Concert reviews
Review: WasteLAnd presents Richard Valitutto
The final wasteLAnd concert of 2015, Nocturnes and Lullabies, featured Richard Valitutto at the piano and was presented on Friday evening, December 11, 2015 at Los Angeles City College’s Clausen Hall in Hollywood. An enthusiastic crowd turned out on a chilly night to hear piano music by Wolfgang von Schweinitz, Bunita Marcus, Nicholas Deyoe, Timo Andres, Helmut Lachenmann, Salvatore Sciarrino, and Linda Caitlin Smith.
NCTRN (2014) by Nicholas Deyoe started things off, opening with a sharp rap followed by a sudden, crashing chord. The piece immediately turned quiet and a series of dense, atmospheric chords drifted up, creating a shimmering undercurrent of anxiety. This continued and soon a quiet rapping was heard, as realized by several prepared keys in the uppermost notes of the keyboard. The rapping became more insistent as the piece progressed, adding another level of tension that contrasted nicely with the dark chords coming from the lower registers. The persistent knocking became louder – like a ghost trapped in a closet – ceasing suddenly at the finish.
Notturno crudelo no. 1 (2000), by Salvatore Sciarrino was next with a march-like rhythm dominating, almost mechanical in its repetition and regularity. Complex passages consisting of rapid runs and skips intervened – less strident and at times even tentative – but the forceful marcato texture invariably returned. Valitutto managed all of this with high efficiency, effectively portraying the vivid contrast between the sections.
Three pieces were then played continuously: Wiegenmusik (1963) by Helmut Lachenmann, Lullaby (2000) by Bunita Marcus and Plainsound Lullaby (2014) by Wolfgang von Schweinitz. The Lachenmann piece felt restrained, full of quiet notes and short stretches of silence. Some sharp, rapid figures were heard in the upper registers at times, but the overall feel was remote, tentative and mysterious. Lullaby by Bunita Marcus had an altogether more settled sound and featured repeating phrases combined with conventional chords, producing a more introspective feel.
The von Schweinitz piece called for Valitutto to play from the keyboard while depressing the sustain pedal and reaching inside the piano to pluck several of the strings in the lower registers. This required an awkward posture, but the results were amazing. A series of bell-like tones – almost electronic in timbre – issued out from the piano in a pleasant sonority, complimenting a quiet melody of conventional notes. This combination was both unusual and engaging and Plainsound Lullaby received sustained applause from the audience at the conclusion.
After intermission Heavy Sleep (2013) by Timo Andres began with a singular series of deep, questioning chords that were answered similarly in the higher registers. As the piece continued it became, by turns, warm, reaffirming, settled and connected until it arrived at an expansively grand sound. At times, Heavy Sleep exhibited great power, like a piano concerto without an orchestra. The playing here was accurate and the changing dynamics were negotiated effectively.
The final two pieces of the concert, A Nocturne (1995) by Linda Caitlin Smith and Lullaby 2 by Nicholas Deyoe were performed continuously. A Nocturne started quietly and there were long stretches of silence between the phrases that let the notes ring out and slowly die away. Familiar chords followed, producing a questioning, introspective feel. The stillness and quiet of this work made for a good segue to the Deyoe piece, and this began with deep, solemn chords in the lowest registers of the keyboard. Answering chords followed with higher pitches and the low chord returned again with added mystery and power. The fine touch by Valitutto brought out the delicate contrast here.
The prepared keys again made an appearance in the form of a rhythmic knocking that held the attention of the listener. This knocking dominated as the piece progressed and the supporting chords built up a dreamy atmosphere that terminated in a series of roiling runs up and down the keyboard and a sharp thunder clap. At one point the keyboard cover was closed and a soft rapping sound was made upon it. A dreamy fragment of a romantic melody appeared, conjured up so quietly and mysteriously that it seemed to be coming out of the mist in the far distance. A sudden closing of the keyboard cover brought Lullaby 2 to a final, satisfactory finish.
Richard Valitutto brought his many talents to bear on the wide variety of contemporary pieces in Nocturnes and Lullabies, consistently delivering just the right blend of passion and artful technique.
Review: Equal Sound presents M83: Digital Shades [vol. 1]
We found the place all right, though it took a minute to find the door. It’s frankly genius, using a dance studio as a concert venue at night, since it functions like a blackbox theater. It even had a balcony, with squishy sofas to view the performance. It was completely sold out, standing room only. The lights dimmed and Nick Norton, one of Equal Sound‘s directors, ran up to the stage to make an announcement: the Michael Gordon piece, originally written as a reaction to 9/11, was moved to the beginning of the set as tribute for the recent attacks on Paris and Beirut. This simple and meaningful gesture hushed the audience, and the piece began.
