aworks :: "new" american classical music

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.

Patterns in a Chromatic Field (1981). Morton Feldman

I generally like the music of Morton Feldman, I like sparse, non-goal oriented music (am I a simpleton?), Aleck Karis is great, I've absorbed works longer than its 80-minutes (e.g. La Monte Young's The Well-Tuned Piano), the piece is easy to comprehend (compared to something by say, Boulez that still makes no sense to me), the CD booklet has some great Feldman quotes, a handy Morton Feldman work list, and lush and colorful graphics, it's on John Zorn's esteemed Tdazik label, and yet, I find nothing to like in Patterns in a Chromatic Field. The piano has a muffled quality and I find the cello part excruciating. It makes me appreciate John Cage's Freeman Etudes.

Morton Feldman from the liner notes: Art is a crucial, dangerous operation we perform on ourselves. Unless we take a chance, we die in art.

The Four Sections (1987). Steve Reich /orchestra/

Via del.icio.us/thestandingroom, Anne Midgette profiles Steve Reich, mostly about his new work You Are (Variations) but also quotes Reich again on why he gave up composing for orchestra:

"Why write with one arm tied behind your back?" he said. "John Adams is taking care of the orchestral scene beautifully. I don't need all those strings. It's always the same thing, you slow the tempo down to accommodate the larger forces, and you get a nicer, richer sound. But you don't get that kind of probing intensity that you get from the quartet. Look, you have to write music that you're supposed to write, orchestrate it the best way you possibly can and, if it's an ensemble that's not one of the established ensembles, take your lumps."

I like to hear composers compliment their contemporaries.

The Standing Room has previously described why The Four Sections is not Reich's best work. Clearly, the composer agrees, as do I. Amazon samples Reich's Four Sections, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas.

The Four Sections (1987). Steve Reich

The Standing Room astutely describes why The Four Sections is not Steve Reich's best work:

...the 1st movement seems to me like warming the car up; it ends with one of those distinctive Reich chimes that announces the arrival of the cool stuff (i.e., the percussion movement). As a standalone work, even I was like, well, so what? Plus I've never felt that the orchestra is Steve's most successful canvas. His writing begs for clarity and precision and transparency of texture, so maybe 20 violinists vibrating individually (and having ensemble problems to boot) isn't the best combination to achieve that.

and how the Beastie Boys complicated parking in San Francisco:

How was I supposed to know that the Beastie Boys were at the Bill Graham Auditorium? Since I was already just barely going to make it, I had no option but to shell out the $10 special-event parking rate at the disastrous Performing Arts Garage, where you wait for 20 minutes in line with hundreds of BMWs just to get out post-concert.

To continue the Beastie Boys and Steve Reich theme, Douglas Wolk on Reich:

Now, more than ever, Reich's compositional methods and his younger fans' are headed toward each other. He was one of the first people from the modern classical tradition to use samplers and computers as tools for writing scores -- and, later, to compose directly on the computer, with the same sorts of software that electronic dance producers use to make their tracks.

And Wikipedia on the Beastie Boys:

The Beastie Boys were leaders in the use of sampling with Paul's Boutique being notable for its effective use of samples. The influence of this album can be seen for example on Beck's 1996 Odelay album.

Personal Disclaimers:
• I didn't know Beastie apparently is short for "Boys Entering Anarchistic States Towards Inner Excellence."
• I am quite impressed with the Wikipedia encyclopedia article on the Beastie Boys. The Steve Reich article is not as comprehensive although much better than when I made a minor edit on it in 2002.
• I own CDs by both artists.
• I didn't know Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony premiered The Four Sections in 1987.
• I don't much care for Reich Remixed even though I really like electronica and minimalism.
• I also think Reich's percussive style does not translate to orchestra but then I thought Morton Feldman's music didn't either.
• I don't yet know if I can attend an Akhnaten performance in Oakland.
• In 1987, I moved to California but there were fewer BMWs then.

Radio Music (1956). John Cage

John Cage's Zen is related to Pink Floyd's psychedelia?

A Pink Floyd festival in Brussels (without the band itself) apparently includes music by Xenakis and Cage. Here's a review comment via Roger Waters Online about Cage's Radio Music:

A bit more Floyd sound collage leaded to the John Cage piece, some guys were wandering around with portable radio players. Once again, in Floydian terms, the effect was pretty much the one you could achieve by playing WYWH's switching radio intro along with Post War Dream's switching radio intro, along with Amused To Death switching TV channels' sounds along with Radio Kaos's intermixes (and with a bit of Belgian traffic info.) I bet that Mr. Cage had a very intellectual reason to write the piece. But as far as the public go, one would either find it boring or fun. Luckily for me, I found it entertaining...

Performed by tuning multiple radios using chance operations, Radio Music may be too random compared to say, Cage's Williams Mix. I would like to hear Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun again.

Real streaming sample of Cage's Radio Music. Real stream of the festival. Williams Mix MP3. Amazon samples Set the Controls...

(Middletown) Memory Space (1970). Alvin Lucier

Of my 150 or so posts, this may be the American "classical" work I like least. It could be an outtake from Keith Jarrett's Spirits CD. As bad as my reaction is, it helps me appreciate yesterday's North American Time Capsule. Although ultimately dreadful, at least that was marginally interesting and fun. I suspect Alvin Lucier's music is better in person.

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

North American Time Capsule (1967). Alvin Lucier

North American Time Capsule is like a proto-Autechre experiment gone awry. It is certainly novel and fun in a ghastly kind of way. Real sample.

Piero Scaruffi, in a page dedicated to Lucier's music comments: North American Time Capsule (1967) employs a vocoder to produce a stream of grotesque alien-sounding voices...

Scaruffi, to his credit, acknowledges the CD is of historical importance but "pointless" since either every performance is intended to be different or else the rendition is a function of the performance space, which cannot be captured on a recording. Michael Broyles, in Mavericks and Other Traditions in American Music, also comments how recordings are only an incomplete fascimile of a work, and yet, American mavericks were enticed to record their works for distribution etc.

I think I'll wait for the Autechre homage to Alvin Lucier, but until then, I found mathpunk who lists both Autechre and Alvin Lucier on his favorite music page.

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

Chambers (1968). Alvin Lucier

This piece is based on a seemingly random set of ambient field recordings: maybe a German airport terminal, something that sounds like a sewing machine, some background music etc. I am ok with listening to "organized sound" rather than "music" but on the recording, there was not enough organization to make it worthwhile. The sounds weren't unpleasant, though.

Lucier in an Ukrainian interview:

I was very much open to all sorts of new musical ideas, not yet having come up with any real new ideas of my own. When you are in that state you can really accept and absorb new ideas freely and utilize them in your own work. At that time, I started creating a series of works which used sounds in various acoustical environments. One of the pieces is called Chambers, which consists of putting sounds into various small objects and carrying them around through larger spaces.

So this ends up being a performance piece that does not necessarily translate to recording. Amazon Real sample.

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

Harmonielehre for Orchestra (1984-5). John Adams

Hipstomp reports on free summer concerts in New York. On four consecutive nights of American classical music starting July 13th, David Robertson will lead the New York Philharmonic with concerts in Brooklyn, Central Park, Queens and the Bronx. The program consists of Ives' Variations on America (arranged by William Schuman), Barber's Violin Concerto, and Adams' Harmonielehre.

• New York Philharmonic program notes on Variations and some other Ives's works (PDF).
• San Francisco Symphony's stream of Harmonielehre (Real Audio) via American Mavericks.