aworks :: "new" american classical music

Coming Together (1971). Frederic Rzweski /eighth blackbird/

Joshua Kosman likes the latest Eighth Blackbird CD of music of Frederic Rzewski except for one performance:

The disappointment comes at the end, with "Coming Together," Rzewski's turbulent, provocative setting of a letter from Attica inmate Sam Melville. This is one of the great pieces of political art in the new-music repetoire, and the group's placid, adenoidal rendition turns it into a self-help mantra.

robert gable: aworks rzewski consciousness revolution era. del.icio.us: rzewski. wikipedia: rzewski 1971. other minds: rzewski. newmusicbox: video interview misc. clips.

One6 (1990). John Cage

Transcending the merely ugly, this work is difficult listening. First, it's for solo violin, which in Cage's case tends toward the grating and monotonous. Second, it's one of those "stunt" pieces; here's the description from john-cage.info:

With the melting of the ice the pebbles fall, strike wires, which sing, and fall into the pool of water.

Third, this is a download from emusic, which means I have no liner notes. While listening, I kept pondering how that sometimes harsh violin tone was generated. And if this performance incorporated melting ice, I had visions of someone in the studio being electrocuted around recording equipment. Fourth, the work is long, maybe three quarters of an hour, give or take. I'm all in favor of experimental music but enough was enough. Finally, and most importantly, there are long gaps of silence, sometimes a minute or more, interspersed throughout the piece. While for example, Tom Johnson has used empty space to good effect and while I can acknowledge silence can raise awareness of ambient sounds or even trigger contemplation, in this case, it caused me to be concerned during every silent segment that the music might already be over and I was in fact listening to nothing. So, instead of focusing on the artistic experience during these breaks, I felt I had to check the iPod (and one time, found the headphone cord slipped out). Egad. So, I have to conclude this piece is only recommended for those on a high plane of spiritual mindfulness.

I wonder if I'm mirroring Charles Rosen's experience, when as a youth, he had an intense aversion upon first hearing the music of Debussy:

The normal reaction to music we do not understand is moral outrage, and I was quite ready to have music that I did not yet understand proscribed and banned.

Will I eventually understand and get used to this work of Cage? (And no, I don't believe this experience applies to all his music; I can't get enough of, say, Dream or Souvenir).

robert gable: aworks cage culture wars era. del.icio.us: cage. wikipedia: cage 1990. johncage.info.

La Belle et la Bête (1994). Philip Glass /oakland/

After last year's successful Akhnaten, Oakland Opera will stage Philip Glass' La Belle et la Bête this fall:

...based on the film by Jean Cocteau - the OOT production will NOT be using the film but instead will fully-stage the production

From the Philip Glass website:

A subtle reflection on the life of an Artist, Philip Glass' second opera based on works by Cocteau, in its original version performed in conjunction with the projected film (with the original version soundtrack eliminated entirely). Presented as a simple fairy talem it soon becomes clear that the history has taken on a broader and deeper subject - the very nature of the creative process.

Chromatic Canon (1983). James Tenney

  On my iPod, I keep a playlist of tracks rated as *****. My intent is to listen to those "hits" every day. As a result, tracks get added and deleted frequently since I know I'll go through the list again soon, but at any one time, it represents the music I really, really like. Here are my current ***** tracks:

1. Seeya Later. Boards of Canada.
2. Chromatic Canon. James Tenney. I quoted Anne Midgette's review in May. Devin Hurd blogged about Tenney's Pika-Don earlier this month.
3. Pastoral: A Portrait of Tristan Tzara. Virgil Thomson. One of his musical portraits, in this case, for piano. Tzara was a French-language poet and critic and a founder of the Dada movement. Thomson on the portrait: it "just came out that way, like one of those Bach pastorales in 6/8 time." CD here.
4. Slow Hands. Interpol. Upbeat.    
5. On the Nature of Daylight. Max Richter. British composer. Downbeat.    
6. Blues for Piano. Conlon Nancarrow. Relatively simple compared to most of his compositions.
7. Saturday Morning. Eels. From the second The OC soundtrack.    
8. Triple ReMix. Mark Applebaum. He's on the Stanford faculty.
9. Light My Fire. Nancy Sinatra. A passionless but mesmerizing, in an MOR kind of way, cover of the Doors song.    
10. Piano Concerto I: Allegro. Lou Harrison. Keith Jarrett.

