Category: Albums

Sounds Heard: The Art of David Tudor (1963—1992)

Posted on June 11, 2013 by - Albums, Listen

One of the very first significant pieces of electronic music I ever heard was a performance recording of David Tudor’s Rainforest. Although I can’t recall which version it was (this was in my first electronic music class during my freshman year of college), I have never forgotten how blown away I was by that chirping, squeaking, clanging, banging, blooping wall of sound that did indeed give the impression of a living, breathing, electronic jungle.

Tudor was one of the pioneers of “DIY electronics”—the plugging in of things to other things (often constructed from scratch by the plugger in-er) to the point where the beastly tangle of gizmos, cables, and wires leaves control of the instigator’s hands, creating an independently generated sonic world. He started out as a gifted pianist, who premiered important works (many of them indeterminate) by John Cage, Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff, and Earle Brown, but eventually changed his focus from interpreting acoustic music to creating his own live electronic works. However, he continued to work with these artists in a collaborative role, on pieces such as the 1972 Mesostics re Merce Cunningham/Untitled. He also spent many years touring with and composing for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, which proved to be an ideal vehicle for his work. The recently released boxed set of Tudor’s work, The Art of David Tudor (1963—1992) on New World Records, charts his transformation from interpreter and co-composer to composer/performer, presenting a selection of full performance recordings of many of his groundbreaking works.

One of Tudor’s specialties was working with feedback within a live performance context. This method later became known as “no input” electronic instruments, in which all sound is generated via internal electronic feedback scenarios. Because of the nature of his electronic setups—picture tabletops overflowing with electronic devices, both commercial and homemade, which would be arranged in varying configurations from performance to performance—every performance was a one-of-a-kind event. So the recordings presented on this seven-disc set are single performances of works that resulted in many, many realizations. While a number of the compositions have been presented on other albums in excerpted form, this set is special in that the works are featured in their entirety as much as possible—a bit of a feat, given that Tudor’s music tended towards long-form statements and developed slowly over lengthy time spans. According to friends and colleagues, he always had more that he wanted to say.
Volume 1 opens with Tudor as interpreter, with Cage’s Variations II, Wolff’s For 1, 2, or 3 People, and Tudor’s own Bandoneon ! (A Combine). Volume 2 documents three works that Tudor performed at the 1970 Pepsi Pavilion Expo in Osaka, Japan, charmingly titled Anima Pepsi, Pepsibird, and Pepscillator. As the big, hearty book of liner notes describes, “These are ‘remix’ works, exploring distribution of prerecorded material sent through the Pavilion’s network of 37 speakers, moving along programmable pathways.” Volume 3 is a performance by Tudor and Cage together of Mesostics re Merce Cunningham/Untitled. Volume 4 contains the works Weatherings and Phonemes, which, according to Tudor’s sound engineer in the Cunningham Company, represented a creative shift in which Tudor’s mastery of the medium started to allow for increasing control over the elements of performance. Indeed, in these recordings (which are also of higher quality than those on the earlier discs) there is a great deal of movement and frenetic sonic activity, such as sounds bouncing around the stereo field or shifting from foreground to background.

In addition to Webwork and Virtual Focus, featuring Tudor on live electronics, Volumes 5 and 6 include two different performances of Rainforest IV, performed by Tudor and the group Composers Inside Electronics. This large-scale “performed installation” began as a workshop led by Tudor for New Music New Hampshire in 1973; several young musicians showed up to partake in this event, including John Driscoll, Phil Edelstein, Linda Fisher, Ralph Jones, Martin Kalve, and Bill Viola. Together they accepted Tudor’s challenge to create a piece without the use of oscillators or pre-recorded material, instead finding objects to be used as acoustic filters. As they got enthused and found ever larger objects with which to experiment, they ended up “super-sizing” the project and creating an enormous, immersive sound environment presented in an almost sculptural format, with oil drums suspended from rafters and mobiles made of bedsprings (for example), all sporting contact microphones and emitting unbelievable chirps, squawks, and ringing tones. The performances here, from Stockholm and Berlin respectively, are recorded in a binaural format that, when experienced with headphones gives an impression of the immersive environment they created.
Tudor’s final works marked a return to his explorations with field recordings and “no input” feedback instruments. Volume 7 of this set features an hour-long 1992 performance of Neural Network Plus, performed by the composer with Takehisa Kosugi, both on live electronics. This time the tools were slightly different though—this work was one of his first forays into computer music, commissioned especially for Merce Cunningham’s first computer-assisted choreographic effort Enter.

By the end of the seven discs, it seems that it would be quite possible to identify the characteristic field recording-oriented chirp-and-bleep style of Tudor’s musical language in any listening situation, and yet each work creates its own special sound world. This is an important set of historical recordings in that Tudor was always so focused on the experience of live performance; most of all, he wanted “…that the audience senses the presence of a live musician.” With that thought in mind, I would highly recommend purchasing the physical box, as it is beautifully presented, with each disc in its own photo-laden sleeve, packaged with a substantial book of liner notes (including some sketches and diagrams of Tudor’s various setups) written by electronic musician/performer/educator Matt Rogalsky. Despite the fact that most of these works cannot be recreated, they are nevertheless of great importance to the development of electronic music and its performance history. Here’s to hoping that colleges and universities, as well as musicians involved in electronic music around the world, will add this set to their recording collections.

