aworks :: "new" american classical music

Mars (1967). John Coltrane /classic jazz?/

Jack Reilly posts about improvisation, composition, learning and teaching. In the middle of all that, he says:

What is the jazz? It is a twentieth century American phenomenon. Jazz stopped evolving after 1963. From that date to the present we have witnessed nothing more than a synthesis. What is left to teach is what has already been done.

I haven't listened to enough jazz in the last twenty years to say if this is true or not. If I hadn't heard Matthew Shipp in the last year, I nonetheless might have been inclined to agree. I'd also quibble about the cutoff being 1963 as it ignores late Coltrane, early electric Miles etc.

Maybe this explains how I ended up following contemporary classical music but not contemporary jazz.

Hoodoo Zephyr (1993). John Adams

  And to complete the Amoeba Holiday Trifecta...

In SF today for other reasons (including seeing the superb Felicity Huffman at the Bridge Theatre) but swung by Amoeba in the Haight. I didn't have time to peruse the bargain bins but did end up with four CDs:

• John Adams. Hoodoo Zephyr. I can't find my old copy so this was a used replacement. In a first re-listen, for electronic music, it sounds surprisingly mundane. Adams apparently needs real instruments for his orchestration to shine.
• Mexican Piano Music by Manuel M. Ponce. Expanding the "a" in "aworks."
• Konono No. 1. Lubuaku. Haven't heard this yet. I think it's some budget live concert. CD was manufactured in Austria.
• Copland Chamber Music. Vanbrugh Quartet. I'm still trying to understand why Copland didn't achieve much with respect to chamber music.

Margaret Garner (2005). Richard Danielpour

Mark Strykyer mentions five major American opera premieres this year:

1. Margaret Garner. Richard Danielpour. Michigan Opera Theatre.
2. A Wedding. William Bolcom. Chicago Lyric Opera.
3. Lysistrata. Mark Adamo. Houston Grand Opera.
4. Doctor Atomic. John Adams. San Francisco Opera.
5. An American Tragedy. Tobias Picker. Metropolitan Opera.

I'll quote Stryker quoting Alex Ross on An American Tragedy:

Though Picker, 51, began his career as an atonal composer, he has long since retreated into a comfy neo-romantic Americana, which on paper appears a good match for Dreiser's literary naturalism. (Gene Scheer wrote the libretto.) The reviews have been mixed, but it's worth noting the reaction by the perspicacious New Yorker critic Alex Ross: "The opera is a fitfully inspired creation, wavering along the fine line between tragedy and turgidity, but, on a primal, Pucciniesque level, it hits the mark."

And let's not forget Philip Glass' Waiting for the Barbarians which debuted in eastern Germany:

Examining state-sponsored torture and repression, the opera explores the way in which modern-day white society is coming to terms with its legacy of centuries of repression of indigenous black cultures.

In 2007, the opera will be staged in Austin, Texas. That should prove interesting.

I Am Sitting in a Room (1970). Alvin Lucier /living minimally/

To represent various decades, New York Magazine profiled people whose fashion and style personify each era. For the nineties, some bloke is living minimally after selling most of his possessions:

Of the one small sofa, a George Nelson daybed, he says: “I can only sit in one place at a time.” ...Needless to say, Freeman isn't exactly stoking the economy; mostly he buys food. His few CDs -- hidden in a built-in drawer -- are minimalists Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and La Monte Young.

The sixties mod woman is at least respectable. The seventies rocker guy scares me.

Duran (1969-70). Miles Davis

aworks version of the meme of four:

four jobs: dormitory janitor, software engineer, marketing engineer, engineering manager

four tv shows: mclaughlin group, the original bob newhart show, dragnet, ballykissangel

four movies: most mystery science theatre 3000s, fever pitch, return of the secaucus seven, wall street

four living places: saginaw mi, kokomo in, palo alto ca, menlo park ca

four vacation places: edinburgh, mono lake, cabo san lucas, nova scotia

four rather be places: amoeba sf/la/berkeley, any college music library, any arid mountain, any place while wearing headphones

four web sites (mostly real-life blog division): fearful symmetry, deconsumption, markham's behavorial health, google blog search: gable (clark, dan, jenny, et al)

four favorite foods: coconut lemongrass chicken with vietnamese hot sauce at zao's, applewood pizza, nectarines, dark-green vegetables (hi, laura)

four teams i've given up on: detroit tigers, san jose earthquakes, heart of midlothian, indiana pacers

four from john adams: shaker loops, nixon in china, violin concerto, china gates

four from miles: circle in the round, duran, in a silent way/it's about time, bitches brew

Unsilent Night (1992). Phil Kline /tradition/

This is turning into a holiday tradition. Again I won't be able to attend Phil Kline's Unsilent Night in San Francisco. From the announcement:

A moving piece of ambient public art, Unsilent Night can be compared to a holiday caroling party, except that participants don't sing. Instead, each carries a boombox playing a separate cassette, CD, or MP3 that becomes part of the piece. In effect, Kline and his co-performers become single elements in a huge, mobile sound system.

MP3 clip.

Sun-Treader (1931). Carl Ruggles /itunes/

Hmm, that was interesting. I've been struggling with a cold all morning, while trying to blog. Then, the rain came down quite heavily, my Firefox browser crashed, I rebooted my PC, the rain stopped and now my cold is better. Blog post is lost however. Cause and effect is not clear to me...

Since I'm also mentally challenged right now and don't feel like recreating my post, I'll answer Don Nunn's iTunes meme (and why his post from February showed up in today's Bloglines, I have no idea):

How many songs?

• 10030 items, 40.6 days, 73.60 Gb.

