The Bohlen-Pierce scale

Boston is hosting an interesting symposium and concert series this week (March 7-9, 2010). It began yesterday and continues through tomorrow evening.

The event is drawing a diverse crowd of composers, musicians, mathematicians, music theorists, computer scientists, researchers, neurologists, and musical instrument builders from all over the world - all because of an intriguing and unifying idea.

The idea that has caught their imagination is a new scale. The scale was conceived independently by two microwave engineers and a computer scientist in the 1970s and 80s. It is now referred to as the Bohlen-Pierce or "BP" scale. Heinz Bohlen, Kees van Prooijen, and John R. Pierce all had a hand in it's discovery.

The BP scale is rather unique. There are several variants, but the primary idea is that BP utilizes the 3:1 ratio instead of the 2:1 ratio that defines the traditional even-tempered scale used in most Western music.

With traditional Western music, the octave is a basic and primary interval. It's derived from the 2:1 ratio, and from that we divide the octave into 12 equal steps. BP replaces the octave with something they call a "tritave." Arriving at the tritave in the notes of a rising BP scale does provide a melodic sense of closure or completion.

With the BP scale, the 3:1 ratio defines the lower and upper degrees of the scale (which happen to be the span of what we usually think of as an octave and a fifth). That range is then divided into 13 steps.

The Bohlen-Pierce Symposium and Concerts are sponsored by the Boston Microtonal Society and Georg Hajdu (Hamburg Hochschule für Musik und Theater) in partnership with the Goethe Institute of Boston, the Berklee College of Music, Northeastern University, and New England Conservatory. The conference website is http://www.bohlen-pierce-conference.org/.

I was intrigued by the idea of this new scale, and attended the first concert at the Fenway Center at Northeastern University last evening to hear what composers are doing with it. The concert featured nine pieces - although the BP conference in total will showcase 24 premieres of pieces written by composers from around the globe who are utilizing the BP scale.

My first impressions of this new musical structure are mixed.

While there seems to be a solid theoretical basis for BP, how composers and musicians apply the raw material of sound is the ultimate proof in the pudding. There seems to be a number of aesthetic and logistical issues regarding the execution.

First, it's pretty hard to abandon the interval of an octave. It's so universal and ingrained in virtually all the music we have known up to this point, that skipping over the octave seems strange. In the BP sound world, the octave is an an invisible elephant sitting on the stage.

Electronic realizations of the BP scale sound so much more convincing than realizations produced by singers or instruments. I'm not convinced that musicians have yet attained the needed hearing and performance skills to accurately render the BP scale. Nor have our ears grown familiar enough with it.

For instance, one of the more successful works on the concert was Five Moods by Anthony De Ritis. De Ritis recorded BP clarinetist Amy Advocat and produced a tape piece based on those sounds and pitches. From his piece, I could hear the totality of the scale, and how it has some very consonant properties.

All music is cultural. The basic premise that the BP system seems to ride on is a notion that the current 12-note equal-tempered scale is somehow inferior. The BP scale, while still imperfect, strives (at least theoretically) to make a better map onto the frequencies implied by Nature's Grand Dame - the overtone series.

My beef with that objective is one of personal bias. Who says that musical systems should follow Nature's lead? Why the heck should human-kind not divide musical intervals as they please. I like to hear my music served up on a plate with "in-harmonic" intervals. I like the sound of notes and their overtones beating "out of tune." I like dissonance. I like tone clusters, scalar symmetry, and the certainty of an equally loaded 12-gage keyboard. The traditional semi-tone is one of my favorite intervals, and I don't desire anything smaller - particularly when it is dispersed using octave-equivalence over several spanning registers. Octave equivalence is an amazing property.

As with the Early Music folks, the BP advocates seem to want just intonation and tonal consonance. They believe that the modern day piano is corrupt, evil, and ugly. Frankly, I just don't share that point of view.

I'm a composer who works mostly in an atonal universe. For that sound scape, a 12-note even-tempered scalar system works rather nicely. Musicians are trained to hear it, read it, and perform it. It doesn't require relearning a new system.

A very good notational system exists for the 12-tone system which has evolved through the collective efforts of musicians over centuries of practical use and applicaton.

BP music notation (or the prevailing version of it) uses the standard five-line music staff and traditional clefs that musicians are familiar with, but the seven notes C-D-E-F-G-A-B are augmented with H and J. The thing that throws me off is that while the musicians may be reading the note G - what actually sounds (and the interval it creates with the preceding note) is something entirely different. BP notation and keyboards need to go through a lot more development.

Will BP catch on and become mainstream?

Probably not. It's hard to create a tradition when only six BP tuned clarinets exist in the entire world (four of which are in Boston for the concert series). The BP clarinet should be the hallmark for this scale, since the clarinet is acoustically ideal for it. It over blows in the correct ratio, and it's "square wave" timbre nicely reinforces the gestalt of the scale by providing energy on the odd-numbered overtones.

The bottom line is that composers will end up writing what they want to hear. What they want to hear is, in the end, approximated by whatever system or scale they happen to be using. Musical ideas fall onto a pitch-frequency grid, and while the grid can vary, the musical ideas themselves transcend the surface characteristics of the aural medium. There is no magic bullet, and no substitute for genuine and substantive musical ideas regardless of the tuning system it is constructed on top of. Tuning systems are secondary - almost arbitrary.

There were some pieces on last evening's program that caught my attention. For example Liebesleid (2010) , a short work by James Bergin, seemed classical in conception. Bergin took a rather conservative approach to the BP scale, and worked within the constraints of a simple melodic materials. His piece was straight-forward and elegant. His intervals in the BP language sounded large compared to other pieces that I've heard from him, although the same unique composers' voice still comes through regardless of the underline pitch system.

Julia Werntz's piece Imperfections (2010) was also for solo BP clarinet. It too was short and simple, and to me sounded like a transcription of her 72-note microtonal music. In fact, she converted the BP scale and notation into a subset of the language she usually composes in (a 72-note system devised by Ezra Sims), and back again after the piece was conceived. Having heard her music before, Imperfections sounded like a subset of her normal sound world. The ending of the piece intrigued me. The wide leaps did point to a coherence in the BP scale. It did make me wonder if BP is actually a universal chord, rather than a scalar set of distinct stand-alone pitches related to one-another. When heard as a chord, all the notes seem to be cut from the same cloth, and seem intuitively related - like members of a family.

I want to keep abreast of developments in the BP field. But at present, I don't see it as a new panacea or musical Shangri-La. I'm quite content to keep composing in the system that has done me well over all of these years. I'm find no shortage of relationships to exploit in the 12-pitch even-tempered system. It's not lacking in any way. In fact, 12-pitches per octave is about all that I can handle.

Link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohlen%E2%80%93Pierce_scale

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A Concert of Spectral Music

On Friday evening March 5th, 2010 the sounds of Spectral Music could be heard at Boston University's Marsh Chapel. That's where the Xanthos Ensemble presented a program featuring music of four composers whom - each in their own way - represent a unique approach to this still emerging movement of contemporary musical composition.



Spectral music is a hard to define. The term was coined by the French composer/philosopher Hugues Dufourt. Dufourt used his term Spectral music in an article published in the early 1980s, and the label caught on. The Spectral music movement has evolved into a bona fide musical trend. It has functioned as an aesthetic school of thought since the late 1980s.

Composers working in this methodology typically embrace the framework of a generalized musical approach rather than a specific style or "ism." Spectral music does not espouse any particular technique, but rather is passionately indicative of working methods that are rooted deeply in current scientific research, psychoacoustic theory, as well as digital sound analysis and synthesis.

Today, Spectral music - at least in the United States, is still a sub-genre of the overall mainstream new music scene. Practitioners of this art form appear to be united, organized, and well-placed. They seem to have plenty to talk about, and easily quote from scientific studies or cite from memory passages of Hermann von Helmholtz's classic treatise On the Sensations of Tone.

It seems at times as if they view musical instruments as sound generating devices that can be scientifically manipulated to realize interesting and novel spectral patterns. In their world, cellos and pianos function as hardware that can be called up to execute the coded instructions of their creative software.

The Spectral music concept has some merit. Many important discoveries about the nature of sound have emerged in recent decades. Scientific resources and acoustical data are more available to composers today than ever before in history. With the help of ubiquitous software programs for spectral analysis, composers can study sounds, and then re-generate those very specific overtones in a musical work using a combination of traditional instruments and extended performance techniques (such as wind instrument multiphonics and microtonality).

