Reviews
Review: wild Up, Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute Concert, UCLA
On Wednesday, August 12, (a while ago now; please excuse this reviewer, gentle readers) wild Up presented a unique collaboration between the American Composers Orchestra, the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, and the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University: specifically, the final concert of the Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute, a workshop geared toward giving jazz composers the opportunity to learn about writing for orchestra. If this description alone is hard to follow, it’s because there were so many forces at play here – wild Up’s intuitive and intense grasp of chamber music, Rountree’s dynamic conducting, and a wide range of experience in jazz and classical composition. The marketing of this concert seemed a bit misleading – as the culminating concert of the workshop, one might expect to find some student pieces on the program. This was, however, a showcase of faculty pieces, with a single piece by a member of wild Up – all pieces that, in their varied and skillful ways, played with the intersections between jazz and orchestral music. According to the program, up to 16 of the composers participating in this workshop will present symphonic works in the second phase of the program in 2016.
The concert was held in the Ensemble Room at the UCLA Ostin Music Center, which had lovely, rich acoustics, especially appropriate for the stripped-down chamber orchestra resources of wild Up. The environs strongly conveyed “workshop”, with all the camaraderie and vibrancy thus implied. This camaraderie was echoed in some opening remarks by director James Newton, when he asked audience members to join hands and experience the collaborative moment as one, chuckles and smiles all around. The obvious care and passion poured into this program was moving to behold.
The concert opened with a piece by this same director. Elisha’s Gift, described by the composer as dealing with direct spiritual experience of the Northern Lights, surprisingly began with a wholly intellectual dryness. wild Up’s well-poised players presented a bevy of dramatic gestures in rhythmically interlocking clothing. There was a jazz tautness here; although in classical garb, the precision of rhythmic trajectory was influenced by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gilespie, as described in the program notes. Executions were sharp, and hocketed phrases intersected with great intimacy; one’s ears were being sharpened for contrasts to come. This dryness gave way to an unexpected depth, as phrases opened up with more space, long tones and harmonics began to make an appearance. The dry, tense landscape flowered into a richer spectrum of time, and suddenly, harmonics pulled, what was intellectual became imperative, reactions slowed, and the conversation expanded. This awareness of how to resolve tension seemed quietly but powerfully from the jazz tradition. Rountree’s conducting was effective and natural, with a director’s ease. Finally, the last elements of tension gave way and the piece shone with the spiritual purity described by Newton. Motives traversed the full range of string registers, refined with ever-more delicacy, and when phrases finally elongated into lyricism, our ears had been refined by all the previous filigree to truly appreciate the melodic grace. The final, large group statement breathed strength and spiritual engagement, unified and tangible in the present.
Next up was One Modular Future by Chris Kallmyer of wild Up, a distinct about-face. After Rountree’s short introduction to the piece, a member of wild Up held up a small collection of cards, chirping, “And here’s the score!” The piece did betray this casual form of improvisation-influenced composition, but in the best possible ways. The piece started out of the hall, with wild Up members striking single tones on shimmering gamelan-like homemade percussion instruments – and listeners were quickly welcomed into that idiomatic frame of mind, a particular kind of openness. In a traditional manner, the single melodic line telescoped into double-time, and back again. The line lacked traditional gamelan contours however, as the order of tones was randomly based on the musicians’ placement on stage. In this way, the melody had the pleasing linearity of something like a modular electronic sequencer loop. Percussionists changed order, milling around the front of the stage with a fun, casual theatricality, and then played a sequence of new tones. During this, the clarinet and piano inhabited a different space, presumably the space of a different card from the score. The clarinet played improvisatory textures and multiphonics, while the inside of the piano was scraped and struck. Percussion lines broke down, a few unison clangs resonated, 3 and 4-note fragments remained, and the percussionists receded. There was a hard transition here, which was nicely handled. The next section opened with a small wind ensemble droning reedy unisons and fifths, pungent and resonant, contrasted with a light clattering of orchestral percussion. Winds in groups always seem to evoke the outdoors, and with the improvisatory percussion background, we were quickly propelled into the forest, or a field. Once we settled into this landscape, electric guitar entered with a heavy dose of Americana, and we were sure that we were somewhere with sky. The guitar improvisation continued on repeated motives, substantial and moving, and the piece ended with a (perhaps surprise?) abruptness. There were so many tropes here that could have been poorly handled: Partch-esque homemade percussion that could have been goofy, extended techniques that could have teetered into cliché, and an unabashedly beautiful guitar solo that could have been indulgent. The wealth of compositional ideas was compellingly presented however. The lack of cohesion worked as a series of tableaus, and every idea was well-explored.