Sounds Heard: Sean Hickey—Concertos

Posted on June 4, 2013 by - Albums, Listen

Although I have always known that he is also active as a composer, I’ve principally known Sean Hickey as the national sales and business development manager for Naxos of America. His “day job” (which actually seems more like a 24/7 job) has him listening to and promoting literally hundreds of new recordings every month that are either released by or distributed through Naxos, as well as traveling all over the world to broker various deals. Amidst this seemingly all-consuming work, I’ve always found it remarkable that he has had time to create any music of his own at all. But his website lists 25 compositions created during the last ten years—clearly he’s a role model to all of us who wear multiple hats. But what is perhaps even more extraordinary is that despite his seemingly never-ending immersion into so many other people’s music, he has found his own distinctive compositional voice in the fusing of a wide range of musical elements.

In a 2010 interview published by the web magazine Notes on the Road, Hickey explained how he was able to find that voice. It’s actually great advice for other composers:

“Don’t deny ANY influence you hear, see, or feel. Everything is important in the creative sense: your relationships, your loves, heartbreaks, geography, family—and all the music you hear, popular or otherwise. I would advise composers to absorb it all—and try to make something of it. The more open a composer is, the faster they can find their unique voice and the more they can grow.”

In that same interview, he also described the formative influences of recordings by Frank Zappa, as well as hearing a live performance by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra of Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments when he was 16 years old. And certainly, if you listen closely enough, you can hear the Zappa and the Stravinsky filtered through a post-modern sensibility on the first CD devoted exclusively to Hickey’s music, a disc of mostly short chamber works (much of it for winds) on—fittingly enough—Naxos American Classics. But all these elements fuse with an even greater stylistic sweep on a new Delos CD devoted to two of Hickey’s concertos, one for cello and one for clarinet. On the surface they seem extremely formal, almost old fashioned. Both are cast in the traditional three-movement concerto form that has been the norm since the 18th century. But behind this scaffolding is a very personal artistic response to the huge breadth of music that was created in the 20th century when every tradition was challenged. In its reconciliation of these seeming polarities, it is very much music of our own time.

The Cello Concerto (2008) was commissioned by the Russian cellist Dmitry Kouzov, who premiered the work under the baton of the St. Petersburg-based conductor Vladimir Lande (who both appear on the present recording). From its almost militaristic brass opening through its frequently anguished solo lines, the music seems to follow in the footsteps (perhaps appropriately) of the extraordinary Russian cello concertos of the Soviet era—e.g. works by Shostakovich and Kabalevsky. But Hickey’s completely un-Slavic orchestration—where a constant array of different combinations of instruments keep suddenly rising to the surface—reveal this to be music written long after Perestroika. It certainly is music that is inspired by 21st-century events—though he does not intend it in any way to be listened to as programmatic music. Hickey confesses in his program notes that the cello’s mournful sounding melodic passages in the second movement were his personal response to the war raging in Iraq as he was composing the work. In the third movement, Hickey’s modular scoring techniques become even more prominent, almost turning it into a bizarre cross between a cello concerto and a concerto for orchestra.

While there are no such orchestrational oddities in Hickey’s earlier Clarinet Concerto (2006), originally composed for clarinetist David Gould but performed on the recording by Alexander Fiterstein, it is a formidable work chock full of instantly appealing melodies—including fragments of several traditional Scottish airs—that is a significant contribution to the concerto literature for this most malleable of reed instruments. Given the fact that the clarinet is equally comfortable in classical and jazz contexts and also in many different forms of folk music, there is a long tradition of clarinet concertos showcasing the instrument’s polyglot possibilities—including the famous concertos by Copland and Stravinsky. Hickey is clearly aware of these works. However, the other extraordinary attribute of the clarinet is how different it sounds in its various ranges—from its sultry lower register to its angelic upper limits. It somehow makes beautiful music even more beautiful, something that has been exploited to full effect in chamber and orchestra works featuring the clarinet by composers ranging from Mozart, Brahms, or Reger to Nielsen, Feldman, or contemporary Swedish composer Karin Rehnqvist. This is certainly the case with the ravishing clarinet melodies that pervade the slow middle movement of Hickey’s concerto. It is something that makes me think in my wildest dreams—or maybe they’re not so wild—that this piece could actually become standard repertoire one day.

Sounds Heard: Big Farm

Posted on May 28, 2013 by - Albums, Listen

In the booklet that accompanies the debut release from Big Farm, that includes Rinde Eckert (voice), Mark Haanstra (electric bass), Steve Mackey (guitar), and Jason Treuting (drums), there is a sort of artistic statement, which reads:

Big Farm is a place where serious counterpoint can meet burlesque, earnestness meet abandon; a place where they can kick it or take it to tea, reflect, attack, mourn, dance, pray, or mock with ease or determination, joy or fervor, using any and all means necessary. This world is a big farm–lots of different crops, changing weather, livestock, and a duck pond for good measure.

