21ST-CENTURY MUSIC / December 2013

21ST
CENTURY
MUSIC

December 2013

Volume 20, Number 12


George Antheil / Mark Alburger

Fellow Travelers / Michael McDonagh

Calendar for December 2013

Chronicle of October 2013


Illustration / George Antheil



Editorial Staff

Mark Alburger
EDITOR-PUBLISHER

Harriet March Page
ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Patti Noel Deuter
ASSISTANT EDITOR

Erling Wold
WEBMASTER

Elizabeth Agnew
Alexis Alrich
Katherine Buono
Ken Bullock
A.J. Churchill
David Cleary
Jeff Dunn
Phillip George
Elliot Harmon
Brian Holmes
Jeff Kaliss
John Lane
Arel Lucas
Michael McDonagh
Chip Michael
Tom Moore
Carol Marie Reynolds
William Rowland
Lisa Scola Prosek
Andrew Shapiro
Alice Shields
CORRESPONDENTS


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George Antheil / Mark Alburger

George Antheil (b. Georg Carl Johann Antheil, July 8, 1900, Trenton, NJ - February 12, 1959, New York, NY)  grew up in a family of German immigrants,  his father Henry owning a local shoe store.  George was raised bilingually, writing music, prose, and poetry early.

His autobiography The Bad Boy of Music (1945) idealized his origins as futurist, and emphasized his upbringing near a machine shop and prison.  

Antheil started studying the piano at the age of six, avowing that he was "so crazy about music" that his mother sent him to the countryside where no pianos were available.  Undeterred, George arranged for a store to deliver a piano.

In 1913, he began travelling to Philadelphia to study theory with Constantine von Sternberg, a former Franz Liszt pupil.  Antheil's trips also introduced him to conceptual art, including Dadaism.

At 19, in 1920, he began to work with Ernest Bloch in New York, beginning his Symphony No. 1 ("Zingareska"), whose last movement became one of the first symphonic pieces to incorporate jazz.
Antheil's trips to New York also permitted him to meet Leo Ornstein and Paul Rosenfeld, the painter John Marin, photographer Alfred Stieglitz, and editor Margaret Anderson.  After Antheil was invited to spend the weekend with Anderson and friends, he stayed six months, becoming part of a close-knit group (including Georgette Leblanc, former companion of Maurice Maeterlinck), which became influential in Antheil's career.   The editor described the young composer as a short man with an odd-shaped nose, who played "a compelling mechanical music," and used "the piano exclusively as an instrument of percussion, making it sound like a xylophone or a cymballo."  Antheil worked on Mechanisms and Piano Concerto No. 1.

During this time, von Sternberg introduced Antheil to his patron of the next two decades, Mary Louise Curtis Bok -- later the founder of the Curtis Institute of Music.

Assured by von Sternberg of Antheil's genius and good character, Bok gave him a monthly stipend of $150, and arranged for him to study piano at the Curtis Settlement School in 1921 under George Boyle.  Though Bok came to disapprove of his behavior and work, she continued to respond favorably to his letters.  As her financial support enabled Antheil to maintain a degree of independence, many observers believed he should have given her more credit in his autobiography.

Antheil continued his piano and composition study, including works by Igor Stravinsky and Les Six. In 1922, he wrote his first in a series of technology-based compositions, Piano Sonata No. 2 ("The Airplane").

He also continued work on his Symphony No. 1 ("Zingareska"), managing to attract Leopold Stokowski's attention.

On May 30, 1922, at the age of 21, Antheil sailed for Europe to make his name as "a new ultra-modern pianist composer" and a "futurist terrible." He had engaged Leo Ornstein's manager, and opened his European career with a concert at London's Wigmore Hall.  The program featured works by Claude Debussy and Stravinsky, as well as his own compositions.

He spent a year in Berlin, planning to work with Artur Schnabel, and gave concerts in Budapest, Vienna and at the Donaueschingen Festival. As he had desired, he achieved notoriety, but often had to pay the concert expenses out of his own pocket. His financial situation was not helped by Mrs. Bok's reduction of his stipend by 50 percent, though she often responded to requests to fund specific aspects of his concerts.

During this time, Antheil met Boski Markus, a Hungarian and niece of the Austrian playwright Arthur Schnitzler, who became his companion.

In the fall of 1922, Antheil took advantage of a chance meeting to introduce himself to his idol Stravinsky.  They established a warm intimacy and the more established composer encouraged Antheil to move to Paris.

Stravinsky went as far as arranging a concert to launch Antheil's career in the French capital, but the younger man failed to show up, preferring to travel to Poland with Markus.

Antheil and Markus finally arrived in Paris in June 1923, in time to attend the premiere of Stravinsky's Les Noces, but the relationship with Stravinsky did not survive for long.  Stravinsky cut the younger man dead, having discovered that Antheil had boasted that "Stravinsky admired his work." While the breach devastated Antheil, he continued to produce such works as Mechanisms, Piano Sonata No. 3 ("Death of Machines"), and Sonata Sauvage.

Antheil found Paris, at the time a center of musical and artistic innovation, to be a "green tender morning" compared to the "black night" of Berlin.

Antheil was asked to make his Paris debut at the opening of the Ballets suédois, an important Paris social event, on October 4, 1923.  The program included one of the Mechanisms, Piano Sonata No. 2 ("The Airplane"), and Sonata Sauvage.  Halfway through his performance a riot broke out, much to Antheil's delight.  According to Antheil "People were fighting in the aisles, yelling, clapping, hooting! Pandemonium! . . . the police entered, and any number of surrealists, society personages, and people of all descriptions were arrested. . . .  Paris hadn't had such a good time since the premiere of Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps."

The riot was filmed and may in fact have been engineered, as the Marcel L'Herbier movie L'Inhumaine needed a riot scene set in a concert hall.  In the audience were Erik Satie, Darius Milhaud, Man Ray, Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, and Francis Picabia.  Antheil was delighted when Satie and Milhaud praised his music.

Other reactions were less positive.  His technique was loud, brazen, and percussive. Critics wrote that he hit the piano rather than played it, and indeed he often injured himself by doing so.  As part of his "bad boy" behavior, Antheil provocatively pulled a revolver from his jacket and laid it on the piano.

During this time, Antheil and Markus lived in a one-bedroom apartment above Sylvia Beach's bookshop Shakespeare and Company.  Beach described him "as fellow with bangs, a squished nose and a big mouth with a grin in it. A regular American high school boy."

She was very supportive, and introduced Antheil to her circle of friends and customers including Erik Satie, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Virgil Thomson, and Ernest Hemingway.  Joyce and Pound were soon talking of an opera collaboration.

Pound, in particular, was to become an extravagant supporter and promoter of Antheil and his work, comparing him variously to Stravinsky and James Cagney, and describing him as breaking down music to its "musical atom."  Pound introduced Antheil to Jean Cocteau who in turn helped launch Antheil into the musical salons of Paris, and commissioned him to write three violin sonatas for his companion, Olga Rudge.  In 1924 Pound published Antheil and the Treatise on Harmony, as part of his campaign to boost Antheil's reputation.  The book may have done Antheil more harm than good, and the composer was to distance himself from it in his memoir.

He married Boski Markus in 1925, the year of Ballet Mécanique, originally conceived to be accompanied by a film by experimental filmmakers Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy (with cinematography by Man Ray).  The first performances of the piece, in 1925 and 1926, did not include the film, which turned out to last around 17 minutes, only half as long as the score.

Antheil described this "first major work" as "scored for countless numbers of player pianos. All percussive. Like machines. All efficiency. No LOVE. Written without sympathy. Written cold as an army operates. Revolutionary as nothing has been revolutionary."

The original scoring called for 16 specially synchronized player pianos, two grand pianos, electronic bells, xylophones, bass drums, a siren and three airplane propellers, but difficulties with the synchronization resulted in a rewrite for a single pianola and multiple human pianists.

The piece consisted of periods of music and interludes of silence set against the roar of the airplane propellers.

Antheil described as "by far my most radical work... It is the rhythm of machinery, presented as beautifully as an artist knows how."  He assiduously promoted the composition, and even engineered his supposed "disappearance" while on a visit to Africa so as to get media attention for a preview concert.

The official Paris première in June 1926 was sponsored by an American patroness who at the end of the concert was tossed in a blanket by three baronesses and a duke.

The work enraged some of the concert-goers, whose objections were drowned out by the cacophonous music, while others vocally supported it, and the concert ended with a outdoor riot.