Light Is Calling is pure and beautiful, just a solo violin and electronic sounds. It began with the thump of a slow heart, a tiny ray of hope in light of a tragedy. It sounded like music heard through pounding ears, muffled and throbbing like there’s too much adrenaline to calm down enough to pay attention. The violin cut through the pulsating track, the only pure and uninterrupted sound, singing, like glass rubbing on glass. At the end of the song, the sounds through the speakers were clearly manipulated synths, and yet they sounded human, like a choir singing underwater and far away. It was both an elegy for the lost and a paean for the survivors.
John Cage’s Radio Music is a (relative) oldie but a goodie. Oddly enough, it carried over the mood from Gordon’s song. The trick with Cage music is that one often hears what one wants; aleatoric music is more or less a blank slate, the most famous example being 4’33” of silence. I like to say that Cage’s music lets the listener put in more of themselves, sort of like paint by number rather than a filled in piece. Radio Music had the performers holding radios and taking turns twiddling the dial on AM and FM stations and turning up and down the volume. There were commercials for car dealerships, live reports on various sports games, a few pop songs, and a talk radio segment. More than half the piece was static. At the best of times, static and white noise have a kind of mystery, a potentiality to become or be imagined as anything else. Coming immediately after Light Is Calling, the static seemed like a metaphor for waiting to hear from people at the sites of the attacks, or the silence of the fallen.
Next up was Missy Mazzoli’s Harp and Altar. Having first been introduced to her work through her opera the LA Opera put on a month or so ago, it was affirming to hear a quartet piece that solidifies what I now recognize as her style of strident strings, tasteful pitch bends and slides, highly motivic, pounding syncopation in exciting sections, and recorded sounds blending and sometimes overtaking the live sounds. At first I thought the recorded voices were an illusion from open strings from the quartet. After a segment of minimalism in the middle, the voices crescendoed until it all but set the quartet in the background. The ending was absolutely turgid with the quartet grinding on their strings and the voices growing ever louder, and one could practically hear the grain in the wood of the cello. It ended suddenly, like inhaling after holding your breath for almost too long, just a cut and ringing out to nothing. I say here again that my mind was still on Paris and Beirut, and the fading resonance at the end was to me another reminder.
One cannot remain sad forever and the show will go on. I would describe Fog Tropes II by Ingram Marshall as if Stephen Sondheim wrote Lark Ascending as a track for use in the movie Pan’s Labyrinth during the rain scenes. The recorded sounds became windy, dissonant, and haunting; the strings gradually caught up from pastoral air to grim dirge, as if it only slowly dawned on them to change. Chattering birds added to the foggy forest mood, followed by didjeridoo and scratchy strings to make it more foreboding. A woman’s voice in the recorded sounds turned into an unreal animal. Near the end was a kind of double duet, with the violin and viola hocketting pitches and the other violin and cello intertwining melodies. The sound as a whole is how I always imagined a cursed forest would sound. Being from Seattle where the landscape is vastly dim forests, it felt weirdly like a slice of home.
You have probably heard M83‘s Grammy-nominated Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, which contains their hit “Midnight City,” one of their more danceable songs. A French electronic band now local to LA, their niche lies in chill grooves and ephemeral minimalism, often similar to Sigur Rós or Balmorhea. There were ten tracks in total, and given the seamless flow from one piece to another I inevitably got off in keeping track of where I was in the program. That said, Digital Shades is decidedly an album that ought to be heard together in one sitting, so maybe it is even better this way.
My notes from the performance stand as testament to the distinct sonority M83 possesses in each of their songs. It started with ocean waves, synth waves, and string quartet waves. It moved on to vocals moving softly like a stream, drops in the water, over tremolo cello, in the form of a passacaglia; the vocals never change, but the strings move around them. The performance featured a viola plucked like a ukulele, bird song, and white noise, and always sounded natural. Certain sections strongly reminded me of Iceland. Others sounded like people bumping into each other on a New York sidewalk.
An essential takeaway from this concert is that modern music is not inaccessible. While writing this, several people implored me to make this clear, for even they were surprised. It seems that many stereotype new music to be constantly unyieldingly harsh. Yes, I am one who enjoys hearing extended trombone technique solos and experimental jazz. I will be the first to admit that much modern music is an acquired taste. That said, a substantial corps of music in general, from Perotin from the Medieval era to Buxtehude from the Baroque to Milhaud at the turn of the century, can sound alien to our ears attuned to Nirvana and Taylor Swift, when all we listen to from ‘Classical music’ is Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. There is so much more. Live performers can play tonally and in tandem with recorded sounds and it can sound simply beautiful, no qualifiers attached. Some composers push the limits of possibility with sound, and they are, quite literally, the fringes. Equal Sound reminded everyone in the audience that modern music is not dissonant, just new.