After a few listens, I would expand that statement to a safari-style farm, adding a giraffe, a tiger or two, and maybe even throwing some exotic underwater creatures into that duck pond. The mission of the group revolves around expressive freedom for each artist, and as a result, “eclectic” would be an understatement. The album has an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink feel—but with classically trained composers at the helm, good spacial relations replace the sense of chaos that statement might imply. Indeed, each of the nine songs is rigorously constructed, often with gobs of musical information packed into relatively small spaces.
A prog-rock sound serves as the thread connecting all of the tracks (just check out the openings of “She Steps” or “Like An Animal” for clear and present examples) lending an inherent intensity and melodic bustle to the music. But there are plenty of other stylistic tidbits that peek out here and there; a touch of The Sea and Cake in “Margaret Ballinger,” or the gamelan-tinged percussion of “Ghosts.” Rinde Eckert’s vocals range from grungy-processed, impassioned, semi-spoken word, as in the off-kilter bluesy track “My Ship” to a lovely, pure countertenor in the refreshingly spare “John Knows.” While Eckert’s vocals often have a distinctly “trained” singer feel to my ears, the way they are juxtaposed with the rock-oriented instrumental music renders the full musical picture disarmingly unusual.

Mackey, Haanstra, and Treuting form a virtuosic instrumental team, performing all manner of contrapuntal twirlings and asymmetrical-yet-still-grooving rhythms. One of my favorite tracks is “Break Time,” which begins with recorded ticking clocks and a funky drum rhythm, upon which are gradually piled more and more unsynchronized clock sounds with loopy banjo and toy piano lines as Eckert delivers singsong lyrics. “Lost in Splendor” is perhaps the most chamber music-y of the tracks, adding on string quartet, but eventually it transforms into a fantastic, hard-driving drum set solo grounded by a thick wall of guitar and bass.

Lawson White’s production sounds, in a word, amazing. Every detail can be heard, and because there are a lot of details, repeated listening is rewarded with new sonic insights. I’m curious to know how a live performance will translate—if the exactitude present throughout the album can be captured live—as well as how much of the music is written down. A Big Farm concert might actually be the sort of performance where one could find audience members cradling drinks and scores.

Sounds Heard: Burr Van Nostrand—Voyage in a White Building 1

Posted on May 21, 2013 by - Albums, Listen

I may know better than to judge a CD by its cover, but it was hard to resist the poetic allure of the graphic score which unfolds across the front of Voyage in a White Building 1, a New World Records-issued recording of three pieces by Burr Van Nostrand.
Though the notation samples reeled me in (there’s another within the detailed booklet notes by Mathew Rosenblum), it was actually Matthew Guerrieri’s review from last year of performances of Van Nostrand’s music at the New England Conservatory of Music that first attracted my attention to this American iconoclast’s work.  Guerrieri’s vivid descriptions of the texture and flavor of the pieces left me intrigued, yet its infrequent live performance had me doubting I’d ever have the chance to hear it for myself. So consider this as much of an alert as a record review: if you ever desired the opportunity, it has arrived.

The three works included on the album were all written between 1966 and 1972. It opens with Fantasy Manual for Urban Survival, a six-movement fully notated composition. The recording included here—featuring performances by Robert Stallman (flute), Jay Humeston (cello), and Herman Weiss (prepared piano)—was made at the piece’s premiere at the New England Conservatory in 1972. I was somewhat surprised to read that Van Nostrand “began the project by compiling lists of extreme ensemble sonorities,” since to my ear, each gesture feels so deliberate and well-placed—nothing thrown at the wall just to see if it will stick. It comes off not as a catalog but as an organic exploration of a dim world, no turn taken too quickly. What begins as a murky, slow-moving study sharpens its attack and reveals additional facets as things progress. Midway through, the performers begin taking turns speaking text from the Friedrich Hölderlin poem “Hälfte des Lebens,” an inspiration for the piece, as the music continues to slip and stutter. The final two movements turn spare and crystalline, breath and light key clicks dissolving into the ether.
Phaedra Antinomaes was written for friend and collaborator violinist Paul Severtson, who infuses an attractive confidence into his presentation of the material (as documented in the 1969 recording featured on the disc). The work’s three continuous movements can be played in any order, as can the fifteen fragments that make up one of the sections. Severtson chose to lead with his ingredients—the gestural “Fragments”—before slipping seamlessly into the “Very slow, suspended” section, aggressive bow work, twacks against the instrument, and plucked accents contrasting with delicate spiccato sputters and glissando introspection.  The final section, “Violent, fast—very slow,” kicks up the tension level, but not as much as these descriptive words might imply. Throughout the work, Van Nostrand pads his statements with enough air around them to allow full aural absorption. As a result, Phaedra Antinomaes remains, start to finish, a haiku of a piece. No single line in its twelve-and-a-half-minute run time seems to unspool more than a few syllables before taking a breath, but absorbed as a whole the music contains surprising weight.


