Tag: new recordings

Einstein on the Beach is not the only production celebrating a silver anniversary this year. I’ll give you three clues to guess the other show that made it’s pilot run in 1976: 1) Frozen silhouettes that come to life; 2) a “hi-tech” board involving flipping panels; and 3) you probably watched it with either your parents or grandparent. Show me the answer…Family Feud! Yes, this pinnacle of game show kitsch aired on ABC for the first time in the fall of 1976, right around the time when Einstein premiered at the Met (to give you a little cultural context). Family Feud, whose victors proved that they were more in-tune with the “public” than their opponents, reflected America’s obsession with polls, which lives on today and is obvious each time you log on to CNN.com. This month we “surveyed” 44 recordings of new music, and we have with us two “families” who will battle it out on the sea green and pink soundstage for the honor of their family name, or -ism as it were. I won’t determine who the host was because I am sure each person has a personal preference. On the left, we have the Minimalists: Grandaddy La Monte, Phil, Steve, Cousin Terry from the West Coast, and Uncle Tony, the exiled partner of Grandaddy. On the right, please welcome the Serialists: Father Schoenberg, Uncle Milty, Anton, Pierre, and Onkel Karlheinz. Minimalists and Serialists come on down…Oops! Wrong show. The topic? New recordings being released in November: name one of the top eight categories of music in this month’s SoundTracks to win points. The winning team will earn a prominent place in history!

Grandaddy La Monte rings in first. “Orchestral music”. Survey says…ding! Orchestral music comes in at number 5, with four recordings containing either purely orchestral or a combination of orchestral and choral music. John Williams strays from film music on a new disc featuring the Boston Symphony Orchestra with two pieces for violin and orchestra, including TreeSong, which is Williams’ attempt to connect with the Chinese dawn redwood that he used to admire in the Boston Public Garden, a species that dates back to the Mesozoic period. Five women composers form the roster of A Portrait of American Women Composers, the second volume in this series featuring orchestral works by Norma Wendelburg, Marilyn Shrude, Anna Larson, Janice Misurell-Mitchell, and Paula Diehl. Two thumbs up for Paula Diehl’s use of the ratchet. The text of Henri Lazarof’s Choral Symphony features eight languages and the vocal lines are beautifully integrated into the dense texture of his orchestral writing. A new recording of Anthony Davis’ surreal 1992 opera, Tania, addresses the mysterious kidnapping and subsequent metamorphosis of Patty Hearst into the militant, gun-toting Tania. The libretto, by prolific music theatre composer Michael John LaChiusa, pairs each character in Patty’s life (including herself) with an analogous member of the Symbionese Liberation Army.

Looks like the Minimalists have control of the board. Moving down the line, Phil throws in his guess: “Philip Glass CDs?” which is met with a big red X. We did not receive one recording of Philip Glass’ music this month! One strike against the Minimalist team.

Steve shoots a look at Phil, then says quietly and slowly, “Chamber music perhaps?” Survey says…Ding! Chamber music ranks number 6. We received four CDs that included chamber music, two of which contain compositions by Dan Welcher. The Austin Chamber Soloists produced a recording of traditional chamber music by Donald Grantham, Welcher, and Kent Kennan. Furthermore, an all-Welcher CD, White Mares of the Moon, highlights his rhythmically intense story-telling abilities as he recounts scenes from Greek myths. Welcher doesn’t have a complete monopoly over the category though, for the Kronos Quartet and Steve Reich paired up once again for a recording of Reich’s Triple Quartet, played here with two tape parts and Kronos playing the other part live. Steve hopes that no one notices that his team had inside information guessing this one. He did know that this recording was coming out this month because it was his own, after all. While scanning the audience for suspicious figures, he thought he saw Onkel Karlheinz out of the corner of his eye whispering something to the “young” Pierre but thought nothing of it, for the Serialists had been whispering the whole duration of the game, plotting their victory. The final example of chamber music this month is John Harbison’s The Rewaking, showcasing a quintet formed of 2 violins, viola, cello, and soprano.

Terry, the West Coast cousin, ponders over his response, while the others on the team strategize. Finally, he comes out with “Indian raga?” Strike two. Sorry Terry. All hope now rides on Tony, for one more incorrect response relinquishes control of the board to Father Schoenberg and the Serialist family. Of course, Tony has had his issues with La Monte ever since their falling out over copyright issues in the ’70s, so everyone wonders if he will be loyal to the Minimalist team. Total silence blankets the stage. Finally, he speaks. “Music for the tárogató.” Obviously trying to get revenge on team leader Grandaddy La Monte by choosing music for an obscure, oboe-saxophone hybrid instrument, the rest of the team groans. But surprisingly, although not one of the top eight, we did receive one CD featuring tárogató master Esther Lamneck and compositions for the rare instrument including one by Ms. Lamneck herself involving live digital delay called Settings.

Despite the release of this recording, control of the board turns over to the Serialists who are huddled together discussing their answers. Gentlemen? Father Schoenberg clears his throat and says with a thick German accent: “Musik zat vas scored originally for sixteen player pianos.” A strangely cryptic response; one can only hope that the rest of the team doesn’t follow his example. By chance, a revised version of Francophile George Antheil’s Ballet Mécanique was released this month along with his Serenade for String Orchestra No. 1, Symphony for Five Instruments, and Concert for Chamber Orchestra.

