21ST-CENTURY MUSIC / March 2013

21ST
CENTURY
MUSIC

March 2013

Volume 20, Number 3

Arnold Schoenberg to 1907 / Mark Alburger 

Joan Jeanrenaud and Company / Michael McDonagh

Calendar for March 2013 

Chronicle of January 2013

Illustration
Frohliches Quintet, c. 1895,
featuring mustachioed Fritz Kreisler and cellist Arnold Schoenberg


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
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.

Subscription rates in the U.S. are $96.00 per year; subscribers elsewhere should add $48.00 for postage. Single copies of the current volume and back issues are $12.00. Large back orders must be ordered by volume and be pre-paid. Please allow one month for receipt of first issue. Domestic claims for non-receipt of issues should be made within 90 days of the month of publication, overseas claims within 180 days. Thereafter, the regular back issue rate will be charged for replacement. Overseas delivery is not guaranteed. Send orders to 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC, P.O. Box 2842, San Anselmo, CA 94960. email: mus21stc@gmail.com.

Typeset in Times New Roman. Copyright 2013 by 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC. This journal is printed on recycled paper. Copyright notice: Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC.

The Journal is also online at 21st-centurymusic.com and 21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com


INFORMATION FOR CONTRIBUTORS

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.

Prospective contributors should consult The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), in addition to back issues of this journal. Copy should be sent to 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC, P.O. Box 2842, San Anselmo, CA 94960. e-mail: mus21stc@gmail.com. Materials for review may be sent to the same address.


INFORMATION FOR ADVERTISERS

Send all inquiries to 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC, P.O. Box 2842, San Anselmo, CA 94960. e-mail: mus21stc@gmail.com.

Joan Jeanrenaud and Company / Michael McDonagh

Sometimes a phone interview is the way to go, even if you live in the same town.  And so it was on a rainy Friday afternoon this past December that San Francisco-based composer and cellist Joan Jeanrenaud and I "sat down" for a chat about her latest music theatre collaboration, Your Body Is Not A Shark (January 11-13, San Francisco;  17-20, Santa Cruz).  The celebrated and much-sought-after musician was the Kronos Quartet's cellist from 1978 until 1999, when she "retired" due to having been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which she's been successfully battling ever since.  With such a broad musical history behind her, plus a solo career as a composing and performing cellist and music theatre collaborator before her, it's hard to know how to begin.  But how did it feel to play and record the second cello part in Vladimir Martynov's Schubert-Quintet ("Unfinished") after Schubert's Quintet in C, D.956, with Kronos two years ago? "We had so much fun. I really enjoyed playing with them again. It was like I'd never left," she recalls in a voice which still has a tinge of her Memphis, Tennessee roots.  "And I've always loved the cello because it's such an expressive instrument, and composing -- though I'd never thought of being a composer before --  became a way of being really involved in music and playing."

Her current music theatre adventure seems to have as many texts and sub-texts as music itself.  The focus of the project, which involves three other women -- Cid Pearlman, choreographer; Denise Leto, poet; and Maya Barsacq, who conducts seven string members of the chamber orchestra, Cadenza, in Jeanrenaud's score -- is human fragility, in both body and spirit. That should be something everyone can relate to, or as the composer puts it "all of us have issues to deal with and the interesting thing is how you take that and make it your own," which in her case means living with MS, which felled conductor-pianist Daniel Barenboim's cellist wife Jacqueline Du Pre, but also involves Leto, who's disabled, and whose words will be projected as she writes.  The piece casts the net even further by using a dance company of six, which ranges in age from 18 to 62, and Jeanrenaud says that the navigation of Pearlman's moves will naturally be more effortful for the 62-year-old.  The ten-section piece, which the composer calls "a collage of interesting elements," will also feature ace new music percussionist William Winant, "and there are a couple of sections of just me and Willy which are quite rhythmic."

There's a strong visual look as well. "One piece has the orchestra creating a bed of sound, and there are staging elements like a bed platform that moves around.  Stairs and chairs are used, and there's a desk where Denise will be seated while the audience watches her."  Jeanrenaud has also added sound files to her score, which though not a visual element, will likely add both space and sonic weight to this intensely collaborative whole.  It's an ambitious and hopefully pertinent work for our increasingly fragile time where everybody either puts on a tough face or gets in touch with what's really happening around and in them.  But one thing's certain: the composer-cellist is one of the most gifted musicians of her generation, and like any true artist, or human being for that matter, she's here to learn.  She put it this way in a firming up e-mail regarding her time with the great French cellist Pierre Fournier who was renowned for the elegance and depth of his playing.  "Working with Fournier was a great transition from being a student to becoming a professional musician.  My lessons were very clarifying regarding technical issues I would be uncertain of in my own practice. It was wonderful working with him! "