Tara Mueller, violin; New England Conservatory, April 2012

A new recording of the title work, Voyage in a White Building 1, closes the disc with a bang, and it is here that the enticing graphic score pages come to life. Premiered originally in 1969, the booklet notes explain that Van Nostrand created the work for a collection of close colleagues and relied on the unconventional notation system to include their diverse range of styles and reading abilities. On this disc, the work is presented by the NEC Chamber Ensemble led by Anthony Coleman, and a hat must be tipped to them—particularly the “speaker,” who emphatically emotes his way through the performance—for picking up this challenge and making it such a rich sonic experience.

For as seductive as I found the graphic score illustrations, the sonic image they convey (at least to these musicians) resolved into an ominous picture. Based on Hart Crane’s poem “Voyages 1,” it is structurally and thematically reflective of its three stanzas—a warning to children playing on a beach. Any sort of playfulness that may be present at the outset seems to melt into a kind of nightmarish fairy tale horror along the twists and turns Van Nostrand’s interpretation takes. The seeming madness of the speaker—his nearly nonsensical verbal explosions, maniacal laugher, moans, gasps, and cries—hold center stage throughout much of the performance, ramping up with deliberate speed as the piece moves towards its finale.  But it’s a beautiful terror to witness, a vibrant piece of theater for the ears.


Burr Van Nostrand – Voyage in a White Building 1

Sounds Heard: Derek Bermel—Canzonas Americanas

Posted on May 14, 2013 by - Albums, Listen

Following a recent release of Derek Bermel’s music for full orchestra (the excellent album Voices on the BMOP Sounds label), this new collection focuses on Bermel’s work for that quintessential contemporary sinfonietta, Alarm Will Sound. Led by artistic director and conductor Alan Pierson, AWS’s one-on-a-part instrumentation has provided a proving ground for a generation of eclectic and beat-friendly composers, to whom Bermel has become something of a (youthful) elder statesman. While Bermel’s music shares many characteristics with that of the 30-something Brooklyn scene, it’s undeniable that his distinct style in many ways harkens back to Copland and Bernstein’s generation and that era’s fascination with American folk and jazz sources. This collection of Bermel’s music provides a helpful point of entry for those curious to know just what has made this composer so consistently stand out: his music’s fusion of quasi-minimalist beat-based sensibilities with a dizzying diversity of popular and/or indigenous sound sources from across the globe.

AWS’s instrumentation would seem to provide ideal expression for Bermel’s musical ideas. While I have always enjoyed his works for standard chamber ensembles and full orchestra, it’s in these compositions for a large confederation of soloists that his knack for utilizing extended techniques and vividly complex textures really comes to the fore. Pierson and AWS turn in performances that throb with crisp intensity when called for, while also displaying sensitivity to the many timbral colors that make Bermel’s music pulse, zing, and shimmer. The title selection, Canzonas Americanas, pairs the ensemble with Brazilian singer Luciana Souza, who conjures up an intimate sound that is the ideal fit for Bermel’s genre-hopping music. Originally commissioned by Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Canzonas blossoms from its opening solo violin figure into a bustling, Andriessen-esque passage without skipping a beat. Bermel’s facility in fusing the simple lyricism of folk sources to more hard-edged and propulsive textures is one of his music’s most attractive qualities, and he illuminates a vast expanse rarely traversed by composers today—making him an eclectic in the most meaningful sense.

Three Rivers first struck me as being akin to Bernstein’s Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs and other works from the mid-century “Third Stream.” But whereas many of Bernstein’s compositions in this genre seem almost too neatly contained within their assumed jazz-inflected style, Bermel assumes the guise of jazzy gestures in order to go way beyond anything resembling the Paul Whiteman variety of safe (if charming) pops fare. The three rivers of Bermel’s title refer to three streams of music, initially introduced in succession but eventually piling up in a gloriously raucous climax. Wild drum solos and off-kilter wind licks let us know we’re listening to something that sounds a bit like jazz, yet the familiar gestures of jazz have been transformed and transfigured into something entirely Bermel’s, in way that pays homage to the sound of Mingus and Gil Evans while creating something wholly independent of their influence. At his best, Derek Bermel is a composer who is always reaching beyond himself, pushing past stylistic limitations rather than simply confirming them. Three Rivers is one of the album’s best calling cards, and the members of AWS swing with a surprising lightness rarely heard in their heavier rhythmic playing—a capability that I do hope more composers will exploit.

Natural Selection features baritone Timothy Jones in the album’s most significant foray into vocal writing. Utilizing everything from speech to slides to gospel inflections, Bermel’s vocal writing makes use of the full expressive range of the male voice, especially some vulnerable falsetto moments that Jones pulls off perfectly, giving a performance that almost doubles as a dramatic reading in its subtle characterizations. The texts by Wendy S. Walters and Naomi Shihab Nye are nothing if not moody, and Bermel exploits this to maximum effect, with a cinematic or even noir-like sound that has tinges of the grotesqueness of cabaret—all resolving in the beautifully simple final song, “Dog,” with its Native American inflections both tender and unexpected.