Tempest, by Steve Coleman, was a completely different dish as well, direct and potent. wild Up was joined by saxes, and jazz trumpet, and came together as a strikingly alive big band. The program notes describe the piece as evocative of the ebbs and flow of a squall, and it did not disappoint. At least this reviewer had a sudden wish for the revival of the warmth and presence of live pop music that big band jazz epitomized, and that we seem to have permanently lost. The wild Up strings performed the typical big band sax role of fleshing out rich jazz harmonies, while the composer on solo sax navigated deftly and movingly in tandem with muted trumpet. The warmth here was palpable, the hall resonant. The structure was natural and well-formed; there was the feeling of a jazz “head” at important returns. The alto sax constantly commented on the textures but also lead to new territories. One was reminded, in case one had forgotten by listening to so much new music, that harmony can have grammar. Harmonies didn’t just move and shift, tonalities anchored us with physical security. Pivot points between these tonalities were navigated by a composer well-versed in extended tonal gravity, as only a jazz player really is, now. After a while, the rises and falls of the storm began to lack dramatic effect through extended repetition, but the overall texture remained compelling and fresh, through the “rainbow chord” which ended the piece.
Sinovial Joints, by the same composer explored different facets of the jazz idiom, through a distinctly physical lens. In stark contrast to the intellectualism of Elisha’s Gift, African polyrhythm and arrhythmicism here were strongly tied to the body, encouraging one to just be. As the composer describes, “sinovial joints … function as a means of connecting bones, binding tissues and providing various degrees of movement for our bodies.” How quickly wild Up transformed into a fully functioning, churning jazz organism! The political fervency of jazz was in full evidence – there was not only toe-tapping, but sweat. Melodic lines were stated and recapitulated deftly and vibrantly, the strings functioned beautifully in their harmonic choral role, and the blend of arrhythmic and polyrhythmic elements felt totally natural, toothsome. We were not in speculation mode, we were in reality. There were unexpectedly interesting piccolo and clarinet melodies in layers, the trumpet shouted with inevitability, and an eventual transition out of polyrhythm and into orchestra textures brought us back into the intellect, with final, reflective gestures.
After a well-deserved intermission, wild Up returned with String Quintet No. 1: Funky Diversions, by Vince Mendoza. The rhythmic strength here mimicked that of Joints, but in a tighter, leaner ensemble. In a delicate opening, the strings responded to one another, pulling, yawning. Pretty diatonic lyrical motifs contrasted with tight, cerebral runs and leaping, disjunct gestures. The bass was used well, separated enough to ground the ensemble, but still “of” the quintet texture, and at 30 seconds in, ushering in a distinct funkiness. Here we were rooted not by tonal gravity, but by a solid four on the floor rhythmic inevitability. Rountree was fun to watch in this piece, obviously enjoying grooving with the ensemble. The piece as a whole still had a strong classical influence, however, with violins and viola handled idiomatically. Pretty themes were traded and hocketed, and the texture at times seemed to breathe a post-minimal air of shifting diatonic harmonies before settling into bold funk grounding. There were a few transitions to long droning tones, with traded and built in intensity back to the impact of strong, funk rhythm. This “verse-chorus” approach to form seemed to emanate from jazz traditions as well, and overall the piece was solid, self-assured.
Journey of the Shadow, by Gabriela Lena Frank, was unique on the program, as a narrated story, with a fully orchestrated backdrop. The story is a magical realist tale of a boy sending a letter to his father at war in Afghanistan, and of the boy’s shadow that slips into the envelope, and has various poignant adventures and eventually arrives back home. The work is geared toward children and adults alike, and Lena Frank’s narration is good-natured and clear. The opening oboe melody heralds the character for the entire piece: so charismatically mid-century classical, beaming with poise and charm. South American influences soon creep in, Ginastera-influenced rhythmic interactions contrasting with well-shaped clarinet lyricism. One hates to call an entire work charming, but that’s what it was: not a superficial piece, but one that exuded real charm, that awareness of how to create audience delight. Word painting was indulged with abandon throughout – for example in the description of the many kinds of letters in the mail. There were interludes of pure cuteness, including woodblock, pizzicato strings trading with staccato on piano, and wind flourishes. Erin McKibben’s flute tone was particularly rich and haunting. The form generally follows the text, as the shadow encounters various adventures, and the whole work seems built for listening as a recording, at home. The piece is familial. The jazz influence is evident, with rich extended harmonies and perfectly crafted melodies. The cartoony quality of this word painting actually conceals impressive technical strength – orchestration of this kind is actually quite difficult and requires intimate knowledge of the resources at hand. The test of this kind of piece is whether the orchestration is effective in making the story vibrant and it definitely works: one wants to know what happens next, and by the end of the story, the darker nuances of the touching tale have quietly been understood.
The final piece on the program, Time’s Vestiges by Anthony Cheung explored, according to the program notes, “metaphors drawn from geological ‘deep time’. The rumbling, buried texture wasn’t just an evocation of the earth, however; the audience was presented with a fabric of activity so dense and dynamic that it seemed to reflect the complexity of nature itself. Rhythmic counterpoint towered on top of textural effects. There were so many threads here, it was impossible for a listener to follow every contrapuntal statement, so multiplicitous were the lines. Jazz influences here were subtler than in the other pieces, if they existed at all – the most salient jazz element could have simply been the emphasis, as in all these pieces, in the immediacy of the present and the pleasure to be found in textural interplay. The melodic gestures in themselves carried a 19th century kind of angst, or surface expressivity, but the subterranean forces at work were not sentimental; they pushed and ruptured with cold precision. This unique approach to orchestration brought to mind some of the duality of Classical forms, where surface-level expression can bely a more ironic or detached foundation. The composer in fact may take this texture for granted, having lived in it for so long, as the piece starts immediately with this kind of dense patchwork, but for a new listener, the varied surface texture is fresh and enjoyable. Texturally, the piece doesn’t explore extended techniques as much as traditional effects, with tremolos and glissandi expertly layered. The piece eventually transitions from this flurry of activity to quieter moments: pizzicatos are traded with more space for reflection, and tones lengthen. We have been desensitized by the previous complexity, however, and these quiet moments seem to pass us by as we are glazed with glacial indifference. This oddly neutral respite is short-lived. The piece moves quickly to swooping, diving gestures, moving throughout the ensemble, and eventually ends with a rising line that resolves into a surprising vulnerability, given the powerful direction in the rest of the piece.