The weight of the Serialists victory now rests upon Uncle Milty, who announces calmly and confidently, “Musical theater.” Ding! Having received six recordings of musicals this month, this category ranks at number 3. A re-release of the original cast recording of Bye Bye Birdie about a small town turned upside down by rock n’ roll is
the best known of the pickings. Bernstein makes a dual appearance in this month’s collection, first with a disc of music performed by soprano Felicity Lott and pianist Graham Johnson with his beautiful and simple song “My House” that I remember fondly from my days in voice class. This disc also includes works by Cole Porter, George Gershwin, and Samuel Barber. Bernstein’s second showing is a powerhouse re-released celebration of vintage New York containing all the songs from his hilarious 1953 Broadway show Wonderful Town and selections from the ever-popular On the Town. “The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down…” Watch out for this one. It could lead to obsessive listening for musical lovers. Wonderful Town shares a team of lyricists with another show of the period, Two on the Aisle, that while not as catchy as the former, has a number of great lines and fun tunes. The “lovely love” of musicals reappears as its darker twin in Vincent Youmans’ murder/love drama Through the Years, which was rediscovered and recorded this year. Jerome Moross’s jazzy tunes also rose from the ashes this month on Windflowers, a retrospective look at his career including songs from Underworld, The Golden Apple, and Ballet Ballads.

Still in control of the board, Anton comes up to bat, confident that his answer is the right one: “Music for solo instruments.” Show me “Solo Instruments!”…Ding! Solo works comes in at number 7, with three discs featuring single performers. On the piano, gold medalist at the 11^th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition Olga Kern plays virtuosic pieces such as Samuel Barber’s Sonata for Piano and Judith Lang Zaimont’s Impronta Digitale. Terry Winter Owens throws her deeply emotional, somewhat supernatural piano compositions from Exposed on the Cliffs of the Heart into the mix. And elevating his inner voice into the heavens, Robert Martin contributes Stellar Pieces, a collection of nine celestial works for various solo instruments drawing inspiration from nine different stars.

With the Serialists in the lead, we must pause for a short commercial break.

“The songs of Ben Yarmolinsky, all available now on his new disc In Lieu of Flowers. Hear favorites such as ‘Lydia’, ‘Exercise’, and ‘Supermodel Goddess’. His rhyming, humorous lyrics are something else… Get your copy today.”

Back to the Feud, Pierre takes the mic and makes his guess about which category of music comprises the most CDs in SoundTracks this month. “I would like to guess electronic music, please.” Show me “electronic!”… Ding! The number 1 answer has been found! Seven of the 44 recordings received this month contain electronic elements. Working the electro-acoustic front, Diane Thome offers up four high-energy pieces for computer-realized sounds and various acoustic instruments on Bright Air/Brilliant Fire. Her colleagues at the University of Washington put together a compilation of Music from CARTAH, including electro-acoustic works by Bret Battey, Richard Karpen, Linda Antas, and William O. Smith, as well as completely computer-realized works contributed by Ron Averill and Elizabeth Hoffman. Laurie Spiegel goes back in time on Obsolete Systems, a recording of pieces she wrote for combinations of tape, analog synths, and the now-vintage Apple II during the ’70s and early ’80s. Deborah Thurlow adds her horn and composition talents to creepy yet stunning new works for horn, theremin, and electronic devices on I am, which also features music by Clive Smith, Eric Ross, and Yaacov Mishori. Other artists have moved more into the realm of inventing new instruments. Chas Smith uses a variety of his self-invented instruments with names such as the copper box, mantis, majestic, and my personal favorite, Guitarzilla. His crunchy, metallic sounds are reflected in the title Aluminum Overcast. Smith also plays pedal steel guitar on Rick Cox’s new release Maria Falling Away, documenting the last ten years of Cox’s compositions and featuring various forms of electric guitar and acoustic instruments. Finally, check out a collection of digital music from innovator Richard Lainhart, called Ten Thousand Shades of Blue, a bow-crazy mix of digital processing with bowed tam-tam, bowed Japanese temple bells, and bowed/struck vibraphone.

With the taste of success still on the lips of the Serialists, Onkel Karlheinz is up. He is incredibly eager to please, for he has found himself rather unpopular lately, and feels the eyes of his team and opponents burning into him. But Pierre stole his answer! He gropes around for another and sputters: “Film music?” Strike two for the Serialists! Father Schoenberg shoots him a dirty look and the rest of the team mutters. Although we did receive a CD featuring Bernard Herrmann‘s scores of The Snows of Kiliminjaro and 5 Fingers, so if you’re looking to add a little drama to your mundane life, this would make an excellent soundtrack!

With only one chance left, the torch is passed back to Father Schoenberg, who is still reeling from Karlheinz’s mistake. Arnold? “Yes. Experimental jazz.” Ding! Correct! The last on the list, three experimental jazz CDs found their way onto my desk this month. Two of the discs (Everybodys Mouth’s a Book and Up Popped the Two Lips) are from Henry Threadgill, whose gestural compositions create a dialogue based on the self-authored poems in the liner notes. Drummer/composer John Hollenbeck’s No images compiles six pieces with a visual connection, whether it is the vision of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., poet Waring Cuney’s imagery, or simple synthesia, where each tenor sax plays a color.

Uncle Milty lets the team down however, with his next answer of “Songs of DeSylva, Brown and Henderson,” and control of the board is passed back to the Minimalists.