Review: Aron Kallay: Beyond 12: Volume II
Microtonality is often quipped at as “the cracks between the piano keys.” It is tradition in our Western art culture to have the smallest interval be what is called a half step, or semitone; but why do we divide the octave into twelve semitones, why not eight or thirteen? In the live preview last week at Harvey Mudd College of the second volume of his Beyond Twelve series, Aron Kallay used an electronic keyboard to realize a six different composers’ takes on alternate tuning and temperament.
The program kicked off with I’m Worried Now by Monroe Golden. The first thing that struck me was the schizophonia – Aron would strike a key in what ought to be the lower register of the piano, and it would sound a note from a higher register. He would sweep his hand up and down the keys in a glissando and it seemed a crapshoot whether the notes would rise or fall. One of the notes I scribbled during the performance reads: “Vince Guaraldi on an ancient piano in a thunderstorm.” The piece is jazzy and tipsy. The thunderous low notes set apart from the tip-toeing upper melody. The retuning sometimes sounds intentional and other times not, to the intriguing effect that it would set my teeth on edge and then resolve into tonality, though no longer equal temperament; yes, during the performance I was certainly worried. All in all, music that moves your emotions and mind in such a rollercoaster is surely a triumph by Golden.
Alex Miller’s composition The Blur of Time and Memory used 1/10th (instead of ½, or half) steps. The result was that chords in which one or two notes move chromatically upwards seemed to peel away from the original chord identity to glide into another, like a chameleon shifting its coloring. The piece was meditative overall, intensified in sections by shifting harmonies and tugging the listener’s ear through tonal areas it is not used to visiting. It ended with an uncanny resemblance to wailing wind in a drafty room, like a ghost had haunted the keys to take the tuning out of whack.
Underbelly, by Stephen Cohn, utilized notes above and below the standard piano range, in which a dance fitting for the Mad Hatter’s tea party plays and the Jabberwocky thumps below in the bass region. The unfamiliar overtones from the bottom register give an otherworldly twist. The other parts of the piece resembled water music, but with more finesse and realism thanks to the microtonality at play. The smaller intervals gave an ultra-realistic fluidity to the cascade of notes winding through the recital hall.
The last work before intermission was Paths of the Wind by Bill Alves. It began as a wall of sound, like standing atop a windy mountain straining to hear the rumbling bass melody in the distance. The clusters of notes washed together and averaged into a drone which became a musical line unto itself. Like the Cohn piece’s effectiveness in using microintervals to enhance fluidity, Alves glided through notes like a bird on the wind, seemingly continuously rather than discretely. Without microtonality, there is no way a piano could sound so natural; it’s as if wind were transported directly into the hall and pitched to a melody, but still unfettered by tonality. A truly spellbinding work by Alves.
Post-intermission we were treated to two more pieces, the first of which, Involuntary Bohlen Piercing, was composed by Nick Norton. This used temperament in an even more unorthodox manner, by cutting up a perfect twelfth instead of a perfect octave into segments. The twelfth is divided into thirteen even segments, each slightly less than a quarter-tone larger than our equal-tempered half step. The first scribble I have for this one reads: “Drunken tip-toeing complete with running into things.” In other words, the piece begins hesitant and gentle, even a little uncertain, but is soon brought out of its nascent stages by magnificent Rachmaninoff-esque crashes. Reminiscent of Schoenberg’s Six Small Pieces for Piano, minimalists like Terry Riley, and a peppering of Impressionism, this piece was never dissonant, but always pleasant even when alien. The pacing was slower than the other composers’, but worked within the frame of the hesitant beginning and end. The tolling bells near the end seemed to be a clock announcing the end of the piece, or perhaps, in Norton’s case, the nearing completion of his PhD.
The concert ended with Clouds of Clarification by Robert Carl. Given my adoration for the book and movie “Cloud Atlas,” it was difficult to extract my mind from that world. Carl explained before the performance that the piece included four movements played without break: water, earth, wind and fire. After a stately opening, the first high note not belonging to the equal temperament was jarring like a shard of glass. The aquatic movement came off like water dripping from stalactites, and had a distinctly crystalline feel. The music split the difference between pentatonic and whole tone scales as it moved into the earth movement, lumbering across the keys. Upon reaching the air movement, Aron’s hands looked like birds flitting on the keyboard, and it was reminiscent of Olivier Messiaen’s bird pieces. Nearing the end, each low thwomp in the bass was ear cleansing relief between microtonal clusters, like healing a burn from the fire movement. My favorite part of the piece was watching the composer react to Aron’s portrayal. He knew every note he wrote; this piece, like everything he has written, is his child, and he was infectiously joyous hearing it realized. I believe most of audience felt his enthusiasm, and I hope all may be as enthusiastic as microtonal music when they encounter it.
