Aaron Copland's El Salon Mexico.

I haven't yet tried the "whistle to Parson's Code" translation applet for melodic identification, because I've been too busy wasting my time on a site hosting the Name Voyager applet. Did you know the name Samuel is in the ascendancy unlike say, Robert? I wonder what it is like to be the last Agnes or Hank? On the other hand, we know a four-year-old Otto and the blog associated with Name Voyager predicts Otto as a name "up-and-comer."  What I really want is an "aworks Voyager" applet that would tell me the popularity over time of various compositions. As a proxy for that, the American Symphony Orchestra League lists only two performances of Adagio in the 2000-2001 (PDF) season but five for 2004-05 (PDF). 

The Parson's Code for Gershwin's Summertime from Porgy and Bess: DUDDUUDDDUDURDDUDUD

Adagio for Strings (1936). Samuel Barber

High school student the word whisperer captures the spirit of Samuel Barber:

       The Adagio for Strings reflects the distressing years of World War II, and each instrument seems to be a part of this misery: the violins pass on delicate emotions of a frail, beating heart; the lush voices of the violas reach deep into the fragile human soul with questions of anguish; the cellos’ expressions represent the torture of the soul and the despair that is brought about; and the double basses symbolize the strained, pressured burden, as well as the echo of the grave emptiness that follows.

Our Town (1940). Aaron Copland

 
paperhearts thinks Barber's Adagio is both the saddest music ever and also hard to play, or at least, sight-read.  I, at age eighteen, would have agreed, at least about the former (for the latter, Chick Corea's La Fiesta was harder).  Now, at age whatever, I'd say Aaron Copland's Our Town is the "saddest," or at least most melancholic. Pearl Jam's Small Town is probably next.

Robert on Amazon says Our Town is "moving, surreal, profound."

Eleazar Gutwirth in an abstract for a Jewish Scholarship and Philosophy in the Renaissance conference mentions the 16th century attribution by Amatus Lusitanus of bad diet causing "jewish melancholy." Lusitanus wrote numerous medical case studies:

Following the scholarly practice of his time, Amatus was concerned with the reliability of classical medical texts and distinguished between text, translation and commentaries. He does not care whether a text comes “from the Romans, Arabs or the Christians”; what matters to him is its quality...His medical ethics and his adherence to Judaism are demonstrated in a special oath in the name of the Ten Commandments.

imdb on the Our Town film. Amazon Real sample of Our Town conducted by Copland. PearlJam.com iTunes links.

Double Music (1941). John Cage/Lou Harrison /tempo/

Glancing throught the depths of my iTunes library, I found a second performance of the John Cage/Lou Harrison Double Music that I recently enthused about.  The University of Massachusetts Lowell Percussion Ensemble has recorded it along with ballet mecanique by Antheil among other works. It is a much slower tempo than the Quatuor Hêlios recording which makes it easier to parse the various percussion sounds but at the expense of some excitement. I vaguely remember buying this CD; that Amoeba sticker on the case being the primary clue. The work can be streamed on cdbaby.

Symphony No. 2 (1944). Samuel Barber

Gary Panetta writes of a Peoria Symphony concert commemorating World War II veterans on the 60th anniversary of the US victories in Europe and Japan. Among the selections Samuel Barber's Symphony No. 1:

Like much of Barber's work, it's passionately romantic with an expansive quality that's captured in the symphony's opening moments.

Barber's Symphony No. 2 might be a more literal choice and possibly more captivating to those aging veterans. Written while Barber was serving in the Army Air Corps, it attempts to give the impression of flying.

In 1964, Barber decided he was dissatisfied with the work and withdrew it. Andrew Schenk later recorded it based on a found copy and the work was re-published in 1990.

My father and three of his brothers served in the War. One of my uncles was killed in combat in Europe; I happened to see his Purple Heart over the holidays. It makes clear the sacrifices of war.

On the other hand, Bob Dole, wounded veteran himself, questioning John Kerry's Purple Hearts during last year's presidential election was a low point in political discourse.

Short Symphony (1932-33). Aaron Copland

The Living Composer, in a well-titled post "Cosmo Copland Echews Symphonies?", blogs about  New Grove's treatment of populist music in the Symphony entry, and specifically, the notion Copland's Short Symphony is somehow more interesting than his Third Symphony:

I challenge readers to compare these two works back to back and then tell me that you agree with the Grove article that the Second is “by a long way the more interesting.” Interesting, to me, can also mean big, imposing, and provocative like The Third. In the decade between these two pieces, Copland clearly amassed the tools to write a titanic work that dwarfs its predecessor.