On April 10, 1927, Antheil rented New York's Carnegie Hall in order to present an entire concert devoted to his works, including the American debut of Ballet Mécanique in a scaled-down version. He commissioned elaborate backdrops of skyscrapers and machines, and engaged an African American orchestra to premiere his Jazz Symphony.

The concert started well, but according to the concert's promoter and producer when the wind machine was turned on "all hell, in a minor way, broke loose." During the gale, audience members clutched their programs and their hats, one "tied a handkerchief to his cane and waved it wildly in the air in a sign of surrender."  Much to the amusement of the audience, the untested siren failed to sound on cue, despite frantic cranking and reached its climax only after the end of the performance, as the audience were clapping and leaving the hall.

American critics were hostile, calling the concert "a bitter disappointment" and dismissing the Ballet Mécanique as "boring, artless, and naive" and Antheil's hoped-for riots failed to materialize. The failure of the Ballet Mécanique affected him deeply, and he never fully recovered his reputation during his lifetime, though his interest in the mechanical was emulated by other prominent composers such as Arthur Honegger, Sergei Prokofiev, and Erik Satie.

In the late 1920's, Antheil moved to Germany, where he worked as assistant musical director of the Stadttheater in Berlin, and wrote music for the ballet and theatre.

In 1930, he premiered his first opera Transatlantic, which involved American politics and gangsters, and was a success at the Frankfurt Opera.

That same year, as "Stacey Bishop," he wrote a murder mystery called Death in the Dark with a character based on Ezra Pound

In 1933, the rise of the Nazi party made Antheil's avant-garde music unwelcome in Germany, and at the height of the Depression, he returned to the US and settled in New York City.  He reentered American life with enthusiasm, organizing concerts, working on committees with Aaron Copland and Wallingford Riegger, and writing piano, ballet and film scores as well as a Trojan-subject opera Helen Retires, which did not meet with success.  While his music moved away from more extreme aspects of modernism, and more tonal, neo-romantic aspects were discernible -- the Léger-Murphy film and Antheil Ballet Mecanique score were finally performed together at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1935... a year which also included the premiere of his film-score The Scoundrel.

In 1936 Antheil travelled to Hollywood, where he became a sought-after film composer, writing more than 30 scores for such directors as Cecil B. DeMille and Nicholas Ray, including The Plainsman.

He was the film music reporter and critic for the magazine Modern Music from this point to 1940, writing columns considered lively and thoughtful, noting the comings and goings of musicians and composers during an era when the industry was flirting with more "modern" scores for films.  Antheil was disappointed, however, and wrote that "Hollywood, after a grand splurge with new composers and new ideas, has settled back into its old grind of producing easy and sure-fire scores."

Antheil wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper relationship advice column, as well as regular columns in magazines such as Esquire and Coronet. He considered himself an expert on female endocrinology, and wrote a series of articles about how to determine the availability of women based on glandular effects on their appearance, with titles such as The Glandbook for the Questing Male (1936).

Another book of "glandular criminology" was titled Every Man His Own Detective (1937), the year the Antheils' only child, a son, was born. 

Before World War II, he participated in the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League, putting on exhibits of artworks banned in Nazi Germany such as those by Käthe Kollwitz.   He also published a book of war predictions, entitled The Shape of the War to Come.

Despite finding the movie industry hostile to modern music, complaining that it was a "closed proposition" and describing most background scores as "unmitigated tripe" -- he became increasingly dependent on more independent producers such as Ben Hecht to give him work, such as Angels Over Broadway (1940).

This was the year in which Antheil's younger brother was Henry W. , Jr., as a diplomatic courier, was killed over the Baltic Sea on June 14.

On a more positive note, the following year found the breach with Stravinsky healed, when older composer sent the Antheil family tickets to one of his Hollywood concerts.

Antheil's interest in endocrinology brought him into contact with the actress Hedy Lamarr, who sought his advice about how she might enhance her upper torso.  He suggested glandular extracts, but their conversation then moved on to torpedoes.

During World War II Lamarr, who was fiercely pro-American, realized that a single radio-controlled torpedo could severely damage or sink enemy ships.  However these radio-controlled torpedoes could easily be detected and jammed, by broadcasting interference at the frequency of the control-signal, thereby causing the torpedo to go off course.

Using knowledge of torpedoes gained from her first husband -- munitions manufacturer Mandl -- Antheil and Lamarr developed the idea of using frequency hopping: in this case using a piano roll to randomly change the signal sent between the control-center and torpedo at short bursts within a range of 88 frequencies on the spectrum (there are 88 black and white keys on a piano keyboard). The specific code for the sequence of frequencies would be held identically by the controlling ship and in the torpedo. This basically encrypted the signal, as it was impossible for the enemy to scan and jam all 88 frequencies, which this would have required too much power. Antheil would control the frequency-hopping sequence using a player-piano mechanism, which he had earlier used to score his Ballet Mécanique.

On August 11, 1942 -- U.S. Patent 2,292,387 was granted to Antheil and "Hedy Kiesler Markey," Lamarr's married name at the time. This early version of frequency hopping, though novel, soon met with opposition from the U.S. Navy and was not adopted.

In 1945, Antheil published his autobiography Bad Boy of Music, which became a bestseller.

Other film work continued, such as Specter of the Rose (1946).

Serenade No. 1, Piano Sonata No. 4, Songs of Experience, Symphony No. 5 ("Joyous") (1948), and 6 ("After Delacroix") (1948) -- all written in 1948 -- showed a self-described desire "to disassociate myself from the passé modern schools of the last half-century, and to create a music for myself and those around me which has no fear of developed melody, real development itself, tonality, or other understandable forms."  Such works were in a more romantic style and influenced by Prokofiev and Shostakovich, as well as American music including jazz.

In scores including In a Lonely Place (1950, starring Humphrey Bogart), Antheil was confident in his ability of his music to save a weak film. "If I say so myself, I've saved a couple of sure flops," he said.

His 1953 opera Volpone was premiered in New York in 1953 to mixed reviews

In 1954, Antheil created a modified version of Ballet Mechanique for percussion, four pianos, and a recording of an airplane motor.

A visit to Spain influenced some of his late works, including the film scores to  Dementia (1955) and The Pride and the Passion (1957).

He also accepted a commission from the CBS Television network to compose a theme for their newsreel and documentary film series The Twentieth Century (1957–1966), narrated by Walter Cronkite.

Antheil died of a heart attack in  Manhattan, and was buried in Riverview Cemetery, Trenton.  His students included Henry Brant and Benjamin Lees.

The Antheil-Lamarr frequency-hopping idea was not implemented until 1962, when it was used by U.S. military ships during a blockade of Cuba after the patent had expired.  Perhaps owing to this lag in development, the patent was little known until 1997, when the Electronic Frontier Foundation gave Lamarr a belated award for her contributions.  In 1998, an Ottawa wireless technology developer, Wi-LAN Inc., acquired a 49% claim to the patent from Lamarr for an undisclosed amount of stock. The idea serves as a basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology.

Charles Amirkhanian is the executor of the Antheil estate.

Selected Works List

Piano Concerto No. 1 (1922)
Piano Sonata No. 1 (1922) 
Piano Sonata No. 2 ("The Airplane") (1922)
Symphony No. 1 ("Zingareska") (1922, rev. 1923)
Mechanisims (1923)
Piano Sonata No. 3 ("Death of Machines") (1923)
Sonata Sauvage (1923)
Symphony for Five Instruments (1923)
Violin Sonata No. 1 (1923)
Violin Sonata No. 2 (1923)
String Quartet No. 1 (1924) 
Violin Sonata No. 3 (1924)
Ballet Mécanique (1925, revised 1953)
A Jazz Symphony (1925, revised 1955)
Piano Concerto No. 2 (1926)
String Quartet No. 2 (1927)
Transatlantic (1930)
Helen Retires (1931)
Concert for Chamber Orchestra (1932)
Once in a Blue Moon (1935)
The Scoundrel (1935) 
The Plainsman (1936)
Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)
The Buccaneer (1938)
Symphony No. 2 (1938, rev. 1943)
Symphony No. 3 ("American") (1939, rev. 1946)
Adventure in Diamonds (1940)
Angels Over Broadway (1940)
Symphony No. 4 ("1942") (1942)
Decatur at Algiers (1943)
Symphony No. 5 ("Tragic") (1945, withdrawn)
Violin Sonatina (1945)
That Brennan Girl (1946)
Plainsman and the Lady (1946)
Specter of the Rose (1946)
Violin Concerto (1946)
Along the Oregon Trail (1947)
Piano Sonata No. 3 (1947)
Repeat Performance (1947)
Hot-time Dance (1948)
McKonkey's Ferry (1948)
Piano Sonata No. 4 (1948)
String Quartet No. 3 (1948)
Symphony No. 5 "Joyous" (1948)
Symphony No. 6 "After Delacroix" (1948)
Violin Sonata No. 4 (1948)
The Fighting Kentuckian (1949)
Knock on Any Door (1949)
Tokyo Joe (1949)
Tom Sawyer – California Overture (1949)
We Were Strangers (1949)
House by the River (1950)
In a Lonely Place (1950)
Eight Fragments from Shelley (1951)
Sirocco (1951)
Trumpet Sonata (1951)
Actors and Sin (1952) (uncredited)
The Sniper (1952)
Volpone (1952)
The Juggler (1953)
Target Hong Kong (1953)
The Brothers (1954)
Hunters of the Deep (1954)
Venus in Africa (1954)
The Wish (1954)
Capital of the World Suite (1955)
Dementia (1955)
Not as a Stranger (1955)
Air Power (1956) TV series (unknown episodes)
The Young Don't Cry (1957)
The Pride and the Passion (1957)