Review: Experimental Music Yearbook Concert at the wulf
On Friday, November 6, 2015 the wulf presented a concert by members of the Experimental Music Yearbook. A full house turned out to hear three pieces by Katherine Young, Brian Harnetty and Jennifer Walshe, all connected by a common theatrical thread.
Graveled crumbled strewn by Katherine Young was first up and performed by a large group that included strings, winds, guitar, electronics and a video. This began with a single pitch from the soprano sax, matched in the violin whose tone quickly broke down into a rough, scratchy sound, like a cable under tension. Breathy sounds came from the flute while the lower strings produced a calm, welcoming chord and it was as if we were standing outside on some open, windswept hill. Meanwhile, the video showed construction equipment in the distance with the sounds of heavy, mechanical clanking. The instruments picked up this theme and began to issue a series of industrial sounds – the snap of a cello string and some humming in the horns. This portrayal – aided by the images in the video – proved very convincing, as if we were in the middle of a construction site, surrounded by powerful mechanical activity. With a steady siren blast from the horns, as might be heard for a shift change, the sounds ceased. Graveled crumbled strewn is a convincing realization of forceful earth moving processes experienced in close proximity.
Liam Mooney next performed “Could I Tell You a Little Story About That?” by Brian Harnetty, on the vibraphone. This began in retro fashion with a vintage cassette tape recorder playing soundtracks from old TV shows. The dialogue was definitely dated – perhaps mid-20th century – with a distinctly rural character. Soft, solitary tones came from the vibraphone and this added a warm, nostalgic feel to words heard from the tape track. One could almost imagine a black and white TV set with the family gathered around. The archival recordings created a powerful empathy and the soothing sounds from the vibraphone perfectly complimented the scene. “Could I Tell You a Little Story About That?” is imaginatively conceived and was beautifully played.
An ensemble of strings, saxophones, flute and guitar performed the final piece on the program, Zusammen I by Jennifer Walshe. Complete silence began this piece, followed by breathy sounds from the winds and a light set of notes from the guitar. The strings joined in, with cello laying down a solid foundation that gave this section a prelude-like feel. Another minute of silence with a similar sequence followed. A bowed bowl produced a lovely high pitch that seemed to float above the listeners, adding a sense of mystery. Ms Walshe lives in Ireland and this music brought to mind a dark moor far out in the country. Another spell of silence and then one of the performers stood up and began walking among the players with a purposeful stride. Low tones in the cello deepened this riddle as the other strings joined in quietly. More silence and then two of the performers retired to a corner of the space, embraced, and began a slow dance. The horns gave out a solid tutti passage full of warm and welcoming chords as if we were in a familiar place – perhaps a local pub. Another player began to stagger about, perhaps drunk, as the dancers continued their slow-motion rocking. More sweet sounds from the ensemble completed the vignette as the piece concluded in silence. Zusammen I is an affectionate, intimate look at the customs of lesser-known society.
Performers for The Experimental Music Yearbook were Casey Anderson, Jennifer Bewerse, Casey Butler, Scott Cazan, Morgan Gerstmar, Josh Gerowitz, John P. Hastings, Todd Lerew, Liam Mooney, Stephanie Smith, and Christine Tavolacci.
the wulf’s Santa Fe street location
Added Note: It was announced at this concert that the building on Sante Fe Street that has been the home of the wulf for the last seven years is being sold. The plan is to move the wulf to a new site, but the details are still being worked out. For the latest information please visit their website: http://www.thewulf.org/
Review: Los Angeles Composers Collective: Wind Quintets
On Friday, October 23, the Los Angeles Composers Collective presented a concert at Ross Chapel in Pasadena, featuring seven new wind quintets by the collective’s seven members. CLAW, the Los Angeles-based contemporary wind quintet, was on hand to perform. Linda L. Rife, LACC Artistic Director, gave some opening remarks and introduced each piece, all premieres.
The concert opened with Spring From Night Into The Sun by Gregory Lenczycki, a piece that was inspired by Help On The Way by the Grateful Dead. A tuba was substituted in the CLAW wind ensemble for the usual bassoon and the opening flute arpeggios were soon joined by a booming bass line. The other instruments entered with alternately jagged lines and smoother stretches, with the combinations constantly changing. This produced a complex texture that was occasionally broken by more fluid sections. At one point a lovely horn solo rose up with a solemn, introspective feel. At other times a light, bouncy groove emerged, dominated by the horns. Spring From Night Into The Sun featured excellent coordination among the players passing around the complicated rhythms and provided an engaging contrast by the artful placement of the more soothing stretches.