Hot Zone begins with an affable and funky riff, inspired by Bermel’s study of the West African gyil—a small marimba-like instrument that Bermel studied in Ghana (and whose at times jarring pitchiness colors the sound of the piece). Meanwhile Continental Divide ventures into an almost spectralist, klangfarben-y territory not elsewhere explored on the album, the piece’s offhand jazzy licks subsumed into ominous crescendi. The oldest work recorded here (1996), it hails from Bermel’s days of study with Louis Andriessen and features abrupt transitions along with a more driving motoric sense. The work is colorful, bracingly dissonant, and quirkily toe-tapping—yet at the same time, I’m glad that Bermel eventually progressed from this approach to a style that is markedly tolerant of lyricism and more delicate gestures. It’s the tension and points of contact between Bermel’s affection for beats and grooves and the simplicity of folk-like song that often make his music so persuasive.

This recording is a sonic safari at its core: our chance to follow Derek Bermel’s contact with other peoples and traditions, and the impact of these lived experiences as they play out in music. As an album that shows a composer always reaching outside of his own culture and experiences for inspiration, it’s remarkable that Bermel’s offerings feel so distinctly personal and homemade. Despite their myriad sources and origins, each work on this disc reveals a composer totally in touch with his own social and artistic goals. It’s the most impressive release of Bermel compositions to date, performed by some of the most committed advocates of the composer’s artistic vision.

Sounds Heard: Heather Schmidt—Icicles of Fire

Posted on May 7, 2013 by - Albums, Listen

One of the benefits of my association with the International Association of Music Information Centres all these years has been being able to find out about all of the exciting new music that is being created in the other countries that are part of this network. As part of the work these organizations do on behalf of the music of their respective countries, many have issued significant recordings over the years. I’m always excited when I receive one of the “Zoom In” compilations from the Lithuanian Music Information and Publishing Centre, the latest sampler from the Contemporary Music Centre in Ireland, or the annual chronicle of the Warsaw Autumn produced by POLMIC. A few music information centers have even maintained their own recording labels over the years. One of my favorites of these labels—NM Classics (a joint effort by Radio Netherlands and the Music Centre The Netherlands, which ceased operations in December 2012)—is sadly no more, and Phono Suecia (run from the Swedish Music Information Centre) has seriously curtailed its operations. But there are several other members in the IAMIC network that thankfully are still very actively releasing new music such as the Slovenian Music Information Centre and the Deutsche Musikrat, which curates the indispensable Edition Zeitgenössische Musik released on the Wergo label. Closer to home is Centrediscs, the label of the Canadian Music Centre, which has put out a treasure trove of music by Canadian composers spanning over a century and has long been the best source for learning about Canadian music. The only labels that are remotely parallel to Centrediscs here in the United States are New World Records and innova, the label of the American Composers Forum, but the broad reach of Centrediscs within Canada makes it stand apart. They also have very few competitors. CBC Records, the label of the Canadian Broadcasting Company, has reduced its once staunch commitment to the music of Canadian composers to virtually nil, although Naxos’s Canadian Classics imprint has released some fascinating music since its launch in 2011.

Although all of these recordings eventually find their way into my various CD players, I rarely get a chance to jot down my thoughts about them here since the repertoire they cover extends beyond the borders of the United States. However, since our neighbors to the north frequently relocate here and vice versa, and the Canadian Music Centre considers any composer born or currently residing in their country to be Canadian, just as we acknowledge any composer born or currently residing in the United States to be one of ours, there is some overlap. Such is the case with Canadian-born composer/pianist Heather Schmidt, whose music I first became acquainted with when she was living in New York City. She had recently completed her doctorate at Indiana University and was the youngest person to have received that degree from them at that point. Nowadays she divides her time between Toronto and Los Angeles. Her impressive 1998 Cello Concerto appears on a wonderful disc of contemporary Canadian works for cello and orchestra featuring cellist Shauna Rolston that was issued by the CBC in 2001, back when they were still making significant contributions to recording Canadian music. And I was later particularly smitten by a short solo piano piece called Twelve for Ten that she composed and performed as part of a collection of new fugues in homage to our Northern neighbor’s most famous classical musician, Glenn Gould; Schmidt’s piece is even based on a distillation of his name into musical pitches: G E G D!

Earlier this year Centrediscs issued the very first CD devoted exclusively to Schmidt’s own music. (There are several discs devoted to her piano performances of a variety of repertoire.) After having heard the aforementioned large scale cello work for Shauna Rolston and the solo piano piece she performed herself, it was thrilling to hear a disc of duos featuring Rolston and the composer herself at the piano. All in all there are three compositions on the new disc, presented in reverse chronological order, which were composed over the course of the last decade.

The most recent of the pieces, Synchronicity (2007), is in two relatively short movements, the first of which is approximately half the length of the latter. In the first dreamlike movement, a repeated cello pattern accompanies a piano melody—something of a role reversal from most cello-piano duo repertoire. The second movement is more visceral, with fierce piano thumps in the lower register that eventually give way to a melodic line that gets trades between the cello and piano and is sometimes shared by them. In its modal monody it is somewhat reminiscent of the East Asian inspired chamber music of Lou Harrison.