With its raucous brew of influences, the concert was a fulfilling procession of courses. wild Up’s contributions were as always, singular: no other local ensemble could have handled the diverse demands here, both technical and aesthetic. And naturally, the execution seemed effortless. One can only look forward to the next installment, in 2016, when students will be able to display the fruits of this vibrantly fertile collaboration.
Review: WasteLAnd Summer Concert Series Finale
On Saturday evening, August 1, 2015, the final concert of the WasteLAnd summer series was given in Clausen Hall at Los Angeles City College in Hollywood. The music consisted of works for piano and voice, with Stephanie Aston, soprano and Leslie Ann Leytham, mezzo-soprano the featured singers. Richard Valitutto and Brendan Nguyen accompanied.
The first piece on the program was Got Lost (2007/2008) by Helmut Lachenmann and this began with whooshing and breathy sounds from Stephanie Aston while a series of low solitary notes issued from the piano, played by Richard Valitutto. This continued for a some minutes but gradually some humming was heard along with a few musical fragments of tunes. This escalated, and rapid runs on the piano keyboard collided with powerfully sustained pitches by Ms. Aston as the dynamic balance shifted back and forth between them. As the piece continued the voice parts became more musical and the piano took on a split personality with Richard Valitutto skilfully executing a number of extended techniques. The piano strings were variously strummed, plucked and stopped by hand as a note was played and this gave rise to a number of interesting effects in quick succession; it actually seemed as if there were two different instruments accompanying the vocals. Perhaps the most intriguing effect was when the piano was silent but with the sustain pedal held down. Ms. Anston gave out a short fortissimo passage that was caught by the piano strings and heard as a ghostly echo. Lachenmann’s unconventional techniques were on full display in this piece – all the more impressive as none involved electronics or amplification of any kind.
Got Lost is without any sort of beat and the performers were seen to be cuing each other as they worked their way through. Their timing and coordination were admirable given the unorthodox demands of the score. The various clicks and pops of the vocal sounds were like a frustrated foreign language, just on edge of intelligibility. The piano added to the alien, anxious feeling with sharp, stabbing notes and loud crashes at unexpected intervals. Got Lost astonishes the listener with its ever-changing series of complex sounds, textures and dynamics and the performance on this occasion was smoothly and skillfully realized.
5 McCallum Songs (2011) by Nicholas Deyoe followed, again featuring Stephanie Aston and Richard Valitutto. This piece consists of five sections, each a setting of the text from the series Love Poems, by poet Clint McCallum. The opening section begins with deep, solemn chords from the piano and the airy soprano voice above singing “I want you to look at me with throbbing eyes…” This sets the tone – plaintive, yet with a smoldering passion. High soprano notes arced gracefully above the piano accompaniment and with the words “I want to show you the cover, and snatch the book away” Richard Valitutto slammed shut the keyboard cover on the piano to end this section.
The second section seemed yet more sorrowful and the quiet vocals had a feeling of lonely sadness about them that hinted at distress. In section three the singing was stronger and more active with soft piano notes and chords underneath. The text “Your begging eyes free my soul, I’ll never let you go” was especially moving. Section four had a single line that was repeated: “to convince you” and this was beautifully sung by Ms. Aston in a small, soft voice. For the final section the piano was tacet and the emotion from the soprano voice singing “ and as I turned you grabbed me and kissed me” was very moving. 5 McCallum Songs filled the spacious hall with a quiet economy of sound yet completely imparted all of the sentiment embedded in the text.
The final piece in the concert was Canti della tenebra (2011) by Swiss-born composer Beat Furrer and this was the US premiere. The featured singer was Leslie Ann Leytham, mezzo-soprano and the pianist was Brendan Nguyen. Canti della tenebra, a setting of text by Dino Campania, was sung entirely in Italian and proceeded in a series of sections. The first began with a deep rumble in the lower registers of the piano that dominated the soft vocals and this established the feeling of faint tension that suffuses throughout the entire work. The voice line soared briefly above, but the piano became more agitated, with notes running rapidly up and down the keyboard. The voice retreated into low, quiet tones, as if subdued, and this added an understated color to the overall texture. Eventually, the piano dropped back a bit as if to give the vocalist some space for a final declarative statement to conclude the opening section.