Grandaddy La Monte posits that one of the answers might be simply jazz and comes up with the number 2 answer. Apart from gestural, experimental styles, six discs of new music for jazz combo are also being released this month including an exciting new disc from the Herbie Nichols Project called Strange City, giving a new forum to the
underrated compositions that Herbie used to play solo at comedy clubs and strip joints around New York. Jay Clayton’s percussive vocals supported by a standard jazz quartet guide another dynamite disc dedicated to this strange city on Brooklyn 2000. Tenor saxophonist/composer David Sills’ second album Bigs is playful and complex, containing songs such as Shark-eez, which mischievously quotes the theme from Jaws. Meanwhile, Sarah Jane Cion’s lyrical, graceful compositions resonate with the influences of Bill Evans and Chick Corea on Summer Night. Not feeling mellow? Pop in the Dave Holland Quintet’s Not for Nothin’ for high-energy, highly syncopated action. Finally, start swingin’ those hips when you listen to Rick Davies and Jazzismo, Latin-infused Salsa Strut, which creates complex variations on salsa, chacha, bolero, and son-montuno rhythms.

Inadvertently, Steve wonders where the blues albums are. “What about the blues?” Strike one! Apparently the host confused his question with an answer, but it is too late. The red X has been given. The only thing close to the blues is a New Orleans-style album by harmonica player and composer T-Bone Stone called I Smell Catfish, whose songs lament the loss of his love.

Despite the host’s mistake, the Minimalists are still just one guess away from winning that place in history. Phil wonders if there was any Native American music featured. Strike 2! Although, there is Mahkato Wacipi, an amazing double-disc by the Lakotah and Dakotah nations commemorating the U.S.-Dakotah Conflict of 1862, which culminated in the hanging of 38 Dakotah warriors. The disc documents the events with stories, traditional music, and new works by Lakotah and Dakotah composers.

Now the pressure rests on Cousin Terry from the West Coast, and the Serialists are very nervous. Silence descends on the studio stage and finally he utters relatively nonchalantly: “Religious music.” Survey says…Ding! Around the beginning of holiday season, five new recordings featuring Christmas and/or sacred music were released this month. This certainly isn’t your traditional Christmas music though. A recording of Phil Kline’s annual Greenwich Village musical event Unsilent Night has been released featuring the holiday soundscape of folks wandering through New York City with boomboxes playing magical electronic music. A Season’s Promise is a collection of contemporary choral Christmas pieces featuring works by Ned Rorem, Stephen Paulus, Libby Larsen, Jennifer Higdon, and Dave Conner. Meanwhile, organist/composer Leonardo Ciampa meditates on the birth of Christ through a series of organ pieces dedicated to the event on the second volume of No Room at the Inn. Not necessarily associated with Christmas, but certainly Christian in inspiration, two recordings for choir and organ are also included in this category. First, We Praise Thee, O God, a retrospective of Charles Beaudrot’s church music and in a similar vein, the Sacred Choral Music of Robert Evett is performed by Musikanten.

Well, it looks like the Minimalists have taken the game. They have rightly earned their…Wait! It seems as though Onkel Karlheinz is approaching the host. He whispers something… It seems as though Onkel Karlheinz finds a flaw with the fact that the Minimalists received points for guessing chamber music, when one of Steve’s own discs was included on it! The host agrees that it may not have been a fair victory and turns it over to the judges. The Minimalists protest but it is of no use. The judges will be deliberating for a while and their decision is uncertain. Will just the Serialists or just the Minimalists win a place in history? Or will the judges decide that it will simply be a draw? Stay tuned.

In Roald Dahl’s story “The Sound Machine,” Klausner, the inventor of a machine that made inaudible sounds audible, explains his concept by saying, “I believe that there is a whole world of sound about us all the time that we cannot hear…there is a new exciting music being made, with subtle harmonies and fierce grinding discords, a music so powerful that it would drive us mad if only our ears were tuned to hear the sound of it.” Although his machine, which could hear the sound of flowers screaming when they were picked, was eventually crushed by an enraged tree, we could say that the evolution of music has offered us thousands of different sound machines that allow us to hear sounds that we never heard before. Whether it is the bleeping, crunchy, ethereal sounds created using computers, traditional instruments being stretched to create exciting new harmonics, or simply the ability to hear music from distant parts of the world, contemporary composers and listeners alike have made extensive use of these new sound “machines” to expand our aural capacity. Whether or not they have driven us mad is yet to be determined…

Plugged in sound machines

Terry Riley – Requiem for Adam

Known in some circles as the father of electronic music, Edgard Varèse was experimenting with two-track tape interpolations of instrumental ensembles in the early 1950s, apparent in “Déserts,” which is included on a new disc of his music released by Naxos. The seed that Varèse planted half a century ago blossoms on several other new recordings such as Steve Mackey’s “macho” concerto for electric guitar and orchestra, entitled “Tuck and Roll,” which recognizes the influence of rock music on contemporary composers. His amplified virtuosity is complemented by complex orchestration and a collection of maverick sounds (i.e. an ensemble of cheap harmonicas). Also extending the range of traditional ensembles, Terry Riley’s Requiem for Adam commemorates the premature death of Kronos Quartet violinist David Harrington’s son Adam, making extensive use of electronic sounds during the second movement and stretching the strings through a series of motifs and dances. While Riley transforms emotional reality into sound, Stephen Vitiello’s science project album, Bright and Dusty Things, attempts to hear light by using a photocell device to translate the color and intensity of light into an analog pitch and duration. Complete with electronic processing and Pauline Oliveros adding her talents on accordion, this album allows you to hear what you could once only see.

Laurie Anderson – Life on a String

Keeping up with technology, Charlie Hunter’s Songs from the Analog Playground creates a fun jazz/hip-hop/electronica hybrid, featuring the voices of Mos Def, Kurt Elling, and Norah Jones. Emphasizing the amount of individual freedom bestowed upon artists by technology, Ted Killian is the auteur of Flux Aeterna, having composed all of the music, played all the instruments, and designed the packaging and cover art! New Age composer Tim Tatum also wore many different hats during the production of his recording Music and the World, which blends together music from all corners of the earth. Meanwhile, flutist Alexander Zonjic couples his primary instrument with other ambient sounds fashioned using “sound machines” on Reach for the Sky. Meanwhile, Laurie Anderson’s beautifully packaged new album Life on a String tells stories with vocals, electronic tools, and acoustic instruments, including offbeat ones like the Claviola, Mellotron, and the mysterious “box-o-toys” to construct a composite of underground pop, folk, and avant-garde.