Composers working in this discipline could in theory make a cello sound like a screaming chicken, or replicate the hum and buzz of a modern factory - using only traditional musical instruments as their sound generation equipment.

But rock solid technique does not automatically translate into a viable artistic movement. Does Spectral music have feet to walk on?

It seems to me that the relative success of the Spectral music movement has more to do with filling a void. The public's desire to move on from the staid and entrenched (albeit broadly misunderstood) period of musical exploration that dominated the 1950s and 60s could have been fulfilled by any "ism." According to Wikipedia...

Spectral music represented an alternative to the prestige of the serialists and post-serialists as the vanguard of serious musical composition and compositional technique.

In the mid-1980s, Spectral music was new, cool, and very European. It engendered an aesthetic predominance practiced by a slew of followers led and inspired by the French composer-conductor Pierre Boulez. They were a new generation of composers, theorists, scientists and technicians who worked at the famed research institute in Paris known as IRCAM.

Perhaps too Spectral music replaced Serialism as the latest nexus between musical and scientific thought. It became a space for composers to exercise their proclivities of rational thinking and scientific method in service of their more primitive musical instincts. It allows composers to "bang on a can" while at the same time rationalizing the sound using a host of convincing algorithms, formulas, and/or spectral diagrams.

Spectral music seems to play by a slightly different set of rules than traditional modernist music. It avoids traditional notions of form. Pitch and melody tend to function secondarily to the parameter of timbre. Spectral music is obsessed with the micro-events of acoustical phenomenon over the role of traditional musical narrative and development.

I did not follow the progress of Spectral music too closely when it hit the music scene with a vengeance in the 80s and 90s. So, as you can imagine, I was interested to hear a concert dedicated to this musical genre. The Xanthos concert was an opportunity to hear four mature pieces by skilled composers working in this specialized field for some time.

The composers Xanthos Ensemble program were Tristan Murail (b. 1947), Ronald Bruce Smith, Joshua Fineberg (b. 1969), and Gérard Grisey (1946-1998). Murail and Grisey are two names closely associated with this movement.

The first work, "Seven Lakes Drive" (2006) by Tristan Murail was for flute, clarinet, horn, piano, violin, and violoncello. According to the composers' program notes, "The material of the piece is built on the natural resonances of the French horn and the piano." I noticed that the cello often played in the stratosphere, in a register well above the violin. The French horn explored the overtone series, and much of the music resonated in the piano's open shell.

The second work on the program was a Boston premiere by the Canadian composer Ronald Bruce Smith. He is currently on the faculty at Northeastern University. His piece Remembrances of a Garden is inspired by paintings and concepts found in painting - namely Paul Klee and Claude Monet. The work is scored for flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass clarinet, percussion, piano, violin, and violoncello. Remembrances of a Garden is a formative work, full of rich detail and interesting sonic occurrences. It presented well in the acoustical space of Marsh Chapel.

Joshua Fineberg's Veils for solo piano was a real discovery. The shimmering sounds of the piano filled the air with vivid colors, vibration, and a blanket of interesting musical objects flowing through time. The composer wrote in his program notes, "It is not the notes (or not only the notes) which draw me to the piano; rather, for me, the real magic of the piano is its resonance." For me, Veils makes a convincing argument in favor of timbre over pitch. Eunyoung Kim was impressive and commanding at the piano, attacking the keyboard at times with Zen-like force and an intuitive conviction about the notes. She can make the piano sing, like a chorus of 10 thousand voices.

The concert ended with a Spectral music classic, Talea by Gérard Grisey. Grisey died in 1998 at the age of 52, so we will never know where the trajectory of his music development would have eventually led. But his work Talea (1986) seemed rather traditional to me in many ways. It contains a primary motif in the form of a well defined (but not-pitch specific) gesture. That central idea is developed and transformed in ways that remind us of music of the past. That's not so revolutionary!

The musicians of the Xanthos Ensemble met and exceeded my already high expectations of this Boston-based new music sensation. They played with grace and panache. Joanna Goldstein (flute), Alexis Lanz (clarinet), Brenda van der Merwe (violin and viola), Leo Eguchi (cello), Joseph Walker (French horn), Eunyoung Kim (piano), and George Nickson (percussion) were directed by conductor Jeffrey Means.

A nice reception followed the concert. Most of the Boston University music department composition faculty were there in force.

I look forward to hearing what the Xanthos Ensemble dreams up for concerts in the future. They are the real deal.

Xanthos Ensemble
Presented by the Boston University College of Fine Arts - School of Music
Marsh Chapel, Boston University
March 5th, 2010

Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectral_music

http://deconstructing-jim.blogspot.com/2009/05/xanthos-ensemble-in-concert.html

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Concert Review: Hirsch-Pinkas Duo

Sunday afternoon should be reserved for listening to live chamber music.

This afternoon I attended a Faculty Artist Recital at the Longy School of Music Edward Pickman Concert Hall in Cambridge. The featured performers were the Hirsch-Pinkas Piano Duo.

The Hirsch-Pinkas Piano Duo is comprised of two of the best well-known pianists in the Boston-area: Evan Hirsch and Sally Pinkas. I've followed both of their solo careers closely since the 1980s, but it is only since about 1995 that they have teamed up to perform together as an ensemble. They also happen to be husband and wife.

It turns out that there is more than enough two-piano (and four-hand/one-piano) literature to keep them busy. Not only is the repertory rich with music written originally for their instrument(s), but plenty of transcriptions made from other pieces are abundant. In addition, the Duo actively seeks out new works to record or perform both locally and on their numerous world tours.

The concert earlier today included a nice selection of pieces by Edvard Grieg, Robert Schumann, Alexander Tcherepnin, Nathan Davis, and Aaron Copland.

The work by Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) was a four-hand arrangement in 1976 by the German composer Adof Ruthardt (1888-1892) of five selections of Grieg's popular Incidental Music for Peer Gynt. It's a familiar work that we have all heard in an orchestral version. In fact, two orchestral suites exist: Opus 46, and Opus 55.

It was interesting to observe the detail and clarity of articulation that Hersh and Pinkas summoned from their grand piano in the Peer Gynt selections. They were very careful to match and coordinate every small and subtle detail of their articulation, particularly when one or more melodic lines shifted between them. As a listener, I could clearly comprehend the unity and coherence of their combined musical expression and thought process as performers. They were clearly on the same page, and in a manner that is not only precise, but extremely musical in character.

The acoustic of Pickman Hall is rather good, and the Steinway pianos at the Longy School of Music sound superb. It was almost obligatory to hear their playing as orchestral in the Grieg (and later in the Copland). It made me realize that the piano is more than an autonomous stand-alone instrument, but can also function as a surrogate for other combinations of instruments too. For example, composers often do their work at the piano while thinking about other instruments. It's not uncommon for them to imagine actual piano sonorities as strings, winds, or percussion. Thus the piano can function as a musical chameleon, assuming different tone colors depending on the performers' ability to express them, and the listeners' imaginative capacity to hear them.

Tone color does play a major role in music, and the orchestra is a unique beast in this regard. For the most part, Ruthardt's transcriptions of the Grieg were a sensitive and faithful rendering of the original orchestral score, but with one possible exception: the second movement (Aase's Death Op. 46, No.2). When it's played on the piano keyboard the music does not seem to resonate with enough color variation to sustain the slow and contemplative musical discourse. Unfortunately, the pondering suspended block chords of this movement as played on the piano can only die out. In the orchestral version Grieg surely had more options available in his pallet to "colorize" his musical statement.

The second work on the program was Bilder aus Osten, Six Impromptus for Piano four-hands, Op. 66 by Robert Schumann (1810-1856). Schumann composed this set in Dresden as a surprise Christmas present for his wife Clara in 1848. It's a mature work by the composer and full of wonderfully complex 19th-century tunes and harmony. It's piano music at its' best. You could detect a mutual admiration for this piece in the confident and cozy performance by this couple. It was intellectual, yet warm and fuzzy.