Fellow Travelers / Michael McDonagh

It's often said that the West coast leans towards Asia and the East coast towards Europe. Just think of Lou Harrison, John Cage, and Henry Cowell's Asian-inflected work in California in the 1940's, and the vastly different musical landscape at the same time in the East -- meaning, of course, New York, which was dominated by an influx of European emigre composers from Kurt Weill to Bela Bartok, to name just two. And now, with the rootlessness of post-modern life, and the porous effects of globalization, the East seems to have become the West, and vice versa, meaning both sides are faced with the same socio-economic and artistic crises. The six works by six composers at San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra's Fellow Travelers concert (November 9, Old First Church) seemed to point up these differences and commonalities in widely different ways.

David Sprung's New York background -- he studied there with Italian masters Vittorio Rieti and Dallapiccola -- and his work as professor emeritus at California State University, East Bay, merges these apparent contradictions into a unified whole in his Haiku, for Tenor, Wind Quintet, and Piano  (2013).  It was charming (a virtue in short supply these days), transparently scored, and deeply evocative, due in large part to Michael Desnoyer's mellifluous voice.  Italian-born San Francisco resident Davide Verrota's Invitation (2013), for solo piano, seemed to evoke one of the West's first encounters with the East, namely the heavily modal, hence exotic sound of Debussy's The Sunken Cathedral (1910), which Verotta didn't quote directly, but surely knows, and his sonorous block chords, which Verotta produced with commanding grace, conjured depths and distances not dissimilar to Debussy's.

Composer-oboist Philip Freihofner's Filled with Moonlight (2012) also had an Eastern (or in this case specifically a Japanese) feel, and, though Freihofner wrote about his use of tone-clusters here, the piece struck these ears as a kind of slowly unfolding arabesque, punctuated and magnified by gentle dissonances.

The germ for Lisa Scola Prosek's upcoming opera, The Lariat, was a set of expanding melodic gestures set within a subtly scored frame.  Her writing is always magical and cooly seductive and the solo part, for Native American soprano Desiree Harp, was beautifully shaped and sensitively projected.  Scola Prosek's musical language here was not Asian per se, but it did sound modal with the between-this-and-that feel which this kind of writing always suggests.  Her son Eduard Prosek's The Curse (2013) -- from his EP Willow Tree, with the composer on solo guitar, backed by the SFCCO, was vigorous and surprising, and happily free of the earnest posturings of his fellow 20- somethings' "deep" takes on love and loss.

Mark Alburger always does something entertaining and sometimes profound, and his Double Concerto ("Fellow Travellers") (2012), which was played here by pianists Eytan and Gabriel Schillinger-Hyman, is mapped, like many of his pieces, on another work, and in this case it's largely but not exclusively based on Francis Poulenc's 1932 two-piano concerto which uses Javanese gamelan-like and Japanese gagaku-like writing in salient places which is, of course, where the East goes West.

The SFCCO's ensemble throughout the evening was pitch perfect and super-tight with each instrumental choir blending into the whole, or standing out when intended.  "Colleagues" has always sounded and still does sound pretentious but these musicians here weren't just competing for God- knows-what, but actually friends. And, indeed, Fellow Travelers.

Calendar for December 2013

December 28

The Opus Project presents Opus 12:  Gustav Holst's In the Bleak Midwinter, Arnold Schoenberg's  Jane Grey, Julius Lenzberg's Operatic Rag, Bela Bartok's Four Piece for Orchestra: Scherzo, Zoltan Kodaly's Serenade, Anton Webern's The Day Is Over, Sergei Prokofiev's Humoresque Scherzo, Paul Hindemith's Murderer, Hope of Women: Prelude, Kurt Weill's Concerto for Violin and Winds: Nocturne, Dmitri Shostakovich's Piano Sonata No. 1: II, Samuel Barber's First Essay for Orchestra: Finale, Alan Hovhaness's Sonata Ricercare: II, excerpts from Benjamin Britten's Mont Juic, Alberto Ginastera's Creole Dance, Oliver Knussen's Trumpets: Introduction, Mark Alburger's Procession IV, and Stardust's Motherequiem.  Berkeley Arts Festival, Berkeley, CA.

Chronicle of October 2013

October 2

New Music / New Places presents works of Claude Debussy, Edgar Varese, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Matthias Pintscher, and Gabriela Lena Frank, performed by flutist Carol Wincenc and cellist Jay Campbell.  Robert Miller Gallery, New York, NY.  "[The program] was alluringly spiky music that felt at home amid Suddenness and Certainty, the gallery’s vividly colored current group show.  Mr. Pintscher’s Figura V / Assonanza for solo cello (2000) made particular sense in a visual-arts context. Inspired by Cy Twombly, its textures whisper and quiver, with silences and faint notes, rendered almost orthographic by Mr. Campbell’s clarity and specificity, alternating with frenetic dissolution.  Ms. Frank’s Cuatro Bosquejos Pre-Incaicos (Four Pre-Incan Sketches) from 2006 was also a response to art, in this case objects that she found in museums in Peru. The first movement, Flautista Mochica, pairs a gauzy-toned flute line and a strumming cello; the third, Mujer Lambayeque, combines earthy rhythms and ethereal tonalities.  Ms. Wincenc, a noted soloist and teacher and a longtime advocate of new music, played Varèse’s Density 21.5 (1936, revised in 1946) with a soulful, keening tone, and reserves of power for the piercing high notes near the end. She and Mr. Campbell came together at the end for Villa-Lobos’s Assobio a Jato (The Jet Whistle, 1950), a sensuous combination of her bright, agile tone and his rich, rhapsodic colors" [Zachary Woolfe, The New York Times, 10/4/13].

October 3

American Symphony Orchestra in New York Avant-Garde: works of George Antheil, Aaron Copland, Charles Griffes, Carl Ruggles, and Edgar Varese.  Carnegie Hall, New York, NY.  "New York Avant-Garde . . . focused on music from the seven-year period just after World War I. . . .  In works like Antheil’s Jazz Symphony (1925) and Copland’s Organ Symphony (1924), high art and popular music -- most notably in the form of jazz -- mixed before going their separate ways for decades.  These were works desperate to interrogate, not ingratiate. But the American Symphony’s alert, often simply beautiful performances emphasized the sumptuous, lyrical allure of music better known for its implacability.  The hulking blasts of Ruggles’s Men and Mountains (1924) weren’t stinted, but neither were the quieter twilight dissonances of its all-strings second movement, Lilacs.  In Griffes’s ingeniously orchestrated 1918 Poem for flute (the lyrical, agile Randolph Bowman), strings, harp, two French horns and percussion, the horns shone out of the thickets of strings like gold nuggets in grass.  . . . Botstein’s [square] beat . . . brought out the ominous undertones in Antheil’s Jazz Symphony, whose relentless repetitions of small bits of material suggest a reflection on jazz in the age of mechanical reproduction. The orchestra left it ambiguous whether the final waltz -- first in the able hands of the piano soloist, Blair McMillen, then those of the whole orchestra -- evoked the nostalgia of a state fair or a lifeless automaton.  Copland’s Organ Symphony, with Stephen Tharp as soloist, slips from melancholy to bombastic drama and back again.  But bombast is status quo in Varèse’s hectic Amériques (1918-21), with its sirens, whistles and crow calls. . . . [I]ts opening passages suggested The Rite of Spring zoomed through in fast-forward, and its heaving ending sounded like a monstrous waltz trying to emerge from a dark sea" [Zachary Woolfe, The New York Times, 10/4/13].