There were moments that overcame the early bleakness. In a later section, the singing of Ms. Leytham took the lead with a lovely chromatic melody line with the piano in a supporting role. This produced a more introspective feeling, aided by some masterful singing in the lower registers. Still another section had a more uplifting feel as a line of single piano notes was followed by warm, sustained tones in the voice that made for some lovely harmony. The later sections restated the initial sense of anxiety with waves of active piano notes and a series of strong vocal passages filled with tension. Towards the close an extended piano solo moderated the disquiet and the singing became gentle and reassuring. Some very lovely singing and playing followed as the piano slowly faded away at the finish.
Canti della tenebra contains a wide range of emotions that must flow through the voice and piano. The singing of Leslie Ann Leytham – especially in the lower, darker registers – was admirably suited to this task and the playing of Brendan Nguyen provided the ideal accompaniment.
This final concert of the WasteLAnd summer series proved how powerful and evocative the simple combination of voice, piano and poetic text can be in the right artistic hands.
Review: Scott Worthington: Space Administration
WasteLAnd’s third concert in their first summer series continued the theme of meditations on altered time, with a concert devoted entirely to Scott Worthington’s Space Administration. The piece is Worthington’s doctoral dissertation piece, an extended setting of Ken Hunt’s poem, Apollo Spacecraft. The venue was the Velaslavasay Panorama, a community cinema built in 1911 that’s gone through a number of incarnations before its current cozily dilapidated state. The piece shares a number of features with The Cartography of Time, but is most definitely a different beast.
Firstly, the piece includes a video which projects the text of the poem, and provides structure for the hour-long concert experience. The poem itself is an important player in the success of the piece, and deserves careful consideration. The text is taken from NASA’s voice transcription of the first day of the Apollo 11 moon mission, complete with timestamps. Hunt has erased words throughout, however, leaving a skeleton of fragmented phrases, combined and reconsidered through the poet’s lens to form a contemporary ode to Apollo and a meditation on space travel. The poem is quite strong, and even in the fewest phrases, the poet manages to convey convincing vulnerability, will, and longing. It’s to Worthington’s credit that he chose a strong poem to set. Often, poems that are worthy on their own merits can actually be difficult to set, as a powerful text has its own priorities. In this case, however, the absences in the text, as well as Worthington’s thoughtful pace in displaying them, provide enough room for the music’s own dialogue to flower. Here’s an excerpt from the piece:
The piece itself begins with a launch countdown in the video, which is effective in preparing the listener for the relentless march of timestamps that mark the piece. In the previous week’s The Cartography of Time, time stood still. Here, time is inexorably but weightlessly moving forward. Taken individually, the component parts are actually rather simple – samples have been recorded and processed from a Moog in use around the time of the Apollo mission, the green text fades quietly in and out of view, and the contrabass comments on the proceedings with a bank of recurring subjects and themes that bring to mind the frankness and inevitability of a rondo or ritornello. These rudimentary elements combine, however, to create something that does not just hold a listener’s interest, it feels substantial.
What really holds the piece together are the various conceptual tensions throughout. Many of the materials are traditional – recurring themes and motifs that arise with the introduction of key words or ideas, an ode to an ancient god, but these elements are unmoored, floating in a vast space. The poem purports to be about space travel, but there is so much in the imagery that is earthbound, quotidian. There are conflicts in the text between the known that is clung to, and the unknown, which is wholly undifferentiated. There is even a tension between Apollo’s realm – that of ordered music and light, and the occasionally malicious Moog context in which the piece takes place.
When Apollo actually does makes an appearance in the text, he is all of a sudden present. Worthington does an excellent job here at conjuring the sense of an ode in these moments, with variations and intensifications of musical material. We are all trying to communicate with the gods.
The form of the piece is actually somewhat difficult to follow. The form does change, and there are lighter and heavier moments, but transitions feel so inevitable that it’s hard to even keep track of the many locations we’re visiting. This can be a good thing, or a bad thing, depending on the intent of the composer. In this case, being without a goal is quite effective.
Most importantly, the overall effect is not really galactic so much as subjective. We are weightless, but are we really in outer space? The text is so powerful and the setting so passive that the listener’s reflections collapse in on themselves. This is hardly an outward looking conquest of the final frontier. We are definitely looking inward, and upward, with an ancient desire for the heavens.
EDITOR’S NOTE: an interview with Scott Worthington, whose album Prism will be out next week on Populist Records, is on the way too.
Review: WasteLAnd: The Cartography of Time
Gnwarwhallaby at Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church. Photo by Tina Tallon.
The inaugural summer series of WasteLAnd is an exciting addition to the innovative concert series – over the span of eight days, four concerts explore facets of WasteLAnd’s aesthetic. Summer casts a more languid hue on concert-going, and WasteLAnd’s thoughtful programming, and aptly named Waste(d)LAnd limited edition beer, seem to take advantage of this seasonal atmosphere.
