Object-oriented operator-overloading in Fauré’s Fantaisie for Flute and Piano Op. 79?

B   y overloading standard operators on a class, you can exploit the intuition of the users of that class. This lets users program in the language of the problem domain rather than in the language of the machine.”
  — Marshall Cline, ParaShift C++ FAQ.

A ttended James Galway’s recital the other evening. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

G alway is not subtle. His technical virtuosity, charismatic personality, and emphatic, extroverted playing style are incomparable.

B ut, beyond that, his performance of Fauré’s Fantaisie for Flute and Piano, Op. 79, led me to notice “key-undefining” and “-redefining” elements that strike me as similar to “operator overloading” in compiler design, or, more specifically, to runtime “polymorphisms” in parallel computing and cloud computing, where multiple processes that are interacting with each other concurrently implement more than one version of an operator, and the different operator instantiations have different semantics.

L ook at the score snippet above! In the Andantino movement we have middle-register F-natural (Ddim) against piano’s E in the LH. Other dissonant passages involving the flute object/process communicating with the piano object/process. Finale’s chord-analysis plug-in labels this as Ddim9 (third inversion), then Bdim. Your brain is like a master process that is executing and integrating multiple parallel child processes. If the scope of your brain’s attention encompasses all of the pitches in m. 17 in Op. 79, say, then it receives a hexachord back from the flute object class and the piano object class—an E major triad invasively intermingled with an F major triad... triads that are a dissonant semitone apart... a sort of exotic suspension.

I t is like operator overloading in C++, C#, Scala, Python, Ruby, R, and other languages.

T he interval of the fifth serves as a melodic frame for flute class execution and piano class execution in each of the ‘mélodie’s’ sections, its space gradually rising and becoming more chromatic—making the timbre brighter and the emphasis stronger or more individualistic or ‘recitational’. Melodic motion expands both registrally and chromatically. This is not so much subjectivity/ambiguity or vagueness/tentativeness that are aspects of impressionism, so much as it is concurrent, deliberate polymorphism of operators implemented by different object classes!

T he Allegro movement has rampant elisions of phrase completions, such that cadences are implicit and there is implied emphasis on what is omitted. That’s another feature in Op. 79 that, to me, presages parallel and cloud-based computing... Eager quitting by the Map-Reduce master process when ‘reducer’ jobs have by now yielded enough to enable the master process to abort the rest of them and proceed to the next task.

G abriel Urbain Fauré was, shall we say, an erstwhile compiler engineer who lived, oh, about 100 years “before his time”.

F or your interest, some Op. 79 videos on YouTube are here, and here, and here, and here, and here. In them you will see that the “object polymorphisms” in Op. 79 are not necessarily evident unless the flute playing is as strong as Galway’s.

• James Galway website
  
• Fauré Op. 79 score at IMSLP
  
• National Flute Association (U.S.) website
  
• Suspension page at Wikipedia
  
• Microtonal accidental page at Wikipedia
  
• Wolf Interval page at Wikipedia
  
• Aldwell E. Harmony and Voice-Leading. 4e. Schirmer, 2010. (esp. Ch. 22, and Part VI (Chs. 28-33)
  
• Blakeman E. Taffanel: Genius of the Flute. Oxford Univ, 2005.
  
• Brownlee B. James Galway brilliant at Folly Theater. Kansas City Star, 04-NOV-2011
  
• Cooper K, Torczon L. Engineering a Compiler. 2e. Morgan-Kaufmann, 2011.
  
• Forster C. Musical Mathematics: On the Art and Science of Acoustic Instruments. Chronicle, 2010. [Ch. 8 on flute equal-temperament and wolves]
  
• Kraft L. Gradus. 2e. Norton, 1990. (esp. Part 15, pp. 93-120)
  
• Pellerite J. Handbook of Literature for the Flute. 3e. Alfred, 1988.
  
• Sobaskie J. The emergence of Gabriel Fauré's late musical style and technique. J Musicol Res 2003;22:223-75.

Violence, An Unlikely Chamber Music Trope: ¿Quién es más macho?

I   was very frightened till the guns started firing. Then you felt a bit better, for some unknown reason. It was the sitting there that was the worst part ... Naked is the way to describe it ... Just waiting for the end … waiting for it.”
  —  Michael Jackson, quoting rear-gunner Jack Marshall, in The Politics of Storytelling, p. 47.

T   he definition of psychological violence as the sudden, uncontrollable disruption of affiliative bonds ... recognizes the importance of attachment relationships and their social, emotional, and cognitive manifestations. To deny the impact of trauma over human life is to deny that we matter to one another; it is a way of dissociating ourselves from human pain.”
  —  Felicity de Zulueta, From Pain to Violence, p. 185.