I have recently been listening to the Short Symphony. While it is interesting in its way, to treat it as the more substantial work is unreasonable.

In a letter of Copland's, from Aaron Copland: A Reader, he says the conductor Koussevivitzky told him the Short Symphony was not just difficult to play, but impossible. In an interview, Copland also says that the work was influenced by American jazz rhythms, despite its more international reputation.

Porgy and Bess (1935). George Gershwin /Virgil Thomson/

The latest New Yorker has a piece by Claudia Roth Pierpont, centered around The George Gershwin Reader, about the music (and life) of George Gershwin and specificaly the reception (or lack thereof) of his opera Porgy and Bess.

I knew that Virgil Thomson, the composer and critic, had a basic disrepect for Gershwin:

Gershwin has not and never did have the power of sustained development.

I wasn't aware of Thomson's comments later upon a revival of Porgy and Bess in 1942:

the work's "inspiration is authentic and its expressive quotient high."

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In the magazine's list of favorite 2004 jazz albums, these sounded interesting:

• Bill Charlap Somewhere: The Songs of Leonard Bernstein
• Alice Coltrane Translinear Light - "a truly unexpected album"
• Von Freeman The Great Divide - Freeman is now 82.
• Charles Lloyd and Billy Higgins Which Way Is East - "feel-good music...drawing on free jazz, samba, religious song, blues, and exotica."
• Mylab - "strangely absorbing"

Double Music (1941). John Cage/Lou Harrison /2004 #6/

We were in Oklahoma for the holidays but alas, I had to make an unplanned trip to Indiana, putting me behind on blogging, among other things. Can I finish the aworks Top 10 Tracks of 2004 in 2004?  Fifteen hours left...

At a play count of 32, Double Music, a percussion piece by John Cage and Lou Harrison, is a lively but not raucous work. I don't know if tuned percussion can in fact play a true melody but for percussion, this music is melodic. Does Lou Harrison's participation somehow soften the sometimes abrasive tendencies of John Cage? My prior post indicates they composed their parts independently.

I can't find it but a year ago, someone wrote an online essay on how recorded pop music of the last fifty years has been a great achievement in timbre. Listen to five seconds of a pop hit and it is likely recognizable. While Double Music is esoteric, it has some development as well, again within the constraints of percussion music. Regardless, it is clearly an achievement in timbre as well.

#7 Ives, #8 Ornstein, #9 Fink, #10 Garland.

America (1930). Frederick Martens, Leo Ornstein

Time Magazine has posted their articles since 1923 to the Web (although you must be a magazine subscriber to see the full text).  Searching for "Leo Ornstein" turns up the following from 1930:

Among the products of the widespread U. S. yearning for a new national anthem was a $3,000 prize competition...the best anthem had been submitted by Musical Writer Frederick Herman Martens (words) of Rutherford, N. J., and Pianist Leo Ornstein (music), that they would divide the prize. Final stanza of their anthem, entitled America:

Thou, America, enshrined, In ev'ry patriot soul, To olden greeds and hatreds blind, In unity thy strength shall bind The nations that they find In brotherhood their goal.

I assume the "widespread yearning" of that era continued...

Porgy and Bess (1935). George Gershwin

New Zealand opera blogger Sarah, during a rant about the 2004 Classical Brit Awards broadcast, expressed surprised by something from Porgy and Bess:

...I generally groan when opera singers do Gershwin, and when they announced that the pair would sing 'Bess, you is my woman now' I was most upset. And then- who'd have picked it- it turned out not to be just the best of a bad lot but actually genuinely wonderful...

Adagio for Strings (1936). Samuel Barber /notes/

Notes on Adagio:

Michael O'Sullivan: TO THIS DAY, I can't listen to Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings without getting teary at the memory of the final scene in "The Elephant Man" in which John Merrick (John Hurt), over Barber's crushingly sad composition, ends his own life, merely by rearranging the pillows that support his hideously deformed head.

Kirk McElhearn (His post includes a graphic of iTunes with the Emerson String Quartet recording.): Well, there's a simple way that iTunes could improve the user experience for classical music fans, and it's something that the iTunes Music Store already uses.

Sting (from a Berklee graduation address): I never tire of hearing Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" or Faures "Pavane" or Otis Redding's "Dock of the Bay." These pieces speak to me in the only religious language I understand. They induce in me a state of deep meditation, of wonder. They make me silent.

