aworks :: "new" american classical music

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.

Piano Phase / Having Never Written a Note for Percussion

Alex Ross in the New Yorker also covered the Bang on a Can festival at Symphony Space in New York. 

In a classic Reich piece such as “Piano Phase”—given an electrifying, video-enhanced performance by David Cossin at Bang on a Can—you can perceive the influence of modal jazz or Motown bass lines more than you can hear them. This implacably original sound influenced much pop music in turn, and the composer eventually found himself with the unlikely title of “Father of DJ Culture.”

He also says that the "defining moment" of the event was James Tenney's playing of fifteen gongs. Not coincidentally, in Sonic Youth's
Goodbye to the 20th Century CD mentioned previously,  the standout work, above those by Cage, Reich, Ono, et. al., was Tenney's Having Never Written a Note for Percussion. This is an ominous, machine-like work for percussion, striking if not beautiful.

Piano Phase/Video Phase (1967). Steve Reich

At Symphony Space in New York, Bernard Holland in the New York Times reports Bang on a Can played Steve Reich's Piano Phase/Video Phase, an update to his marimba and piano work Piano Phase (1967) where the artist David Cossin was recorded via video augmenting the original work. 

Other works at the concert:
- Muddy Waters. Ingram Marshall.
- Vortex. Annea Lockwood.
- Streetwalker. Donnacha Dennehy.
- Pelvic Noise. Thurston Moore (of the rock group Sonic Youth)
- Stroking Piece No. 1. Thurston Moore.
- Pendulum Music. Steve Reich. (also recorded on Sonic Youth's Goodbye 20th Century CD)

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Kyle Gann hears the tune from Piano Phase on NPR, and counts it as a victory for postclassical music.

 

Rhapsody in Blue for Piano and Orchestra (1924). George Gershwin

George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue for Piano and Orchestra (1924) is one of the best segments of the Disney film Fantasia 2000.  About life in New York City, it's an amusing, stylistic animation.  Seeing this also helps reclaim the work from the grasp of being used as the theme for United Airlines. 

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September 11, 2003

Why me? was playing Rhapsody in Blue for Piano and Orchestra during a public radio pledge drive when the first 9/11 attack occurred.

It was a beautiful Tuesday morning. Nothing eventful ever happens on a Tuesday. Nothing eventful should ever happen on a Tuesday.

My public radio station was approaching the midpoint of our fall fund drive. I was hosting the morning classical music show. Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue was on. Beautiful. Thrilling. That would get the phones ringing, I thought.

It was 8:51 am. Workers in New York City had already died.