October 26

The Opus Project presents Opus 10.  Arnold Schoenberg's String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10, No. 3; Bela Bartok's  Image, Op. 10, No. 2; Igor Stravinsky's Petrushka: Russian Dance; Anton Webern's Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 10; Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 10: Allegro; Darius Milhaud's  Poem of Chateaubriand, Op. 10, No. 3; Paul Hindemith's String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10, No. 1; Kurt Weill's Frauentanz, Op. 10, No. 1; Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1, Op. 10, No. 2: Trio; Samuel Barber's James Joyce Song, Op. 10, No. 1; Benjamin Britten's Bridge Variation, Op. 10, No. 1; John Bilotta's Electronic Composition No. 10 "The Lottery of Babylon"; Oliver Knussen's Ocean de Terre, Op. 10, No. 1: Introduction; and Mark Alburger's Nocturnes for Insomniacs, Op. 10, No. 3.  Community Music Center, San Francisco, CA.


October 31

The Chiara Quartet plays the Complete Bartok Quartets.  Sheslow Auditorium, Des Moines, IA.  Through November 1.

21ST-CENTURY MUSIC / November 2013

21ST
CENTURY
MUSIC

November 2013

Volume 20, Number 11


Malcolm Arnold / Elizabeth Agnew

Lost and Found / Michael McDonagh

Calendar for November 2013

Chronicle of September 2013

Illustration / Malcolm Arnold



Editorial Staff

Mark Alburger
EDITOR-PUBLISHER

Harriet March Page
ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Patti Noel Deuter
ASSISTANT EDITOR

Erling Wold
WEBMASTER

Elizabeth Agnew
Alexis Alrich
Katherine Buono
Ken Bullock
A.J. Churchill
David Cleary
Jeff Dunn
Phillip George
Elliot Harmon
Brian Holmes
Jeff Kaliss
John Lane
Arel Lucas
Michael McDonagh
Chip Michael
Tom Moore
Carol Marie Reynolds
William Rowland
Lisa Scola Prosek
Andrew Shapiro
Alice Shields
CORRESPONDENTS


INFORMATION FOR SUBSCRIBERS

21ST-CENTURY MUSIC is published monthly by 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC, P.O. Box 2842, San Anselmo, CA 94960. ISSN 1534-3219.

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Malcolm Arnold / Elizabeth Agnew

Malcolm Henry Arnold, (b. October 21, 1921, Northampton, UK - September  23,  2006, Norwich) was the youngest of five children from a prosperous family of shoemakers.  After seeing Louis Armstrong play in Bournemouth, he took up the trumpet at 12, and, five years, later won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music.  At the RCM he studied composition with Gordon Jacob and Ernest Hall.  In 1941 he joined the London Philharmonic Orchestra as second trumpet

That same year, he registered as a conscientious objector upon joining the National Fire Service, becoming principal with the LPO two years later.

Also in 1943, Arnold wrote the first of several highly successful concert overtures, Beckus the Dandipratt, and the began his series of concerti with one for horn, in a style acknowledging the influences of Hector Berlioz, Gustav Mahler, Bela Bartok, and jazz.

The next year, after his brother had been killed in the Royal Air Force, Arnold volunteered for military service.  When the army put him in a military band, he shot himself in the foot to get back to civilian life.  Following a season as principal trumpet with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, he returned to the London Philharmonic in 1946, for two years.

Soon after, Arnold wrote a film score, the first for over a hundred for documentaries and features between 1947 and 1969.

His nine symphonies, beginning with No. 1 (Op. 22, 1949), are among his most controversial and significant works, and often deeply personal and serious. It was at this time that Arnold also wrote Clarinet Concerto, Op. 20 (1949), for Benny Goodman.

The 1950's proved an especially prolific period for Arnold, such that by 1951, British critics ranked him with Benjamin Britten as one of the most sought-after composers, connecting his music with that of Jean Sibelius.  Arnold's natural melodic gift earned a reputation as composer of light music in works such as concert overtures, and dance sets.  The latter, including the English Dances (Opp. 27 [1950], and 33 [1951]), are popular both in their original orchestral guise and in later wind- and brass-band arrangements.  These dances are also the basis for Solitaire, choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan.

His first in a sequence of highly-successful collaborations with director David Lean was for 1952's The Sound Barrier.  This was followed the next year by The Captain's Paradise.

1954 saw the composition of his Harmonica Concerto, Op. 46, as well as the films Hobson's Choice You Know What Sailors Are, and The Belles of St Trinian's (a favorite score that was to be the first of a series through 1980).  After Trapeze (1956), his score for Lean's epic Bridge on the River Kwai, won an Academy Award in its year of composition -- 1957.  Cinematic effort in the following season included The Roots of Heaven and The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958), the latter winning an Ivor Novello Award.

His set of Scottish Dances, Op. 59, appeared in 1959, as did his Guitar Concerto, Op. 67, for Julian Bream. Other cinematic successesof this period included No Love for Johnnie (1960) and Whistle Down the Wind (1961).

By this time, Arnold had a reputation for being unpleasant, frequently drunk, and highly promiscuous --  divorcing his wife in that year.  His second wife was forced to take out a court order upon separation, and, after this divorce, he made two suicide attempts.

Following 1962's Cornish Dances, Op. 91, and two more film scores (The Inspector and The Lion) -- his three-hands-on-two-pianos concerto, for the husband-and-wife team of Cyril Smith and Phyllis Sellick, was enthusiastically premiered at the 1969 Proms.  This was also the year of Arnold's last major film score, David Copperfield.

In 1978, he was treated as an in-patient for several months in the acute psychiatric ward at the Royal Free Hospital, London, and the next year entered St Andrew's Hospital in Northampton to be treated for depression and alcoholism.

Arnold overcame both, despite being given only a year to live in the early 1980's, lived more than 20 more years thereafter, completing his final symphony in 1986, the same year as the Irish Dances (Op. 126), which were soon followd in 1988 by Cello Concerto, Op. 136, for Julian Lloyd Webber, and a Welsh (Op. 138, 1988) dance set.   By the time of his 70th birthday in 1991, Arnold's reputation recovered and he was able to appear at Royal Albert Hall to receive an ovation after a Proms performance of his Guitar Concerto.

Malcolm Arnold died at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, Norwich, on September 23,  2006, after suffering from a chest infection.  His last work, The Three Musketeers, a pastiche assembled by John Longstaff and Anthony Meredith, was premiered that same day by the Northern Ballet, at the Alhambra Theatre in Bradford.

A secondary school in Northampton, was renamed the Malcolm Arnold Academy after the composer on September 3, 2010.