Nicholas Taw quoting Winthrop Sargeant: Barber, he said, "is not afraid of 'charm,' a word that is mistakenly regarded as a devilish one by many of his contemporaries." The music "moves," "conveys emotions and states of mind," "entails an ingredient of suspense, and ... the listener is drawn into its insistent dramatic flow.

And one more quote from Taw: Copland, in 1936, said Barber lacked musical substance and was too emotionally conventional.

Micah (in a post with a graphic representation of Adagio): Suffice it to say, it's a very long song with slow changes but it's really moving and interweaving. It builds up tension really well until all the strings are playing really high, then, suddenly, it goes quiet... and gets deep and soothing again.

Sun-Treader (1931). Carl Ruggles

I'm several chapters into reading American Composers and their Public: A Critical View, written in 1995 by Nicholas Tawa. So far, he is making the case, no surprise here, that the early modernist composers disdained the conventional classical audience but never built a new audience beyond a niche of peers, specialists etc. He also points out how the music of the teens and twenties focused on texture and innovation, at the expense of form and content.

He uses several quotes from Aaron Copland to characterize the period as being electrifying and that "money and art patrons were plentiful, and there was the conviction that nothing but prosperity and good times lay ahead." And even Copland found it exciting to be fighting the new avant garde battles even if the audience was not ready for contemporary music. Of course, Copland ultimately unified inspiration and acceptance. But in spite of all that occurred in the twenties, the author argues this generation of composers was arrogant, un-democratic, individualistic, self-aggrandizing, out of balance, etc.

In the midst of disparaging attitudes and practices of these composers, Tawa interjects:

Whatever American modernists may have said, they did produce several outstanding works that deserve to be taken seriously by more sophisticated listeners.

Then, he goes on to list Ruggles' Sun-Treader, Copland's Short Symphony, Sessions' Symphony No. 2, Cage's Sonata and Interludes for Prepared Piano, and Carter's String Quarter No. 2. While it is odd to hear these recommendations in the midst of invective, it mirrors my experience immersed in this music.  The conventional narrative of classical music development is something like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, maybe Debussy etc. and then classical music drives over a cliff (with Schoenberg or Cage as driver/villain, depending on your artistic beliefs). And after the fact, I'm looking through the wreckage at the bottom of that cliff trying to find new music that is in fact good and usable ("Oh look, there's High Color from Cowell.  But be careful with that Antheil work right next to it.")  In any case, I think Ruggle's Sun-Treader is in fact salvageable and of value, in a heavy kind of way.

Promethean Antagonist thinks much of the ugliness of modern music is due to nihilism, mentioning Stockhausen as an example. While I don't have an opinion about the world view of Stockhausen, I do take Richard Taruskin's opinion on Schoenberg, where the focus on the composer, his methods and tools, overwhelmed any sensitivity towards an audience. Taruskin calls this divergence the "poietic fallacy," which places the making of art ahead of how it is perceived. But even Taruskin goes on to make his Schoenberg recommendations:

Rather than the ones that smell like teen spirit, the Schoenberg works that seem to me to be destined to survive (or maybe just the ones I would like to see survive) are the ones in which he showed his ironic, playfully inventive side: Pierrot Lunaire...the First String Quartet and the Chamber Symphony; but also a number of the early 12-note works like Suite for Piano Op. 25 or the Septet Suite Op. 29...

And since I don't get many chances to recommend Stockhausen, how about his work for two pianos, Mantra. I saw a mesmerizing performance at the University of British Columbia, a decade ago.
 

El Salón México (1939). Aaron Copland

Ken Glickman writes in a preview of a Lansing Symphony "orchestral Americana" concert:

American classical music almost seems like an oxymoron.

A provocative thought but the article goes on to describe the usual idea of American classical style being a synthesis etc. from which Aaron Copland and George Gershwin created something unique.

Copland's El Salón México, featured in that concert, was dedicated by Copland to Leonard Bernstein. As his first publication while at the Curtis School of Music in 1941, Bernstein wrote the piano transcription of the work.

I have to say I've heard this piece many times and never liked it.  This year, I bought  Eugenie Russo's American Piano Music CD, heard the piano arrangement for the first time, and changed my mind. Partly, I've been listening lately to so much modernist/ultra-modernist piano music from the 1920s/30s and I finally made the connection between all that dissonance and provocation and the vernacular Aaron Copland (ignoring the early austere Copland or the late experimenter Copland).  I now think he captured the intensity and spirit of that era's music, even if in conventional clothing. Although tame compared to say Cowell bashing forearms on the keyboard or Ornstein writing bold, outrageous, and noisy music, the piano reduction of El Salón México, of all things, illuminated the strength behind the pleasant facade, for example, in the slow section after the fast introduction or in the ending chord of the piece.  From there, to my surprise, I have even started liking the melody.