Groovin’ sound machines

Jason Moran – Black Stars

The jazz combo itself could be considered yet another of our many new sound machines, altering the sounds of existing instruments such as the saxophone, the trombone, or the drums. In addition, a lot of early jazz has been brought to our modern ears through recordings played on yet another machine. Written versions often didn’t exist until someone sat down and meticulously transcribed each and every note, and even with it written down, there was no substitute for hearing the original. Fortunately for us, many of Fats Waller’s compositions and energetic renditions of standards were preserved through recordings and released on a CD entitled The 1935 Transcriptions. Boston-based composer Ferdinando Argenti‘s self-titled album brings a whole slew of new sounds simply by writing songs in both English and Italian (and throwing in an accordion for some extra Italian flair). Transforming the bicultural sound of Argenti into a multicultural one, bassist-composer Lonnie Plaxico stirs Brazilian, Spanish, New York, New Orleans, and Chicago influences into one coherent, rhythmically interesting Mélange. Driving rhythms are also present on pianist-composer Jason Moran’s Black Stars, which engages his catchy, almost addictive, riffs in conversation with underlying rhythms that occasionally take center stage.

Rick Margitza – Memento

Ran Blake’s love for film noir and inimitable improvisations highlight a 2-CD disc entitled Sonic Temples, which includes original compositions and interpretations of standards all bordering on the verge of atonality, yet maintaining layers of hypnotic melodies. If after listening to Blake’s disc, you desire to stay in a mellow state of consciousness (which is likely), pop in Rodney Jones’ Soul Manifesto and take an inward journey guided by the guitar’s honesty and Dr. Lonnie Smith on a Hammond B-3. Or, if you want complete sensual enjoyment from your jazz, check out the beautiful saxophone duets and polytonal harmonies on Rick Margitza’s Memento, which along with a glass of red wine and a hot tub, could be your golden ticket.

Baby sound machines

Marion Bauer

In 1846, Adolphe Sax patented his family of “saxophones,” a metallic clarinet-oboe hybrid that was originally used in military music. Since then, the saxophone has been strongly associated as the melodic backbone of jazz, but on Volume VII of America Millennium Tribute to Adolphe Sax, several pieces outside the jazz idiom feature the saxophone family, such as Allen Brings’ “Three Fantasies for saxophone quartet.” A re-issue of a 1994 disc features a different kind of quartet, this time the more traditional string variation, in pieces by American superstars such as Nancarrow, Carter, Ives, Yim, Feldman, Lucier, Young, and Cage, reminding us how far music has come since the Razumovsky Quartets. Marion Bauer welcomes us back into tonality (sort of…) with her incredibly sensitive works for varying combinations of piano, flute, and violin. On a recording of Original Works for Flute and Organ, Alan Hovhaness contributed his “Sonata for Ryuteki and Sho,” which imitates Japanese and Chinese instruments bringing out whole new tone colors. The sound deepens and expands on Robert Sirota’s Works for Cello, featuring the wonderfully eerie organ/cello duet “Easter Canticles.”

The Mother of all Sound Machines

Hovhaness, Short, Young – Mystical Mountains

The orchestra. Like some wacky mechanical invention straight out of Chaplin’s Modern Times; it consumes all. The strings moving in unison, the percussionists dancing in the back between instruments, the oboists swabbing their horns, the trombone players reading a magazine, waiting for their movement to begin (well, I guess you only see that from behind)…anyway, leaving my Ode to the Orchestra and slowly regaining focus, Leonardo Balada matches the piano and guitar with orchestra sprinkled with Andalusian rhythms in his “Piano Concerto No. 3” and “Concierto M·gico.” The orchestra (the London Symphony Orchestra to be exact) then becomes infused with pop music sounds as Mitch Hampton traces the evolution of popular music from slave spirituals to rock music in his “Symphony No. 1,” showing how it comes full circle beginning and ending with the same four note motif. A very beautiful Smetana-like unison melody begins “Visions from High Rock” by Alan Hovhaness, the first track on Mystical Mountains featuring the music of Hovhaness, Michael Young, and Gregory Short and exploring the subtly of the symphony orchestra.

John Adams – El Niño

John Adams maximizes the capability of sound machines through the use of singers (including three vocal soloists and two choirs), orchestra, and the possibility of dancers in his brand new nativity oratorio El Niño. Gian Carlo Menotti’s madrigal opera The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore continues in a similar vein to El Niño, telling the story of the three stages in the life of a wealthy man who lives in a castle and calling for chorus, dancers, and nine instrumentalists. Further reduced, Leonora Christine, Andy Pape’s opera about a princess’ imprisonment in a tower, pairs a conservatory-trained soprano with a cabaret singer, creating attention-grabbing duets. Finally, Shall We Gather celebrates a facet of American religious life through a collection of hymns and spirituals.

The infinite expansion of the sound universe becomes more apparent with each innovation, whether it is the invention of a new instrument, a new technological tool, or a distinctive combination of personnel. The more you hear, the more you realize you haven’t heard, and that’s enough to drive any music lover mad.

The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, ‘Is there a meaning to music?’ My answer would be, ‘Yes.’ And ‘Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?’ My answer to that would be, ‘No.’