After the Intermission, the Hirsch-Pinkas Duo focused on music from the 20th and 21st centuries (as they often do). First, we were treated with an energetic Rondo in D Major (Op 87a) by Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977). Just as we may hear the piano in transcription as a proxy for the orchestra, so too are we inclined to hear native piano music as potential material to be orchestrated. Such is the case with this piece. The pounding rhythmic nature of this two-piano work implies an application of colorful orchestration. After hearing them play it, I read in the program notes that Tcherepnin did in fact transcribe his spirited Rondo for orchestra. It became the fourth movement of his Suite Op 87.

Tcherepnin's Rondo reminded me at times of Stravinsky's famous ballet Petrushka (which also exists in a piano version) - but without all of the "dissonance." It was nearly a neo-classic work, exploiting the D-Major scale, but also mixing in other coloristic tonal and quasi-tonal materials as well. As I listened to this short and peppy piece for the first time, I wondered if it was really composed by a Russian. The music is rather joyous, happy, and unabashedly optimistic - not exactly what you'd expect from a Russian.

Perhaps the explanation is that Tcherepnin composed the Rondo during his American period. He had long left his St. Petersburg home where his father Nikolai was a prominate composer. As a "White Russian" he moved from place to place with his family - first to Tbilisi and then to Paris, also spending some years in China and Japan. I recall learning about Alexander Tcherepnin as a child from piano books when I was growing up. His easy piano pieces (such as the "Happy Stowaway" and "Mic and Mac") along with simple piano works by other Russians (such as Kabalevsky and Prokofiev) were amount the stables of my initial introduction to modern music. Somewhere in my archives I keep a worn and faded newspaper clipping of Alexander Tcherepnin's 1977 obituary from the NY Times.

It's difficult for me not to associate Alexander with his son, Ivan Tcherepnin whom I had made acquaintances with before his untimely death in 1998. Ivan was a composer who taught at Harvard and who specialized (along with his brother Serge) in analog electronic music synthesis- a speciality that was all of the rage in the early 1970s. I've heard that the distinguished Tcherepnin composer dynasty continues on even today.

Following the Rondo in D Major, the Hersch-Pinkas Duo returned to the stage to present the Boston Premiere of a new work by Nathan Davis (b. 1980). The World Premiere had occurred earlier this week when the Duo performed at the Hopkins Center for the Arts in Hanover NH.

Davis' piece, Passacaglia, was composed in 2009. Davis grew up in New Hampshire, but currently resides in Madison, Wisconsin ("with his wife and their two cats"), but he has a strong connection with the Boston-area. Davis obtained several degrees from Brandeis University in music and mathematics. At Brandeis he studied piano with Evan Hirsch and music composition with Marty Boykan, David Rakowski and Ross Bauer (to name a few). Davis went on to obtain his PhD in music composition at UC Davis. He has written his own software for electronic music synthesis and composition, and is founder and owner of his own securities trading firm based in New York City. [readers should note that there is another (but unrelated) composer-percussionist based in NYC with the same name].

Davis' Passacaglia is on first impression a very strong piece. It's carefully written for piano four-hands with both the vertical and linear aspects of pianistic sound production in mind. We hear the chromatically rising "ostinato" very clearly at the onset of the work, and can follow how the composer deduces the variations that flow on logically from it. The short work is thematically convincing, resonates resoundingly, and appears to be constructed with a rock-solid methodology. I was impressed.

I was not surprised to read in Davis' bio that he had worked extensively in the field of electronic music, since one section of his Passacaglia reminded me of an acoustical phenomenon known as "Shepard's Tones." Electronically produced Shepard's Tones create the audio illusion of constantly rising pitches - as in a never ending spiral of sound. One section of the Passacaglia gave me this impression.

While there was an embryonic inkling and a subtle hint of impending fast melodic finger work in Passacaglia, it never got to a point where that idea erupted into a fast frenzy of musical hyper-activity. I was expecting lift-off, but was equally satisfied with a safe, sound, and uneventful flight.

Billy the Kid is one of those pieces of music destined to become an American classic - if it isn't already one. It's best known today in its' 1940 concert suite edition which Aaron Copland extracted from this acclaimed ballet. The first performance of the work took place on October 6, 1938 by Ballet Caravan in Chicago in Copland's original conception of the work for two pianos. That's the version that the Hersch-Pinkas Duo performed on Sunday.

However, the more familiar version of Billy the Kid for full orchestra (completed in 1939 by Copland) is what we are inclined to imagine in our heads as we listen to the two-piano score. Copland definitely thought for orchestra, and had most certainly intended to orchestrate his work from the onset. However, in its initial version, Copland is careful to write pianistically. Hirsch and Pinkas made note of this in their program notes.

The distribution of material between the two instruments takes advantage not only of their antiphonality, but the fact that there are two distinct performers. The pianos sometimes share portions of the same texture, but at other times operate on quite independent planes.

We heard six excerpts from Copland's ballet, beginning with "The Open Prairie" and ending with "The Open Prairie Again." One has to marvel at Copland's ability to keep it both simple and interesting. He spaces triads in unusual ways, and is able to manipulate his notes to create an almost cinematic vision. His cowboy and Mexican music verges on stereotypical, but his overriding skill as a composer makes the journey worthwhile.

As the concert concluded with Copland's American cowboy music (followed by an encore), I couldn't help but think that this Cambridge audience was both happy and satisfied. I think they may have been hungry too, and inspired by the Americana may have ventured over to Redbones in Cambridge for a late lunch or early supper of down-home Texas BBQ with beans, coleslaw, and dirty rice. Yum.

Links:

Artists' website
http://www.hirsch-pinkas.org/

Naxos press release about Circles of Fire by George Rochberg:
http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.559631

Listen to Circles of Fire:
http://artofthestates.org/cgi-bin/piece.pl?pid=101

About Shepard Tones:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard_tone

About Redbones BBQ:
http://www.redbones.com/

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Continuum performs at Harvard

The rocking new music group from NY that goes by the name Continuum brought their contemporary music show on the road this week with not one, but two marathon concerts at Harvard's Paine Hall. The event was sponsored by the "Fromm Players at Harvard" endowment which the music department oversees, organizes, and curates on an annual basis.

The central theme this year was "Intersections." According to the detailed and elaborate program notes written by Joel Sachs (Continuum co-director, pianist, conductor, and event curator), the raison d'être for the concert was to explore the global phenomenon of cultural interaction - a process of musical fusion that began in the 19th century with Debussy's fusion of musical elements from East and West. Fusion was also a concept championed by the American experimentalist composer Henry Cowell who exhibited an "impetus toward a more all-embracing concept of 'cultural hybridizing.'"

Asserting that "intersections of culture" is a powerful force in today's music, Continuum selected 16 contemporary works for the 2010 Fromm Foundation concerts at Harvard. The two concerts featured 13 composers from all around the world. Their homelands included Mexico, Azerbaijan, Argentina, China, Cambodia, Israel, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Indonesia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. It should be noted that many of these composers at one time or another studied or resided in the America or in Western Europe.

While the number of composers is too numerous, and the scope of their work is too broad, to fairly review here, I will say that the performances by Continuum were extremely impressive. They brought an entire chamber orchestra up from NY for our entrainment. Their troupe consists of about 20 musicians and support staff. I commend Harvard for investing in what must have been a pretty expensive new music variety show.

The soloist's with Continuum that stuck out were Taiwan-born cellist Mimi Yu, clarinetist Moran Katz, violist Stephanie Griffin, and pianist/Continuum co-director Cheryl Seltzer. Cheryl had a lot on her plate, and she really played up a storm - both inside the piano and on the keyboard.

(Note that last month in this blog I reviewed a concert by Continuum in NY. The link is provided below).

Taking a 40-thousand foot view of the two Fromm Players at Harvard concerts this year, I came away with some general reactions to the notion of cultural fusion in music. Here is how I see it...

Cultural identity is not only a key aspect of the identity of a musical work, it is a necessary and unavoidable attribute of the composer's intent. On the other hand, cultural identity should not override or preempt the primary objective of the creative endeavor - that of expressing sound as organized into abstract and aesthetically pleasing patterns and ideas.

There are voluminous gray areas here, including the overlap between cultural identity, and say Nationalism. Personally, I've never cared much for Nationalistic music. It often carries with it an overtone of politics and propaganda, or least the potential to be exploited politically without the composer's explicit or implicit consent or knowledge of the fact. Aaron Copland was a wonderful composer, but how many times have we heard his music put into a context to represent the "great American way."