On Saturday, July 25th, WasteLAnd teamed with the forces of Gnarwhallaby at the Neighborhood Church in Pasadena for the second of these summer performances. The Neighborhood Church has been home to a number of Gnarwhallaby concerts, and it was a refreshing surprise to find that the space had been transformed by the arrangement of the ensemble in the middle of the sanctuary, seats and speakers closely surrounding them, all lit by paper lamps and music stand lights. This subdued atmosphere had a noticeable effect on the experience of these pieces. Visual aspects are often distracting when trying to focus on sound worlds of great detail, and this staging facilitated an un-self-conscious concentration, which is lacking in many audience environments.
The first two pieces, DSCH by Edison Denisov and avance|impulsions mechaniques by Adriana Hölszky, are part of Gnarwhallaby’s standard repertoire, and were executed with characteristic familiarity and care. The pieces were both lovely in their jaggedly taut way, with surprisingly similar languages although separated by a number of decades (1969 to 1997). Both pieces use a vocabulary of ‘classic’ extended techniques, post-tonal, rhetorical gestures, and an abstracted sense of form, but explore different concerns. DSCH is form-driven, with clear demarcations of gesture and response, complex interaction and moments of reflection, while the Hölszky is more unified in its brutality and trajectory, building and exploring a singular kind of momentum with 90’s additive intensity. The experience of these pieces was also made different by the unique arrangement of the ensemble. Contrapuntal sections were clearer and more obviously social, rhythmic interactions more defined and intimate.
The focus of the night, however, was the premiere by composer David Brynjar Franzson, The Cartography of Time, commissioned specifically for Gnarwhallaby.
The commission has been a long time coming. Gnarwhallaby has been in consultation with Franzson since 2012, when the group first heard a piece by the composer at The Industry’s First Take concert. The quartet agreed that Franzson’s piece was their favorite of the evening, and began corresponding with him about writing for the group. In 2013, Franzson came to see the ensemble in New York, as well as in Iceland in 2014. The length of this association is evident in the extraordinarily subtle treatment of the ensemble.
The Cartography of Time begins imperceptibly, with electronic clicks and percussive effects in surrounding speakers gently immersing the audience in the three-dimensional world that is to unfold. Gradually, the ensemble enters with extended, strained tones built from an expertly orchestrated vocabulary of harmonics, multiphonics, and subtly colored intonation. A look at the score shows that the entire piece is organized with exact metrical shifts, and a tempo click heard in a headphone by the cellist who cues the ensemble, but this structural underpinning is completely hidden. Ensemble tones and percussive gestures combine seamlessly with the audio track, building and waning in dynamics from indiscernible to a mezzo-forte at the loudest.
The composite effect is mesmerizing and convincingly organic. Something is definitely living and breathing – if not a human being, then the landscape itself swells. The bass clarinet seems to lead in many areas, even if this is unintended, as its versatility allows for a range of expression that naturally contrasts with the other parts. From impossibly strained high tones, blending with the electronics, to low growls and multiphonics at the bottom of the range, the bass clarinet provides a frame and impetus for the rest of the ensemble. Muted trombone swells are insistent, but self-possessed. The piano is used economically, in a percussive manner. Franzson carefully chooses to forgo the enormous gestural capabilities of the piano. No cliché registral leaps are in evidence here: sharp attacks on single tones with subsequent ringing or damped harmonics fit beautifully into the texture. Cello tones are somehow simultaneously woody and glassy and blend imperceptibly with the electronics. Gnarwhallaby is at its best here; the execution was precise, integrated, and beautiful.
Gnwarwhallaby at Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church. Photo by Tina Tallon.
Rather than building from this texture or jostling the listener in another direction, however, Franzson remains in this temporality for the entirety of the thirty-or-so minute piece. Where other composers may have easily been tempted to exploit the materials here, quickening the pace, or exploring all electronic possibilities, Franzson’s approach is more receptive, and decisively so. The remarkable restraint here is by far the strongest feature of the piece; by focusing on a single experience of temporality, Franzson truly creates an altered sense of time, rather than simply the idea of one.
Many works of this scale and intent miss this crucial distinction. When a sense of immersive, suspended time is attempted, audiences are too often left adrift. A composer can easily disregard the natural ebb and flow of attention, demands on the listener are too great for the aesthetic reward, or the suspension of expectations in a piece breaks down, forcing attention elsewhere.
Here, Franzson has displayed the true craft of the composer – informed attenuation of the audience’s attention. The organicism and looseness of the landscape allows for real fluctuations of audience attention and perception, without dogmatic demands or meretricious ploys for listener interest. A glance around the room showed evidence of this skill: the energy in the room had dropped, people’s breathing had slowed, many had eyes closed and almost all wore contemplative expressions.
Rather than a first effort, Cartography is obviously the work of a composer experienced in creating this particular experience of time. Ironically, the title The Cartography of Time seems a bit misleading – cartography is the detailed cataloguing of uncharted territory, but in this piece, we have already arrived. We know exactly where we are, planted firmly in a single temporality in which gray, smoky landscapes seem to come in and out of focus, approach and recede around us. The world we inhabit is not the two-dimensional world evoked by maps, however allegorically intended, but a very real and vibrant three-dimensional world, crafted by an extraordinarily capable composer.