CD available for $2.99 at Berkshire Record Outlet.

Adagio for Strings (1936). Samuel Barber /beethoven and barber/

Epicurious talks about two important pieces: 

But only two music have actually moved me to the different ends of an emotional spectrum: Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 and Samuel Barber's Adagio.

and specfically about Adagio:

I stood there in the dark corner of the concert hall, I was swept away by an indescribable sense of deathly peace.

Fanfare for the Common Man (1942). Aaron Copland

Christopher Chase offers up some history on the seventies rock group Styx and their big hit Come Sail Away. He also notes:

Styx was well known for appropriating and transforming song forms, and rewriting the Sea Shanty with nostalgic regrets, culminating in a UFO abduction was perfectly in line for a band who had already invented the Power Ballad ("Lady") and then reinvented it as a prog-rock approach towards a critical examination of American nationalism ("Suite Madame Blue") or reread Aaron Copland ("Fanfare for the Common Man") and melded it with spoken word New Deal economics ("Street Collage").

Not to date myself but I remember when Lady was a breakout hit on WLS in Chicago. I'll also admit to seeing Emerson, Lake & Palmer play Fanfare for the Common Man in concert.

Symphony No. 1, Op. 9 (1936). Samuel Barber /passacaglia/

Joshua Wiley is moved by Barber's Symphony No. 1 (with Marin Alsop conducting on Naxos):

The final five minutes or so are a deeply moving passacaglia that burns like, well, thinking about long talks in the evenings on College Street, I guess.

In program notes for the National Symphony by Richard Freed:

The drama here is of a generalized nature, fully representative of the lyricism, intensity and overall expressiveness that characterize all of his most successful instrumental scores.

Prior recommendation.

Appalachian Spring Suite (1945). Aaron Copland

I just saw this on seattle.craigslist.org:

The Luna Nova Quartet is a San Francisco based chamber music group featuring mandolin, violin, viola, and cello.

And then on the Luna Nova website:

...a fresh, exciting new orchestration of the "Appalachian Spring Suite," by Aaron Copland.

I was trying to remember if I had heard mandolin used in classical music. The Luna Nova MP3 page lists one of Vivaldi's Concerti for Mandolin. Vaguely familiar.

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• The mandolin was first built in early 1700's, and was descended from the mandora, a small lute used in the 16th century. Wikipedia
• Copland work list
• Copland House

Adagio for Strings (1936). Samuel Barber /Warwickshire/

As we left the chapel, the exit music was Barber’s Adagio for Strings, which was the theme music to Platoon – a film that I knew Dad liked. Karen

Rodeo (1942). Aaron Copland

Clarke Bustard in the Richmond Times-Tribute writes about Anton Dvořák's stay in the United States and thinks that American composers didn't take the composer's advice about using vernacular music directly as inspiration: But the more dominant strain of American composition, epitomized by Copland's "Americana" scores, would echo European style and sensibility.

Adagio for Strings (1936). Samuel Barber /peace/

ACJ on Barber's Adagio: …makes me feel like I could die on the spot and be absolutely in peace with it.

Symphony No. 1, Op. 9 (1936). Samuel Barber

Aaron Green on about.com lists ten symphonies you should own and includes Samuel Barber's lyrical Symphony No. 1, Charles Ives' Symphony No. 1, and Anton Dvorak's "New World" Symphony. Of course, the list also includes Brahms, Beethoven, Haydn, Mahler, and Mozart. No Glenn Branca though...

For how much I generally like Barber's music, I would instead recommend the Harris Third Symphony.

Double Music (1941). John Cage/Lou Harrison

I was inspired by tonight's Olympic synchronized platform diving:

Nine judges assess synchronised diving. Four judge the execution of individual dives, and five assess synchronisation - how the pairs mirror height, distance from the springboard or platform, speed of rotation and entry into the water.

And in a posthumous honor surprisingly not covered by NBC, Olympic gold medals for synchronized composing were awarded to John Cage and Lou Harrison for their Double Music. In a successful act of simultaneity and collaboration from 1941, John Cage composed two percussion parts for the piece (soprano and tenor) and independently, Lou Harrison the other two (alto and bass). Instruments included bells, brake drums, etc., all of which makes for a fun, fast work. johncage.info calls it "festive." Amazon samples.