Often "cultural identity" clutters the musical idea, by bringing with it too many external associations. For example, I find the music of Stravinsky's late period to be much more communicative and direct than music his much more popular Russian period. I find Bartók's music to be much more interesting when he composed in a purely modern style, and avoided explicit quotes of Hungarian folk tunes.

Composers who have created something distinctive and original often forge a brand new language to work in. While their new language may have derived in some way from the folk and art music traditions of their native culture, these composers moved on beyond their provincial milieu to invent what in many instances can be regarded as a cross-cultural, universal, and holistic viewpoint. As great composers they stand as a full-fledged contributors on the international stage.

The new music scene today is fragmented, confused, and suffering from a chronic identity crisis. If there ever existed a common international musical language, it was left behind at the end of the 20th century. Perhaps there was once a time when composers from all around the world could write in a similar or common modernist style. For example, I never regarded Tōru Takemitsu as Japanese, Luciano Berio as Italian, or Elliott Carter as American. They all composed darn good contemporary music that has an identity associated with them as individual artists. It doesn't matter which country they come from, since they speak in a more or less universal musical language that apparently has world-wide universal appeal.

But fusion sells. The commercial success of "cross-over albums" is unmistakable. Combining world music and traditional classical music is a profitable enterprise, and the international acclaim of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project and Osvaldo Golijov's The St. Mark Passion are testaments to this fact (the later case observed by Joel Sachs in his program notes).

This phenomenon is a fact that does not go unnoticed by composers, especially by composers who are more often than not accustomed to being unnoticed. To put it crudely, by emphasising one's country of origin, a certain degree of marketing cachet can be derived. International bios are always more interesting to read than local and provincial ones.

I'm not sure that I like hearing the world's indigenous music re-tooled, re-interpreted, and performed on modern Western orchestral instruments. Such was my generalized take-way from the two "Intersections" new music concerts by Continuum.

It's not that there is a lot of interesting music and wealth of material to be derived from long-established and diverse musical cultures, it's that exploiting this music merely for self-promotion purposes bores me.

I noticed that "Intersections" concerts focused on composers who in one way or another utilized non-Western materials which derived specifically from their own specific homeland. I'm much more interested in composers who expand their personal horizons, and go beyond their own culture or place of birth. For example, Americans George Crumb, Lou Harrison, and Harry Partch were influenced by Asian music. Luciano Berio's classic "Folk Songs" take the listener on a global trek across many different non-Italian cultures - including the Appalachia mountains of North America. You don't have to be of African-American descent to play jazz. Mozart transcended his culture when he composed the Alla Turca movement of his Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major, K331.

It's my personal bias to avoid explicit cultural associations in my own music. I'm not going to whip out an accordion just because I'm of Italian-American decent. I might incorporate an accordion in a work because it's unique or interesting sounds, but the music would probably bare little if any resemblance to the popular song, "Nel blu dipinto di blu" - more commonly known as "Volare" - sung by the Italian pop singer Domenico Modugno. I prefer my music to be as abstract as possible, original, and with little or no cultural bias or baggage.

In our age we are bombarded by culture. Forging a new culture out of the old sometimes means burning bridges and destroying what has been the status quo. Phoenix rose from the ashes. Contemporary music should be able to stand on its own feet without the crutch of external forces.

In the end I think most composers would like to be thought of as a "composer" rather than as a "[fill the national or ethnic label] composer." The commonalities between composers are much more important and interesting than their national or ethnic differences.

Now here is Domenico Modugno singing "Volare" (Nel blu dipinto di blu) in 1958...

Links: http://deconstructing-jim.blogspot.com/2010/01/report-from-ny-continuum-performs.html

http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2010/02/22/new_music_group_continuum_brings_world_fusion_to_harvard_concert/

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Elliott Carter's Flute Concerto

Elliott Carter (b. 1908) is still going strong. Really strong.

Last evening I heard the American premiere of his new 14-minute Flute Concerto (2008).

He composed the piece on a joint commission from the Berlin Philharmonic and Boston Symphony Orchestra. The world premiere took place in Jerusalem in September of 2008, and it later performed in Berlin in June of 2009.

Carter worked on his Flute Concerto in his Greenwich Village apartment from mid-September 2007 to March 2008.

It is a very lucid and carefully constructed piece. The flute writing is both expressive and virtuosic. Great care was taken to prevent the soloist from being drowned out by the orchestra (an all too common issue with flute concerti).

As his followers have come to appreciate, Carter's music progresses on layers of evolving time lines and contrasting tempi. Non-pitched percussion sounds (including lots of wood instruments) logically tick and tok away in the Flute Concerto. Pointed staccato orchestral events - from isolated solo notes to blaring full-frontal tutti - mark the temporal ictus of a magnificent celestial clock constructed by the composer to represent the patterns of the Universe against an almost perceptible grid of Einsteinian time-space.

There is everything you'd want in a 21st century flute concerto: Fast music, slow music, rapturous romantic tunes, angular virtuosic modernism, orchestral transparency, tone color, a sense of direction and form, harmony, rhythmic excitement, and some just plain old cool riffs for the flute. This concerto was the showcase work for the BSO's new Principal Flutist, Elizabeth Rowe. It was her coming out party as a soloist - and she did a spectacular job.

Elliott Carter is not going to take it easy. He's got a tall stack of commissions on his desk to satisfy. Carter recently completed a new work, Concertino for Bass Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra written for his friend and assistant Virgil Blackwell. It's so new that a premiere has not yet been scheduled.

The composer seems to be exploring some new areas too. In 2008 I heard his fascinating string orchestra work Sound Fields at Tanglewood. The word is that Carter scripted a new piece in the same vein titled Wind Rose.

Other Carter works "hot off the press" include On Conversing with Paradise which was premiered in June of 2009 at the Aldeburgh Festival, and Poems of Louis Zukofsky for mezzo-soprano and clarinet. The later work was premiered at Tanglewood this past summer.

In a few days, on February 11th, Carter's new wind quintet Nine by Five will receive its world premiere in New York.

Look too for a brand new Carter piece to be premiered at the Aldeburgh Festival this coming June. It's a work for soprano and orchestra titled What Are Years and based on poems of Marianne Moore. If you can't make it to England, James Levine and the BSO will give the US premiere of the work this summer at Tanglewood.

The Tuesday evening audience at Symphony Hall was rather sparse. I estimate that only one third of the seats were filled. The only composer I spied in the crowd was Gunther Schuller, but others could have been lurking in the dark nooks and crannies of the voluminous building. Of course, this was the last of a series of concerts with this selection of works, and many of Boston's composers may have attended earlier in the week when Carter himself was sitting in the historic old concert hall.

The BSO also performed works by Schubert (excerpts from the incidental music to "Rosamunde") and the Brahms 4th Symphony. The Brahms was super, and Levine and the BSO practically blew the roof off of the house. I found myself making comparisons between Brahms and Carter, and see some similarity in their technique and relationship to music. Perhaps that's why Levine paired these works up on this week's program.

Elliott Carter is clearly "on a roll." My late father (who was born the same year as Carter) use to say jokingly in his old age, "the first 100 years are the hardest." Perhaps he was right about that. 110 is the new 50.

Here is a YouTube of BSO Principal Flutist Elizabeth Rowe discussing her performance of the Carter. Enjoy...

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Concert Review: Musicians of the Old Post Road

On Saturday evening February 6th, 2010 the Musicians of the Old Post Road (MOPR) performed a concert at Harvard Epworth Church in Cambridge under the collective theme "From the Romantic Salon."

Despite the frigid weather, the concert drew a capacity audience in Cambridge (which was a repeat performance of the same work from the evening before in Wayland, MA). Although the heating system at Harvard Epworth was in disrepair, the music provided a cozy setting that warmed all.

Members of the MOPR had done their homework not only preparing well-rehearsed pieces for this public performance, but in researching and finding under-performed or long forgotten gems in the classical music repertory.

The unifying theme of the "Romantic Salon" concert centered on one instrument: the guitar. MOPR guest artist Olav Chris Henriksen was featured in all of the five works on the program. He performed on, and spoke about, his family heirloom - a school of Stauffer six-string guitar made in Vienna around 1805. The instrument has been passed down through generations of guitar playing members of his Viennese-Norwegian family.

The concert featured little performed works by Francesco Molino, I.A. Preis, Nicolò Paganini, Friedrich Burgmüller, Wenzel Matiegka (but arranged for quartet by a 17-year old Franz Schubert).