Out of Time by Ryan Lester was based on a sort of biological metaphor, as three musical cells were introduced and evolved in different directions. The piece began actively, with repeating rhythms and syncopated lines, the bassoon, flute and clarinet closely interwoven with the horn, producing a complex, constantly-changing pattern of eighth notes. This had the feel of classic minimalism – with the three repeating cells – but as the rhythmic variations radiated outward there was a sense of ever-expanding complexity.
Wind Quintet No. 1 by Tu Nguyen followed and was inspired by that most agreeable of diversions: daydreaming. This piece began in a series of lush, sustained chords with a particularly lovely blend in the clarinet and bassoon. There was a more leisurely and relaxing feel to this as compared to the previous pieces, and the horn part added a particularly welcoming touch. The pleasant harmony and slower pace gave an earthy, organic feel – like lying in the sunshine of a summer day. Occasionally there would be a touch of drama or the exotic, but always followed by a return to the familiar. Wind Quintet No. 1 is a deftly charming sketch of genial reverie.
The first half of the concert concluded with Story of the Tree Seed by Danielle Rosaria. This is a story that Ms. Rosaria imagined for her unborn child involving a tree seed given by an old woman to be planted by a young girl from a mountain village high above the timber line that knew no trees. Story of the Tree Seed proceeds in four movements; the first opens with a lovely horn and clarinet duo, followed by the bassoon and horn. There is a sense of noble grandeur here – and mountainous terrain – that sets the scene. The second movement is slower and more deliberate and the bassoon solo paints a convincing portrait of the old woman – long flowing passages and an elegant counterpoint complete the picture. The orchestration of the wind instruments is precisely on target here. Movement three is active and bustling, exactly like a child full of energy. The melody lines are rapid and short, especially in the flute solo. The other woodwinds add counterpoint and the feeling is optimistic and hopeful. The final movement has a monumental feeling, especially in the horn, as the tree seed is planted with a spirit of idealism and hopefulness. Story of the Tree Seed features excellent writing for the wind quintet as applied to storytelling – you can almost see the animation unfold in your mind’s eye.
The second half started with A Buck For The Organ Grinder by Derek Dobbs, with the wind quintet augmented by electric guitar, bass guitar and the composer at the electronic keyboard. This piece was inspired by the mistreatment of the old organ grinder street musicians who were often insulted or physically chased from the street corners where they would busk for small change. Given the nature of the title and the addition of the amplified instrumentation, I anticipated a high intensity sonic barrage would ensue. This proved to be incorrect, as the guitar and keyboard began with a bright, sunny opening chord that set a buoyant tone for the rest of the piece. The bass joined in, lending an Asian feel and as the woodwinds and brass entered there were some splendid harmonies as well as an engaging counterpoint. There was a terracing effect as each instrument entered in its turn, adding to the rhythmic texture and sweet sensibility of this piece. A Buck For The Organ Grinder is a gentle and unhurried piece that is full of warmth and optimism.
Ouroboros by Nicholas White was next, and this was based on the self-devouring snake myth that is common to many cultures. Dark chords and deep notes opened this piece, giving a somewhat sinister feeling. The english horn gave a rather exotic feel and the piece became more dramatic and uncertain with the addition of some discordant tones. The exotic feeling was increased by an oboe entrance that weaved a mysterious melody, reminiscent of an early passage in The Pines of Rome. The bass clarinet added to the ominous feel and the piece turned dark and menacing, perhaps a metaphor for the completion of the circle of life as symbolized by the self-devouring snake. Ouroboros is a fine musical expression of the ancient myth, nicely captured for the wind quintet.
The final piece in the program was In passing by Jon Brenner. This began with a syncopated tutti line that quickly broke down into complex counterpoint. There was a busy, active feel of motion and movement to this. A theme emerged and was handed off to different players as the others combined in a nicely ornamented counterpoint, as if commenting on the theme. The texture was animated, with many parts emerging and then falling back again; it almost seemed as if a fugue would break out. In passing is a complex assembly with intricately moving parts, pleasing to hear and well played.
The playing by CLAW was precise throughout the concert, with good ensemble despite the wide variety of works on the program. The Los Angeles Composers Collective, formed in 2011, continues to showcase new music and emerging composers with concerts such as this.
CLAW is:
Sammi Lee – flute, alto flute
Claire Brazeau – oboe, english horn
Brian Walsh – clarinet, bass clarinet
Kat Nockels – tuba, bassoon
Annie Bosler – french horn
Review: Ray-Kallay Duo at Boston Court
Writing reviews as a composer can be a delicate business, in that the needs of one – being friends with performers – sometimes conflict with the needs of honest, unbiased writing. Every now and then, however, you come across a concert so good that it blows away any concern for that conflict, because in lauding the performers with accolades you are merely speaking the truth. Ray-Kallay Duo‘s concert at Boston Court last week was one such show.