Review: KinoEar at the wulf
On Friday July 3, 2015 the wulf featured a presentation by KinoEar, a collaboration between composer Ma’ayan Tsadka and visual media artist Danielle Williamson. A surprisingly ample holiday-weekend crowd turned out to witness the video documentation of a fascinating series of found instruments, their associated sounds and the relationship they have to their physical surroundings.
The first video was made at the McHenry Library at UC Santa Cruz, on the outside stair case. This stairway is made completely of steel and has railing posts about 6 inches apart. A large wooden stick from a nearby tree was used to strike each of the railing posts in passing as a person walked down several flights. This generated a series of wonderfully booming tones – almost bell-like in timbre, yet unmistakeably metallic and mundane at the same time. The video reinforced the image of a utilitarian stairwell, but the sounds were often musical. The pitch seemed to lower somewhat as the bottom levels of the stairs were reached and the sound receded into the distance. At other times a rapid trilling was achieved by moving the stick rapidly back and forth between two railing posts. At one point the entire steel staircase was struck, generating great resonant thunderclaps. All of this was captured with a boom microphone, field recorder and simple video camera. The intriguing part is that your brain has to determine what sounds are musical and bell-like and what is simply metallic noise. The tones and video cross back and forth over this boundary and the listener is constantly evaluating the images and the sounds.
The next video sequence featured rocks being thrown at a steel drainage grate in the middle of a field. When a rock struck, a bright chiming sound was heard – like being inside a small clockwork striking the hour. The tones and length of reverberation varied, and eventually a person was seen striking the grate repeatedly with a rock, generating different volume levels depending on the force. Finally, a rock was dragged over the entire grate, creating a rapid clatter of chimes that was very musical. The visual presence of the utilitarian grate in the middle of the field belied the brilliance of its sound and this made for an interesting contrast.
A third video showed a tube emerging from a cement casing and the open end was struck with a wooden stick. Several video images of this were shown simultaneously and this gave a sort of rhythm to the sequence. The sounds were not bright or even metallic, but rather a light glassy clanking that echoed down the tube and returned again with a characteristic thump.
There was also a series of videos made at Yosemite and in the first of these the sights and sounds of traffic roaring through a darkened tunnel proved both powerful and frightening. The camera then follows a side tunnel and all is serene until the end is reached, revealing a spectacular view of the valley below. Another sequence featured rocks thrown into Chilnualna Creek and these landed in the water with a series of satisfying splashes of varying pitch and character. Anyone who has done this as a child will sense the nostalgia that this evokes and mentally calculate the size of the rock from its splash.
Another Yosemite location centered on a large stair railing, and when this was struck it gave off a chime big enough for a cathedral bell. Other parts of the railing gave off higher and lighter pitches and birds could be heard squawking in the background This was done at dawn with a video image of Half Dome looming above – an almost church-like setting – and a definite zen sensibility. In the final sequence a large tree was struck in various places on its trunk and this produced, variously, a full, booming resonance or a lighter clicking sound depending on where the blow was struck. Three images and sounds were combined and this brought to mind a sort of primal drumming.
Like the music of Pauline Oliveros, KinoEar has captured sounds that have two simultaneous contexts and it is left to the listener’s brain to separate the musical from the prosaic. These KinoEar videos are a thoughtful exploration into the relationship between images, music and acoustics.
Several of the KinoEar videos are available here.
Review: Become River at Ojai Music Festival
Photo by Bonnie Wright (used with permission).
The 69th Ojai Music Festival continued late Saturday night, June 13, 2015, with the West Coast premiere of Become River by John Luther Adams as performed by ICE and Renga and conducted by Steven Schick. The Libby Bowl was filled for the 10:30 PM starting time with an energetic crowd on hand to hear two pieces, capping off the third full day of the festival.
Become River begins with an almost inaudibly high, thin pitch from bowed percussion that gradually builds in volume. The violins join in, playing their highest notes and starting a repeating phrase that is doubled by light bell-like sounds. One can almost imagine a small rivulet forming in a high meadow, winding its way down hill joining with others as it heads toward the sea. The flutes enter, adding volume and body to the small stream of sound, and with the clarinet entrance there is a markedly substantial feel. The orchestration in this performance was larger than, say, a chamber group, but smaller than a standard symphony – each of the horn, string, woodwind and percussion sections were represented, but in modest proportions.
Each succeeding entrance added to the harmonic richness, and the sound grew in volume and density with the repeating phrases gathering momentum. The beat was straightforward and the tempo relaxed but purposeful. Midway through, a certain amount of syncopation could be heard in the phrasing and this effectively served to shape the texture of the sound so that it very much resembled a flowing river – always full of motion, running waves and swells. As the trumpets and low brass entered, a noticeable sense of power was added and by the time the lower strings were heard there was a full, majestic feeling in the sound that nicely evoked the image of a large river approaching the sea. There was never any sense of anger or menace in this strength, however. Typical of Adam’s treatment of nature, there was a sense of peacefulness and cordial calm, an appropriate reminder that we would do best to live in harmony with a welcoming earth. As the piece concluded – and it seemed all too short – there was enthusiastic applause from the audience as John Luther Adams, Steven Schick and the musicians took their bows. Along with Become Ocean, Become River is now the second in a series of milestone works by John Luther Adams on the relationship of nature to humanity.