The work by I.A. Preis was a set of variations for flute and guitar. Nothing is known about this composer, and the MOPR performance was undoubtedly the first time the work has been performed in the 21st century. While not a rediscovered masterpiece, the work was competently constructed and of certifiable salon music quality. It's yet another example of a skilled composer who has faded into the black hole of history. Apparently, even the most adept musicologists have been unable to unearth basic information about this now obscure composer - such as when her (or she) was born and died. No other works by Preis have been uncovered.

Flutist and MOPR co-director Suzanne Stumpf performed on a historic old system flute dating from around 1815. It was also made in Vienna. She indicated to the audience that perhaps her flute and Henriksen's guitar had met before in Vienna in the early 19th century. Stumpf performed on her historic wood instrument with both agility and tonal clairty.

The Paganini Serenade in C Major for viola, cello, and guitar was a delight. Paganini was a master of string writing, and one of a small circle of composers to take on the guitar in an intelligent and engaging way. Paganini could probably play the guitar and viola part himself, but I was impressed with the cello writing too. Cellist (and MOPR co-director) Daniel Ryan often soloed high above the treble clef, and managed to make his instrument sound cantabile the entire time.

The final work for the evening was Notturno for the entire MOPR ensemble - a piece originally composed by the Czech guitarist Wenzel Matiegka but re-tooled and arranged by Franz Schubert. Schubert most likely made the arrangement for his family to play at home. He re-distributed the original viola part between viola and cello. Schubert also added his own compositional improvements as well, such as doubling, and a rambunctious virtuosic cello solo in the theme and variations that concludes the work. The work was originally believed to have been penned entirely by Schubert, and thus assigned a Deutsch number of D. 96.

Violist Sarah Darling played a significant chamber music role in both the Matiegka/Schubert piece, and in the Paganini Serenade as well. She has another life as a new music specialist, and when not performing traditional works with MOPR, is championing the music of contemporary composers. She has been involved with more than 100 premieres.

Refreshments followed the program, and musicians, friends, and audience all mingled at the rear of the hall.

Several concerts remain on the 2009-10 MOPR Season, including "Virtuosi Italiani" in March (in Boston and Worcester) and "Conversations Galantes: Music of the French Baroque" in April (at Wellesley College).

Link: http://www.oldpostroad.org/

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Concert Review: Sonic Voyages I

On January 14th, the Arlington High School Department of Performing Arts presented Sonic Voyages I.

It was a multi-media show with electronic music newly composed by students from Mr. John DiTomaso's popular Music Technology class at the high school.

The program was divided into sections:

Suite I: Music of the Spheres

Suite II: Martin Luther King and Malcom X Tributes

Suite III: Remixes and Diatonic Projects

Grove Laboratory X1 (photo below)

Featuring about 70 student composer-musicians, the music was diverse and original. Some works were more abstract than others (e.g. exploiting the overtone series and/or non-pulsed rhythmic structures). Some pieces were more pop-oriented, had a driving beat, and were realized quite professionally.

AHS Director of Arts provided short introductory remarks, explaining that the world of professional music has shifted toward electronically-generated and digitally manipulated sounds. Technology allows musicians to work directly with their chosen sounds, without having to struggle through all of the traditional intermediary steps of music making: score preparation, parts copying, rehearsals, and live performance.

Music today is clearly not your grandfather's music. These young musician-composers take to computers, software, and audio technology like fish to water. It's remarkable how some of the former obstacles of music creation (e.g. years of formal music training) can be circumvented with the aid of user-friendly technology. Today, just about everyone can be a composer. It's no longer an obscure discipline requiring a life-time of toil to acquire the necessary skills.

Throughout the program, two large projection screens displayed images related to the music, and a digital video image mixer enhanced the audience's experience. It felt like the early 70s all over again.

Congrats to all of the young composers (including my son Joseph) featured in the Sonic Voyages I concert!

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Report from NY: Juilliard ChamberFest 2010

In a recession, free concerts are always welcome.

With not much going on Tuesday evening January 12th, I decided to check out ChamberFest 2010. After a hearty meal at Ollies's Noodle Shope & Grille at 1991 Broadway (#32, the Singapore Mai Fun for just $8.50), I found my way around the corner to Juilliard.

Juilliard's new building is behind the renovated Alice Tully Hall. Not having been to Juilliard since the 1970s, I can say that the lobby looks a little different today. First, you enter through a tall glass facade and entrance. Before you are an entire story of stairs/seats that could (and probably do) double as a public performance space. Once up the stairs you come to a ultra-modern lobby...

A crack-team of security guards protect the entrance to the college itself, and I noticed that every student or faculty member that passes through the turnstyle triggers the computerized security system to pop their photo up on the screen. It's all very hi-tech. No full-body scans yet, or dogs to sniff my underware, but I felt pretty safe.

After explaining that I was here for the concert at 8 PM in Paul Hall, the guards let me through to the lobby. Juilliard is the Hard Rock Cafe of classical music. I think I walked past pianist Richard Goode chatting with students near the guards' post.

ChamberFest 2010 is a week-long event featuring a variety chamber music works performed by Juilliard students. In my day, Juilliard did not emphasise chamber music very much. The place was more of a factory for singers, soloists, and orchestral musicians. But to quote from the program notes, "The ChamberFest experience is unique for the devoted chamber musician at Juilliard, and it supports the broad and reflective education necessary for the 21st century artist-citizen."

It's a good mission statement. I agree with it completely, speaking as an 21st artist-citizen myself.

The week-long ChamberFest concert series included a few modern works too. Besides the Ives Trio, concerts featured Messiaen's Quatuor for la fin du temps and the Schoenberg String Trio, Op. 45. Exciting music. The students are all coached by Juilliard's superstar faculty, including new music advocates Curtis Macomber (violin) and Fred Sherry (cello).

The concert I attended had three chamber works: The Chopin Piano Trio in G minor, Op.8; Deux Rhapsodies for oboe, viola, and piano; and Mendelssohn's String Quartet in F minor, Op. 80. It was all basically new music to me, and I was glad to hear it. The Chopin was performed by Robyn Quinnett (violin), Lila Yang (cello), and Melody Quah (piano). The Loeffler was performed by Max Blair (oboe), Adrienne Hochman (viola), and Yuri Bakker (piano). All of the musicians were well-prepared, and executed the musical score professionally and with confidence.

The standout piece (and performance) of the evening was the Mendelssohn performed by the Azur Quartet (Sharon Park and Francesca Anderegg violins; Molly Carr, viola; and Matt Zalkind, cello). Mendelssohn was a composer at the top of his game when he composed this piece, and these young musicians played it with precision and energy. Cellist Matt Zalkind is only 23 years old.

Although the Juilliard building is completely new, I kept suppressing feelings of dé·jà vu. Paul Hall looked awfully familiar - just like it did in the 1970s. But the Paul Hall of 1972 was in a building across the street. Yet the new Paul Hall had the same light fixtures, arched rows of chairs, reddish upholstery, dark wood paneling, pipe organ, and excessively-dry acoustics. It felt a bit like being on the holodeck of the Starship Enterprise of Star Trek fame. How on earth did they move an entire concert hall to a new building? Not only that, why would anyone want to do that?

Anyway, the music was good, the concert was well attended, and I've stopped asking questions that begin with the word "why."

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Report from NY: The Phil takes on Berg Op 6

Alban Berg's Three Pieces for Orchestra Opus 6 (1923) was on the schedule for the NY Philharmonic's open public rehearsal on Thursday morning January 14th.

I didn't want to miss it, since the Berg piece is not often heard in public, and seeing a complex score put together by an able and skilled conductor working with a world-class orchestra was sure to be a sensation - if not a learning experience.

After paying my $16 and waiting my turn in line to be frisked by NY City policemen, I made my way up into the 70s decorum, cavernous-but-cozy, Avery Fisher Hall. I sat myself down amongst the swarm of grey haired seniors (a cohort of which I proudly consider myself a full-fledged member), and pulled a 35 year-old xeroxed copy of the Berg study score from my overflowing backpack - trying my best not to expose dirty underwear in the process.

As I had expected, the Berg was the first item on the morning's 9:45 AM rehearsal schedule - although the actual concerts would feature this piece last. It is scored for a large orchestra, and it is probably standard protocol and common courtesy not to force all of the musicians to wait around. The other works on the program were for smaller forces, and I was less interested in hearing them anyway. Everyone in the orchestra had to be back on stage dressed in formal concert attire later tonight (which will be the 14,937th concert in the history of the NY Philharmonic).

