jwilzewske: new england conservatory

Showing posts with label new england conservatory. Show all posts

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Savvy Musicianship: Marti Epstein’s ‘Troubled Queen’

W hen I am painting, I’m not aware of what I’m doing. It is only after a sort of ‘get acquainted’ period that I see [in the painting-in-progress] what I have been about. I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I just try to let it come through.”
— Jackson Pollock.

H ave a listen to Marti Epstein’s new composition, ‘Troubled Queen’:

I t’s a 21-minute piece for mixed ensemble consisting of flute, bass clarinet, trombone, 2 violins, viola, cello, piano, and percussion—commissioned by the Callithumpian Consort, and premièred on 19-DEC-2011 at New England Conservatory in Boston.

B rooding, dark, and pulsatile... inspired by Jackson Pollock’s brooding, dark, pulsatile 1945 painting of the same name, one of the holdings of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.

C allithumpian Consort was founded by Stephen Drury in the 1990s and is dedicated to the proposition that music should be, and is, an ‘experience’. The ensemble is deeply committed to supporting new music. Besides frequent performances of new music, Callithumpian also seeks to foster a vibrant and financially sustainable environment for composers and composing, and has commissioned many compositions over the past 15 years.

I would say that the composition students here are not composing jazz. Specifically, they’re not composing commercial music; they’re not composing ‘jingles’. They may be composing film music, because we have a lot of dual majors. They’re usually composing music that’s artistically interesting and specifically for the concert hall... To graduate [from Berklee], students have to have a portfolio of pieces and—very important—they have to have a certain number of these pieces performed. Because one of the aspects of a composer’s training is, how do you get people to play your music? So we try to get them to start doing that right away.”
— Marti Epstein.

I hope her composition students had a chance to attend the première. Epstein leads by example. She doesn’t play musical ‘hardball’ with the listener or with the performers but instead pitches balls that are hittable, ‘accessible’. Not predictable or ‘easy’ pitches, surely. But captivating; natural; intuitive; emotionally moving and ‘fair’, not off-putting. This new ‘Troubled Queen’ is emblematic of the practical philosophy Epstein expresses in her remarks on Berklee’s website (quote above).

W hen I’m asked the inevitable question ‘What kind of music do you write?,’ I am always embarrassingly at a loss for words. Musicians want to know details of my harmonic language: is my music tonal or atonal? Nonmusicians often ask nervously if it sounds ‘modern’. Here’s the best way I can describe it: it is neither tonal nor atonal; I adhere to no preexisting method of pitch or harmony organization. I am more interested in the use of sounds as organizing musical materials than I am in melody or harmonic relationships. I also do not believe that atonality even truly exists; the term was an attempt to describe the music that broke away from Common Practice Tonality... My music is generally slow-paced. I always tell people that ‘You can take the girl out of Nebraska, but you can’t take the Nebraska out of the girl.’ The wide-open spaces that I experienced as a child, not so much in my living environment, but in the many car trips we took to Colorado to see my grandparents, were—and are—an integral part of my artistic psyche... I love living in the East, but I long for the space and expanse of the place in my childhood memories. I feel like my music is an expression of that longing.”
— Marti Epstein.

L ike the Pollock painting for which the piece is named, Epstein’s ‘Troubled Queen’ ably evokes/represents psychiatric illness-as-storm—these looming clouds; this mixture of scary unrealness and can’t-look-away awe; these oppressive feelings that elude attempts to control them. This dark-grey, nightmarish 4-bpm thunder and lightning—or is it a deranged heartbeat? [bradycardic between 07:09 to 09:01, becoming asystolic at 20:30]

T he self-doubts, the dread and anxiety, the fractured esteem: are these contributing ‘causes’ or triggers of depression, or are they merely some associated ‘effects’ or symptoms of the condition? Chaotic arpeggios in the piano part; strokes of blue and green and yellow in the winds and strings and percussion—random sonic hail pelting us unbidden, as if formed by Pollockian flicking: flung up into the air, falling now under the unstoppable force of gravity. Callithumpian Consort members’ playing is sensitive and inspired in capturing this ‘Nature is not kind’ harshness...

G othic interiority. Obscure totems; we’re not sure what they mean or how we got here.
Reduction of life to crashing, heaviness. Primitive glare, no escape.

T he interleaved string, woodwind, and brass passages around 14:00-15:00 are especially poignant, and contribute yet more evidence demonstrating the ‘organic’/biologic origins of depression, disabusing the listener of any misconception he/she might have held regarding the depressed person’s responsibility to ‘prevent’ the condition or exercise more self-control and simply ‘Get better!’ under his/her own steam.