This was also an experiment using iTunes link maker but it turns out that none of the American classical music from my list is available on iTunes.

one8 (1991). John Cage

On Sequenza21, David Toub likes the recording of John Cage's one⁸:

The harmonic diversity is very rich, and the music, while not as rhythmically diverse or complex as Feldman's, is ephemerally beautiful, with sustained quiet chords that say a lot while saying very little.

I was listening mostly to John Cage over the weekend. Zeroing in on one composer at a time opens up one's receptivity -- the anti-iPod shuffle aesthetic.

Dr. B describes how composition is context-dependent:

Create in me an expectation. Society is not providing you with a context, so that means you have to create one. The context and the expectation are one. Help me anticipate where you are going, because it is my anticipation that creates the music.

And on I Love Music in a Milton Babbitt thread (of all things), Paul outta Santa Cruz says:

Also, I sort of think the best way to get into this music, if you're on the fence, is by immersing yourself in it, to the exclusion of any other music, for a week or so. This is dense, layered stuff that really does reward repeated hearings, and after a while you start to appreciate that Babbitt has his own conventionally "expressive" musical rhetoric in spite of himself.

With Cage, I might be willing to do this since I know there is music  that will merit the effort. Babbitt, on the other hand, would require a leap of faith...

String Quartet No. 3 (1973). Philip Glass

brykmantra determines that it really is Philip Glass music during the Robert De Niro American Express commercial. Julian Sanchez identifies piano music by Glass during Battlestar Galactica. And Paul Frankenstein has a short discussion about the popular Glassworks recording. Today anyway, Solo Piano is in the top 1000 sellers on Amazon.

Ecuatorial (1934). Edgard Varèse

The San Francisco Symphony season:

• I Met Heine on the Rue Fürstenburg. Feldman. September. Feldman in a Paul Griffiths interview re: titles here.
• Appalachian Spring. Fanfare for the Common Man. Copland. September.
• Piano Concerto. Gershwin. Jean-Yves Thibaudet. October. Clip.
• Symphonic Dances. Bernstein. Violin Concerto.  Barber. Symphony No. 1. Corigliano. National Symphony Orchestra and Itzhak Perlman. October.
• Drala. Lieberson. December.
• Decoration Day. Ives.  January.
• New England Holidays. Ives. April. (along with Webern and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson singing Mahler).
• Ecuatorial. Varèse. May. Score includes two theremins or ondes martenot.

Ophelia (1946). John Cage

Via film critic and Christian writer Peter Chattaway, MP3s of Michelle Chattaway performing Cage's Ophelia and Bacchanale. The former is one of Cage's more dramatic works for piano and is dedicated to dancer Jean Erdman. Peter Chattaway quotes from a Vancouver Victoria review that points out the music was written for "unprepared piano."

Voice of the Whale (1971). George Crumb

Sarah Tiedermann's post "Be the whale" lets us in on the fun and perils of rehearsing George Crumb's Voice of the Whale (aka Vox Balaenae). Amazon samples e.g. tracks 21 and 22 give some idea of the full sea and whale experience.

Rhapsody in Blue (1924). George Gershwin

Heather writes about "skinny jeans" and how music need not always be presented in its purest form:

But those models, so long held up as measures of greatness, don't fit everyone. Don't make people wear jeans they really don't want to wear. Shouldn't we applaud musicians who've found other niches, who've found a way to work that fits comfortably and allows them to bring their creative interests to life? Who cares if it's "pure" or "multi-media" as long as the work "fits" the performer!

Two recordings from last night echo that sentiment. First is Eumir Deodato's 1970s jazz-pop take on Rhapsody in Blue and then Charles Ives' Variations on "America" from the Patriotism, Diversity And The Pioneer Spirit CD. In both cases, one can argue the inspiration is true to the artist and as a result, has merit as art, even as it blends with entertainment.