Berg's piece is not all that long, but it has a ton of notes. Some would say that it is "over-orchestrated" and I'd agree with that assessment. The late Michael Steinberg once described it as “Mahler’s Eleventh” Symphony.

Although I've known the piece from various recordings over the years, this particular piece by Berg has always seemed to me as a bit "messy." It's very hard to hear what's going on inside, since there are so many layers of sound.

How would the new NY Philharmonic music director shape it, bring it to life, and rehearse all of those notes in short order? I'd soon find out.




Maestro Alan Gilbert came out on stage, and got down to business right away. He played through all three movements without stopping or making a comment (although comments were hard to heard from the back of the hall).

After plowing through the piece, which was not 100% ready for prime time, he went back to individual movements and worked on a selection of difficult spots.
Out of the sonic totality, I remember a very distinctive sounding clarinet solo, and I later learned that the NY Phil has been quietly trying out a selection of guest clarinets. The retirement of Stanley Drucker last year created a vacancy that has not yet been filled.

The brass section too has a difficult part, particularly at rehearsal number 150 of the third movement. When Gilbert wanted to rehearse just that section, the brass players asked for a running start. Brass players are like that.

Gilbert is very professional. He conducts with a clear beat. At times he would sing a line back to the musicians to exemplify what he was looking for. What else can you ask for?

In the end I was favorably impressed with the performance, but my initial impression about the over-orchestration of Berg's Opus 6 remains. It my be my aging ears, but the work lacks color. It has great textures, but all of those rich sounds cancel each other out. You can hardly hear some of the secondary lines, and much of the music recedes into the background. Berg revised his piece in 1929, probably with orchestration in mind.

A few minutes into the rehearsal of the Berg, an elderly gentleman sitting close to me began to snore with a vengeance. He was out like a light, and his companions had difficulty getting him to wake. Most others around me seemed ambivalent about the Berg too. Some young international tourists were busy snapping photos on their cameras and checking messages on their iPhones.

After the NY performances (1/14, 1/15 and 1/16), Gilbert and his band will take the Berg on tour to nine cities in Europe. They will give 13 performances over 15 days "hitting" Barcelona, Zaragoza, Madrid, Zurich, Frankfurt, Cologne, Dortmund, London, and Paris along the way. By the end of the tour, the Berg should be fully rehearsed.

Also going long on the European road show will be the piece "EXPO" by the NY Philharmonic Composer-in-Residence: Magnus Lindberg. "EXPO" was premiered in September by the orchestra for their grand opening night. I saw it on a nationally-televised broadcast on PBS, and was favorably impressed with the piece.

After hearing the Berg, I had taken in enough. My ears were full. I didn't stay to hear the Haydn or Schubert, or even John Adams' "The Wound-Dresser."

Besides, I had a bus to catch.

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Report from NY: Continuum performs Mamlok

Composer Ursula Mamlok will be celebrating her 87th birthday on February 1st, 2010.

On Wednesday evening January 13th, the New York-based new music ensemble Continuum got an early start in what I hope will be a slew of birthday celebrations for the composer. Continuum's celebratory concert of Mamlok's music was held at the Merkin Concert Hall on 67th street in New York. (By the way, this long-standing NY-based new music group named Continuum should not to be confused with the Amsterdam-based new music group going by the name).

The eleven works selected for the concert were drawn from a body of some sixty works to the composers' name. The pieces were written during a time-span of about a half century, although the concert featured three world premieres.

I was thrilled to learn that Contiuum would be presenting a concert dedicated to Mamlok's work while I was visiting New York. I'm glad to report that the concert lived up to - and even exceeded - my already high expectations.

Mamlok has an interesting bio. She was born in Berlin in 1923, and escaped with her family from Nazi Germany at the last moment in 1939, ending up in Ecuador. Looking to further her studies in composition, she eventually obtained a visa to the United States, and in 1940 traveled alone to NYC to study with Maestro George Szell at the Mannes School of Music on scholarship. Her NY years were fruitful, full of musical stimulus and artistic influence. Aside from her work with Szell, she studied with the many of the prominent NY-based composers of the period, including Sessions, Giannini, Wolpe, and Shapey.

Mamlok's String Quartet No. 1 caught the attention of Edgard Varèse, who dialed her up on the telephone after the premiere and praised her work enthusiastically. (Mamlok's elegant String Quartet No. 2 from 1998 was performed on the Continuum concert). Later, Mamlok would mention to her friends that the strong support from Varèse early on in her career gave her a boost in confidence. Varèse, of course, was very prominent and well-respected composer.

Mamlok's works selected for the concert ranged in creation date from her Arabesque for Solo Flute (1960) to Aphorisms II for Clarinet Duo (2009). Aphorisms II is "hot off the press" and I heard anecdotally that the final edits and changes were communicated to the performers just a week or two prior to the premiere. Although we can perceive a stylistic evolution over the decades in her work - ranging from hard-edged pointillism to a more assessable, direct, and warm style - there is also a steadfast and un-compromising persistence omnipresent in the composer's life-long musical expression that binds it all together into a logical, continuous and flowing unity.

What strikes me after hearing all of the eleven works presented on the program is the sensitivity of Mamlok's ear. Every note has its' place, and the domain of musical pitch is one of the creative gardens that she revels to play in. (The subject of gardening is a theme that has nourished her music over the years).

Another interesting trait in Mamlok's work is her utilization of pedal point. Apparent even in the early flute pieces from 1960-61 when she was under the tutelage of Stefan Wolpe, Mamlok learned that all notes are not created equal. By emphasizing certain pitches in certain registers, the composer is able to carve out tonal plateaus for the listener to hang on to and refer to as important reference points.

The pedal-point technique was particularly evident in From My Garden (viola version, 1983). The performer is provided with a stage to dance around the pitch D above middle C, which acts as a tonal center without ever implying a specific tonality or mode. The idea of the piece is to exploit the viola in various ingenious ways to get at and combine the pitch D in the context of a shifting and on-going musical dialogue. In this instance, the composers' game is both skillful and a pleasure to listen to. In the program notes, the composer is quoted as saying, "The slow unfolding of pitches, frequently returning to the initial pitch, may remind the listener of tonality, an effect arrived at by serial procedures."

Mamlok was a reluctant serialist. Like many post-war composers, she was intrigued by the music of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. Living in NY in the later 20th century, 12-tone/serial music was the big thing. Yet, she adopted it to her own needs and apparently uses precompositional charts as road maps for her work.

With our current perspective of 20-20 hindsight from the 21st century, we can see that Mamlock's somewhat more intuitive compositional method has stood the test of time. She is at heart a conservative pragmatist, and allows the impulse of her work itself to guide the results. Regarding her own working-methods, she writes, "While I often use the principle of continuous variation as a compositional method, in my longer works I allow some sections to return, preferring rounded forms with large formal divisions to the through-composed forms."

For me, the most impressive work on the program was Confluences dating from 2001. The work was originally commissioned by Continuum and premeired by them at the Sonic Boom Festival at the Knitting Factory in NY. There is interesting dialogue between the instruments, and great contrast and energy within the work and between the movements. The final movement, "Still (as if suspended)" is sparse and Zen-like. It creates a meditative calm that focuses the musician's thoughts and energy on every note. Confluences breaks with tradition by ending with a quiet, slow, and soft movement, but everyone in the audience could hear that the musical idea was just right, and close to perfect.

As a former New Yorker who grew up in the early 1970s very attuned to what was happening in the vibrant Manhattan new music scene, I was aware of Mamlok's work from hearing her pieces performed during that period. I also remember her presence at concerts of that period. She was a fixture of the NY new music scene. However, after moving to Boston in 1973, I did not have the fortune of hearing much of her work other than one recording on the CRI record label.

It is fair to say that Mamlok, who as of late has obtained much deserved attention and recognition, worked quietly and in relative obscurity for much of her career. She has moved back to her native Berlin, where she reportedly is extremely active composing, and lecturing. The music publisher Boosey & Hawkes recognising an opportunity, has recently signed her on. Performances (such as this Mamlok retrospective in NYC) are on the increase. To put it another way... on the cusp of her 87th birthday, composer Ursula Mamlok is a hot ticket. It's great to see a composer finally gain wider recognition, even if it is in his or her late 80's (or '90s or '00s).