The second piece of the evening was the iconic Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland, commissioned in 1942 by Martha Graham as a ballet and subsequently arranged in 1945 as an orchestral suite. Most listeners are familiar with the muscular symphonic adaptation of this piece, but for this performance The International Contemporary Ensemble played the lesser known the chamber orchestra version consisting of a double string quartet, string bass, flute, clarinet, bassoon and piano. This proved to be a revelation – the themes, harmonies and delicate structures of this piece came through with an amazing transparency, precisely preserving all the subtle details that are often swallowed up in the full symphonic version. The playing could not have been better – the ensemble was very tight, carefully balanced and pitch perfect in the cool night air. The woodwinds especially stood out, carefully crafting the quiet motifs and playing together seamlessly. The Libby Bowl sound system contributed as well – all of the subtleties and nuances in the playing were faithfully preserved. Those who stayed late to listen to Appalachian Spring were rewarded with luminous performance and a beautiful new way to understand Copland’s classic of American music.
Kate Hatmaker, violin, also appeared with ICE on Appalachian Spring.
Review: WasteLAnd: Tactile Sound
Art Share LA in the heart of downtown Los Angeles was the site on Friday May 15, 2015 of Tactile Sound, a concert of new music featuring the wasteLAnd musicians, Trio Kobayashi and other assorted soloists and guests. A good size crowd filled the roomy spaces of the comfortable Art Share venue.
The first piece on the program was The Flypaper by Steven Kazuo Takasugi. The stage was populated by Elise Roy, flute, and Stephanie Aston, listed as a soprano, but who appeared holding a flute. Microphones were positioned very near the flutes and speakers were placed in front and behind the audience. A single recorded voice was heard coming from the speakers, and this consisted of stretches of disjointed speech in what sounded like a man speaking in German. The flutes were heard initially as rushing air, with no tones produced and the recorded voice faded away, seeming to recede to the back of the room. The valves of the flutes were heard opening and closing, still without any tone being produced – a technique that continued throughout the piece. This sound was amplified and the effect was similar to hearing the dripping of water in a leaky basement. The use of the flute as an amplified percussive instrument was unexpected, challenging the listener’s expectation – but this was exactly on target with the Tactile Sound theme. The voice returned, in English this time, as the clicks and pops increased there was an undercurrent of mysterious discomfort that stopped just short of threatening, providing the connection to title of the piece. The Flypaper is a remarkable combination of electronics and conventional instruments used in unconventional ways. Steven Kazuo Takasugi was in attendance and received a warm round of applause.
Invisibility by Liza Lim followed and this was a solo cello piece performed by Ashley Walters. For this piece Ms. Walters used a bow with the hair strands wrapped rope-like around the bow stick. This produced a lovely combination of warm cello sounds and sustained, yet scratchy tones that were often rough but never crude. The overall effect was one of complexity, a mix of the alien and the familiar and clearly ‘tactile’. There was a vague sense of anxiety running through the piece and this was heightened with the unorthodox bow. It sometimes seemed that more than one instrument was in the room; the playing always sounded assured and under control. Midway through Ms. Walters picked up a conventional bow and the sounds became noticeably smoother with more individual notes. This section contained perhaps a bit more dynamic range – very light at times, and much stronger at others, especially in the lower registers. There were some smooth and harmonious stretches here that provided a good contrast to the opening sections. Towards the end of the piece both bows were used – one in each hand – to produce an intriguing mix of sounds that was at once both rough and soothing. Any remaining doubts about the virtuosity of Ms. Walters were dispelled by the enthusiastic applause that followed. Invisibility, like The Flypaper before it, is a piece that challenges the expectations of the listener in new and unusual ways.
The world premiere of eiszeiten by Richard Barrett was next, and this featured the playing of Trio Kobayashi – horn, trombone and tuba. The piece began with the sound of air rushing through the horns and tongued so as to create a kind of pinging sound. This was picked up and amplified through the speakers and the effect was like hearing the cold wind blowing. These sounds eventually morphed into tones from each horn, forming sustained chords that were somewhat high in pitch and dissonant at times, producing an otherworldly feel. The harmonies here were indefinably unorthodox – reminiscent of train horns that are close in pitch, and not quite forming a conventional interval. Powerful tutti chords were heard and these became more traditional in character as they gained in strength. The electronics emitted a deep bass drone and the players joined at approximately the same pitch with some zero-beating becoming audible at times. The brass then began to play passages of moving notes and this brought a sense of movement to the texture. The electronics replied with a loud dissonant chord – in full 1950s Sci-Fi mode – and the brass added a syncopated line that enhanced the alien feel of this section. The electronic sounds suddenly ceased and the brass trio played the piece to a close. Eiszeiten, which translates to Ice Ages, certainly evokes a cold, alien landscape and the integration of the electronics with the playing of Trio Kobayashi was precise and effective.