The previous CMT post triggered a prompt, unexpected flurry of messages about ‘violence’ as a theme in the chamber music canon. Some emailers suggested that Fauré’s ‘Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 120’ (“The last movement … the Allegro vivo!”) is emblematic of chamber music as encompassing the gamut of human emotion and expression, including uncontrollably violent feelings and expressions.

Others mentioned Edgard Varèse and André Jolivet—the ‘Density 21.5’ and ‘Cinq Incantations,’ respectively.

Another friend emailed to say, no, that Henri Dutilleux and Pierre Boulez wrote works that were more violent by far than those.

Yet another CMT reader opined that Olivier Messiaën was, if you really understood him, more profoundly and insidiously violent. (“Oh, you can play it so that the violent intentions are covered up. But if you really understand what he was up to, why then! There is no question! Hands down!”)

Maybe we need a ‘Hamilton-Browne’ taxonomy of violence in chamber music, a classification scheme to properly categorize and compare different species of this emotion when they arise.

Two-dimensional Taxonomy of Victimization

• Single victimization (single incident, single perpetrator)
  
• Multiple victimization (single incident, multiple perpetrators)
  
• Repeated victimization (multiple incidents, single perpetrator)
  
• Re-victimization (multiple incidents, multiple perpetrators)

W ell, entonces, ¿quién es lo último? Here is my own nomination for the most explicit examination of violence: a piece composed by Gordon Fitzell, performed by eighth blackbird (three MP3 clips below). Gordon is a 40 year-old Canadian born in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, with a Bachelor of Music degree from Brandon University, a masters from the University of Alberta, and a doctorate in composition and theory from the University of British Columbia, with Keith Hamel and John Roeder. He has contributed works to a number of festivals and workshops including Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Music, June in Buffalo, the Yale Summer School, the Arraymusic Young Composers Workshop, and held a residency several years ago at the Banff Centre for the Arts. He is currently a professor at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg where he teaches composition, electroacoustic music, conducts the New Music Ensemble and directs XIE (eXperimental Improv Ensemble).


    [50-sec clip, eighth blackbird, Gordon Fitzell, ‘Violence’, 1.2MB MP3]

    [50-sec clip, eighth blackbird, Gordon Fitzell, ‘Violence’, 1.2MB MP3]

    [50-sec clip, eighth blackbird, Gordon Fitzell, ‘Violence’, 1.2MB MP3]


I rest my case.

Seriously, do you have other ‘nominations’ you’d care to make, in this exotic category? What composers and which pieces? Under what circumstances would your ensemble undertake a thematic program, explicitly comprised of works that examine this ‘end of the spectrum’ of human emotions and deeds?

Do you think that the ‘intimacy’ of chamber music and currently-available chamber music programming such as it is today is too restrictive—that is to say, that the repertoire being performed today dwells more than it should on ‘pleasing’ sounds and ideas and emotions, and veers too far away from matters of political topicality and controversy? Do you feel that it is, marketingwise, suicidal to pursue these things? Yes, compose them, if you must; if you have them ‘in you’. Yes, record them, if you’re passionate about it and can convince a brave label to support it. But don’t even think of performing them live, not if you expect to ‘get away with it’?

Does edgier repertoire sell well and, if so, to what audience market segments in what venues and at what times of year? Is this sort of material only practical (i.e., ‘wise’, ‘safe’) for presenters to program as bonus ‘fringe’ material at festivals in the summertime—riskier even than mere ‘new music’? Is this sort of thing suitable for ACF and CMA and other organizations to commission more of?

If enough of you wish to offer comments on this, maybe I’ll gather them together into a proper ‘post’ on the subject. To those of you who emailed me, thank you very much for your comments!

• DSM. Just War according to Dialogos. CMT blog, 09-NOV-2008.
  
• eighth blackbird. strange imaginary animals. (Cedille, 2006.)
  
• Browne K, Hanks H, Stratton P, Hamilton-Giachritsis C, eds. Early Prediction and Prevention of Child Abuse: A Handbook. Wiley, 2002.
  
• Hamel J, ed. Gender Inclusive Treatment of Intimate Partner Abuse. Springer, 2005.
  
• Hamilton C, Browne K. The repeat victimisation of children: Should the concept be revised? Aggression and Violent Behaviour 1997; 3:47-60.
  
• Jackson M. The Politics of Storytelling: Violence, Transgression, and Intersubjectivity. Museum Tusculanum, 2002.
  
• McCluskey U, Hooper C-A, eds. Psychodynamic Perspectives on Abuse: The Cost of Fear. Kingsley, 2000.
  
• de Zulueta F. From Pain to Violence: The Traumatic Roots of Destructiveness. 2e. Wiley, 2007.