After the extroverted freneticism of the closing measures of Synchronicity, the more introverted single-movement Fantasy (2006) comes across as an oasis of serenity. The piece’s quiet, almost spare texture does, however, belie an undercurrent that sounds somewhat more menacing, perhaps because of Schmidt’s focus on the lower registers of both instruments. Even when they occasionally soar into their upper registers, those passages sound like they are immerging from a deep abyss.

Icicles of Fire (2003)—the last piece on the disc and also the earliest of the three—is another diptych. Again, the first movement is somewhat ethereal and meditative whereas the second movement is bristling with tensions. In Schmidt’s notes, she describes imagining icicles with little flames burning inside them as she was composing it. She explains the music in the latter movement as “the smaller flames giv[ing] way to a full blown blaze”; the musical realization of this gives both musicians an opportunity to display their virtuosity.

Aside from its inherent interest due to the broad range of music that Schmidt has fashioned out of one of the more traditional chamber music duo configurations, this new Centrediscs recording of her music is a wonderful documentation of an ongoing collaboration between a composer and an interpreter. Relationships like this are so necessary for both sides of the music-making equation but are all too rare. Too frequently a performer will commission a composer just once or a composer will choose to write a sole work for a certain instrumental combination, but it is in the ongoing working through of materials that a real surety of purpose ultimately develops. Now if only every country in the world had organizations that documented their music as devotedly as the Canadian Music Centre continues to do through these recordings. I’m just happy that some of those Canadian composers have decided to spend their time in “the lower 48” and still get the same treatment!

Sounds Heard: Shelter—Gordon/Lang/Wolfe

Posted on April 30, 2013 by - Albums, Listen

The human desire for a safe space—a roof over your head, a room of one’s own, a place to hang your hat and call home—is both an evolutionary constant and yet a fickle target. An emotional harbor as much as a physical shield, it’s a comfort all too easily destroyed at the hands of both men and Mother Nature. Sometimes the longing is rooted in the need for a secure place to sleep, sometimes in the desire for landscaping that will impress the neighbors.

To create Shelter, Bang on a Can founders Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe joined forces to explore the parameters of such architecture.  The resulting seven-movement evening-length oratorio is sung for this recording with crystalline precision by vocalists Martha Cluver, Mellissa Hughes, and Caroline Shaw (yes, that Caroline Shaw) with Ensemble Signal (Brad Lubman, conductor) at their side.

Though teasing apart who wrote what might be an amusing game for serious fans of these composers (see video for insight into their process), in truth their distinct vocabularies braid together with a remarkable ease that only serves to heighten the overall auditory interest of the piece. The arrestingly spare, meditative consideration of doorway activities—looking for keys, taking off shoes—offered in the opening “Before I Enter” gives way to the in-your-face aggression of “Is the Wind.” In this movement, the electric guitar and bass end of the instrumental ensemble drive the pulse, the woodwinds screaming an arc of complaint across the top as the higher strings stair-step their way through aerobic feats of endurance. The emotional tenor of the music continues to shift through passages of grandiose pronouncement (“American Home”) and almost prayerful ascension (“I Want To Live”). The vocal play and instrumental intricacy of “Porch” stood out as a personal highlight, but in truth it’s hard to play favorites here. Even when the tension ebbs, it never fully lets go of the line, clinging to a violence only fully allowed to crash into the structure of things in the piece’s final movement.


Shelter (2005) is the third in a trilogy of collaborative works by this trio of composers, a remarkable series that also includes The Carbon Copy Building (1999) and Lost Objects (2001). Fans of those previous pieces, particularly Lost Objects with which Shelter shares some distinct aesthetic sensibilities, as well as its librettist Deborah Artman, are likely to fall into this final chapter with relish. Even if Shelter is a first brush with the power trio’s output, however, it’s sure to leave a strong impression—whether the underlying panic reads to your ear and experience as the stress of making the next mortgage payment or confronting the specter of rising flood waters.

Sounds Heard: Simone Dinnerstein / Tift Merritt—Night

Posted on April 23, 2013 by - Albums, Listen

The collaborative album Night, which pairs classical pianist Simone Dinnerstein with rootsy singer-songwriter Tift Merritt, is a smorgasbord of songs cherry-picked from various corners of history and culture. Classical music, jazz, American traditional songs, and a smattering of brand new compositions are included on the recording. It is an interesting and revealing sonic journal of a musical partnership in which both artists embrace elements of risk and experimentation.

As might be expected, it is possible to hear somewhat of an inverse relationship between the artists’ comfort levels, depending on what song is being performed. According to interviews with the two, Merritt, who learned her art by ear, was not accustomed to reading music when she and Dinnerstein began working together, while Dinnerstein had never really improvised before. So in Schubert’s “Night and Dreams,” “Dido’s Lament” by Purcell, and Bach’s Prelude in B minor from the Clavierbüchlein, Dinnerstein sounds as if she is very much in familiar territory, while Merritt seems less so. The singer substantially calms down the more pop/country-ish inflections in her voice for these songs, but the resulting delivery feels a little stiff. However, she effectively conveys the emotional content of those works, and it would be interesting to hear how her interpretations develop over repeated performances.