W hat’s more, the 21-minute timescale of this piece offers enough latitude to explore the wide range of colors and cognitive states that characterize moderate-to-severe clinical depression. In other words, this is the sort of subject that demands considerable scope; a ‘miniature’ would not be right at all, and would at best be pastiche, unless it were a cue in a film score, subject to constraints of the script and action. Fully developed in this 21-minute work, the character/subject becomes very real. The suffering/horror this depressed protagonist experiences is fully animated and convincing, and, through the performance, we can’t help but care about this person and about the plight of other such people in society. In summary, this new Marti Epstein composition is a beautiful work: it illustrates not only wonderful artistry and craftsmanship, but also conveys the political and social savvy that ‘the arts’ (artists/musicians, and the supporters who finance them and commission works from them) can have, to bring about wider and deeper appreciation for socially/clinically important issues and provoke concord and action to make things better.

E very so often, a painter has to ‘destroy’ painting. Picasso did it; Pollock; numerous others, too. And every so often, a composer has to destroy composing. Here, Epstein smashes conventional ideas of a composition—as John Cage and many others have done. But this ‘Troubled Queen’ is very clearly a composition—and a very beautiful, moving one at that.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Criminal Justice & Chamber Music: Rzewski’s ‘Coming Together / Attica’

A ttica… is … in … front … of … me.”
— Frederic Rzewski, Text of ‘Attica’ (remarks of prisoner upon being released from Attica prison, when asked what he thought of Attica).

I think the combination ... of age and the greater coming together ... is responsible for the speed ... of the passing time. it’s six months now ... and i can tell you ... truthfully ... few periods in my life have passed so quickly. i am in excellent ... physical ... and emotional ... health. there are doubtless ... subtle surprises ... ahead but i feel secure and ready.
as lovers will contrast their emotions in times of crisis, so am i dealing ... with my environment. in the indifferent brutality, incessant noise ... the experimental chemistry of food, the ravings ... of lost hysterical men, i can act with clarity and meaning. i am deliberate—sometimes even calculating—seldom employ histrionics except as a test of the reactions of others. i read much, exercise, talk to guards and inmates ... feeling for the inevitable direction of my life.
special love to flotsam + brood, charlene, lenny, jetsam.”
— Frederic Rzewski, Text of ‘Coming Together’ (Sam Melville, letter from Attica prison, addressed to ‘dear brother,’ dated 16-MAY-1970.)

T he performance last night at NEC was deeply moving. The performances of Jo Kondo’s ‘Falling’ and György Kurtág’s ‘Scenes from a Novel, Op. 19’ by [nec]shivaree members were spectacular—I may have time to post some detailed comments about those later this week.

B ut the rare performance of Frederic Rzewski’s 1972 composition, ‘Coming Together / Attica,’ by the ensemble Gradient Us completely captivated us—blew me away, in fact. It is a superb example of ‘activist’ music, a composition motivated by social issues (in this case the situation 40 years ago at Attica penitentiary in New York, and the ongoing impact of incarceration as a means of implementing criminal justice in societies).

T he two-movement piece is in canon form, (re-)animated by a 10-piece ensemble performing en-face with a male speaker positioned to the side of the ensemble. The speaker recites text from a letter written by one of the leaders of the uprising at Attica prison, and the timing and inflections of the Sprechstimme-like recitation are scored in precise, explicit detail by Rzewski.

Kathleen LaFleur – director, and tenor saxophone
David Prum – speaker
Alicia Mielke – flute
John Diodati – clarinet
Jay Hutchinson – bass clarinet
Jason Belcher – baritone horn
Kayleigh Miller – viola
Stefan Koim – acoustic guitar
David Goodchild – electric bass
Benjamin Vickers – conductor

T he 20-minute first movement is full of polyrhythms—aleatoric rhythms that are only periodically in-phase or synced with each other. It is like we are witnessing the irrepressible, impulsive inner workings of a mind—someone who has 9 different trains of thought that are coursing through the brain simultaneously.

I ndividual motifs are triggered, fire synapses, propagate neural pulses down axons, arrive at junctions with other nerves and synapses, in turn causing those nerves to fire. Once fired, a synapse is ‘refractory’ for a finite period of time, before it is once more able to receive a signal and fire again. Nervous system as musical canon! Autopoiesis of personhood by synapses alone! This is an anatomist’s ‘Visible Human’ transparent polystyrene-model conception of what goes on inside us. To any who would challenge what is portrayed here as ‘reductionist’, Rzewski seems to have the ready-made rebuttal: the literal working machine: how the mind thinks these thoughts; how the mouth is made to move; hear the words that come out.