Synchronized composers Philip Glass and Ravi Shankar were awarded the silver medal for Passages. Olympic judges are still searching for a third pair eligible for the bronze.

In 1941: John Cage was teaching at the Chicago School of Design. Comedian and actor Bob Hope staged his first USO show. Gilbert Gable, an Oregon mayor, announced that seven counties in Oregon and California should form their own state of "Jefferson."

Adagio for Strings (1936). Samuel Barber. /Olympics/

The DJ Tiesto mix of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings was playing at Tower Records in Mountain View today. I also noticed more than the usual number of google searches on aworks for Adagio MP3s etc. My own Google Search found DJ Tiesto providing music for last night's Olympic opening ceremonies in Greece:

Tiesto from Amsterdam played about two hours of nonstop dance music as the world's athletes took their first steps onto the world's biggest stage. It was the first time a DJ has had such a role at the games.

Then, I found Twiddledee explicitly recognizing the piece and suggesting Adagio was too sad for the event. In any case, 800 million people (or whatever) were exposed to Adagio, albeit in au courant style i.e. more harsh and driving than the Ferry Corsten remix (via William Orbit), let alone a traditional orchestral, vocal, or string performance. I suppose this proves the universal appeal of the underlying music.

Yesterday I happened to be reading Lawrence Kramer's Musical Meaning: Toward a Critical History where he says that the Adagio from Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata is at present morphing from an implication of romantic fervor to a relaxing, tranquil usage:

...In the context of the default musics of the present day, it may be that classical music is "relaxing" for the simple reason that it has no rhythm track; its pulse is always already idealized. In this context the arpeggios that thread the Adagio take on a new significance, dispersing the rhythmic impulse into an undulation perceived as more languid than insistent; more berceuse- than serenade-like...

Going in the opposite direction, Barber's Adagio, through dance remixes, is taking on rhythm to make it more insistent (and more popular). Hmm.

No Amazon sample of the Tiesto remix but sanity.com.au does sample (Windows media format).

Prior Adagio posts: Autechre dance remix story Sheens web miscellany

One Amazon note: the Tiesto CD was, based on customer purchases, the "#12 Early Adopter Product in Dance & DJ." How about an equivalent Amazon feature for american classical music?

Update: The Paralympics Closing Ceremony in Athens also used Barber's Adagio:

Low and somber, it gradually built up to a crescendo.

Organum, for Orchestra (1944-47). Carl Ruggles

In Essential Cowell: Selected Writings on Music by Henry Cowell 1921-1964, Cowell describes his friendship with Carl Ruggles and calls him "irascible, lovable, honest, sturdy, original, slow-working, deeply emotional, self-assured, and intelligent." As an example, he tells how it was important for Ruggles to rank composers by historical importance and they spent many hours debating if Tchaikovsky was thirteenth or fourteenth. He also, not surprisingly, praises Ruggles for his mastery of dissonance.

Cowell also does a short analysis of Ruggles' Organum and points out how the melody line does not repeat the same note too soon, how despite the composer's tendencies the final chord must be less dissonant if not consonant, and how an example of dissonant counterpoint works.

He finishes by suggesting that Ruggles is in a similar position to Anton Webern, in having written a small number of short, dense works, albeit with more melodic flow.

Wikipedia on the concept of organum here. An MP3 example of organum here.

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1941). Samuel Barber. [Kavakos]

Violinist Leonidas Kavakos will play the Barber Violin Concerto in the New York Philharmonic's upcoming outdoor concerts. In an article by Bradley Bambarger, he compares the Barber with the Mendelssohn:

Comparing the Barber and Mendelssohn concertos and their suitability for outdoor play, Kavakos says: "They are so obviously pieces created by young men, with a lot of energy, particularly their dynamic finales. They are also both extremely melodic."

His biography says he plays a Stradivarius violin. Does he really play it outdoors? What if it rains?

• Web recommendations of the Violin Concerto.

Update: It did in fact rain.

Adagio for Strings (1936). Samuel Barber [Autechre]

I really enjoy when different worlds intersect. I have not yet heard Autechre's Garbage EP, but in Navi's Autechre: The Rough Guide, a track is compared to Barber's Adagio:

The biggest surprise is the final track, "VLetrmx21," a completely drumless piece that resembles nothing so much as an industrial take on Barber's "Adagio for Strings." The instrumentation, which sounds like an orchestra in a wind tunnel, builds and subsides over the course of eight minutes. Like the previous track, "VLetrmx21" doesn't really go anywhere, it just paints a very beautiful but very bleak picture.