Sorted by song title, the first and last songs:

• '84 Pontiac Dream. Boards of Canada
• ZX-1. Matthew Shipp

Sorted by artist, the first and last songs: 

• Hymn to St. Cecilia Op.27. II. Benjamin Britten. Courtesy of cddb, the artist field says "I cannot grow". The leading quote will prove significant later.
• Spiegel Im Spiegel. Arvo Part. The artist field is empty.

Sorted by album, the first and last songs:

• Miles Davis_ John Coltra. Miles Davis. 'Round Midnight.
• Spiegel Im Spiegel. Arvo Part. The album field is also empty.
  

Top 10 most-played songs:

1. A Spider. Helen Boatwright. Ernst Bacon although the composer tag says John Cage.
2. Hymn to St. Cecilia Op.27. II. Benjamin Britten. "I cannot grow." In the old iPod, this was at the top of the songs menu and I would accidentally select it (not that I have anything against Benjamin Britten).
3. Go to Sleep (Little Man Being Erased). Radiohead. This reminds me -- would someone go out in the rain and get the paper so I can read the SF Chronicle Datebook little man reviews?
4. Souvenir. John Cage. Stephen Drury.
5. Beneath the Southern Cross. Patti Smith.
6. Paint the Silence. South.
7. Everywhen. Massive Attack.
8. I Saw Drones. Boards of Canada. 27 seconds long.
9. Endangered Species. Alvin Curran. Didn't realize I listened that much to this.
10. Suicide in an Airplane. Leo Ornstein. Marc-André Hamelin.

Top 10 recently played songs:

1. Ascension (Don't Ever Wonder). Maxwell. I don't have a clue who Maxwell is but the last 10 tracks I've played are all black artists.
2. D's Choice. Matthew Shipp.
3. ZX-1. Matthew Shipp.
4. Yaphet. Miles Davis. The Bitches Brew 4-CD set was on sale last night at Tower.
5. Corrado. Miles Davis.
6. Trevere. Miles Davis.
7. Ndiwa. Kerfala Kante. Le Blues est ne en Afrique (Africa Mother of the Blues).
8. Diarabi. Boubacar Traore. Le Blues est ne en Afrique.
9. Nyamatoutou. Nahawa Doumbia. Le Blues est ne en Afrique.
10. Eighty Nine Ten. Snooky Prior. Chicago Blues Harmonicas.

Find “sex”; how many songs? 25, including "sextet" and "le sexisme" (Hi, Kim Gordon).

Find “death”; how many songs? 22 and how come I don't recognize Death of the Machines by George Antheil? Similarly, I just finished The Long Emergency where Kunstler uses (Ira) Gershwin lyrics to make a point about the end of modernity. Try the Amazon search inside this book link that may or may not work. Scroll down to the last paragraph on the page and then to the next page. Scary book by the way.

Find “love”; how many songs? 199, including the group "Love." I really enjoy their alternate track (Your Mind and We Belong Together) where Arthur Lee is captured for eternity pointing out screw ups by the guitarist -- shades of Buddy Rich, in a way. I recognize not everyone, at least in my household, sees this as humorous.

Find “peace”; how many songs? 9 including FrogPeace by Kristine Burns.

Find “rain”; how many songs? 133 including the group "Train."

Find “sun”; how many songs? 98 including the genius "Sun Ra."

aworks bonus question - Find “sun-treader”; how many songs? 1 although again the composer tag says John Cage rather than Carl Ruggles.

The Alcotts (1915). Charles Ives /1943/

I'm listening to the 1943 recording of Charles Ives playing Charles Ives, in particular, The Alcotts. What I wonder is whether by this time was Ives getting any recognition for his music? I know Lou Harrison conducted the premiere of his Third Symphony but that was several years later (and it went on to win the Pulitzer Prize).

Project Gutenberg copy of his Essays before a Sonata
Wikipedia on Piano Sonata No. 2 and noting that Elliott Carter reviewed its second performance, at Town Hall in NYC in 1939.

The Crack in the Bell (1986). Daniel Lentz

Kyle Gann has a post about Paul Griffiths' comments on Messiaen. In the middle, Gann says this:

I’ve defended a lot of my favorite Downtown music that uses synthesizer from people who say that music with synthesizer reminds them of ‘80s rock, as though that were the most heinous grievance with which a piece of music could be charged.

Ok sorry, but Daniel Lentz's The Crack in the Bell, while not necessarily sounding like '80s rock, nonetheless uses synthesizers, resulting in a timbrally-dated sound. I can't help but think of the U.S. Bicentennial and all the excitement from those scintillating Gerald Ford/Jimmy Carter/Foreigner years. Maybe this reaction is pecularly to those who were there at the time. I also grant it may be the Angel/EMI recording. A second, updated performance would be helpful.

Gann enthuses here. Betty Freeman commisioned the work, by the way.

I wil point out the simple and absorbing Music for Three Pianos with Lentz, Harold Budd, and Ruben Garcia.

Memories (1897). Charles Ives

Primi Divi on the recent Gerald Finley recital:

...but Mr Finley’s selection included a number of the more accessible songs, “Memories”, for example, perfectly captured the excitement and anticipation of waiting for an opera to begin: a feeling likely to be well-known to Mr Finley’s fans (this song, incidentally, was one of Mr Finley’s encores in his last recital)...

The fun part of the song:

We're sitting in the opera house, the opera house, the opera house
We're waiting for the curtain to arise with wonders for our eyes

And the adagio part, which makes this song so bipolar:

It is tattered, it is torn
it shows signs of being worn
It's the tune my Uncle hummed from early morn

The song was first performed in 1949.

By the way, I finally bought a copy of 114 Songs by Charles Ives (they were out of the Stravinsky Refresher Score for the Overly Modern). If I'm exiled to the proverbial desert island, I'll be ready....