Aaron Copland

And what if I asked, “Then can you really express the meaning of words or pictures in so many notes?”

Mr. Copland starts to answer and then pauses looking bedazzled, not because he doesn’t know but because I don’t know and he is after all a figment of my imagination. Perhaps these are the moments that necessitate alternate forms of communication…

Trying to pinpoint the purpose of music has caused many feuds. A resolution seems impossible and, at times, irrelevant. Music is written in order to transcend the visual and verbal boundaries of rhetoric, but how this is achieved is a point of contention for many composers, musicians and scholars. This becomes evident when looking at the conflict between so-called absolute music and programme music. Sir Edward Elgar goes as far as to say that “[programme music] is a lower form of art than absolute music.” Ironic, considering his Enigma Variations were simply a compilation of character sketches. Richard Strauss, on the other hand, contends through the transitive property that “There is no such thing as abstract music; there is good music and bad music. If it is good then it means something; then it is Programme Music”. Ah! So all music that isn’t programme music is bad? Wait, does that logic work? If X then Y and if Y then…

It’s no wonder I was having visions of Aaron Copland dancing in my head! This topic is enough to drive anyone crazy! In any case, with 30 of the 35 discs appearing in this month’s issue being programmatic in nature and many others containing at least one programmatic element, it is evident that American composers have embraced programmes with little pretension, deriving ideas from personal stories, literature, philosophy, dance, political events and images, as well as from the sonority itself.

Narratives & Personal Experiences

The stories that composers tell through their music range from introspective autobiographies to humorous adventures to highly philosophical flights of imagination (and every combination of these characteristics). Pianist and composer Caren Levine recounts delicate memories of lost love and images from a kaleidoscope, as well as the title story on Flowers from a Secret Admirer. Assuming the role of a baby (long before Look Who’s Talking), John Alden Carpenter goes out for a walk with his nurse in “Adventures in a Perambulator,” opening with intervals reminiscent of Copland, which invoke the hugeness of the world as perceived by an infant.

Eric Funk is our tour guide on another kind of journey, this one more of interest to Carl Sagan fans than Anne Geddes admirers, in Symphony No. 5, Op. 77, “Dante Ascending.” The piece traces a comet as it hurtles through space, describing the end of this dimension, marked by seven arches of energy and aural illusions (Scriabin’s “Mystic Chord”) and eventually lands in the elusive “Paradiso.” Mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade and baritone Thomas Hampson also meet “In Paradisum” at the end of Richard Danielpour’s Elegies, which create a dialogue between Frederica and her father who was killed during World War II right before her birth. The text is based on the letters that Lieutenant von Stade wrote home to his wife, Sara, during the war. The story of another family touched by tragedy inspired a piece by Joelle Wallach entitled Shadow, Sighs And Songs of Longing. This piece attempts to reconstruct the memories and feelings of Kristina Trask, matron of the ill-fated Trask family that acquired Yaddo in the late 1800’s, who lost all four of her children and her husband during their stay at the now famed arts retreat.

Apart from stories that unfold in a traditional temporal fashion, some composers attempt to capture an emotion that accompanied a particular life experience. For example, the fourth movement in Bela Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, which was written for the Boston Symphony while he was living in the United States, makes thematic references to a Hungarian song that translates to “You are lovely, you are so beautiful, Hungary.” Through this movement, Bartók sought to express his homesickness for his native land. Nostalgia also acts as the inspirational building blocks for Lior Navok’s Meditations Over Shore, this time for “family and friends on the other side of the ocean.” Here, Navok journeys over the seascape he creates with buoy bells and the reverberation of distant voices. M. William Karlins describes the tide rather than the emotionality associated with it in his concerto for amplified double bass, solo wind ensemble, piano and percussion entitled “Reflux.”

Literature, Philosophy & Myths, oh my!

Literature and folklore have provided ample inspiration for composers who are looking to tell a story or showcase a particular philosophy. Continuing with the sea theme, Harold Blumenfeld explores the sea images, representative of the pushing and contriving of the universe upon the poet Hart Crane in “Voyages after Hart Crane” for baritone and chamber ensemble. “Drink to me only with thine eyes” written by Shakespeare’s contemporary Ben Jonson, catalyzed Jove’s Nectar, a song cycle depicting a range of characters from composer Edwin London. William Bolcom’s opera, A View From the Bridge, derives its libretto from the play of the same name by Arthur Miller. Through the music, Bolcom aims to harness and extend the raw emotions contained within the text. Finally, Robert Xavier Rodríguez seeks out the “secret truth” in his cantata Forbidden Fire, which finds its masculine muse in the works of Aeschylus, Lucretius, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Blake, Schiller, Beethoven, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley and Edna St. Vincent Millay, writings from Egyptian Temple, the Bhagavad Gita and the Bible. David Chesky asserts his belief in the human ability of self-transcendence in The Agnostic, a work for orchestra and chorus with libretto dedicated to a laundry list of primarily existential philosophers, writers and politicians such as Sartre, Kafka and Beckett.

Dance, magic, dance

Until recently, dance was rather dependent upon music. Although this changed when modern choreographers such as Jerome Robbins and Trisha Brown decided to extract the music from dance in order to make the audience focus on the movements of the dancers, many composers still conceptualize their music by visualizing how people would move to it. In his “Waltz,” Alan Stout sketches a mad-hatter waltz that evokes images of people enjoying both the music and the bar! Even the Rumba Club’s name indicates their close relationship to dance music, and their song “Fire in the Belly” mixes Latin and African rhythms with a free jazz form that virtually forces your hips to wiggle. Commissioned by choreographer Nancy Allison, Judith Sainte Croix wrote Renewal with the intention of depicting three stages of the artist’s life through movement and music. Therefore, her work resulted from her ability to imagine how it would proceed on stage.