Selected Works List

Divertimento No. 1, Op. 1 (1945)
Larch Trees, Op. 3 (1943)
Three Shanties for Woodwind Quintet, Op. 4 (1943)
Comedy Overture: Beckus the Dandipratt, Op. 5 (1943)
Trio for Flute, Viola and Bassoon Op. 6 (1942)
Quintet for Flute, Violin, Viola, Horn and Bassoon, Op. 7 (1944)
Variations on a Ukrainian Folk-Song, Op 9 (1944)
Duo for Flute and Viola, Op 10 (1945)
Horn Concerto No. 1, Op. 11 (1945)
Symphonic Suite, Op. 12
Symphony for Strings, Op. 13 (1946)
Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 15 (1947)
Children's Suite for Piano, Op 16 (1947)
Viola Sonata, Op. 17 (1947)
Two Bagatelles, Op. 18 (1947)
Flute Sonatina, Op. 19 (1948)
Concertino, Op 19a (2000)
Concerto for Clarinet and Strings No 1, Op 20 (1949)
The Smoke (Overture), Op. 21 (1948)
Antony and Cleopatra (1949)
Symphony No. 1, Op. 22 (1949)
Divertimento No. 2, Op. 24 (1950)
Laudate Dominum (Psalm 150) for choir and organ, Op. 25 (1950)
Serenade for Small Orchestra, Op. 26 (1950)
English Dances, Set 1, Op. 27 (1950)
Oboe Sonatina, Op. 28 (1951)
Clarinet Sonatina, Op. 29 (1951)
Concertino for Clarinet and Strings, Op 29a (1951)
Symphonic Study Machines Op. 30 (1951)
A Sussex Overture, Op. 31 (1951)
Concerto for Piano Duet and Strings, Op. 32 (1951)
English Dances, Set 2, Op. 33 (1951)
The Dancing Master, Op. 34 (1952; one act)
Two Ceremonial Psalms, Op. 35 (1952)
Eight Children's Piano Pieces, Op 36 (1952)
Divertimento for Flute, Oboe and Clarinet, Op 37 (1952)
Oboe Concerto, Op. 39 (1952)
Symphony No. 2, Op. 40 (1953)
Allegretto and Vivace for Concert Band, Op 40a (1953)
Recorder Sonatina, Op. 41 (1953)   
Homage to the Queen, Op. 42 (1953)
Violin Sonata No. 2, Op. 43 (1953)
Flourish for a Birthday, Op 44 (1953)
Flute Concerto No. 1, Op. 45 (1954)
Harmonica Concerto, Op. 46 (1954)
Organ Concerto, Op. 47 (1954)
Sinfonietta No. 1, Op. 48 (1954)
Rinaldo and Armida, Op. 49 (1954)
Serenade for Guitar and Strings, Op. 50 (1955)
John Clare Cantata, Op. 52 (1955)
Little Suite No. 1, Op. 53 (1955)
Piano Trio, Op. 54 (1956)
Song of Praise "John Clare", Op. 55 (1956)
The Open Window, Op. 56 (1956; one act)
A Grand, Grand Overture, Op. 57 (1956)
Horn Concerto No. 2, Op. 58 (1956)
The Bridge on the River Kwai Concert Suite (1957)
Four Scottish Dances, Op. 59 (1957)
Oboe Quartet, Op. 61 (1957)
Toy Symphony, Op. 62 (1957)
Symphony No. 3, Op. 63 (1957)
Commonwealth Christmas Overture, Op. 64 (1957)
Sinfonietta No. 2, Op. 65 (1958)
Guitar Concerto, Op. 67 (1959)
Sweeney Todd, Op. 68 (1959)
Sweeney Todd Concert Suite, Op. 68a (1959)
The Song of Simeon, Op. 69 (1959)
Symphony No. 4, Op. 71 (1960)
Quintet For Brass, Op. 73 (1961)
Symphony No. 5, Op. 74 (1961)
Divertimento No. 2, revised, Op. 75 (1961)
Grand Concerto Gastronomique, Op. 76
Little Suite No. 2, Op. 78 (1961)
Attleborough, Op 78a (1923)
Concerto for Two Violins and String Orchestra, Op. 77 (1962)
Electra, ballet, Op. 79 (1963)
Little Suite No 1 for Brass Band, Op. 80 (1963)
Little Suite No. 4, Op. 80a (1963)
Sinfonietta No. 3, Op. 81 (1964)
Water Music, Op. 82 (1964)
Sunshine Overture, Op. 83 (1964)
Five pieces for Violin and Piano, Op. 84 (1965
Duo for Two Cellos, Op 85 (1965)
Fantasy for Bassoon, Op 86 (1966)
Fantasy for Clarinet, Op 87 (1966)
Fantasy for Horn, Op. 88 (1966)
Fantasy for Flute, Op 89 (1966)
Fantasy for Oboe Op. 90 (1966)
Four Cornish Dances, Op. 91 (1966)
Little Suite No 2 for Brass Band, Op. 93 (1967)
Little Suite No. 5, Op. 93a (1957)
Symphony No. 6, Op. 95 (1967)
Peterloo Overture, Op. 97 (1968)
Salute to Thomas Merritt, Op. 98 (1987)
Anniversary Overture, Op. 99 (1968)
Fantasy for Trumpet, Op. 100 (1969)
Fantasy for Trombone, Op. 101 (1969)
Fantasy for Tuba, Op. 102 (1969)
Concerto for Piano 3 Hands and Orchestra, Op. 104 (1969, for Phyllis and Cyril)
Concerto for 28 players, Op. 105 (1970)
Fantasy for Guitar, Op. 107 (1971)
Viola Concerto, Op. 108 (1971)
Song of Freedom for choir and brass band, Op. 109 (1972)
The Fairfield Overture, Op. 110 (1972)
Flute Concerto No. 2, Op. 111 (1972)
A Flourish For Orchestra, Op. 112 (1973)
Symphony No. 7, Op. 113 (1973)
Fantasy for Brass Band, Op 114a (1973)
Concerto No 2 for Clarinet and Orchestra, Op 115 (1974)
Fantasy on a Theme of John Field Op 116
Fantasy for Harp, Op. 117 (1975)
The Return of Odysseus, Op. 119 (1976)
Philharmonic Concerto, Op. 120 (1976)
Flute Sonata, Op. 121 (1977)
Variations for Orchestra, Op. 122 (1977)
Symphony for Brass Instruments, Op. 123 (1978)
Symphony No. 8, Op. 124 (1978)
Trumpet Concerto, Op. 125 (1988)
Four Irish Dances, Op. 126 (1986)
Fantasy for Recorder, Op. 127 (1987)
Symphony No. 9, Op. 128 (1986)
Three Fantasies for Piano, Op. 129 (1986)
Fantasy for Cello, Op 130 (1987)
Little Suite No 3 for Brass Band, Op. 131
Brass Quintet No. 2, Op. 132
Recorder Concerto, Op. 133 (1988)
Divertimento for Two Bb Clarinets, Op 135 (1988)
Concerto for Cello, Op 136 (1988)
Four Welsh Dances, Op. 138 (1988)
Flourish for a Battle, Op 139 (1989)
Robert Kett Overture, Op. 141 (1988)
A Manx Suite (Little Suite No. 3), Op. 142 (1990)

Lost and Found / Michael McDonagh

Philip Glass.  North Star (1977).
Philip Glass: Farfisa, Yamaha, and Hammond organs, Fender Rhodes piano, Arp synthesizer
Dickie Landry: soprano, tenor saxophones; flute
Joan LaBarbara, Gene Rickard: voices

Re-issued as part of Analog (2006)
www.orangemountainmusic.com 0029

 
North Star: Mark di Suvero (1977)
Francois de Menil, director
Barbara Rose, writer
Philip Glass, composer

North Star: Mark di Suvero (1977, digital re-issue, 2011)
www.microcinema.com

Mark di Suvero at Crissy Field, May 22, 2013 - May 26, 2014, San Francisco, CA. www.sfmoma.org/exhib_events/exhibitions/568

Documentaries about artists and their work are often dry affairs with frequently faceless music.  The subject tends to get lost in artspeak or woozy generalities and the music just marks time.  But Francois de Menil's North Star: Mark di Suvero (1977, re-issued by Microcinema, 2011) is an incisive look at a vital American sculptor, scored by the equally vital American composer Philip Glass.  It's a far cry from one about an academic public sculptor or the imperative towards the future that the New Vienna School and its disciples were driven by, because both artists work squarely in the present tense.  Who looks to tomorrow when today's enough, or as di Suvero puts it here: "The artist has to reject whatever the present society is doing to create the new image, that new form, to discover a new approach to the universe."

Pairing di Suvero with Glass is apt because sculpture, like music -- and music, like sculpture -- exists in space, and is perceived as space-in-time.  We may remember what we saw or heard a certain way, and then see and hear it differently another time.  This is clearly true of Glass's score, which I've known since its original incarnation on a Virgin LP, and which has struck me as obsessively redundant or gloriously fresh, depending on how I listened, in seemingly opposed moments.  The directness and simplicity of the materials is startling -- even mundane -- but Glass's imagination makes it work.  Keyboard vamps punctuate at surprising times.  Nonsense syllables circle each other. The intevallic material sometimes suggests School-of-Paris Perotin, like those long homophonic lines in early Glass pieces such as Music in Contrary Motion (1969), though it's tersely abbreviated here. The brevity of the music and its sometimes industrial sound tease and jolt the ear, and Glass' gift for weight, timing, and color is apparent in this early film score, which counts as his second full one, after Gordon Quinn's documentary Inquiring Nuns (c. 1977).

Film composers are used to having their scores thrown out (Hollywood has trashed about a half dozen of Glass's in the last few years, and Kubrick famously threw out Alex North's for 2001), or having the music they wrote for specific cues end up in entirely different places.  Glass avers that he wrote pieces for di Suvero's sculptures seen in the film; but none of these are heard complete, and many become partial bits for completely different pieces.  Glass may have had an agreement with de Menil to let the director use whatever he wanted for his cuts, with a view to releasing his score as an LP, which, as he notes, has "a different sequence . . . chosen in order to produce an independent and coherent listening experience. "

The music seems to work both ways, and the widely varied cinematography by de Menil, Alon Metzger, and Christian Blackwood situates and reveals di Suvero's work as well as his persona.  The sculptor comes off charming, passionate, articulate and vulnerable, in less than an hour's running time.  And it isn't often that a film and its music leave us with wanting something more, not from lack, but from abundance, squarely glimpsed.

Calendar for November 2013

November 2

Fifth-Annual Swarthmore Student-Alumni Composition Concert, including Peter Schickele's Dream Dances and Mark Alburger's Portraits of Three [Flute] Players.  Lang Concert Hall, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA.