Ray-Kallay Duo at Boston Court. Photo by Adam Borecki.
As the name implies, Ray-Kallay Duo is the four-hands project of pianists Aron Kallay and Vicki Ray. Just saying four-hands undersells it, though, as Friday’s concert had them awash in four-hands, four-feet, laptop, ankle-shakers, microtonal vs. equal-tempered keyboard rep. The show opened with Kevin Volans’ Matepe, with the pianists hocketing changing rhythms back and forth while beating out time with legs covered in seed pods. This contrasted nicely with Kyle Gann’s gorgeous and calming Romance Postmoderne, which was written for the duo.
You might expect stage changes galore, what with the unstrapping of seed pods and moving between instruments. While some ensembles get awkwardly silent during these times, Ray-Kallay has the insight to use them to their advantage, as Vicki Ray delivers affable program notes about each piece from the stage while Aron resets. The friendly vibe of the event helped out pieces like Frank Oteri’s Oasis, written for Yamaha DX7s and intended to make fun of the ridiculousness of early FM synth instrument modeling. In a “serious” recital such a piece may have felt out of place, but here it fit right in.
Composers in attendance visited the stage as well, with Isaac Schankler explaining how his piece Because Patterns (the title an answer to Morton Feldeman’s Why Patterns?) uses preparations to an acoustic piano to try to conjure the feel of electronic sounds.
Boy, did he succeed. The minimalist, groove-based piece was the highlight of the night. Extremely transparent, it not only showed off Schankler’s feel for phrase and musical structure and attention to sound (almost like a friendlier Tristan Perich), and the non-pandering influence of electronic artists like Matmos and Aphex Twin, but highlighted just how tightly the pianists were synced. It would be easy to convince a listener that it was one musician sitting at the piano.
Dylan Mattingly’s piece The Rest is Silence also benefitted from the cohesion of Ray and Kallay, this time with one at the piano and the other at a just-intoned keyboard. This piece is strikingly lush and beautiful, and calls into question the idea that JI music is music for specialists. It’s my favorite Mattingly piece I’ve heard yet.
When writing for four hands, I’m often thinking about chord voicings and contrapuntal writing that one pianist couldn’t achieve within their span. The range of things that Ray-Kallay demonstrated are possible with two performers of this caliber was inspiring. I hope they continue to build a rep for their infinitely-malleable setup and concertize everywhere, not just as two pianists, but as two extremely versatile musicians.
Review: Missy Mazzoli/LA Opera: Song from the Uproar
I can imagine no better way to be introduced to the LA Opera than by this show. I had no idea what to expect, only hope that it might be a nice way to spend a Friday evening. Of all the shows in LA, I figured I might as well check out something brand new. I was in for a treat.
Isabelle Eberhardt, played by the incredibly talented Abigail Fischer, had several distinct lives and deaths, recollected through cobbled diary pages. Missy Mazzoli wanted to give her a proper homage through equally cobbled yet bleakly beautiful music. Using distorted guitars, stuttering electronic sounds, pure voices, and a wailing cello and flute tell Isabelle’s tragic stories. Videos on transparent scrims add further layers of emotion to the story, complementing the music. The chorus sometimes acted as a reflection of Isabelle, and other times sang duets with her. The musicians and their instruments were as much characters in the story as Isabelle. The cello cried, the flute sang, and clarinet drank coffee and the piano just drank.
One of my favorite moments was when Isabelle moved off her pillow in an opium den and sat with the pianist on his bench. He abandoned her there, and she carried on the tune the best she could. A melody usually implements small intervals for easy singing, but the song in the opium den had enormous intervals, which I imagined represented the highs and lows of drug use. My favorite song overall was “One Hundred Names for God,” when she goes through her religious phase near the beginning. The choreography was stunning, and the many different names dripped like glittering water from Isabelle’s mouth while the instruments lilted along deferentially.
Other songs featured amplified flute signaling a period of exploration, and guitar performing a heartbeat emulating blood rushing to one’s ears in a moment of high tension and fear. At the very end, when Isabelle dies in a flash flood, the guitar swells and grows like a physical presence, and cuts short the instant her life does. This perhaps sounds cliché, and rereading this review sheds light on what made the music so subtly effective in the moment. It’s a silken beauty like seeing the ocean in the moonlight that makes one wax poetic and at the same time fail to find the words. Through such a short but intense opera, the audience falls in love with Isabelle Eberhardt and our hearts break when the music ends her life.
In short, I cannot rave about this opera enough, especially the musicians. It only ran for the one weekend, but there will be many more performances by the LA Opera and from the Beth Morrison Projects this season. Buy your tickets early!
