music nowish

This is going to be necessarily short. I am only giving myself the time it takes to brew a cuppa—in this case coffee, not tea. Tonight was the concert of MusicNOW, the new music program at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The kind of music that it's supposed to be is still in search of a label, but I know one thing it is not: Jazz. Jazz is America's Classical tradition, arising from the folk music into a complex system of structures and form: a musical language. As such, it belongs in the concert hall just as much as so-called Classical music. Not better or worse, it's tradition is merely more recent.

But I had geared myself up for contemporary music and so was disappointed to be presented with Jazz. Not just any Jazz, not daring, contemporary or exciting, this was post-Ellington schmaltz written by an über-talented Brit, Richard Rodney Bennett, with a great deal of craft and nothing to say. It was mind-numbingly uninteresting except, possibly, for the arrangements, which were...um...tight. There were solos, but it was unclear whether they were really improvised or written by the composer.

So I sat fidgety, alternating between listening intently and trying to think of something else. The piece was dripping with sweetness, more of a dessert than appetizer. When it finished, I booed—for the first time in my life. It felt weird and drew nervous glances from my friends, but I was unapologetic: this concert had wasted an hour of my life and I want it back.

The whole experience led me to think that Mark-Anthony Turnage was selfishly presenting one of his heroes, exposing the American audience to someone whom he finds important—but ultimately isn't. Turnage's own piece, Twice Through the Heart, was much more interesting as a study in orchestration and texture. The composer in me got caught up with the variety and flow of colors, so it was only afterward that I realized that the piece is completely disposable, anonymous—“who-cares music.”

Bennett's piece failed the Seinfeld test; that is, I would have rather been watching Seinfeld. Heck, I would have rather been watching Friends. Actually, I wish that it had been Stravinsky's Ebony Concerto. Turnage's piece passed; I enjoyed it but ultimately don't think it's important.

I think we need to draw a line between Gebrauchsmusik and concert music. Concert music demands and merits your entire undivided attention, whereas Gebrachsmusik serves its function and should be judged on how well it does that. The first piece on the program should have been playing some sort of role—it could very well have been a 60s film score—but did not merit the concert treatment.

Thank you for reading. I'm off to finish my piece for this years AIDS Quilt Songbook Concert on December 1. I hope to get the score to the performers tomorrow.

taking it to the streets

Surreptitiously, the University of Chicago organized a concert featuring Dawn Upshaw, accompanied by an ensemble comprised mostly of hometown heroes 8th blackbird, singing music of Osvaldo Golijov. With such a star-studded performance, you'd expect a sell-out crow, but somehow the word was slow in getting around, so although the concert was full, it wasn't packed--the audience being mostly comprised of aging Hyde Park intellectuals and U of C music students.

The focus of the evening was Golijov's Ayre, an impassioned journey through the folk songs of Pre-Columbian 15th-century Spain. The composer mentions Berio's Folk Songs as one influence, and his own background formed another. Golijov grew up as the only Jewish kid in predominantly Christian Agentina in a household that he has described as "Eastern European." After spending time in Israel, he earned his PhD at UPenn, studying with George Crumb.

His range and depth of influences clearly come across in his music. In fact, it sometimes seems as though the quasi-program in Ayre and other pieces is almost just a pretext to write the music that resonates most deeply with him. Doing so, and by referencing Berio, Golijov garners the approval of academia and gives him license to explore the sounds in the gutters and the streets of the real world.

The result is an otherworldly tapestry, less of a blend, more of a juxtaposition of the religious traditions peacefully coexisting in the times before the much-parodied but still horrendous Spanish Inquisition. Each of the 11 songs is based on an actual folk song; says Golijov: "with a little bend, a melody goes from Jewish to Arab to Christian." This challenges Ms. Upshaw to embody a panoply of characters of different traditions and classes, each with their own vocal style, which she does with great passion and conviction. Her performance brings a theatricality to the work that merges with the intensity of the music, giving the whole a greater emotional impact.

The intensity is the result of confident, chamber-style playing, in which each performer knows his or her role and when their "character" comes to the fore. This is common in eighth blackbird performances; they know the music and each other so well that they start to function more like a rock band than an ensemble. It's a process that requires more rehearsal and more commitment but ends up speaking to a wider audience, one that is used to musicians being more than just musicians, one used to watching performers or, to the extreme, mere entertainers. Classical musicians generally hate to think about presentation, but Eighth blackbird seems comfortable borrowing and incorporating performative, sometimes entertaining elements to augment their musical performances--but never at expense of the music.

To me, as a composer, the most interesting aspect to the work was the instrumentation. The work called for Pierrot ensemble augmented by horn, accordion, guitar, harp, bass, percussion, and laptop. The bulk of the ensemble are members of Chicago-based eighth blackbird who are known for their subtle theatricalization of contemporary music. (They also won a Grammy last year.) In this performance, there was little need for this enhancement except for a few moments in which a particular player became the musical focus for a brief moment: tasteful and appropriate per usual.

