aworks :: "new" american classical music

Density 21.5 (1936/46). Edgard Varèse /embeddable/

Alex Ross points out that Q2, the New York classical streaming station, has the recent Varèse concert online. And impressively, the streams are in both the form of the entire concert with commentary as well as the individual works, which are embeddable:

Density 21.5

Un Grand Sommeil Noir

Amériques, arranged for 8-hand piano

Poème Électronique ringtone

 

Wikipedia: 

Allmusic's Sean Hickey says, "According to the composer, Density 21.5 is based on two melodic ideas — one modal, one atonal — and all of the subsequent material is generated from these two themes. Despite the inherent limitations of writing for an unaccompanied melodic instrument, Varèse expertly explores new areas of space and time, utilizing registral contrasts to effect polyphonic continuity."

On the other hand, I can't for some reason subscribe to the Q2 blog in Google Reader:

 

Desérts (1954). Edgard Varèse

As a Comcast broadband subscriber, I get a form of free Rhapsody radio, including the Essential Classical channel. Trying it for the first time, first up was Brahms. But to my surprise, next was Varese's Third Electronic Interpolation from Desérts. That should scare away some percentage of the listeners.

i love music: edgar varese

Amériques (1918-21). Edgard Varèse

As a side effect of the newly revealed great US telephone logging scandal, today the Library of Congress was forced to release this surreptitious picture (courtesy Verizon) of Edgard Varèse plotting the overthrow of American classical music. TBD if he succeeded.

Karl Rove had no comment.

click on the picture for a closer look

Octandre (1923). Edgard Varèse

Via oboeinsight, Terry Teachout bemoans attending classical concerts. Ok, more specifically, he says:

Hearing a decently played program of oft-recorded standard repertoire in the company of noisy strangers is not. Why should I come hear you play Op. 111 in Alice Tully Hall when I can stay home and listen to Artur Schnabel playing it?

I'm headed in the opposite direction. After attending three or four concerts all of last year, already this year I've seen the Berkeley Symphony play Octandre (and a vivid Carter Piano Concerto), Rob Kapilow obsess over Copland's Appalachian Spring (in a mostly fun way), and Alarm Will Sound swing to the music of John Adams (3 blog posts remaining). With each concert, I'm astonished how much more rich, full, and fun the live listening experience is. If it means occasional disruptions like that college age guy next to me in Berkeley during Octandre who ignored his cell phone but then gave in to temptation and listened to the subsequent voice mail (it was a girl). Hey, I could even tolerate the Stravinsky finale...

Anyway, I count at least five enticing concerts in the next several weeks. While I admit to being overrun with a bounty of great CDs MP3s, given the right repertoire, I don't think "the institution of the classical-music concert as we know it has just about run its course."

Doctor Atomic (2005). John Adams /tomorrow's question/

Is it: drama spoiled via a Leah Garchik gossip column, an homage to a tormented French-American, an anti-semitic embarrassment, the baby boomers' penultimate response to the Good War, a populist's mirroring of our current unraveling era (also here), or a first hint about the American future?

Density 21.5 (1936). Edgard Varèse

Instead of random Friday tracks, I'll offer random Friday thoughts:

1. It feels like I spent all week camped out on memeorandum, tracking how crazy the world has been become (OU suicide bomber, NY terrorism alerts, Rove/Fitzgerald/Miller et al, Harriet, DeLay/Earle etc.)
2. I work two blocks from the California Theatre in downtown San Jose. Walking by today, I saw bunches of people with Apple badges. Were they coming from the robot convention or were they preparing for the Steve Jobs announcement next week?
3. For at least two years, I've been using bloglines to read my blog feeds. Today, I switched to the new google blog reader (basic operation with one finger). So far so good.
4. Do I really need to read 577 personal and 130 job-related feeds? For example, although Lars von Trier' Five Obstructions was a peak experience, do I really need to continue to read every blog mention of it? (I won't delete the feed until I see this post showing up in it, of course).
5. My tactic of adding a dose of the same composer's music to my daily iPod regimen for several weeks at a time is proving worthy. After so much Aaron Copland, I began to view the world as a melodious if occasionally bittersweet place.On the other hand, after a week or so of Varèse's music in preparation for next week's performance of Dr. A-, life is dark, complex, and confusing. Actually, I should be ok over the next week unless my skull cracks open or something.
6. Density 21.5 is solo music for flute that doesn't strike me as particularly dense, compared to say orchestral works like Arcana. All of which is a lead-in to how come I don't know of any flute blogs? (This assumes Terminal Degree plays another instrument).
7. Today, after ten or so tracks of Varèse, Be-In by Evan Ziporyn came on.  Light, fun, and probably not a by-product of impossible parent/child dynamics.  I don't mean this perjoratively, but it was like the difference between reading the NY Times and USA Today at least in terms of effort required. After reading all those blogs on Miller and the press and then trying to read the source articles, I think the comparison apt although to be fair "Be-In" is much more satisfying than the "McPaper."
8. For the record, I do look forward to again hearing Poème èlectronique, Ionisation, Amériques, and Un grand sommeil noir.
9. Change is in the air but I don't know if it just seasonal* or generational, which is I why I am interested to see if Doctor Atomic reflects this unraveling era or moves beyond it. Presumably, it is not a triumphalist portrayal as might be seen in the American High of the 1950s. I also wonder if Hunt Lieberson was missed. (On the other hand, I'm glad I'm not going to see that Elvis Costello opera instead.)
10. Most importantly, tomorrow brings the new Wallace & Gromit movie, although a review I read today may have provided a cheese-related spoiler.