Other Adagio posts: dance remix story Sheens web miscellany

Disclaimer: I also enjoyed today's Boondocks comic strip which mentioned the old Bloom Country strip. Shades of when Mad's Alfred E. Neuman appeared as the Great Pumpkin in Peanuts. Seeing that one was a pivotal moment in my life. So, of course, I went to the current Mad Magazine exhibition at the Charles M. Schultz Museum in Santa Rosa. But in spite of a natural disposition towards juxtaposition, I am not much for Charles Ives' use of popular song in his works.
Disclaimer #2: I just read Robert Nagle who raises some relevant questions: should I bleach cultural references?...what killed postmodernism?

Three 2-part Studies (1940/41). Conlon Nancarrow

This is a short piece for piano; the third movement shows the influence of Bach on Nancarrow. The piece overall, apparently frustrating to the composer, begins to show his need to express more complexity via player piano.

In a review of the CD, Raymond Tuttle found the combination of Nancarrow and Antheil "lopsided" but is overall positive given both had written music for player piano, although those pieces were not included here.

Margaret Tan Leng's version on toy piano (Real Audio) from the Other Minds Festival.

26 from the Library: Intro & Lucier Lang Antheil Rzewski Adams Lucier

Smile (Modern Times) (1936). Charlie Chaplin

Last month I was in Los Angeles and today in San Francisco. Now it's time to see how the two cities stack up for record shoppers, in this case, based on visits to Amoeba Records and Tower Classical Cloister, er, Annex, in both cities.

Let's start with the weather. It was 63 degrees, windy and foggy in SF. Advantage LA.

Parking was easy except for Amoeba/SF where parking in the Haight is always a hassle. Advantage LA.

In a huge building, the atmosphere at Amoeba/LA was professional if a bit subdued ("Electronica, call on line six") and jazz and classical were segregated in their own room. I found myself lost in what appeared to be a rock section where I neither recognized the artists nor even the genre. At Tower/LA, I was the only customer and the clerk was jabbering on the phone. Tower/SF was the most sophisticated; a shopper and the clerk were discussing the differences between English, German and French...were they comparing styles of oboes, oboists, or oboe music? I didn't want to interrupt their conversation to ask. Amoeba/SF was a mob scene, in a fun kind of way, as Most Chill Slackmob were playing a spirited, loud in-store appearance for their Urban Mind Expansion CD:

Most Chill Slackmob is a rugged, live band that throws down rump-shakin, block-rockin parties. This San Francisco created Los Angeles based crew fuses the influences of hip hop, raw funk and dub to create a universal sound.

I did wonder if the older guy next to me browsing the Brahms bin enjoyed the program much. Advantage SF for Amoeba being cloister-free.

The drive from Amoeba to Tower in LA on Sunset Boulevard through Hollywood is exciting and colorful (I described it here). The drive from Amoeba to Tower in SF via Pacific Heights has several spectacular views of San Francisco Bay. Also, it was amusing to see cars lined up for blocks on the straight, boring side of Lombard Street waiting for the opportunity to drive down the crooked side. Advantage SF.

As for actual purchases, I bought the most by far at Amoeba/LA and lesser amounts at Amoeba/SF and Tower/SF. To be fair, I was so satiated from Amoeba/LA that by the time I got to Tower/LA I even passed on the new Michael Jon Fink single. No advantage.

Most important, I counted the "Adams Number" for each store. When I go into a record store, I head for the John Adams bin and count the number of CDs (note that the multi-volume Adams Earbox only counts as one). This number serves several purposes: as an Adams completist, I need to know if there are any CDs I don't have; based on that, I gauge the budget left for other purposes; finally, the Adams Number serves as a proxy for the rest of the shopping experience, since it correlates with the amount of both traditional and contemporary music in stock. The typical Best Buy has an Adams Number of zero or one, the local library is four or five, Tower/LA was sixteen, Amoeba/SF was seventeen (disappointing this Bay Area loyalist), Tower/SF was eighteen and Amoeba/LA was 36. Advantage LA

Ok, overall, a slight preference for LA even if we did beat their soccer team in the greatest Major League Soccer game.