History

The haunted pages of history books are truly fascinating. Identity is found through history and identity is found through music, so often music and history merge to tell one story. For example, William Roper’s album, Juneteenth, was named for June 19, 1865, the day General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas and told the slaves that they were free, (though the Emancipation Proclamation had state January 1, 1863 as the date that should have occurred). On this album, Roper explores his own heritage as well as the theme of finding liberty within the context of structure. Exploring a darker date in history, Peter Boyer goes back to the night of April 14-15, 1912 to tell the story of the Titanic sans Leonardo DiCaprio in his tone poem that leads listeners through the historic sinking of the ship. Looking at how modern political events are shaped by and in turn shape history, David Chesky dedicates his “Psalms” to victims of modern holocausts, reminding us that history does indeed repeat itself, stating “Just as we have failed in the past, we have failed in the present, and we will continue to fail in the future as long as we don’t look inside and ask why this indifference exists.”

Suggestive Titles

I once read that programme music alludes to any piece of music that attempts to describe an extra-musical quality and that simply a suggestive title could be a programme. This gives the listener and the players more freedom to interpret the music as they see fit, but still sets somewhat of an agenda. Especially relevant to jazz, we have a quintet of jazz tracks nestled into this subcategory. Teddy Wilson’s cut of the Creamer and Layton standard “After You’ve Gone,” makes you picture a man clicking his heels as he celebrates the departure, rather than the melancholy mood associated with the title. “Rainbow Mist” played by Coleman Hawkins and his orchestra is known more for being one of the first-ever recorded bop tracks than for its accurate depiction of a rainbow or mist. Furthermore, the “Impetus” for the Gordon Brisker Quintet album My Son John is probably more purely musical than descriptive of any programme, despite the colorful names of the tracks. Perhaps the definition of programme music isn’t perfect. (Please detect sarcasm). More consistencies arise between the title and the music on the Peck Allmond Group’s new disc, aptly titled Short Stories and featuring talented trumpeter and saxophonist, Peck Allmond. Guitarist and composer Gerald Veasley says a mellow goodbye to his hero Grover Washington on “Good Night Moon.”

The title “Abandon the Ink” seems to indicate the desertion of notation in the production of the music and the music produced by Rob Blakeslee, Brad Dutz, William Roper and Michael Vlatkovich sounds largely improvised. Many of the other pieces really do paint the pictures of their titles, such as “Lamentations and Dirge of the Huskies.” Also riding the experimental wave, Ernesto Diaz-Infante and Chris Forsyth have created a series of pieces employing different ways of playing their instruments, for instance, banging the guitar like a drum and using new objects as percussion instruments, such as the sound board of a piano. These tracks are of interest because many of them have two titles, both a programmatic one (i.e. “cut and dried“) and a non-evocative title (i.e. “acoustic/electric #2”).

John Morton’s new music box turned drum machine turned orchestra presents itself on an album entitled Outlier. According to Webster, an outlier is “one whose domicile lies at an appreciable distance from his or her place of business.” Hmm. I suppose the album itself attempts to describe the experience of the new music box, working in a much different place than it’s traditional position as a household item. Exploring the sound of early music with Paul Hillier’s Theater of Voices, Ingram Marshall’s “Hymnodic Delays,” presents the songs of early New England composers with descriptive titles such as “Broad Road” and “Swept Away.” Going back to an even older text, settings of the Lux Aeterna (God grant us eternal light) section of the Mass have a tradition of brilliance and openness. Phillip Schroeder’s shimmering version certainly lives up to such expectations. Although having a suggestive title, “Contemplations” by Ronald Foster, the qualifier “for Solo Clarinet”, makes one wonder whether or not the term “contemplations” is referring to non-musical material or is simply referring to the sound of the clarinet itself.

Absolute Music?

This ambiguity forms the perfect segue into the pieces that have no visible programmatic agenda. These pieces are called “absolute music” by some, though the positive connotation of the word absolute often implies that its opposite, programme music, is negative. Let’s not make this mistake and just call it “music without referent.” Harry Bulow deepens the expressive nature of the solo saxophone in “Syntax II” by integrating microtones and multiphonics into the texture. The rich textures and timbre in Patrick Hardish’s Duo make it seem more like a whole symphony is playing rather than just a pianist and a percussionist. Striking a completely different sonority, in Six Miniatures for Bassoon and Piano by Haskell Small the bassoon and piano engage in a critical dialogue of the piece itself. Adding more instruments to the mix, we arrive at early American music by David Michael Moritz, which was rediscovered in the music collections of former Moravian settlements in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. His lightly scored Parthien for woodwinds follows classical instrumentation, structure and tonality. Finally, the Scott Fields Ensemble leads us on three hour-long modular journeys through a crowd of instruments each telling their own improvised story on the recording 96 Gestures. The titles of the pieces are simply Performance 2, Performance 4 and Performance 5. Perhaps there is a programme to all of this, but it is securely hidden in the mind of the composer and musicians and the majority of the liner notes have been blacked out. Perhaps it is better not to know what was trying to be said…

The new compact discs that have been released this month indicate that American composers have an inclination towards programme music, suggesting that music based on extra-musical subjects has survived the academic beating it has taken in the past. But the question now becomes: Will music with abstract subjects be able to survive our highly visual, Fantasia culture? Is absolute music truly absolute or did the composer just fail to write sufficient liner notes? And do you have to know the programme of a programmatic piece to appreciate it? Please share your thoughts with us through our “In the Second Person feature,” and until next month I leave you with a quote from Ingram Marshall:

“Music doesn’t just exist on it’s own. There are always explanations and there’s always some hidden meanings and there are some legitimate things that you can say about music that are extra-musical. But what does that mean any
how? Extra-musical. I hate that word! If it’s about the music, it’s about the music.”