Just after the intermission, Cheryl Seltzer - pianist and Continuum co-Director - led a short panel discussion (without an actual physical panel) featuring six friends, musicians, and colleagues of the composer. Mamlok could not attend the concert herself, since Berlin is covered in snow, and international air travel for people in their late 80's traveling alone is, long, uncomfortable, rather cumbersome, and somewhat difficult.

I was glad to see my friend and teacher Marty Boykan as one of the members of the panel. He told a story about how he first became acquainted with Mamlok's music in the mid-1980s when he was a member of the jury for a composer grant committee. The score and recording of Mamlok's submitted piece made a lasting impression on him. Later he wrote her a note, complimenting her for her work while apologizing for the short-sightedness of the committee which (despite his recommendation) had in the end selected other composers for the award. Years later, when Boykan and Mamlok finally met face-to-face, Mary was very surprised by her comment, "I remember your mother." As it turned out, when Boykan was a 12-year old youngster, his mom would take him to the Mannes College of Music to have lessons in 16th century counterpoint with George Szell. While he had his lesson, Ursula Mamlok and Marty's mother would chat outside the door. Mamlok's lesson was just after Marty's. Even though Marty didn't realize it until many decades later, they had shared this early connection.

The performers were superb. Continuum featured Charles Neidich and Ayako Oshima (clarinets), Ulla Suokko (flute), Moran Katz (clarinet), Renée Jolles and Airi Yoshioka (violins), Stephanie Griffin (viola), and Joanne Lin (cello).

As it so happened, seated next to me during the concert was a very close friend of Ursula Mamlok - a woman by the name of Ursula Eastman. Eastman and Mamlok go way back, and she had been in contact by telephone just days before the concert. Eastman brought me up to speed on what Mamlok is up to, since I had not even known that the composer had left New York. Ursula Eastman had worked for the music publisher Schirmer as a publicist.

The Directors of Continuum are Cheryl Seltzer (piano) and Joel Sachs (piano and conductor). 2009/10 is Continuum's 44th season, and I fondly remember their assorted composer retrospective concerts from the early 1970s in NY (such as the one for John Cage). Continuum is one of the long-standing and most distinguished, landmark new music groups. They have a number of CDs out in circulation, and there are plans to record a CD of Mamlok's music. The group is among the oldest of the new music avant-gardists (if that is not a contradiction of terms).

When Continuum came to Boston in 1978, they gave the New England premiere of Milton Babbitt's A Solo Requiem with soprano Bethany Beardslee at NEC's Jordan Hall. As it turned out, I was asked by composer and concert organizer Malcolm Peyton to be Ms. Seltzer's page turner. I still have anxiety attacks about that job, since to my eyes Babbitt's Xeroxed score looked like a swarm of ants at a picnic. The tiny dots on the page were difficult to follow as the complex music whirled by. My job would have been a tad easier if Ms. Saltzer had been less animated. Given the highly-active body language of her performing, her page-turn head nods turned out to be completely indiscernible from all the other involuntary actions and random contortions that Babbitt's music seemed to invoke in her.

More than 30 year later I can report that Ms. Seltzer is still a very animated performer - although not with the same amount of violent display or dance-like expression of the 70s. It's actually a great pleasure to watch her perform live, since she physically embodies the music and seems to thrive on it.

In particular, her facial expressions while performing in the various works of Mamlok caught my eye and attention. For example, it was telling that both she and I would smile at the same spots in Mamlok's music - sections that would coincide with a particularly witty figure or catchy musical idea. You can tell if music is well-performed if it evokes a physical response, either from the audience or the performer.

After the concert, everyone was invited up to the second floor of Merkin for a generous reception - complete with a dry chardonnay and a spread of assorted cheese, fruit, and crackers. I feasted along with the impressive crowd of NY new music intelligentsia. I got to speak with Marty and Susan Boykan, composer Elliott Schwartz (who like me and the Boykans, were visiting NYC from New England). I also met musicians from Continuum, and its' esteemed and inspiring Music Directors Cheryl Seltzer and Joel Sachs.

From afar, I spied a familiar face amongst the crowd at the busy reception. It turned out to be the charismatic violinist-extraordinaire Miranda Cuckson, whom I've blogged about in Deconstructing-Jim previously (http://deconstructing-jim.blogspot.com/2008/11/cd-review-martinos-violin-music.html ). While I had never met Miranda in person, I introduced myself and we had a chance to chat. It turns out that she had once premiered a work for violin and clarinet written for her by Ursula Mamlok shortly after the composers' return to Berlin. We shared thoughts about the inspiring concert.

It was good to hear from Joel Sachs that Continuum will be performing on February 19th and 20th at Harvard. It's for the annual Fromm Music Foundation festival, and this year the concerts will feature an array of broadly-international works by Conlon Nancarrow, Oleg Felzer, Betty Olivero, Guo Wenjing, Pablo Ortiz, Chinary Ung, Roberto Sierra, Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, Benjamin Yusupov, Du Yun, Tony Prabowo, Tania Leon, and Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky. I certainly plan to attend.

Continuum
Celebrating Ursula Mamlok
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010
Merkin Concert Hall at the Kaufman Center
129 West 67th Street
New York, NY

Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_Mamlok
http://www.boosey.com/cr/composer/Ursula+Mamlok&ttype=Biography&ttitle=Biography&langid=1
http://www.continuum-ensemble-ny.org/

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Boston Music Viva: Elixirs

On Friday November 2oth, the Boston Musica Viva led by Richard Pittman did their thing at Tsai Performance Center at Boston University. BMV is in the second inning of their 41st season.

The eclectic concert, branded "Elixirs," featured works by Schwantner, Rakowski, Arrell, Ives, and Hoffer.

As a long-time follower of Boston's oldest running new music ensemble, I'm always impressed with their professionalism. While the musicians have changed over the years, their Music Director has kept an even keel and consistent mantra through the decades.


One of the interesting aspects of BMV is that they adopt a work by a composer, and keep it in their repertory. Once they take it on, it's likely to get recorded and performed regularly.

Such is the case with Joseph Schwantner's 1974 composition Elixir - which opened the concert. Believe it or not, I was in attendance the BMV performance of Elixir in 1974 and heard Pittman conduct the piece at the Longy School of Music. The flute soloist at that time was Fenwick Smith - in the days when he had a long pony tail - but before he left BMV to join the Boston Symphony, and before he retired from the Boston Symphony. In short, it was a long, long time ago!

In some way it is curious that Pittman would resurrect this 35-year old piece. It's not as if Schwantner's Elixir is a bona fide 20th century music classic. It's musical language and techniques sound pretty dated to our 21st-century ears. Before performing Elixir, Pittman ran the audience through an educational show-and-tell demo session highlighting selected passages from the work. It was intended to elucidate elements of the composer's intended structure and compositional ideas. I suppose that all music is "new music" in a sense (even Brahms), but I have to wonder why a very "accessible" work such as Elixir - written 35 years ago - still requires verbal program notes to explain it.

Looking at the average age of the audience, I wondered about how many people in attendance to hear BMV that night had also been at the 1974 concert along with me. It begs the question, is BMP perpetuating a brand of "new music" that is inherently retro? Is BMV becoming the Lawrence Welk equivalent of a new music ensemble by allowing its' long-time followers to re-live their youthful avant garde experiences?

Five Street Songs by Charles Ives in a cute arrangement by Pittman was also on the program. I recall hearing these arrangements at a BMV concert just a few seasons back. It's a crowd-pleaser, whit lots of theatrics and vaudevillian panache. I'm afraid to say that it would be a big hit if performed at the local senior center. Mezzo-soprano Pamela Dellal sang beautifully, but given the orchestration and poor acoustics of Tsai Performance Center, it was difficult to hear her. I think her voice should have been amplified. Why not? Pop vocalists do that all the time.

Another aspect of BMVs programming that is quint and familiar is organization's leaning toward gimmicky works. For example the Schwanter utilizes the sound of multiple tuned crystal glasses played by the musicians. There seems to be a preference for pieces which have entertainment value beyond the pure and native abstract construction of the music.

After decades of attending BMV's concerts, I've also noticed a tendency to have the same composers commissioned and performed over and over, and over again. This is not necessarily a bad thing if the composer is of merit, but after 35 or so years I'd like to hear a broader spectrum of talent.