November 5

Composer's Voice: Crane Harp Ensemble celebrates its fifteenth season with Fifteen Minutes of Fame.  Jan Hus Church, New York, NY. "15 one-minute works by different composers specifically written for The Crane Ensemble. The composers include: Erik Branch, Inna Buganina, David Heinick, Elbert Liu, Martin Loridan, Roger May, Buck McDaniel, Michael Mikulka, Akmal Parwez, Robert Percy, Edward Ruchalski, Curtis Nathaniel Smith, Gregoria Karides Suchy, Christopher M. Wicks, and Farcry C. Zuke. In addition to the Fifteen Minutes of Fame "suite," two other works featured on this concert have been written for the Crane Harp Ensemble: Ryan Mix's When / Where Lightning Strikes at the T and Two Brothers Dance in Spacetime: Two Amalgamating Memories of Adolescence and their Art of Deliquescing Entropy, and a newly-commissioned work by John Paul Brabant titled Soliloquy. Also on this program are Domenick Argento's The Angel Israfil, Caroline Lizotte's Raga, Gregoria Karides Suchy's Save, O Lord, Thy People, and Sufjan Steven's Chicago, arranged by ensemble member, Mikaela Davis. Snell Hall, Crane School of Music, SUNY-Potsdam, NY. Through November 10 (New York, NY).

November 9

San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra presents Fellow Travelers: Mark Alburger's Double Piano Concerto ("Fellow Travellers"), Phil Freihofner's Filled with Moonlight, Eduard Prosek's The Curse, Lisa Scola Prosek's Two Excerpts from "The Lariat", David Sprung's Haiku, and Davide Verotta's Invitation.  Old First Church, San Francisco, CA.


November 16

Anoushka Shankar.  Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, New York, NY.


November 20

75th Birthday Concert -- Charles Wuorinen: Virtuoso Works for Solo Piano and String Quartet.  The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY.


November 30 

The Opus Project presents Opus 11.  Arnold Schoenberg's Three Piano Pieces, Op. 11; Bela Bartok's  Duke Bluebeard's Castle, Op. 11; Anton Webern's Three Little Pieces for Cello and Piano, Op. 11, Sergei Prokofiev's Toccata, Op. 11; Paul Hindemith's Viola Sonata, Op. 11, No. 4; Kurt Weill's Recordare, Op. 11; Dmitri Shostakovich's Two Pieces for Octet, Op. 11; Samuel Barber's String Quartet, Op. 11; Benjamin Britten's On This Island (Auden), Op. 11; Terry Riley's In C (in an 11-minute performance) (1964); John Bilotta's The Ikariad (Electronic Composition 11); and Mark Alburger's Portraits of Three (Flute) Players, Op. 11.  Diablo Valley College, Pleasant Hill, CA.

Chronicle of September 2013

September 9

Dedalus Ensemble presents Made in USA.  Roulette, New York, NY.  "This polished, proficient Montpellier ensemble -- represented here by a sextet of Amélie Berson, flutist; Cyprien Busolini, violist; Pierre Stéphane Meugé, saxophonist; Deborah Walker, cellist; Thierry Madiot, trombonist; Didier Aschour, guitarist -- came together in 1996. Modern American music is one of its specialties, Mr. Aschour said from the stage between pieces. . . . "40˚ 44’ 5.82” N, 74˚ 1’ 38.53” W, by Devin Maxwell, was an amiably strident greeting, with chords and clusters hammered insistently, then lightly, in ragged unison (Running the title through Google Maps renders a street address in Manila, although the coordinates are actually those of a site in Hoboken, N.J).  A similar rhythmic vitality applied in Jonathan Marmor’s brightly pointillist Penguin Atlas of African History and Michael Vincent Waller’s sweetly lyrical Ritratto.  Quentin Tolimieri’s Any Number of Instruments dispatched Mr. Madiot to the balcony, his melancholy lines wafting out above moody chords floating up from the stage.  Coney Island, April 15, 2012, by Craig Shepard, ended the concert’s first half with dreamlike melancholy, punctuated with the metal tingle of triangles suspended from each player’s music stand.  Most of the works on the concert’s second half dealt in tonal ambiguity and intense, tactile timbres. For the first of Jason Brogan’s Deux Études, the musicians took places among audience members on the floor.  As they played near the threshold of audibility, your listening grew sharp and broad, folding the room’s ambience and outdoor street sounds into the piece.  The second étude, played later in the set, offered a concentrated perspective of similar gestures, with the players onstage.  Both Catherine Lamb’s Overlays Transparent/Opaque and John Hastings’s Theory of Harmony employed similar extremes of silence, space and detail.  In these pieces, placid discords conjured eerie overtones, wobbling beats and the sounds of instruments not present; Mr. Hastings added electronic static, his sounds rising above, then receding below, a wash of white noise.  Setting instruments aside, the Dedalus players ended with The Young Generation Is Right, by Travis Just, clapping their hands in steady patterns in alternation with electronic tones from a laptop computer.  After all the meditative intensity that preceded it, Mr. Just’s piece provided a welcome note of playful quirk" [Steve Smith, The New York Times, 9/10/13].


September 28

Teng Ensemble presents Eight.  Esplanade Recital Studio, Singapore.  "The all-Singaporean Teng Ensemble, now in their eighth year, also has eight members, conveniently giving their concert its title. All its members are music teachers and they have just recorded their first album. They include a countertenor and performers on the yangqin, pipa, sheng, guzheng, cello, erhu and guitar.  As composer-in-residence Benjamin Lim Yi took pains to explain repeatedly throughout the concert, this was not a classical Chinese music concert -- the ensemble decided early on in their existence that they did not want to pigeon-hole themselves in their repertoire, opting instead to bring as large an audience to Chinese music as possible.  In an effort to portray an image different from that usually associated with classical Chinese musicians, the ensemble has carved itself a niche in Singapore’s often bland music scene, and their chosen uniform -- a snazzy black suit, skinny tie ensemble speaks to such aspirations. . . .  A sea of white chrysanthemums took centre-stage, forming an attractive foreground between the audience and the musicians, and also a canvas on which mood lighting – very well executed, by the way – was projected. Eight new pieces / arrangements by Benjamin Lim Yi . . . were given their first performance.  Despite his varied experience in film scoring, with at least five film scores to his name, including the complex score . . . to Loo Zihan’s controversial Threshold, these pieces seemed often cut from the same cloth, with atmospheric, dreamy mood music . . . interspersed with pentatonic melodies on electronica.  Many of the tunes had a pre-recorded synthesized track -- the purely acoustic arrangement of  The Moon at Mt Guan  (lovely, but too short an excerpt) was an exception; Un die in Settembre was another.  Lim’s ability to create complex musical scores was not much in evidence here, many pieces were quite easy to listen to but not the most memorable, with what might best be described as chinoiserie with a bass-line, what might result if Kitaro (those drum beats in Forest Trail, mainly) got together with Yanni and Joe Hisaishi to write the soundtrack to a Chinese film score. . . . The most successful pieces were the mellow Un Die in Settembre, inspired by Hisaishi. and Valse, which Lim explained was influenced by their common love of Korean drama" [Derek Lim, The Flying Inkpot, 9/29/13].

The Opus Project presents Opus 9.  Alexander Scriabin's Left-Hand Prelude & Nocturne; Arnold Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 1, Bela Bartok's Dirge, Op. 9, No. 1; Igor Stravinsky's Poem of Paul Verlaine, Op. 9, No. 1; Anton Webern's Bagatelle, Op. 9, No. 1; Sergei Prokofiev's Poem, Op. 9, No. 1, Paul Hindemith's Song, Op. 9, No. 1; Kurt Weill's Quodlibet, Op. 9, No. 1; Dmitri Kabalevsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 9, No. 3, Samuel Barber's Symphony No. 1 in One Movement; Alan Hovhaness's Piano Quintet, Op. 9, No. 1; Benjamin Britten's Soirees Musicales, Op. 9, No. 1; John Lennon's Revolution 9; Mark Alburger's Psalm 92; Michael Stubblefield's Distant Worlds: Sumeria; and Austin Graham's Mild Insanity.  Diablo Valley College, Pleasant Hill, CA.