T he phat electric bass insistently plunks its robotic, obsessive 16th-notes, running, running, running—to what destination? for what purpose?

T he speaker’s (Prum’s) inflections are exquisitely measured and spoken with conviction—delivered in a taut, emphatic manner that is meant as much to (1) reaffirm for the prisoner himself that he does believe the things being spoken as to (2) carve out and defend a psychological ‘territory’ that the prisoner can call his own. The loss of freedom and property-rights while in prison induces a hyper-awareness of the boundaries of self and non-self, a hyper-sensitivity to what [little] is ‘mine’. The vivid, dramatic depiction of the results of the retributive justice ‘violence-perpetrated-by-the-system-upon-the-offender’ is heart-wrenching, especially for those of us who have never been inside a prison, or have never been closely acquainted with anyone who has been incarcerated for a long time.

I ronic, lyrical major-key, warm timbres. Pneumatics of wind instruments. The baritone horn, evocatively/symbolically plugged-up with a giant red-and-white straight mute. The whole composition goes for your jugular, truly. It intends to make you care—make you.

T he 10-minute ‘Attica’, while structurally a simpler musical canon, is likewise a glimpse into the heart of the rehabilitated criminal whose text accompanies and was the motive for the music. Time is warped to super-slow speed as the speaker utters one word (‘Attica’) or syllable, pauses many seconds, utters another one (‘is’), resets to the beginning and re-utters a word that was said earlier and proceeds on (‘in’) in a festinating (‘front’), damaged way (‘of me’)—almost like a Parkinson’s type of dementia. The legato music and the major-key warmth are manifestations of the fact that whatever anger may have landed the person in prison is long-since extinguished. Equanimity has been achieved for this prisoner—This is not veiled residual rage we are hearing, but honest equanimity with the situation of having lost so much while in jail, and having so little now with which to remake a future upon release!—but at a terrible cost.

P henomenal! Art as therapy or as collective neutralization of past violence; as meditation on who the human beings are who are incarcerated, and why, and how they got that way; as a call to empathy; an exhortation to rethink what it is that we as a society are doing, really, through our correctional systems and policies, finding ways for effectively reducing recidivism and restoring dignity and some semblance of a desirable future to the lives affected.

U ndeniably, works like this are difficult for presenters to program: the subject material is awkward/disturbing, even though the music is accessible and attractive—poetic, lyrical, beautiful. The performance last night is ample evidence of salutary, humanizing effects that live performances of such works can have on us, as individuals and as a broader society. We should do this more often.

R zewski is a musician, not a pamphleteer. None but the naïve could imagine contemporary classical music as the lever for social upheaval. It was a teaching job that brought him to Belgium, not the state of the American nation. ‘No philosophy,’ he said recently. ‘I had a family to support.’ ... Once asked if commentators were right to call him a Marxist composer, he snorted, ‘Harpo or Groucho or what?’ The anarchic streak in his music is as much comic as it is political.”
— Mathew Gurewitsch, interview with Frederic Rzewksi, 27-MAR-2003.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

With You in Mind: Some Romantic-Period ‘Directed’, Uncommissioned Chamber Works

W e should get used to the idea that tones have lives of their own, more independent of the artist’s pen in their vitality than one would dare to believe.”
— Heinrich Schenker, 1906.

E njoyed New England Conservatory faculty members’ first ‘First Monday’ concert of the season last night…

Dvořák: Terzetto in C major, Op. 74, B.148 ... Miriam Fried, Lucy Chapman, violins; Paul Biss, viola
Arensky: Trio ... Masuko Ushioda, violin; Laurence Lesser, cello; Sergey Schepkin, piano
Brahms: Quintet in G Major, Op. 111 ... Borromeo String Quartet; Kim Kashkashian, viola

T he Terzetto—with the two upper-register voices and the alto voice (viola)—is an interesting texture that leaves us wondering what the tenor/baritone voice (cello) would do had a part been written. Why did Dvořák choose this unusual orchestration—“string quartet minus one”? Well, said Laurence Lesser in his pre-concert remarks, it was because Dvořák wished to honor a violinist friend and the friend’s violin teacher, both of whom lived in the same boarding house where Dvořák himself lived at the time. Simple. Good enough reason as any!

