composer's notebook
essays & criticism on musical matters
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Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Playback
I heard a terrific new recording of Georgia State University's recent performance of AVENUE X, with Robert Ambrose's Symphonic Wind Ensemble. Man, this piece is coming along. The more I hear it, the more it's starting to come to life for me. This performance specifically is a new high—it simply smokes. The ensemble plays with intense ferocity, and it just brings out the best in the piece. The "Side-Show" section in particular (that's a near-climactic section about 3/4 of the way through, screaming carnival-like idioms and a parade atmosphere), stopped me dead in my tracks. I went back to it several times (wait, rewind!), stunned. I could hear everything. The flutes wailing their freaky carousel-music, the slide whistle, the trilling winds ... all the stuff I had thought I had mistakenly buried in the orchestration, balanced out for the world to hear. Really, crazy good stuff.
If you like that kind of thing, that is. And I do. Louder Faster Higher, and all that. Thank goodness for metallic instruments.
When an EQd / mastered version arrives, I will share, of course.
Friday, November 25, 2005
Harberg
Better Half and I had dinner last weekend with composer Amanda Harberg (and her own B.H.), where she presented me with a recording of her new piece for 2 pianos, recently premiered up at Ithaca College. AH is an old friend from school, and back in the day, she lit up Juilliard with some fantastic music—inventive and fun and skillful. After enjoying this new work for a few listens, I got so excited I decided I'd take a breath from talking about myself for a change, to talk a little bit about Harberg.
Leaving aside the presumptions attached to picking apart someone else's music, I've been thinking about the more obvious influences in her writing. Likely, her formative years playing jazz have informed the quote/unquote "American" language (ie. jazz harmonies usually equal "American sound") shining through her music, and her year in Belgium studying with Fredrick Rzewski, the great anarchist composer/pianist, infused her style with a little bit of a playful wink, and often a tongue firmly implanted in cheek. But the music also draws it's energy and dynamism from the 20th-century repertoire as a whole—as Stravinsky, Prokofieff, and Copland mix together with Bill Evans.
This new piece, called Tenement Rhapsody, is consistent with the strong and heady stuff I'm used to in Harberg works. It's a perfect example of a voice that marries a lifetime of inhaling the world's piano literature, with jazz idioms and propulsive rhythm. Like the first movement, a whirlwind of Prokofieff-spiked colors peppered with chunky blue notes ... or the lyrical second movement, soaked in open mid-century American-harmonies—almost like a rippling reflection of Barber's Nocturne ... or the energetic closing movement's homage to Mr. Gershwin...
Here's an example of what I'm talking about, from the first movement...
See what I mean? Pretty great stuff. This piece sparkles. It works pianistically, and musically as a whole. Let's all shout out for more.
Monday, November 21, 2005
Internationality
Yesterday brought 2 surprise distributions from my Performing Rights Agency of Choice. These envelopes are always a gamble—the occasional smaller numbers bring the giggles, and the larger numbers bring confusion (wait, what performance? what piece?). But nothing quite beats the infrequent international distribution for quality of humor:
Envelope containing the writer distribution. $3.34
Envelope containing the publisher distribution. $3.34
Knowing now that sometime last year there was a Moon by Night performance in Switzerland? Priceless.
Thursday, November 17, 2005
My kind of town
Finally, a brief report on a terrific weekend: four days in Chicago, all for last Sunday's Metropolitan premiere, and Music Director Allen Tinkham led the CYSO in a truly fantastic concert. The orchestra played the tar out of it, and the piece sounded like a million bucks. These are incredibly impressive musicians, all of whom worked their tails off, and it paid off. (Thanks celli, for all your work on that lick. You know which one I'm talking about. I'm here to tell you, it was worth it. Sounded awesome.) Metropolitan opened their program, but the orchestra had several other fish to fry—Messrs. Bartók (featuring the scary-talented Yoshihiko Nakano in the Concerto for Viola), Smetana, and Sibelius followed. Dark, thick, yummy, frozen music. Love it. Brilliant and intriguing programming.