The laptop was a bit of a surprise. At the beginning of the work, it added a nearly imperceptible deep background layer, but as the work progressed, it's presence became more and more noticeable--eventually triggering prerecorded percussion loops and samples. It was almost as if Golijov felt that the audience needed to be warmed up to the idea, which, for most of the crowd, was probably true. Although it seemed a bit timid, it ended up taking the focus only when appropriate and then relinquishing it back to Ms. Upshaw. For composers, it's an interesting example to study and learn from; for audiences, it's a good time to get used to the presence of technology in the concert hall.

The experience, as a whole, was highly effective: a soul-stirring, from-the-gut performance from Ms. Upshaw; a tight, rock-star backing band; and a composition that is academically viable, well-crafted, and yet inspired by the music of the People. Golijov does not write music from an Ivory Tower and, in the post-concert conversation, urged the composers at the U of C to do similarly.

sustainability in classical music

Classical music is deeply rooted in tradition, something that is both heavy weight to bear and a tether to meaningful forms of expression. In fact, musicians in this tradition bemoan even the use of the word "Classical" to describe contemporary music of the Western European branch. The problem lies not with record stores' need for simple classification but with the word itself: ironically, the word "classical" has a mangle of meanings and roots, which, much like the music, gives it a richness and ambiguity of meaning.

This post, my first serious blog post, was inspired by a discussion started by Norman Lebrecht on his blog about the viability of living composers' music to survive the next 50 years. This discussion, ironically, never would have happened during the Classical era (1750-1800). During that era, the composers were concerned with pleasing either their patron or the public and never would have imagined that their music would cast such a long shadow. In fact, I think the word "classical" is apt for this period in so many ways. First, because it conforms to a more Apollonian, formal, intellectual, anti-sensual aesthetic; second, because this is the first period that is canonized, the first to see composers' music survive them, the last in which composers create without the crushing weight of history and the seduction of posterity. A good example of the latter is Brahms who, anecdotally, avoided the symphonic form for many years due to the high standards set by Beethoven; Brahms first symphony was finally premiered when the composer was in his 40s, 49 years after the death of Beethoven.

Thus began the period of self-consciousness in music.

Peering into the future, then, I first thought about the past and started thinking more critically about what pieces get performed and why. My analysis, then, is not really about specific composers but more specific pieces. Look at any great composer whose music lives on: a composer's output is not uniform, and, while we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater, we should certainly drain the bath.

Here is what I came up with. I resorted to some recently departed composers to flesh out the categories.

Audience
Some pieces that will prove durable will be crowd-pleasers. This should be fairly obvious. In this category I submit the following:
* Adams - Harmonium
* Adès - Asyla
* Berio - Sinfonia
* Crumb -Black Angels
* Lang - Are You Experienced?
* Gorecki - Symphony No 3
* Golijov - La Pasión según San Marcos
* Reich - Music for 18 Musicians
* Part - Fratres (or just about any other piece will do)
* Whitacre - Water Night

Performers
Something that I think we forget all too often is that, ultimately, someone has to perform the music; their opinion matters. If a piece is fun or interesting to perform, if it gives the performer a platform from which to show off, or if it is simply easy or educational, then it will get more performances.
* Berio - Sequenzas
* Boulez - Piano Sonatas
* Carter - String Quartets
* Crumb - Vox Balanae
* Glass - Music in Fifths
* Gordon, Ricky Ian - songs
* Lachenmann - various
* Ligeti - Musica Ricercata, Études (for piano)
* Reich - Music for Pieces of Wood
* Riley - In C
* Rorem - songs
* Schnittke - String Quartet No. 2

Impact
These are pieces that either have an important artistic, musical, or political impact.
* Adams - Nixon in China, Dr. Atomic
* Boulez - Le Marteau sans maître
* Golijov - Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind
* Reich - Different Trains
* Messiaen - Quartet for the End of Time

Star Power
The next generation of composers, including Muhly, Mason Bates, Turnage, etc , have certainly achieved a lot of fame in a short period of time. No telling how permanent their contributions will prove to be.

Academia
Finally, there is no dearth of lovers of music who choose to turn their passion into an academic career: musicology is a quickly growing field and is in the process of consuming (and including) music theory. I have always been impressed by the level of scrutiny given by certain members of this group to obscure composers and theorists from the 19th century and before; I imagine this will continue in the future to an even greater extent. And life being better documented today, it will give future generations of academicians a even more to digest. So, I think there's a good possibility that all composers who achieve any modicum of fame will be performed in the future. They may be forgotten in 50 years, but they'll be rediscovered in 100.

I realized too late that this list is incompletable. There were a lot of composers whose works I would like to choose but had difficulty finding the right category. There are, certainly, other categories that I have not yet imagined that will allow these works to live on (in a more significant way than just being fodder for academics). Feel free to proffer suggestions.