B esides this Terzetto, there is Dvořák’s String Trio in B-flat, Op. 75a, Kodály’s Szerenád for 2 violins and viola, Op. 12, Sergei Taneyev’s Trio, Op. 21, and Frank Bridge’s Rhapsody Trio, H.176. Probably there are more, but I am traveling and not close to a conservatory library to do a decent job of looking them up. In any case, the literature in this space is not large. This repertoire for 2 violins plus viola is not performed nearly as much as it should be. (And, for that matter, the diversity-enhancing decision to compose for non-standard ensembles is not taken nearly as often as it should be either.)

T he viola’s role as an ‘outer’ (bass) voice in the Terzetto sheds light on differences (compared to violin) in viola bow-arm technic: not some violin-style (with hand, wrist, and arm predominantly above the level of the bowstick), the hand and forearm are lower and the upper arm doesn’t move so much. I sat up close, on one side of Jordan Hall to the right of center-stage, far enough to the right where Biss’s movements were not obscured by the music stand. The viola fingering in the Terzetto also presents more than the usual range of challenges, it seems to me. It was wonderful to be able to observe his technic, see his decisions, hear the results.

T he Arensky trio, written in memory of cellist Karl Davydov, was really good. Unusual timbres and textures… the Adagio (Elegia) third movement … the strings’ mutes on throughout. The ‘accessory’ thematic elements to a memorial piece lend depth and verisimilitude—a sort of ‘I remember when’. Ushioda’s touching remembrances, answered by Lesser’s (Davydov’s) inspired and atmospheric replies, modulated by Schepkin’s brilliant and sensitive arbitration/counsel. These are dramatic meditations on the death of a beloved person and, like all elegies, are poetical—with language and cadence governed by impulses of memory. The elegy form tolls departure and loss, irrevocable going-going-goneness… rapturously, ecstatically... often with more of a pastoral or more serene or idealized or sanitized aspect than the person remembered may have had in real life… which is okay and as it should be. We were touched; we are touched; we will continue to be touched.

T he Brahms piece is not elegiac except for the Adagio. It’s instead optimistic and lighthearted, but it is memoristic nonetheless, inspired by Brahms’s walks in the Vienna Prater. By rights, it’s a viola quintet, full of rich alto sonorities. The first movement, Allegro non troppo ma con brio, is in 9/8. Opens with a cello solo in G major, transitions to G minor, with excursions through various other keys before returning to G major. The second movement, the Adagio, begins with a viola solo. The main theme goes through a sort of ‘versioning’ or software refactoring—reimplementing it on different ‘platforms’ and architectures—pondering and recasting the material and, through each refactoring, discovering new dimensions in it and reaching different conclusions. The third movement, Un poco Allegretto, a cheerful minuet and trio form in 3/4, ends with a short coda. And the fourth movement, Vivace ma non troppo presto, is tremendously buoyant and vivacious. Brahms’s pen—and tones—and the Borromeos plus Ms. Kashkashian—had more vitality than one dares to believe…

Sunday, May 6, 2007

Sehr Lebhaft (Very Lively): Dimitri Murrath

DSM: Dimitri (“Dima”) Murrath gave a wonderful performance this afternoon at the Gardner, beautifully met by pianist Vincent Planès! Both are recently studying at the New England Conservatory.

CMT: Yes. And I was pleased to see the good Sunday afternoon turn-out of about 100 people—the ISGM Tapestry Room was nearly full to capacity. You know, at the moment there’s only one CD that’s available with Murrath’s playing on it. I really didn’t have any idea what we were likely to hear from him, prior to attending the event at the Gardner today. But of course his reputation did precede him! In 2006, Murrath won the Philip & Dorothy Green Award for Young Concert Artists, a British prize that funds musicians early in their careers (instrumentalists under 28 and singers under 32) to obtain performance experience throughout the U.K. Indirectly, that funding also helps the winners to stretch their other financial resources to do yet more, both at home and in other countries. Dimitri’s performance at the Gardner today is an example of that. The 2007 AYCA Award Winners are Alec Frank-Gemmill (horn), Diana Galvydyte (violin), Daniela Lehner (mezzo soprano), Katie Lockhart (clarinet), Amandine Savary (piano), and Dmitri Torchinsky (violin). About 100 artists have received the Award for Young Concert Artists since it began in 1961.