Dmitri Shostakovich's The Nose.  Metropolitan Opera, New York, NY.  Through October 26.  "William Kentridge’s . . . staging of Shostakovich’s first opera, The Nose . . . with unflagging energy and unfettered imagination . . . powerfully seconds both the irreverent zaniness of the Gogol story . . . and the teeming exuberance of Shostakovich’s music.  Gogol’s tale, from 1836, is a sendup of self-important petty bureaucrats. His antihero, Kovalyov, a collegiate assessor who likes to be called Major, wakes up one morning to find his nose gone: possibly the victim of a razor slip by Kovalyov’s tippling barber, Yakovlevich, though the circumstances are, in Gogol’s words, 'enshrouded in mist.' The Nose, meanwhile, has swelled to human scale and taken on a life of its own, complete with a career as state councilor, a bureaucratic rank higher than Kovalyov’s. Understandably confounded and momentarily humbled, Kovalyov spends the work in pursuit of the Nose, which he ultimately succeeds in having put back in its place, literally and figuratively.  Shostakovich, who was 20 when he began the opera in 1927, responded with a peacock display of his prodigious gifts, a richly inventive score that in retrospect seems to have accurately predicted many of the directions of his work to come. The highly original special effects include an extended interlude for percussion alone and a song by Kovalyov’s servant, Ivan, accompanied by balalaikas. . . .  The setting, though never terribly specific, is clearly meant to represent the Russia in which Shostakovich was working, the nascent Stalinist era, with red flags and banners flying, and Stalin himself the subject of some of those sketches. It was surely a time as rich in petty bureaucrats as Gogol’s Russia a century before, and so the satire seems as pertinent in that sense as it is impertinent in mood. . . .  The Nose, generally just a visual presence, has one big number, lording it over Kovalyov in the cathedral, which Alexander Lewis, a tenor, effectively dispatched here. . . . [Valery] Gergiev is a master of this score, and the Met Orchestra responded eagerly to his ministrations, reveling in the young Shostakovich’s brash strokes" [James R. Oestreich, The New York Times, 10/1/13].

21ST-CENTURY MUSIC / October 2013

21ST
CENTURY
MUSIC

October 2013

Volume 20, Number 10


Oliver Knussen / Phillip George

Coming Unstuck at Cabrillo / Michael McDonagh

Opus 8 / Carol Marie Reynolds

Calendar for October 2013

Chronicle of August 2013


Writers

Illustration /Taka Kigawa, Le Poisson Rouge (August 26, 1013)



Editorial Staff

Mark Alburger
EDITOR-PUBLISHER

Harriet March Page
ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Patti Noel Deuter
ASSISTANT EDITOR

Erling Wold
WEBMASTER

Elizabeth Agnew
Alexis Alrich
Katherine Buono
Ken Bullock
A.J. Churchill
David Cleary
Jeff Dunn
Phillip George
Elliot Harmon
Brian Holmes
Jeff Kaliss
John Lane
Arel Lucas
Michael McDonagh
Chip Michael
Tom Moore
Carol Marie Reynolds
William Rowland
Lisa Scola Prosek
Andrew Shapiro
Alice Shields
CORRESPONDENTS


INFORMATION FOR SUBSCRIBERS

21ST-CENTURY MUSIC is published monthly by 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC, P.O. Box 2842, San Anselmo, CA 94960. ISSN 1534-3219.

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21ST-CENTURY MUSIC invites pertinent contributions in analysis, composition, criticism, interdisciplinary studies, musicology, and performance practice; and welcomes reviews of books, concerts, music, recordings, and videos. The journal also seeks items of interest for its calendar, chronicle, comment, communications, opportunities, publications, recordings, and videos sections. Copy should be double-spaced on 8 1/2 x 11 -inch paper, with ample margins. Authors are encouraged to submit via e-mail.

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Oliver Knussen / Phillip George

Oliver Knussen's (June 12, 1952, Glasgow, UK) father, Stuart, was principal double bass of the London Symphony Orchestra, and participated in premieres of Benjamin Britten's music.  Oliver began composing at about six and studied composition with John Lambert (1963 and 1969), receiving encouragement from Britten.  The commercial public service network ITV's program about Stuart's his work with the London Symphony Orchestra, prompted a commissioning for Oliver's Symphony No. 1 in the 1966–1967 season.

At 15, Knussen stepped in to conduct the work's première at the Royal Festival Hall, London, on April 7, 1968 after István Kertész fell ill.  After this, Daniel Barenboim asked him to conduct the symphony's first two movements in New York a week later.  In this piece and his Concerto for Orchestra (1970), Knussen had absorbed the influences of Berg and c Britten, as well as many mid-century American composers.  As early as the Symphony No. 2 (1971), Knussen's mature compositional personality seemed set.

The young composer spent summers studying with Gunther Schuller at Tanglewood, MA and Boston.  He was the Aldeburgh Festival's co-Artistic Director (1983-1998) and later became Tanglewood's Head of Contemporary Music Activities (1986-1993), marrying his wife Sue, a US-born music producer and director for BBC television and Channel 4.

Among his major works from the 1980's are two children's operas, Where the Wild Things Are and Higglety Pigglety Pop!, both with libretti by Maurice Sendak, after the author's eponymous books. Where the Wild Things Are received its New York premiere by New York City Opera in November 1987

Knussen has also been Principal Guest Conductor of The Hague's Het ResidentieOrchestra (1992-1996), and the London Sinfonietta's Music Director (1998- 2002), now the latter's Conductor Laureate.  Knussen's wife died of a blood infection in London in 2003.  The Sue Knussen Composers Fund (originally the Commissioning Fund) honors her memory.  In 2005 Knussen was the Music Director of the Ojai Music Festival.

Songs for Sue, a setting of four poems for soprano and 15-piece ensemble, was written as a memorial tribute to Knussen's wife, the music receiving its world première in Chicago in 2006.

Since September of that year, the composer has been Artist-in-Association to the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, and, from 2009, has held a like position with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

New York City Opera presented a concert version of Where the Wild Things Are in April of 2011.

In the fall of 2012, Knussen began a Symphonic Adagio for the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Knussen lives in Snape, Britten's base for the Aldeburgh Festival.


Works List

Symphony No. 1, Op. 1 (1968), for orchestra (withdrawn)
Processionals, Op. 2 (1968/78), for chamber ensemble
Masks, Op. 3 (1969), for solo flute and glass chimes 'ad lib.'
Concerto for Orchestra, Op. 4 (1969)
Symphony in One Movement, Op. 5 (1969/2002), for orchestra
     (revised version of Concerto for Orchestra)
Hums and Songs of Winnie-the-Pooh, Op. 6 (1970/1983),
     for soprano solo, flute, cor anglais, clarinet, percussion, and cello
Three Little Fantasies, Op. 6a (1970/1983), for wind quintet
Symphony No. 2, Op. 7 (1971), for high soprano and chamber orchestra
Choral, Op. 8 (1972), for wind, percussion, and double basses
Rosary Songs, Op. 9 (1972), for soprano solo, clarinet, piano, and viola
Océan de Terre, Op. 10 (1972-73/1976), for soprano & chamber ensemble
Music for a Puppet Court (after John Lloyd), Op. 11 (1973/1983),
     "puzzle pieces" for two chamber orchestras
Trumpets, Op. 12 (1975), for soprano and three clarinets
Ophelia Dances, Op. 13 (1975),
     for flute, cor anglais, clarinet, horn, piano, celesta, and string trio
Autumnal, Op. 14 (1977), for violin and piano
Cantata, Op. 15 (1977), for oboe and string trio
Sonya's Lullaby, Op. 16 (1978–79), for piano solo
Scriabin Settings (1978)
Coursing, Op. 17 (1979), for large chamber ensemble
Symphony No. 3, Op. 18 (1979), for orchestra
Frammenti da Chiara, Op.19a (1975/1986), for two antiphonal a cappella female choirs
Where the Wild Things Are, Op. 20 (1979–83), fantasy opera, libretto by Maurice Sendak
Songs and a Sea Interlude, Op. 20a (1979–81), for soprano & orchestra
The Wild Rumpus, Op. 20b (1983), for orchestra
Higglety Pigglety Pop!, Op. 21 (1985, revised 1999),
     fantasy opera, libretto by Maurice Sendak
Fanfares for Tanglewood (1986), for thirteen brass & three groups of percussion
The Way to Castle Yonder, Op. 21a (1990), for orchestra
Flourish with Fireworks, Op. 22 (1988 revised 1993), for orchestra
Four Late Poems and an Epigram of Rilke, Op. 23 (1988), for solo soprano
Variations, Op. 24 (1989), for piano solo
Secret Psalm (1990), for violin solo
Whitman Settings, Op. 25 (1991), for soprano and piano
Whitman Settings, Op. 25a (1992), for soprano and orchestra
Songs without Voices, Op. 26 (1992),
     for flute, cor anglais, clarinet, horn, piano, and string trio
Elegiac Arabesques (in memory of Andrzej Panufnik), Op. 26a (1991),
     for cor anglais and clarinet
Two Organa, Op. 27 (1994), for large chamber ensemble
Horn Concerto, Op. 28 (1994), for horn solo and orchestra
"...upon one note" (fantasia after Purcell) (1995), for clarinet, piano, and string trio
Prayer Bell Sketch (in memory of Tōru Takemitsu), Op. 29 (1997), for piano solo
Eccentric Melody (for Elliott Carter's 90th birthday) (1998), for cello solo
Violin Concerto, Op. 30 (2002), for violin solo & orchestra
Ophelia's Last Dance, Op. 32 (2004/2009-10), for piano solo
Requiem: Songs for Sue, Op. 33 (2005-6), for soprano & chamber ensemble