But put a guitar in Merritt’s hands, and she breaks out of that shell to let her voice fly free, most notably on the traditional song “Wayfaring Stranger” and on her own compositions “Still Not Home” and “Colors,” which incorporates a delightful, spare background of plucked piano strings, rendered by Dinnerstein.

Dinnerstein gets her moment—though I kind of wish there were more moments just for her on this disc—on Daniel Felsenfeld’s “The Cohen Variations.” Originally commissioned by Dinnerstein, the work is a poignant fantasy on Leonard Cohen’s iconic song, “Suzanne.”

The two artists seem best paired in the Nina Simone arrangement of Billie Holiday’s “Don’t Explain,” and Brad Mehldau’s arresting “I Shall Weep at Night.” Each is a bit outside of her element, but together they power through any personally uncharted territories to make the songs work.

Especially notable about this CD is the recording quality, which is drop-dead gorgeous. The piano, Tift Merritt’s voice, and her guitar sound lush, full, and close at hand; a decadent massage for the ears of artfully captured acoustic sound. While some aspects of Night may not be completely effective, it nevertheless houses thoughtful arrangements and elegantly wrought performances, making it a rewarding listen.

Sounds Heard: Brian Chase—Drums & Drones

Posted on April 16, 2013 by - Albums, Listen

A lot has been written about the new resources that electric guitar-wielding rock musicians have brought to the realm of composition—a keen sense of subtle timbre transformations gleaned from tweaking amps and effect units, a melodic vocabulary where bent notes are given free reign, etc. There’s a different and equally riveting approach that results when a rock drummer grabs the compositional reigns—a sound world where pitch, while rarely absent, takes a back seat and other elements, such as rhythm and sonority, are allowed to be the primary focus. There’s a particular primal rawness to many of the solo compositions and improvisations that have been created by these musicians—whether the drum machine experiments that Ikue Mori created following the dissolution of the seminal No Wave band DNA, the process-oriented stripped down rhythmic patterns created by Wilco drummer Glen Kotche, or the ascetic thraks of Oneida’s John Colpitts (a.k.a. Kid Millions) for his Man Forever project.
Unlike most of this music, Yeah Yeah Yeahs beatmeister Brian Chase’s Drums & Drones, as its title implies, foregrounds pitch, albeit in a new way that is perhaps only possible for someone whose primary musical activity is playing in one of the most visceral of New York City’s post-punk bands. I’ve been a fan of Yeah Yeah Yeahs since their initial eponymous EP from 2001. While I’ve always been floored by Karen O’s abrasive wide-ranged vocals (which have been what has garnered the lion’s share of accolades for the trio), Brian Chase’s primal throbs have caught my attention more than any other aspect of the band’s sound: while Karen O’s shrieks get under your skin, the music stays there because of what Chase is doing behind the drum set.

While listeners familiar with YYY might be surprised by the heady “new music” direction of the material on his first solo release, Brian Chase comes out of Oberlin Conservatory—from the same milieu that produced ICE and eighth blackbird—and has a long history of collaboration with experimental musicians. In fact, according to Chase (whose lavish annotations on the music accompany the recording), the material featured on Drums & Drones was initially inspired by the time Chase spent at La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela’s legendary Dream House installation where he had volunteered as a “monitor,” spending periods of 4 to 5 hours sitting directly outside the gallery space listening to the complex drone emanating from within. In February 2007, Mary Halvorson curated a month of concerts at John Zorn’s club The Stone and asked Chase to participate, at which point he unveiled the first incarnation of a series of electro-acoustic works based on applying just intonation theory to drums and other percussion instruments. This material gradually evolved over a four-year period—which involved tours across the United States and Australia, travels to Indonesia, and YYY’s 2009 album It’s Blitz—into what is contained on Drums & Drones.

Although in classical music circles, drums are frequently mislabeled as “un-pitched percussion,” the reality is that every sound has a pitch component; it is just easier to isolate specific pitches in certain sounds than in others. Struck drums typically produce a numerous simultaneous pitches, each of which contains its own overtone series. The result, when one attempts to analyze its pitch content, is often akin to a tone cluster. By isolating individual sonorities and focusing on their pitch content through electronic processing, Chase is able to make drums sing. The result is a mind-bending recontextualization of the perceived function of percussion instruments in most musical traditions. Several of the most compelling of the album’s ten audio tracks are derived from the sound of striking a single instrument—the crash of a cymbal, the sound of brushes on a snare drum, a foot pedal on a bass drum. “Feedback Drone,” the most overt LMY homage, presents an unchanging drone of upper harmonics derived from processing the resonance of the drum head of a 16-inch floor tom-tom that had been tuned to a specific frequency. Perhaps the least static track is “Melody Drum Drone,” which exploits the harmonic nodal points on a single drum head to yield a rich, melodic tapestry that is somewhat akin to the music produced on jaw harps.