*Keeping in mind that California only has two seasons -- six months of summer and now six months of spring. That unwatered grass will be turning green soon...

rgable: aworks american high era culture wars era varese: aworks del.icio.us wikipedia google news yahoo audio singingfish If Varese, Ives, and Stravinsky had a four-way with Frida Kahlo ziporyn: aworks doctor atomic: aworks 

Un grand sommeil noir (1906). Edgard Varèse /poor man's doctor atomic/

iTunes just created a poor man's French version of Doctor Atomic: the crashing, ominous metal of Engulfed in Subduction by P.H.O.B.O.S (a French group) followed by the somber vocal of Varèse's Un grand sommeil noir. Text by Verlaine and set by numerous composers:

Je ne vois plus rien,
Je perds la mémoire
Du mal et du bien...
O la triste histoire!

I'm starting to understand the significance of losing the early music of Varèse.

Here's a small analysis of his setting:

The final measures of Varèse's mélodie are an exorcism of Debussy from his own style, accomplished by harking back to the end of Act IV of Pelléas et Mélisande.

I also amaze myself by liking such dark, even hostile music and yet, my current favorite Copland is Muted and Sensuous from Four Piano Blues.

 

Desérts (1950-54). Edgard Varese

While listening to a Charles Ives track last month, I realized that this constant stream of disparate music via the iPod was beginning to overwhelm my comprehension. It was if it was an extended version of that Police MP3 where all those hits are multi-tracked on top of each other in a Cageian way. Interesting but cumulatively deadly.  To compensate, I juggled my iTunes smart playlists to inject all tracks by a selected composer (although not all at once of course). For a couple weeks, that meant the 96 Aaron Copland tracks I own -- melodies, brash brass, poignant woodwinds, poignant brass, etc. All in all, a more coherent and mostly pleasurable experience. (except maybe Symphonic Ode and a poor recording of Rodeo).

Ok, after the Adams channeling Varèse quote ("I would say that my guardian angel is composer Edgar Varèse because, for me, Varèse’s music was the original post-nuclear holocaust sound.”), next up as featured composer was Edgard Varèse. After a week or so of his works, I found I needed a break; not just from Varèse's music but from all music. Recovering two days later, I'm back listening to Déserts and liking it. Alex Ross calls his music "earsplitting" in the article on Doctor Atomic in the new New Yorker. We'll see what the long-term effects of intense exposure to such modernism turn out to be.

I'm also reading the composer's recent biography by pop music author Alan Clayson. The father/son relationship was dysfunctional, to say the least. Regarding his teacher Vincent d'Indy:

Any concordat once established with d'Indy had deteriorated to the level at which the teacher was deemed by the provocative Varèse as being of the same authoritarian kidney as his father, as well as with the same short-sightedness, mental sluggishness, and -- if Edgard was feeling especially uncharitable -- cloth-eared ignorance.

Maybe this partially explains why we don't hear Copland-esque life-affirming melodies from Edgard...

Two Amazon-related pieces of trivia: the one statistically improbable phrase in the Clayson book is "organised sound" and the sales rank for the Chailly complete works of the composer is a surprising #9,984. That's not very long in "long tail" terms.

Poème Électronique (1958). Edgard Varèse

Herr K. at totally fuzzy links to the music video associated with the Varèse piece Poème Électronique. The video has death and destruction, ancient figures, culture, animal life, and humanity,  architecture etc. along with various swatches of color and for some reason, footprints-- in other words, your standard mid-century visual modernism. The short clip of living hair six minutes into it was the oddest image.

Columbia University has a description of how Le Corbusier, aided by Iannis Xenakis, built the multimedia art work for a Philips exhibit at the 1958 World's Fair in Belgium (the first major exposition since the 1939 New York World's Fair), incorporating this commissioned music of Varèse. From the notes:

The technology available to Varèse at the time he created Poème Électronique was out of reach for most of his life (image 4), forcing him to realize his unique vision through conventional instruments. When early electronic instruments became available, Varèse was quick to use it towards his goal of "organized sound."

Un grand sommeil noir (1906). Edgard Varèse

vilaine fille points out, among other orgies, the Varèse orgy tomorrow at 5pm PDT on WHRB, playing through the works of the composer in chronological order. I've never heard of let alone heard Un grand sommeil noir. Unfortunately, if all goes well, I'll be headed home on Caltrain at that time. Still, I really like the idea of hearing an artist's works in this way, even if it is the pApAs fritAs orgy currently streaming as I write this. The Romanian Enescu plays Enescu in another five hours...

From the WHRB notes:

First encounters with Varèse (1883-1965) always seem to shock. Certainly few of his contemporaries knew what to make of him. Even today, Varèse seems easier to dismiss as an eclectic than appreciate as a composer. Looking back at the past four decades since his death, we are left with more questions than answers: In our world of even stranger sounds and music, does Varèse matter? Is there more to his music or is it all in the shock? Can the music of Varèse really speak to us? Though we’re more puzzled by these questions and never satisfactorily answered, there remains that elusive something which pulls us back to Varèse.