Review: WasteLAnd’s Future of Terror
There’s something fitting about the fact there was a zoetrope of the Artic Circle upstairs above the stage during the performance. When the show is called the future of terror, the ensemble is named wasteLAnd, and there’s a stag head mounted on the wall staring at you the entire time, you know it’s going to be bleak and beautiful.
My initial thought on Emergence by Elise Roy for flute and soprano saxophone was, “I need this for my alarm clock!” Beginning literally and figuratively like a train pulling out of a station, Emergence features multiphonics, key clicks, vocal fry and hiccups from the flutist. There was even a section of vocal fry duet between Elise on flute and Elise on the recorded tape. Both the flutist and saxophonist exhibited more and more extended techniques over the course of the piece, seeming to emerge from their shells as mere instruments and becoming something more. Given the title, I constantly wondered what was emerging; sometimes it sounded like an egg hatching, and other times like a rift in time and space (I watch too much Dr. Who), and anything in between. The ending on a sustained vocal fry, no diminuendo or crescendo, left the piece feeling deliciously incomplete.
Multiplicities for solo flute by Jason Eckardt bounces off the walls like a game of registral tag. This piece sounded like an argument between different personalities, perhaps between a shoulder angel and shoulder devil. Or Smeagol and Gollum. After the last note fades out, there is one final tiny “I told you so” that made me laugh out loud. The sheer amount of energy and technique Elise put into this solo is superhuman. She exhibits superhuman control and stamina over every note, gliss, click and hum, and it was utterly spellbinding.
Elise Roy and Stephanie Aston premiere Kurt Isaacson’s “The Future of Terror”
I idly wondered who miscalculated that the concert would be almost two hours long, because I estimated the first two pieces to be approximately ten minutes each. Never underestimate the future of terror. Kurt Isaacson weaves a desolate wasteland with piccolo (and then flute), simple percussion, and soprano Stephanie Aston singing words by Matthea Harvey. The music of the piece lies not in the spoken words alone, or in fact in any one sound, but in the electronic artifacts on tape, the phonemes of the poem, the tapping of the snare like heartbeats or rainfall, and the whispering and tweeting of the piccolo. It seems to transcend melody and harmony, and only the rhythm and the sounds in each moment matter. It’s a tapestry of children’s chants, white noise and growling snare drum, screech owl imitation by piccolo, and thought-provoking lyrics. Almost a solid hour in length, the music was exhausting even for the audience. It never let up. The intensity of the sounds and intricate detail in motifs never allowed the mind to wander. We the audience existed on the Twilight Zone line between watching and participating, and the end felt like waking from a dream only to realize we had been awake all along.
Review: Southland Ensemble, Gerhard Stäbler and Kunsu Shim
While wild Up clattered, reoriented itself, and clattered again downtown on Friday night, a much quieter kind of recapitulation of materials took place at Curve Line Space in Eagle Rock: Southland Ensemble, known for their careful presentations of underrepresented composers, performed intimate works by composers Gerhard Stäbler and Kunsu Shim. The pieces titillated and occasionally challenged, and as violist Cassia Streb commented, consistently offered an “intellectual puzzle.”
A particular pleasure was the stark simplicity of In Zwei Teilen, or In Two Parts, by Shim. The Teils, or parts, bookended the concert, an appropriate metaphor for the concert overall; in music this purified, when materials are stripped to their essence, structure becomes content. Teil 1, conducted by the composer, consisted of two tableaus: rain-like pianissimo plinks from a thumb piano against a sustained tone in the cello, alternating multiple times with long, glassy dissonant chords through a dispersed ensemble of recorder, cello, violin, and viola. The same tableaus ended the concert, presented as Teil 2. When our ears are bombarded daily, it’s gently fulfilling to apprehend something as fundamental as binary form. One forgets, there is clarity and power in simply reconsidering an idea after another has been presented.
Another highlight was Southland Ensemble’s a playful interpretation of Hart Auf Hart by Stäbler, a graphic score comprised of a bar-coded grid with coordinates. Ensemble members turned handheld radios and cassette decks off and on to Battleship-style coordinates shouted over a megaphone, rewinding and piping in tinny AM radio, bringing to mind Cage. More like Cage, some grid squares contained nothing at all, and silence delimited the material with an uncomfortable objectivity.
]and on the eyes black sleep of night[ by Stäbler presented more thoughtful juxtapositions, for piccolo, clarinet, and violin, in which breath-like cadences on piercing intervals alternated with passages of dissonant activity. Piccolo amplified the higher partials of the clarinet, as overtones interacted in the beating atmosphere, and the piccolo seemed to take on aspects of the clarinet, its woodiness suddenly apparent in the lower dynamics. Violin, a mediating force, held these fast.