For the truly intrepid, a DVD is also included with Drums & Drones which pairs Chase’s percussion-based drones with austere videography by Ursula Scherrer and Erik Zajaceskowski. Scherrer’s video for “Aum Drone” accompanies Chase’s pitch bending experiments on a 20-inch tom-tom with a seemingly static image of what appears to be a thick forest—as you watch, branches begin to sway and at some point it almost seems like ghosts float by; it’s mesmerizing. Zajaceskowski’s video for “Stick Shot Harmonic Drone,” on the other hand, is not for the faint of heart. Very bright images are intercut with a black screenshot. It’s like a visual on/off switch which shifts as rapidly as Chase’s pulses from the striking of two sticks; it moves by so fast that it is impossible to ever know exactly what you’re looking at. It’s kind of like staring directly into a halogen light and blinking incessantly. It’s fascinating, but probably not something I’ll find myself returning to frequently.

Drums & Drones is a recent release from Pogus Productions—a small, independent label devoted primarily to uncompromising electronic and experimental music that has been run single-handedly for years by Al Margolis (a.k.a. If, Bwana). Being on this label—which has issued important material from such contemporary music luminaries as Pauline Oliveros, Roger Reynolds, Philip Corner, Annea Lockwood, and the late Kenneth Gaburo—connects Chase’s music to an extremely vital stream of iconoclastic music. It is appropriate company for Chase’s intellectually probing music to be placed in. It will hopefully get fans of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs more excited about these important American experimentalists, and perhaps (just as interestingly), make more fans of the avant-garde excited about the Yeah Yeah Yeahs!

Sounds Heard: An Exaltation of Larks—The Lark Quartet performs Jennifer Higdon

Posted on April 9, 2013 by - Albums, Listen

Grammy and Pulitzer winner Jennifer Higdon certainly doesn’t require an introduction, yet it’s remarkable how often people’s opinions of her music seem—for better or for worse—to be formed based on her fantastically successful orchestral works. This new release from Bridge Records showcases a more intimate collection of chamber works that are unmistakably Higdon’s but which explore different reaches of her musical interests than tend to find expression in her large and frequently blockbuster orchestral works. It’s a refreshingly different side of her music and a great starting place towards appreciating what makes this composer tick.

Leading off, An Exaltation of Larks (2005) is 16-minute work in a single extended movement originally commissioned for the Toyko Quartet. The composition is a natural match for the Lark Quartet, and not just because of its title. The Lark is a quartet rooted in tradition and lyricism, yet the four musicians have an openness and sensitivity to timbre that brings their interpretations nuance as well as occasional edge. Likewise, Higdon’s music is also rooted in traditional means and sources, yet handled with a sense of humor and curiosity that expands classical tradition even as it draws from it. In the right measure, the tension between these complimentary tendencies is eloquent, personal, and strikingly realized. An Exaltation of Larks begins tenderly and is never far from receding into a kind of hushed, expectant quiet, yet the piece blossoms in several forays into ever more ecstatic (and just bordering on frenetic) patterns of rapid string crossing. It’s a great showpiece for the Lark Quartet and an impressive tour-de-force of the many ways a skilled composer can manage to be expressive and creative even when adhering (mostly) to solidly traditional quartet writing. The ability to achieve Higdon’s level of sheer sonic interest via largely traditional means is one of her most attractive qualities as a composer—an incredibly vivid imagination combined with a certain plainspoken, straightforward demeanor. (Those who know her might agree that this is a rather accurate portrait of the composer herself!)


Scenes from the Poet’s Dreams (1999) adds Gary Graffman to the mix for a left-hand-only piano quintet. Higdon writes that the inspiration for this work came from her curiosity over about dreams of poets: “Because they presumably work in a world of imagination, would their dreams be different than what others might dream? Or are we all poets in our own dream worlds? The poet might be the main character or s/he might also just be part of the fabric, observing from the sidelines. This also represents the pianist’s role within a piano quintet, prominent but also just part of the story.”

This is especially true of the piano part in Higdon’s quintet, in which Graffman’s role is almost inconsequential enough to be superfluous, yet sparingly doled out over the entire composition to great effect—another example of Higdon’s economy of means providing character and interest. The movements lean toward the tranquil, although the third movement is worth noting for its positively nightmarish depiction of a host of electric insects. Here, Higdon breaks out all the stops including glissandi, tremolo passages, and ponticello effects punctuated by a funky groove in the low register of the piano—a rare eruption of instrumental color rendered all the more effective by the sturdy simplicity of the previous movements. Graffman’s playing is deft as always and the Larks pull off the virtuosity with a ferocity that made me imagine the cloud of rosin they must have inevitably produced during the recording session. By contrast, the quintet’s opening movement is a kind of cosmic reverie that cycles through all major keys, accelerating faster and faster through sudden changes of color, dynamics, and harmony.

The disc’s final offering, Light Refracted (2002) adds clarinetist Todd Palmer and pianist Blair McMillen to perform with members of the quartet. The work follows out of Higdon’s popular orchestral work Blue Cathedral. Inspired by Monet’s studies of the same subject viewed in different light, Higdon takes another look at her own musical materials and the result is a compelling two-movement work that becomes even more interesting for listeners who are already familiar with Blue Cathedral and will be able to appreciate the many ways that Higdon recasts that material.