I don’t have a lot of fears. I walk alone at night feeling foolishly invincible. On a recent tour to Venezuela, I spent 14 hours on a bus, teetering at the edge of the Andes with only a Dramamine and a bus driver named Jèsus to ease any queasiness. I even like spiders thanks to Mr. E.B. White. However, categorization terrifies me. In our efficiency-preoccupied society, we’re obsessed with neatly packaging products, people and ideas. If things don’t fit, we simply create a new category.

One of our classic groupings is age. Every marketing scheme is based on some age demographic. We place age limits on drinking, driving, voting, retiring and, thanks to Tipper Gore and new FCC chairman Michael K. Powell who is on a censoring rampage, we even have to be a certain age to listen to some kinds of music! When looking at the influence that age has on a composer there are several things to keep in mind so that we don’t get lazy and fall into the ruthless trap of overgeneralization; advice that should also be observed when reading Ayn Rand novels.

First, there is always an exception to a category – in this case, composers who are out of their time. Charles Ives (b. 1874) was the perennial “man out of his time.” And dating his music is even further complicated by the fact that he frequently rewrote and reworked pieces throughout his compositional career, as is the case for the miniatures collected on When the Moon. Speaking of miniatures, don’t panic featuring pianist Guy Livingston comprises sixty pieces that are roughly sixty seconds long written by composers from eighteen different countries! The sample here is from American composer Walter Sanchez.

Donald Ashwander (b.1929), a key player in the ragtime revival of the 1950s, is outside of his time in a completely opposite way from Ives, composing music such as 1988’s Perdido Bay Moon Rag, about seventy-five years after the height of ragtime. Singer Philip Chaffin also pays a tribute to the music of yesteryear on Where Do I Go From You? crooning Warren and Gordon’s classic tune At Last, made popular by the Glenn Miller Orchestra about sixty years ago.

Age can be a problematic criterion for categorization when dealing with sources of inspiration because oftentimes the inspiration for a piece comes from outside a composer’s immediate experience and sometimes from outside his/her lifetime all together, nullifying any links to his or her contemporaries. Many composers find inspiration coming from memories of their youth. Michael Lowenstern’s aptly titled 1985, samples a tape made for Lowenstern (b. 1967) by two of his high school buddies. Deriving her inspiration for It Won’t Be the Same River, played by the Mallarmè Chamber Players, from a group of high school students she worked with in Raleigh, North Carolina, Penka Kouneva attempts to address the four topics that the students considered most relevant to their lives: love, fear, sexuality and confusion.

Meyer Kupferman (b. 1926), who asked in the 1970s “Why does music have to be consistent?” shows how inspiration can come from both the past and the present in his two recordings that are available this month. The inspiration for O North Star finds its source in the depth of the night sky and the sea images of Melville’s novels. Flight Alone, written when he was 69 years old, is based on childhood memories of the Holocaust and its effects on his parents.

The Heavenly Feast by Martin Amlin (b. 1953) also uses the Holocaust as a point of departure but he was not even born until the war had been over for eight years. He instead uses the text of a poem about Simone Weil who chose to starve herself to death as an affirmation of her anti-war sentiments and empathy for the war’s victims.

Ezra Laderman (b. 1924), whose Fantasy for Cello was composed in 1998, claims that the most formative years of his career as a composer were the 1930s when he was just in his early teens! He actually quotes a composition from a wind quintet he wrote in high school in his 1985 piece, Pentimento. Even more detached from the theme of his music, Jorge Martìn, whose song cycle The Glass Hammer explores life in an abusive Southern family, claims no personal connection to the text except that it moved him when he heard it read by the poet, Andrew Hudgins. German born Broadway legend Kurt Weill (1900-50) also explores a topic that is foreign to him in the musical adaptation of Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country called Lost in the Stars about a family dealing with the racial politics of South Africa.

Other artists attempt to defy the categorization of their music by taking the emphasis off of the finished object and placing it upon the process, such as Marilyn Crispell (b. 1947)’s slow free form tracks on Amaryllis, which sound composed although not one note was planned.

Now that you are somewhat armed against the innate flaws of demographic categorization, we can gingerly move onto examining the similarities that do arise within age brackets. Baby steps…baby steps. We don’t want any chronological bigots, now!

Obviously, the philosophies that arise from life changing events such as war or social upheaval as well as the theoretical trends emerging among composers and the instruments available will bond members of a generation together ideologically and, to a certain extent, stylistically. Therefore, we should expect to see members of certain age groups pursuing similar musical goals or at least using similar tools. This assumption can be partially supported by composers featured this month. For example, composers who are currently writing for electro-acoustic instruments, electronics or computers appear to be clustered in the forty to sixty age group.

Ingram Marshall (b.1942) stirs up (à la Bob Marley) Bach’s Et in Spiritum Sancto from the B-minor Mass using a live digital delay process in Holy Ghosts. (Sorry. I just wanted to put Bach and Bob Marley in the same sentence.) Furthermore, electronic music veteran Paul Lansky (b. 1944) continues to create music using incomprehensible speech patterns in the new and improved Idle Chatter Junior.