Shim’s luftrand for violin, viola and cello continued the theme of self-contained scenes, but in a darkened tone. While Stäbler explores a taut, considered objectivity, in Shim, things loosen, junctures come apart. Wavering sul pont harmonics and unsure gestures are suspended precariously in short, motivic units. Each scene is presented as an aphorism, but an apprehensive one, made by somebody lost on some bleak shore. The form occurs within these aphorisms, musical meaning leaping between lilypads, bounded by silence. The dual structure evokes an individual voice, weighing options, assessing alternatives, all with emotional intensity.
Happy for No Reason by Shim, in contrast, was a straightforward conceptual exploration of noise and quietude – buckets, boxes, and bags of bells were dropped and thrown at random intervals, before a B section in which players reconfigured with deft, tiny gestures, while the Stäbler slowly pulled a roll of masking tape from wall to wall, around various players. Again, the simplicity of the binary form was remarkably effective.
X (February ’94) by Stäbler, “for closures and fasteners” featured the ensemble working with ziplock bags, Velcro, tape, zippers, shoelaces, staplers, boxes and clamps, manipulating each according to dice rolls. All of these items can only exist in one of two states: open, or closed. As dry as the content and structure seemed to be here, this choice of materials, and their implied states, suggested a subtle poeticism.
There is plenty of academic work on Stäbler and Shim’s music, exploring its theoretical and political underpinnings, but for the average, curious concert-goer, this music more than speaks for itself, with its careful emphasis on form, expectations, and purity.
Review: ACF/wild Up at REDCAT
wild Up! at REDCAT. Photo by Adam Borecki.
Art should make you feel something. Be it the discomfort of eye contact, mirth at the absurdity of a bitterly happy man (nope, not a typo), or literal vibrations in your skeleton, the winning pieces of the 2015 American Composers Forum National Composition Contest dealt it all through wild Up. The concert began with When Eyes Meet by Nina C. Young, a variably atonal work narrating the palpable awkwardness of eye contact with a stranger. Segments of pointillism and others of smooth lyricism portray sneaking glances and the development of silent rapport, cut short audibly by one party guiltily turning away. In short, an aural captivation of “the struggle is real.” Next up was The Man Who Hated Everything by Alex Temple. The title alone speaks volumes on what this tribute to Frank Zappa contains. It’s a witty collage of quotations barreling through a train of thought that could exist equally in Zappa or Temple’s heads, and spills out in jazz improvisation and big band bellows and words spoken by the performers assuming characters almost but not quite themselves. The performers have entirely too much fun, and it afflicts the audience delightfully, and laughter mingles with the applause. The third and final piece is Chiaroscuro by William Gardiner. Beginning with two notes in the middle range of a vibraphone, the sound seems to come physically forward from the stage into your body as the sound is transformed into sound waves with subharmonics. The other instruments play high and light over the thick, visceral vibrations, and though there is a rhythm in the high end only the harmonic rhythm in the bass is truly observed. Each chord moved a different part of myself; first my feet, then my knees, and then my chest and finally my face. Have you ever had your sinuses stuffed from the LA haze, and then inexplicably and gently stirred by pure bass notes? It is a strange thing to claim, and an even stranger thing to experience. It was emotional without emotions, and utterly spellbinding. I wanted to hear it at least a dozen times more over the course of the night.
My wish was partly granted. After the three pieces were presented in this order, the composers came down and answered a few questions with Chris Rountree, the conductor of wild Up. As a former Seattlite who has only lived in California for a year, I am still pleasantly surprised that the whole creative process seems present in the end product; the composers and artistic directors are always at the shows and still involved. This seems, forgive my poeticism, to give the art the loving support it needs to be a real triumph, not just one more modern, off-the-wall sound coming out of crazy ol’ LA.
But, it just wouldn’t be LA without being a little off the wall. After the chat with the composers and intermission, the second half of the concert was the same set, just in a different order. The best part of this experiment was that I could move seats, and thus experience the pieces from a different perspective. Also, about half the audience departed, leaving only those who seriously love their modern music. To be fair, usually after finishing a meal you don’t jump right into eating the same meal again. But this wasn’t a meal; it was more like finishing a good book and wanting to read the whole thing again. The energy was different and the room felt smaller, but there was more rapport between all the audience members. So we heard William’s piece again, and from my new vantage point I could feel the vibrations move me in different places than before, and I could imagine seeing the floor in rings of emanating pulses, which had not occurred to me before. I heard more themes and patterns in Nina’s work, and I wished I could have followed along in the score but I was mollified by this second listen through. Alex’s piece was also enhanced by the fact I could finally see the pianist’s and reed player’s faces and better hear their words. The cellist and flutist hammed it up at the very end, and the audience, as small as we were, ate it up. The second round was a stroke of genius. The stress and reverence of the big, bad world premiere was over and we were graced with the best encore we could hope for: something exactly the same but different. And it felt great.