One of the newish works on Friday's program was NARCISSUS/echo (2006) by Chris Arrell. It was a Boston premiere. NARCISSUS/echo is a short piece that provides an interesting perspective on music composition. The work seems to be informed by minimalist concepts of time and motion. The ensemble explores notes that are often fixed in register and pitch, but which evolve methodically from section to section. The instrumentation and tone color change frequently, but the harmony is fairly static and the surface rhythm regular.

I found myself wanting many more notes, thicker textures, harsh dissonance, complex poly-rhythms, clusters, and loud and violent attacks. I paid $30 bucks to hear a new music concert, and gosh darn it, I expect a night of good'ol 20th century anxiety-prone mod-music in exchange for my hard-earned discretionary spend'in money.

Fortunately I got my value for the dollar with a new piece by David Rakowski: Mikronomicon (2009). It was a world premiere, commissioned by BMV, and featured pianist-extraordinaire Geoffrey Burleson. Composed specifically for Burleson, the mcro-concerto is somewhat of a departure for Rakowski. It's a rather mellow work that verges on big band-era jazz. In three movements, it covers a spectrum of gestures and cool licks that allow the soloist stand out like a rockstar.

The first movement was unabashedly funky, and begins with a neat tune in the piano. It reminded me a bit of the driving rhythmic yet sparse theme music for the TV program "Charlie Rose." The theme comes back at the end of the movement - transposed a half step higher and without the piano.

The slow second movement of Mikronomicon was perhaps more characteristic of (in the words of the composer) "angry modern music." It features a duet of dueling melodicas played by the piano soloist and percussionist. An "unyielding" two-note ostinato (F-E flat) is sounded 99 times in succession, but with different orchestrations and harmonic contexts. The composer explained that had dreamt these notes, but later realized that it was a chickadee's bird call. He felt obligated to include it in the piece. The ostinato functions as a middle-voice range pedal point. The composer revels in it, exploring the many possibilities implied by the self-limiting restriction.

Mikronomicon's third and final movement returns back firmly to the funky sound-world of movment one, then morphs into toe-tapping cafe music, and finally ends with a wild extravaganza of a finish that made everyone in the audience grin and clap enthusiastically.

Now a hugely successful composer in his early 50s, Rakowski is comfortable in his position. He keeps finding ways to write new and interesting pieces, even though he has already composed at least five works for this standard collection of instruments (known in the biz as the "Pierrot ensemble"). In a phone interview last Friday with David Weininger of the Boston Globe (11/20/2009), Rakowski said, "I really didn't want to write this piece because I'm tired of the 'Pierrot' ensemble... ...and in order to make it interesting for me I had to come up with something weird."

Weird of not, Mikronomicon is a new and enjoyable piece - but not your average new music fare.

The concert ended with a mandatory encore. Richard Pittman said that they were going to play it "if you like it or not." Fortunately I liked it. The piece was Blues from A Boston Cinderella (200) by Bernard Hoffer. Hoffer made the trip all the way up from NY to hear his tiny piece. It was cool cafe music with bongos and Gershwin-like clarinet glissandi. Well done, but it could have been a tune performed on the old Lawrence Welk family variety TV show.

The BMV concert was pretty well attended, and the crowd included many notable composers (Beth Weimann, Peter Child, John Harbison, Yehudi Weiner). I sat next to composer Shirish Korde whom I've known for 36 years. I noticed in the BMV program booklet that his opera Phoolan Devi: The Bandit Queen will be performed by BMV in April of 2010. Shirish thanked me for reminding him about it, since he still needs to compose the music.

After the concert everyone convened in the lobby for an assortment of elixirs: cookies, hot apple cider, and rich chocolate brownies that were to die for.

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Music by Hayg Boyadjian

On Monday evening November 16th, composer Hayg Boyadjian was celebrated in a concert of his work in his home town of Lexington MA. Born in Paris, France in 1938, Boyadjian immigrated first to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and then to the United States. Not surprisingly, his works have been performed throughout the world.

Besides his formative accomplishments as a composer, Boyadjian writes prose about music, has published his own poetry, and from what I've seen on his web page is a visual artist of considerable talent.

The concert "Music by Hayg Boyadjian" was originally billed to feature several high-profile Boston Symphony Orchestra alumni, but for various reasons those musicians had to postpone. At the last minute Boyadjian substituted other works from his extensive catalogue, and the show went on.

Beginning with Nocturne Number 1 for solo violoncello, cellist Jing Li found the essence of the piece by drawing out the long and dark sonorities of her cello. The piece begins in the low register with a motive of a rising sixth. The interval permeates the dialogue and gradually builds up with intensity and ultimately soars to a lyrical - yet gripping - climax.

The central work of the evening was the first complete performance of all 13 pieces in a cycle of piano movements titled Odessas. Boyadjian had written these pieces over the course of many years as a series of birthday gifts for his grand daughter. The sheet music for each Odessa is published with an associated creative drawing by the composer. Despite the deceptively simple individual titles of the 13 pieces (e.g. A Clown, My Dolls, My Birdie, Adieu Princess), the arch of these these works profile a composer who engages in a wide diversity of musical expression. The works progress as if they were each considered in the context of their place in the ultimate large-scale form.

Behind the child-friendly titles and sometimes audience-friendly harmonic language of the music, Odessas contains a surprising amount of complexity and darkness. True, humorous and happy moments are abound, but not all of the music is light and happy-go-lucky. After hearing the entire cycle performed as a coherent 45-minute collection, one can hear the depth and breath of Boyadjian's 13 year-long vision. Pianist and fellow composer John MacDonald - a long time champion of Boyadjian's work - was musically decisive and articulate in his rendering of these pieces. He performed both on the keys and inside the piano, and MacDonald's art of theatrical timing is uncanny.

I had heard the first half Boyadjian's Odessa piano cycle performed at Tufts University many years ago by Lexington-based pianist Paul Carlson (who was in the audience for this concert). It was good to hear that the complete cycle is soon to be released on CD. But this will be it. The composer had decided to cap his piano collection at number 13, admitting to the audience that "13 is his lucky number."


The concert concluded with Boyadjian's De Profundis - three songs on German text for soprano and piano on texts by Georg Trakl and Rainer Maria Rilke (De Profundis, Menschheit, Der Tod des Dichters). The Germanic poetry clearly inspired the composer to write some moody expressionistic music. In his verbal program notes before the concert, Boyadjian revealed that his wife is a native German speaker, and that was one of his reasons for selecting these poems.

Musically, the songs were full of allusions to tonal and modal harmony. But the reminiscent harmonic landscape supports finely-crafted chromatic melodic lines phrased ever so carefully by the composer to draw us into each stanza of the poetry. Boyadjian uniquely meshes both minor and major modes in a rare kind of synthesized harmonic unity that clearly defines his voice.

Soprano Jodi Hitzhusen and pianist Karen Sauer filled the room with their lush and calming sound in the songs. In addition to being a fabulous singer, Hitzhusen is a commissioned composer, pianist, ethnomusicologist, and a practicing West African hand drummer. She communicated these songs with uncommon intensity, often staring down individuals in the cozy-sized audience with her glaring eyes. The piano part of these songs is not mere accompaniment, but quite often in the musical foreground of the musical dialogue. Sauer and Hitzhusen interacted like musicians who have played chamber music together for a life-time. They were well-prepared.

After the concert the composer, his family, and the musicians met with the public at a handsome reception in the adjoining meeting room of the First Parish Church in Lexington. The event drew out the "Who's Who" of the North-West suburban contemporary music scene. I spotted composers Pasquale Tassone and Pamala Marshall, just to name a few. Noted harpist and Lexington resident Virgina Crumb was on hand as well.

The only downside to the evening was a distracting ticking sound emitting from an antique clock at the rear of the church sanctuary. The clock was given to the church by the residents of the "upper village" in 1869. It's appears to run about 28 minutes slow.

Minor annoyances aside, the historic First Parish-Unitarian Church on Lexington Green is an architectural gem (their minister was an instigator of the American revolution). The overall the ambiance, modern grand piano, and acoustic of the hall are rather good.


Given that several new music concerts had been scheduled for the same evening in Boston, the size of the audience was pretty solid.

The good turn out lends support to my theory that there is strong local support for home-grown composers.

Link: http://www.haygboyadjian.com/

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