DSM: The 1939 Hindemith Sonata for viola and piano is a perfect showcase for Dimitri’s talent. The 1919 Sonata (Op. 11) was composed in 1918-1919 when Hindemith was just 24 years old, and there’s a certain coherence of the composer’s age and temperament with Dimitri’s, I think. Both the Op. 11 and Hindemith’s 1939 Sonata have a more romantic character than his other, more austere viola works, so Murrath’s viola has many opportunities here to show off its luster. The difficult last movement has Dimitri all over the fingerboard. As you know, this thing is a masterwork Hindemith meant to illustrate the his own superb skills as a violist, but Murrath truly makes the piece his own. Dimitri’s poise in the diverse, musical styles sounds entirely natural and authentic, belying some of the grueling finger work that this composition has.

CMT: Hindemith was without doubt one of the most significant German composers of his time, and yet his compositional techniques resist easy classification. His early works like Op. 11 are hard to pigeonhole. Is this in a late romantic idiom, or expressionist? It’s clearly not in the style of early Schoenberg, nor is it Hindemith’s contrapuntal, lean style of the later 1920s. Is it neoclassical? If so, it’s clearly not what we mean by ‘neoclassical’ in Igor Stravinsky’s works that are labeled with that term. In fact, we hear aspects of the contrapuntal language of Bach here. The 1939 Sonata that Dima and Vincent performed this afternoon was very contrapuntal, too, but the textures were even richer.

DSM: In the Sonata, Op. 11 No. 4, we hear a 24-year-old Hindemith just finding his voice. We hear his ambition; we hear his introspectiveness; we hear his experimentality. In the Sonata of 1939, we hear a more trenchant, mature Hindemith. This afternoon we had a virtuosic but introspective Murrath exploring, too, at a still early stage in his career. Remember it was Hindemith who, along with Lionel Tertis (1876-1975) and William Primrose (1904-1982), raised the status of the viola as a solo instrument to the position it now enjoys. Surely Dima will raise it yet further! And it was through the premiere of the Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 11, No. 4, that Hindemith began his career as a concert violist and a significant composer of music for the instrument. So here is now Dima Murrath, advancing the art, pushing the envelope for viola—at a similar moment in his career, very much like the phase that Hindemith was at in his own career. The first movement in the Sonata—‘Breit, mit Kraft’—was sweet, with poignant reversals. Bursts of objection gave way to acceptance. The second movement—‘Sehr lebhaft’—was delivered with an urgency and directness so convincing that one might wonder whether the piece was written in anticipation of Murrath’s arrival. Sehr lebhaft! The third movement—‘Phantasie’—featured wonderful spectral arpeggios by Murrath and spring-like water effects by Planès in the upper register of the piano. The Finale movement was gorgeous, belying the technical difficulties that it presents to the performers.

CMT: Besides the Hindemith, Murrath delivered an admirable interpretation of Dvoràk’s Sonatine in G Major for violin and piano, Op. 100, transcribed for viola. Dark, dense, very cinematic. And the Gardner is a very good, intimate venue for a duet performance like this. The informality of the setting is conducive to engaging museum-going patrons who might not otherwise attend a recital in a traditional concert hall. Someone sitting to your left remarked that the Tapestry Room feels like a home, fireplace and all. And the informality of the ISGM setting underscores the living, breathing vitality of chamber music idioms. The form is alive and vibrant and exciting! The hand-crafted bespokeness of it, the in-your-face relevance and accessibility of it! Very attractive!

DSM: Dimitri was born in Belgium in 1982. His handling of these pieces is utterly fearless. These pieces present huge problems for the performer, and yet he takes the work in stride. I like his dancing eyebrows and his open-mouthed expressions. His warm sound inflected with micro-tones—all of these things remind me of the courageous, open, in-your-face ethos of Belgium, the way we’ve encountered it in our travels there. There is a naturalness that’s entirely Dimitri’s own, of course. But his playing conveys an outgoingness, a cheerfulness that’s far broader, more universal—Belgian or otherwise. It’s that universality and youthful optimism that make his playing that much more attractive. Vincent, too, is a very animated player. These two are very well-matched!

CMT: The Alberto Ginastera, Carlos Guastavino, Xavier Monsalvatge, and Carlos Buchardo pieces were a valuable taste of relatively new Spanish and Argentinian music (transcribed for viola and piano by Robert Levin). Buchardo’s ‘Oye mi llanto’ (Hear My Cry) was very moving—lyrical, elegiac, brooding, dramatic. Well-suited to Murrath’s interpretive gift.

DSM: And Ginastera’s ‘Canción a la Luna Lunanca’ (Moonstruck / Song to the Cockeyed Moon) was a delightful contrast—humorous, bright, playful—proving that it’s possible to be ambitious without being serious or virtuosic every single moment!

T here are people who are uncanny, who are finished products at a very young age.”
— Itzhak Perlman.