Lost Objects, a new collaborative work by Bang On A Can founders Michael Gordon (b. 1958), David Lang (b. 1957) and Julia Wolfe (b. 1958), fuses a traditional oratorio form with the instruments of a rock band and then top it all off with remixes by DJ Spooky. This oratorio explores the experience of losing and finding objects and attempts to find the lost sound of early music by using a Baroque orchestra and choir, fusing the ultramodern with the past. Like Lost Objects, Ted Nash’s Sidewalk Meeting, examines an everyday occurrence: the chance meeting in the street. Combining New Orleans and klezmer influences, Nash (b. 1959) celebrates diversity and recalls a “chance encounter” he had with accordionist Bill Schimmel, who plays with him on this recording. Ruth Crawford (1901-53), whose 9 Piano Preludes written in her own “dissonant counterpoint,” supports the goal of Lost Objects in her 1941 monogra
ph The Music of American Folk Song, saying “Each individual will have his own preferences in respect to what should be lost, modified, or preserved.” In this case, the music has been at once lost and then reclaimed through modification and modernization.

Representing the over 60 group in the realm of computer music (although she was about 35 when this piece was written), is Bog Music by pioneer Pauline Oliveros (b. 1932) who uses a Buchla Series 100 Box to reflect the sounds of the pond outside her 1967 studio at the Mills Tape Music Center in San Francisco.

James Chaudoir (b. 1946) often couples a lyric and rhythmic style with MIDI and analog techniques, although his new CD of chamber works is “unplugged.” Finally, Stephen Perillo uses a variety of synthesizers in combination with expansive orchestration for his Magnificat for a New Millennium. A hodgepodge of musical genres from traditional chant to marching band, spirituals and the jazz combo, the Magnificat also represents par excellence the mixing of styles characteristic of younger composers.

Ohio-native Chris Washburne strikes a balance between the danceable music of Latin America and straight jazz in his album dedicated to the work of Tito Puente featuring arrangements of Puente’s work and original pieces composed in Puente’s spirit such as Titorama. ¡Si quiere bailar, escuche este album! Exploring his Venezuelan heritage through Latin dance rhythms and counterpoint, Efraìn Amaya infuses traditional forms with South American energy in his String Quartet No. 1. Lucius Weathersby (b. 1968)’s Spiritual Fantasy presents organ music with strong classical, sacred, blues and gospel influences as well as a piece by Fela Sowande, the “father of Nigerian Art Music”.

Squeezing some new timbres out of a guitar, bassoon and acoustic bass combination on his album Transience, Joel Harrison honors Jimi Hendrix, saxophonist Jim Pepper who incorporated Native American themes and jazz into his innovative sound and his late teacher Dick Barnes. A new solo album by another guitarist, Ralph Towner (b. 1940), shows a great variety of influences from rock and blues to jazz and classical. Also charting new waters in the realm of writing for the solo instrument, Mat Maneri combines jazz phrasing, a chamber music texture, Baroque, world music and microtonal influences on Trinity. John Harbison (b. 1938) presents a variety of pieces that are strongly influenced by jazz and Baroque music in the new disc of his early works, although his 1978 Piano Concerto finds itself operating within a more romantic language.

Towner and Harbison prove that although stylish among younger composers, this melding of different styles together within one piece is obviously not exclusive to those born after 1950. Many composers of the older generations have found sanctity in the combination of various genres. For example, Lukas Foss (b. 1922) mixes pitched melodies with free melodies, where the singers choose their own notes, and two different texts in his De Profundis, on a disc of his vocal works.

And then there is the issue of wunderkinder, children who begin composing at a very young age. They tend to be pianists and have a penchant for piano music…

Composing by the age of ten, Allen Shawn (b. 1948) uses traditional instrumentation and form to render a colossal work for orchestra that is bold and lyric. Mark Zuckerman (b. 1948)’s On the Edge for solo piano is steeped in rhythmic intensity and manipulations developed using serial theory. His first foray into composition was at age 11. Next, we come to jazz pianist and composer Aaron Parks, the “Wizard”who has produced his third CD at the ripe young age of 17. Another 17-year old, Lukas Previn, son of André Previn, wrote the track “Bye, Bye Sky”, on André’s new disc with David Finck, Live at the Jazz Standard.

Then there are some composers who begin to become more prolific as they become older. The older Previn (b. 1930) claims that he has composed more since 1992 than he had in the twenty years before hand, such as his Diversions for orchestra and a great deal of vocal music. Perhaps he was too busy with his job as a world famous pianist and conductor…

Included on an anthology of American songs sung by Carole Bogard, John Duke (b. 1899) produced over one-third of his art songs after his “retirement” from composing in 1967! The second symphony by Duke’s contemporary Walter Piston (b. 1894-1976) shares a lucid and concise formality with the songs of Duke.

Younger composers Christopher Rouse (b. 1949) and Mark Ettinger (b. 1963) attempt to deal with more nebulous thematic concepts such as the manifestation of dreams into reality and the capturing of the artistic spirit as attempted in Rouse’s Concert de Gaudi; and the flitting moments when reality and dreams interact addressed in Ettinger’s réve no. 31

There are, of course, some themes that are ageless, like making fun of the people in Washington! And, oh, has this theme been exploited recently thanks to Dubya. Ethel Merman contributes by singing Washington Square Dance by Irving Berlin (b. 1888-1989) on the original Broadway recording of Call Me Madam, along with other delightful tunes.

The newest album entitled Foreststorn from drummer and groove guru Chico Hamilton (b. 1921) features many talented guest artists such as the Spin Doctors’ Eric Schenkman on Guitar Willie and celebrates the simple community of playing. Chico reminds us to keep everything in perspective saying, “You know, it takes all kinds of grooves to make a groove.” With that, I wish you happy listening…