aworks :: "new" american classical music

Two Pieces for Solo Piano (1978). Michael Jon Fink /2004 #9/

At #9 of the aworks Top Ten Tracks of 2004, it's Michael Jon Fink's Two Pieces for Piano. This is a quiet, simple set of slight variations on a small fragment played on the piano.  It is similar to Alvin Curran's Endangered Species, although not quite as quiet and simple. Two Pieces, amidst all that solitude, manages some drama, especially the second song after it's softer predecessor'.

Ok, #9 and #10 are from the first two works on the Cold Blue compilation CD, originally pointed out by Kyle Gann.  Both are examples of "west coast minimalism,"  both have a soothing, reflective quality, and both are about twenty-five years old. Just to make sure I am not about to discover I only listen to "relaxing" classical music for aging hippies, give me a moment and I'll peek at my #8. Just a second. Ok, no worry. #8 won't be confused with "soothing" music.

Actually, let me clarify. The Garland, Fink, and Curran works all must have substance to bear repeated, concentrated listening. On the other hand, that track from Satie with Ocean Sounds I recently downloaded, recorded with piano, synthesizer, soprano saxophone, and yes, occasional ocean waves, turns beauty into something vapid.

By the way, at the San Mateo Tower Records tonight, while looking in the ever-shrinking classical section for a Cowell CD, I found this very same Cold Blue 3-CD set. While I might complain it does not belong in the "C Composers" section, at least they had it in stock. Oh, Amazon does sample both the Garland and Fink works and also has a copy in stock.

Prior aworks post on the "beautiful" Two Pieces.

#10 Garland.

Five Pieces for Piano (1997). Michael Jon Fink

Another LA musical snapshot from behind the wheel...

Driving down Sunset Boulevard while listening to Michael Jon Fink's Five Pieces for Piano. Outside the car is a visual world of garish movie billboards, hectic people, the deep red of the Whisky A Go Go, and the spring purple blooms of the jacaranda tree (via Virginia Postrel). Inside, distant from all that stimulation, the piano music is sparse, quiet, and yet sharp; Cage's In a Landscape but more intense.

The five pieces are Passing, Mode, Fragment, Echo, and Epitaph. The CD is Fink's I Hear It in the Rain, another from Cold Blue. Amazon samples.

Richard di Santo's review:

These pieces move slowly and quietly; they whisper to you in the night, a single solitary voice that echoes from within the silence.

And from the Cold Blue Music website:

...display Fink’s command of crystalline forms that are Debussyian in beauty (and occasionally in gesture) yet hold a distinctly contemporary artistic distance from their musical materials. These fragile and primarily extremely quiet pieces are performed with great aplomb by Bryan Pezzone.

Two Pieces for Piano Solo (1978). Michael Jon Fink

In commenting on the lists of recent contemporary music from myself and The Rambler, Lynn S. at Reflections in d minor says:

I wish I could respond with my own list of beautiful music written in the past forty years...

Which in turn triggered an "ah-ha" moment for me. My list wasn't necessarily confined to "beautiful" music but music that had made an impact in my life. Some of it is arguably beautiful (China Gates by Adams?, Vertical Thoughts by Feldman?), but the list also contains music that is intellectually challenging (Carter's Night Fantasies) or fun (Adams' Short Ride in a Fast Machine, Bolcom's Dead Moth Tango) or of historical import (Riley's In C).

Ok, so now the game changes to explicitly seeking beauty. And so what constitutes beauty? Topically, "post-classicist" Kyle Gann just blogged about simplicity in music:

Simplicity has always been an artistic virtue, and it remains one still - not an essential virtue, for there is too much enjoyable complex music to believe that. But other things being equal, one remembers simple music far better than complex music, and I come back to the simple pieces that have impressed me far more consistently than I do the complex ones.

And Virginia Postrel in The Substance of Style says:

Beauty begins with universals but its manifestations are heterogeneous, subjective, and constantly changing.

I'm still trying to articulate the universal aspect underlying it beyond simplicity but the most "beautiful" music I have heard recently is Michael Jon Fink's Two Pieces for Piano Solo. From the Cold Blue CD pointed out by Gann, this piece is a simple, short piano line but significant.

Gann again: Equally lovely, if less lush, are some piano pieces from the late 1970s by Michael Jon Fink: tonal, sparse, with a lonely Harold-Budd feel, and beautifully recorded.

Note to self: follow up on the I Love Music thread on music similar to Michael Jon Fink.