After all this shopping, the surprise track from my cornucopia of new CDs is violinist Leila Josefowicz playing Smile from the Charlie Chaplin movie Modern Times. The work is short, serene, and poignant; the violin and piano arrangement by jazz composer Claus Ogermann. I found the CD at Amoeba/SF in the bargain bins for $1.99. It turns out this piece has also been recorded by Perlman, I Salonisti, Kunzel, Kremer et al. I never knew. Josefowicz I did know from her playing of Adams' Violin Concerto. Amazon samples.

36!

Adagio for Strings (1936). Samuel Barber /dance remix story/

remco's blog mentions another dance remix of Barber's Adagio, this time by DJ Tiesto. I was not able to find an online sample of this yet, although I did find the backstory on the Ferry Corsten/William Orbit version in an interview of Tony McGuiness:

...I worked at Warners on the original, aborted release of William Orbit’s “Pieces In A Modern Style” in 1995, and played the unreleased CD all the time: the first track was Barbers Adagio. I’d come home from clubbing and stick it on, and thought it might make a good trance record. My brother and I started mucking about with it in my studio, and with some other classical Adagios I had Midi files for, including Albinoni. After William became famous with Madonna, I started talking to him about releasing the album properly and maybe getting a dance mix of Barber’s Adagio done. He was very keen. This was before I met Jono and Paavo and so in the end I sent the midi files to Ferry Corsten and he did the mix to my brief: Gouryella but with classical music. He did a great job. I suggested Albinoni to William as another track for his album but he didn’t like it, so I thought I’d do it myself some day. It took a while to get round to it.

Adagio for Strings (1936). Samuel Barber /The Sheens/

I just had an associative moment...

The Adagio track from the Platoon soundtrack popped up via iTunes shuffle. I heard the sound of helicopter blades and then some dialogue from Martin Sheen. So, I started thinking how young Martin sounds and in my mind I'm seeing the scene where he is drunk and angry in a hotel room. Then I realized I'm listening to the son Charlie Sheen in Platoon and not the father Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now. Finally, it dawns on me that father and son each had their own excellent Viet Nam war movie. I had never linked the two.

Continuing the disambiguation exericise, I placed the right Sheen in the right TV show (West Wing versus Spin City). I also knew that Francis Ford Coppola directed Apocalypse Now and his wife Eleanor Coppola the fine documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Film Maker's Apocalypse. But then I had to cheat via imdb to determine that Stanley Kubrick directed Full Metal Jacket and Oliver Stone directed Platoon rather than vice versa, which seems obvious in hindsight.

I also knew the Vancouver Symphony performed Adagio on the Platoon soundtrack, in what is presumably the most listened to performance of the work. What I didn't know, as reported in a review by Brendan Kelly, was that the conductor, George Delarue composed an alternate adagio theme for the movie that Stone rejected in favor of Barber's.

Bacchanale (1940). John Cage

Is it the piano preparation or the playing technique?

Whatever, Margaret Leng Tan's recording of John Cage's Bacchanale is an excellent hybrid between percussion and piano; muffled, damped, rhythmic and yet playful. Intended for percussion, it was Cage's first work for prepared piano.

New Sounds has a Real excerpt although John Schafer talks over it in his introduction to a show dedicated to Cage. Here's an MP3 (via johncage.info and UCLA) of Stephen Drury's recording.

First Construction (in metal) (1939). John Cage

Erudite conversationalist Stirling Newberry, of BOPnews and Symphony X, thinks the phrase consciousness revolution has "charm," as I wrote in a post about Steve Reich's 60s-ish Pendulum Music.

To elaborate on my thinking, it is my intention to understand American classical music via periods in American history by exploring the context of the time in which the music was written. For historical periods, I have adopted the ideas of William Strauss and Neil Howe in their book, The Fourth Turning, where American history follows the "saeculum." Each saecular (or generational) cycle is maybe 80 years and consists of a sequential pattern of 20-year periods: a high, an awakening, an unraveling, and a crisis. So, life during the years 1929 to 1946 was driven by the social crisis (and successful resolution) of the Great Depression and World War II. I am not saying that these historical periods necessarily correspond to musical periods, but they do provide a tool to help understand the cultural dynamics of the time.

So, what does this have to do with John Cage's percussion music of the thirties and forties, for example, 1939's First Construction? In a time of crisis, one might expect the soothing, poignant Americana of say, Aaron Copland. But Cage's achievement with his percussion works (and his general idea of organizing sound beyond European musical orthodoxy) strikes me as even more impressive given that era's focus on cultural survival rather than cultural expression.