Coming Unstuck at Cabrillo / Michael McDonagh

Anniversaries are always welcome occasions, and the Santa Cruz-based Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music celebrated its 51st year with a typically varied series of programs of which I alas only caught one on August 10, at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium.  Festivals are mix and match affairs, and the program paired pieces by two "emerging" composers -- Enrico Chapela (b. 1974 ) and Andrew Norman (b. 1979 ) -- with the latest symphony by Philip Glass, led by Brad Lubman, who along with Carolyn Kuan, served as co-music director for Marin Alsop.

Hearing divergent voices in the same room is both a challenge and a pleasure though it was hard to know at first encounter what Norman and Chapela had up their sleeves.  Were they full-[grown artists or just up and coming ones?  Norman more or less got off the hook with Unstuck (2008) which he said was about his writer's block, or "how can I stitch bits and pieces into a coherent whole"?  It's a tried and true modernist ploy which in the hands of someone like Poulenc, who was accused of being a pasticheur, can sound both surprising and new. but in Norman's was a mostly stop-and-go effort which wanted at once to be a serious endeavor and a romp.  Rambunctious Ives-like material shared the stage with what sounded like send ups of jazz and rock, plus seco or espressivo writing a la Mahler or the New Viennese School.  The dial kept turning but to little avail, though Unstuck worked perfectly well as a curtain raiser which Lubman and company rendered with vigor and point .

Mexican composer Enrico Chapela's electric cello concerto Magnetar (2011), which he wrote for Berlin-based Johannes Moser who premiered it with the LA Philharmonic and played it here, is a horse of a different color, but not quite.  It observes the Baroque-Classical three movement fast-slow-fast with cadenzas, but mostly failed to put new wine into these old bottles.  Chapela's remarks from the stage made me fear that his idea of barely-glimpsed star phenomena was better than his realization could ever hope to be.  Still the interplay between the canned Moser cello which was hooked up to a patch and was all silhouette with its guts out -- is this post-modern life in a nutshell? -- and his live accomplices kept one awake, though it felt like five movements instead of three.  And it didn't help that Chapela found time to diss from the stage yet seemed to glancingly quote three of the best cello concertos in the Western canon: Haydn, Dvorak, and Elgar.  It was brash, bold, and frequently loud, and the massed overtones clotted on the verge of pain.  Philip Glass's Symphony No. 10 (2012) aced the night, not because he's a famous composer, but because simplicity has been the biggest casualty in the modernist wars.

Glass's music however is rarely simple yet always clear, and great composers from Monteverdi to Verdi have written clearly and succinctly, even Brahms and Beethoven, and you could call the latter's Symphony No. 5 minimalist because it's reduced to its bare elemental essentials.  The Glass 10 is equally succinct and its five movements go inevitably from its first to last note.  His trademark syncopations are here, plus his 3+ 2 or 3 and 2 combinations which function as lead or inner voices often disguised.  The music advances logically and with point, its textures growing generally more complex with each successive movement, though there's nothing as extreme as the piercing piccolo tritones in the third and final movement of the composer's massive and more densely scored Symphony No. 9 (2012).  It's virtuosic, superbly orchestrated , and its densities and rhythms both cross and contrary surprise and even startle the ear.  Lubman and his overworked band observed the letter but not the spirit of the work, and his percussion and string sections sometimes seemed to "spell" their parts instead of embedding them into the musical sentence.  It was amusing to hear the audience applaud after movement one, and erupt in cheers after a nanosecond pause at the end, as they did at the Tenth's UK London Proms premiere this summer in a tighter and more convincing reading by Nicholas Collon and his Aurora Symphony.

Opus 8 / Carol Marie Reynolds

The Opus Project presents Opus 8 (August 31) was a concert of parts and wholes, mostly of the 8th numbered selections of 20th- and 21st-Century composers.  On the whole, the event was well-planned and co-ordinated, and quite well done.

The storefront Berkeley Arts Festival, however, leaves much to be desired, being in a rather dangerous area, with difficult parking, and uncomfortable, claustraphobic seating, much of which was rather too close to the orchestra.

With all these drawbacks, the orchestra still managed to sound sensational.  By no means was this music easy to perform, but these excellent musicians, who come together to rehearse just one day before the performance, did a tremendous job.

Sopranos Sarita Cannon, Megan Cullen, and Letitia C. Page projected their parts well, but were still overpowered by the orchestra at times.  Their diction could have been somewhat clearer, since texts were at times difficult to understand.

Although Cannon's voice was beautiful as always, it was challenging to follow the English lyrics of the supposedly comic number, Harry Bernstein's Mary Had a Little Lamp."  Despite a questionable rhythmic flow and not terribly-engaging melodic line, Cannon succeeded nonetheless in selling the piece.

Bela Bartok's Romanian Folk Dance: I, presented in video form, proved over-long and taxing.  By contrast, however, three selections from Igor Stravinsky's Firebird were quite arresting in a stupendous performance by The Opus Project Orchestra.

Darius Milhaud's Suite for Piano: I was performed by virtuoso Elizabeth Lee, who incredibly learned the piece overnight.  She played gracefullly this intricate work, in a refined manner.

The Paul Hindemith Phantasiestuck from Three Pieces for Cello and Piano began with a lovely melodious sound, then moved into very dissonant territory.  Again Lee contributed her talented playing to the great mellow sounds of Elizabeth Morrison's cello.

The introductory section of Kurt Weil's String Quartet No. 1 came accross nicely, despite a language which seems to suggest performers at odds with one another.  On the other hand, the beginning of Dmitri Kabalevsky's own essay in this genre contains enough sweetness to ameliorate the occasional clangor, in a lovely melodic adventure..

The keyboard seems to carry all the dissonance in Dmitri Shostakovich's Piano Trio No. 1 in C Minor, with very sweet sounds coming from violin and cello.  Written in 1923, the music seems to mirror the madness of the era, with enthralling passages towards its conclusion.

The March from Mark Alburger's The Twelve Fingers was stimulating and most enjoyable, as an updated rival to John Philip Sousa's classic endeavors.  Works by Jan Pusina, Michael Kimbell, and Stardust seemed to merit further thought.

The biggest surprise was the program's conclusion with an unbelievable explosion of musicianship in 24-year-old Michael Stubblefield's March of the Defiled Horde.  An amazing, astonishing, and awesome work, again from The Opus Project Orchestra.

Calendar for October 2013

October 3

Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring.  Diablo Valley College, Pleasant Hill, CA.


October 4

U.S. premiere of Gravity, with music of Steven Price.  


October 12

Gustav Holst's The Planets, with The Awesome Orchestra.  Firehouse Art Hangar, Berkeley, CA.

Carl Orff's Carmina Burana.  Mormon Temple Auditorium, Oakland, CA.


October 25

Allison Lovejoy's Seven Deadly Pleasures.  Community Music Center, San Francisco, CA.

October 26

The Opus Project presents Opus 10.  Arnold Schoenberg's String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10, No. 3; Bela Bartok's Image, Op. 10, No. 2; Igor Stravinsky's Petrushka: Russian Dance, Anton Webern's 5 Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 10; Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 10: Allegro; Darius Milhaud  Poem of Lucile de Chateaubriand, Op. 10, No. 3; Paul Hindemith's String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10, No. 1; Kurt Weill's Frauentanz, Op. 10, No. 1; Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1, Op. 10, No. 2: Trio; Samuel Barber's James Joyce Song, Op. 10, No. 1; Benjamin Britten's Variation on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Op. 10, No. 1; Oliver Knussen's Ocean de Terre, Op. 10, No. 1; John Bilotta's The Lottery in Babylon; and Mark Alburger's Nocturnes for Insomniacs, Op. 10, No. 1.  Community Music Center, 544 Capp Street, San Francisco, CA.