The WFMT broadcast of Metropolitan (along with program host and producer Lisa Flynn's interviews with me and Maestro Tinkham) will air sometime in December, likely sometime near the next performance, at this year's Midwest Clinic, where the CYSO is the featured orchestra. So if you are a Chicagolander, stay tuned. Literally.
But I must say, in that box in Orchestra Hall, after AT and the orchestra had blasted a hole in the ceiling with the premiere, surrounded by MJS, NB & VO, and N & JB, listening to the CYSO joyously explode in the Sibelius Fifth, I was one ecstatically happy camper. Doesn't get much better than that.
Some time ago I decided this was to be a text-only notebook (I don't know why, no good reason really, but I'm sticking to the original plan), so for some light visual stimulation, visit the BCM blog to enjoy the Chicago pics postings. A couple are up now, with more to follow...
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
The Finland Inside
Tomorrow I leave for Chicago, for the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra's world premiere performance of Metropolitan in Orchestra Hall on Sunday. The CYSO's terrific Music Director Allen Tinkham will conduct, and it's sure to be a barn-burner!
Turns out I share the program with the Sibelius Fifth Symphony. Coincidentally this is my #1 desert-island piece ... and in fact, one of the pieces I took off the shelf and studied (and slept with under my pillow) while writing Metropolitan. There's nothing overt in what I took from the Sibelius (as far as I can tell), but Allen still must have sensed some sort of cosmic connection when he did the programming. I like to tell myself that's how it happened anyway. In any case, it's a humbling circumstance, and I count myself lucky that Metropolitan is first and I'm spared from having to follow Mister Sibelius's masterwork.
As the say: never follow an animal act ... and never follow Sibelius.
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Playwright snapshot
Slackin' on the notebook duties again, so here's a quick bite of artsy goodness to take the edge off the appetite...
Last night I biked to Tribeca for a play reading—not my usual cultural fare, in fact I would say that's usually the sort of thing I might avoid, but the exception in this case is due specifically to the playwright, Gary Winter. I met Gary via Better Half's work on one of his new pieces, and instantly became a fan. Since then (and at my insistence), we've occasionally discussed collaboration, so I've been chomping at the bit to find just the right project should he find himself interested and I'm persistent enough.
His plays vary in subject but always have an otherworldly and abstract language that is remarkably formalized—and his poetic and imaginative texts are extremely attractive:
Damn you Seal-A-Kanth! Poor excuse for a pollywog. Cursed parent-lings. Drag besotted daughter out to Comoros Islands to indulge in anthropological fantasies. Well, no deals here except for loopiness. And even then some. No heads on wrong shoulders except in the Funhouse. No fun in the Funhouse. Except in the hall of mirrors.Winter is a member of the playwright consortium 13P, whose productions we've fixed an intrigued eye on, because these guys are all superstars. I think I dig the 13P mission and vibe mostly because I see many resemblances to BCM—in their collaborations, camaraderie, and dedication to getting their works produced.
Fortunately Gary keeps us up-to-date so there's almost always a Winter play to peruse on our night-stand. A couple of months ago he sent us AT SAID, the play NascentWorks read/presented last night, a terrific (and often bizarre, of course) one-act about inner-city strife, creativity, fear, and human stagnation. At least that's what I take from it. But who really knows -- I read and watch Gary's plays and always wonder if perhaps I've even gotten 1/4 of the way through the possibilities.
My first encounter with his work was THE LAKE, a piece centering on characters of vague connection and with a tenuous personal hierarchy, living (surviving? waiting?) in an undisclosed and seemingly-sheltered location, all centered around a body of water which may or may not sustain them as well as may or may not provide undisclosed magical properties. Hold this kind of thing up to the light with the recent manuscript now in our living room, where the cast of characters lists
Alexis: 30'sand maybe you start to get the picture. I love this stuff.
K: A potato. 50's
Alexis' Mom: A pair of dentures. 50's