To continue the analysis, Strauss and Howe would say we are now near the end of an unraveling; "culture wars" as they call it. Thus, the arts are more amenable to individualism, innovation and feeling rather than social cohesion. Carried to an extreme, we end up with, for better or worse, Korn and Karen Finley.

In any case, I am still struck by the avant garde John Cage.

Cello Concerto, Op. 22 (1945). Samuel Barber

Notes on Barber's Cello Concerto by eighthweasley.

Perhaps Koussevitsky says it best when he expresses his conviction that "the Barber Cello concerto will be to the twentieth century what the Brahms Violin Concerto was to the nineteenth."

Adagio for Strings (1936). Samuel Barber

On tripod, at Ashton's Flame, an emotional description of a memorial for Ashton Prescott. At the end of the description was Adagio.

Ashton was telling us, "Dance for me." And we did.

those we love remain with us, for love lives on and cherished memories never fade because a loved one's gone those we love can never be more than a thought apart for as long as there is memory, they live on in the heart.

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Here's a query via Singingfish to search for audio streams and MP3s of Adagio for Strings (the most common Google search of aworks). It currently turns up 6 sites.

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Lia, a French-speaking student, comments on her life having similarities with Adagio; magnificent and melancholy. Too soon to really consider, she would want this music played at her funeral. Her real dream is apparently to travel to Egypt.

Ces temps-ci, j'ai l'impression que ma vie se passe comme cet Adagio de Samuel Barber. Magnifique, mais en même temps tellement mélancolique. Je le dis un trop à l'avance, mais je veux que lors de mon enterrement, on mette cette musique. Non pas que je cherche à mourir, je suis trop jeune pour cela. Cependant, la mort arrivera bien tôt ou tard et c'est en prenant conscience de cela le plus tôt possible qu'on profitera le plus de la vie que l'on mène.

The Letter (1943). Harry Partch

After listening to "American Mavericks" like  Charles Ives and Henry Cowell, Harry Partch comes across as the maverick's maverick.  His use of odd-ball themes is combined with his invention of odd-ball instruments.

The Letter is a short song based on a letter Partch received from a hobo friend.  While humorous on the surface, it also alludes to the difficulties of being poor.  Instrumentation is intoning voice, kithara, harmonic canon, surrogate kithara,  diamond  marimba, and bass marimba. This was on a CRI CD "CRI 40th Anniversary - The Composer-Performer." Also available at Berkshire Record Outlet for $3.99.

Enchanting if a bit odd.

String Quartet No. 1 (1931, revised 1957). Virgil Thomson

The fourth movement, "Lento, Presto," of String Quartet No. 1 by Virgil Thomson is quite charming, especially the presto (very fast) part. Available from Berkshire Record Outlet for $3.99. Also on Amazon UK.

The liner notes discuss how Thomson called the music "neo-romantic"

in an effort to transcend the hymns and popular melodies that had inspired and informed so much of his earlier music and move in a more self-consciously "serious" direction.

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1941). Samuel Barber

Recommended by a musician turned music therapist.

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And by ladybretagne, a soprano on livejournal.

Samuel Barber Violin Concerto = possibly the most beautiful piece of 20th C. music ever.

Adagio for Strings (1936)

KATU TV in Portland reports that a former Miss America walked down the wedding aisle to the tune of "Adagio for Strings (1936)" by Samuel Barber. While better known for its elegiac use at the radio announcement of FDR's death, as a somber theme in the movie "Platoon", and in an electronic version by William Orbit (with recent dance remix by Ferry Corsten), "Adagio for Strings" might be appropriate as a wedding theme, given its American-derived emotional impact...

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September 21, 2003. From the book "Samuel Barber: The Composer and His Music" by Barbara Heyman:

Ned Rorem believes the Adagio for Strings to dispel two myths about music: "that what is popular is necessarily junk, and the late improves upon the early." "If Barber later aimed higher," Rorem claims, "he never reached deeper into the heart, and he is still held most dearly for works composed before his fortieth birthday."

Heyman also quotes Aaron Copland on the work:

It's really well felt, it's believable you see, it's not phoney. He's not just making it up because he thinks that would sound well. It comes straight from the heart, to use old-fashioned terms. The sense of continuity, the steadiness of the flow, the satisfaction of the arch that it creates from beginning to end They're all very gratifying, satisfying, and it makes you believe in the sincerity which he obviously put into it.

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A Brazilian post in Portuguese that mentions Platoon, Adagio, and has a link to an MP3 download on http://www.modern-strings.de.