CYMBALMUSIC II: Centerflow/Trails II by Eleanor Hovda followed, performed by Justin DeHart. This is the second piece of a five piece set, and was inspired by the rigors of cross country skiing as experienced by the composer. The graphical score, in fact, includes a series of marks and squiggles that resemble ski tracks. For this performance two cymbals were mounted on a single pedestal. The audience was asked to hum or sing a sustained tone as heard from the cymbals as they were bowed by DeHart. The sound produced by the bowing was generally high in pitch but full of overtones and this nicely suggested a cold, sunny day in a white landscape, with a stinging headwind blowing. The vertical motion of the bowing across the edge of the cymbals was itself was reminiscent of ski poles pumping up and down as the skier moved through a frozen landscape. The humming from the audience was mostly tentative, but added a smooth timbre and seemed to amplify the sounds coming from the cymbals. As the piece progressed the tempo slowed and the sound felt more labored, as if the skier was becoming fatigued. Towards the end the volume also decreased until there was just a low humming heard from the audience as the piece concluded. CYMBALMUSIC II: Centerflow/Trails II is an artful work that produces the maximum effect from minimal musical forces yet delivers a vivid imagery to the mind of the listener.
After the intermission, Trio Kobayashi returned to play Tones and Noise II by Dustin Donahue. This began with a low roaring from the stage speakers, sounding very much like a rocket exhaust at close range. The horns joined in, playing syncopated notes that provided an interesting contrast to the noise texture. The roaring became intermittent and the brass passages more animated as if we were in the presence of a large beast or mechanism. The roaring noise was renewed and perceived as coming from different directions through the speakers on both sides of the audience. The brass parts became louder and longer, as if combining with and matching the roar. The feeling was that of being inside a rocket in space, hearing the blast of the engines and the sounds of mechanical automata as portrayed by the brass. Tones and Noise II is an intriguing piece that manages to work effectively on the imagination by using amplified noise and simple brass figures.
The final piece of the concert was the world premiere of Saxony by James Tenney in a version for brass quintet. James Tenney, an influential West Coast composer and educator, died in 2006, but this piece from among his unperformed works was selected for premiere at this concert. Trio Kobayashi was joined by two trumpet players – Jonah Levy and Aaron Smith – to complete the ensemble. Saxony opened with a low, sustained tone in the tuba, matched by the electronics coming through the speakers. At length the trombone entered, doubling the tuba and noticeably changing the timbre of the chord. The trombone moved up what sounded like a third and the horn entered changing the timbre yet again. All the tones were sustained and this anchoring of the sound by the low brass seemed almost Wagnarian – certainly German – and in keeping with title. The piece proceeded in this way, the trumpets adding their parts, piling pitches on top of pitches within the chord, all combining to create a powerful sound. The intonation here was critical and the ensemble held together admirably. When all the players were engaged, a series of trills in each horn added pleasing new colors and shortly after, each horn began to play a series of short phrases that added an agreeable variety to the texture. The piece then reversed – the tones tapering downward and the trumpets going tacet. The sound became lower and more cohesive, producing some lovely chords. When only the trombone, tuba and electronics remained, the sound became lush and warm. The piece concluded by slow diminuendo with the remaining horns laying out until only the tuba held the bottom note. When the sound finally ceased the audience remained silent for a good 15 seconds, a tribute perhaps more notable than the enthusiastic applause which followed. Saxony is masterful work that extracts considerable emotional impact from its minimal structure and pitch palette.
Trio Kobayashi is:
Alan Fogle – Horn
Matt Barbier – Trombone
Luke Storm – Tuba
Review: Casey Anderson and Friends in Concert
The wulf in downtown Los Angeles was the site for a concert of the experimental music of composer Casey Anderson. A nice Sunday night crowd turned out on April 19, 2015 to hear an evening of new music at the leading edge of the performance vanguard.
The first piece was TALK RADIO (an opera), 2011 and for this eight performers were equipped with portable radios and headphones. Their instructions were to continuously tune through the dial – independently and without coordination – and repeat what was heard when a radio station came into hearing. Random phrases, sports scores, jingles and snatches of music were heard by the audience as spoken or sung by the performers. Static was also heard on occasion, as represented by a spoken rushing sound. Phrases such as “Line of credit…”, “Quite heavy still on the northbound 5…” or “Right out of the blocks, you get healthy…” were spoken. These came randomly as they were heard in the headphones and the phrases were sometimes repeated. Sometimes a tone heard on the radio – perhaps as part of a song – was sung and held by a performer as it was encountered on the radio dial. Here is a short video of a part of this piece that was made during rehearsal:
At times all were silent, and at other times two or more performers stepped forward as ‘soloists’. There were tutti sections when everyone was singing or repeating snatches of advertisements, editorials or traffic reports, and these were quite lively. Sometimes the fragments were quite poignant as when “Oh I’m in pain” was heard, along with pieces of a radio preacher’s sermon. TALK RADIO is perfectly named because what the audience hears are chunks of radio prose and music, but drained of all the production values and hype. It is as if someone you know is telling you about the latest news without the breathless, hyperbolic style we are accustomed to hearing when we listen to the radio. TALK RADIO is an engaging experiment in perception and translation and one that is both a random and unique experience.
false positives (2015) followed and this involved four drums fitted with microphones and amplification. Tuning forks of various frequencies were struck simultaneously, and the base of each applied to a drum head. The amplification immediately picked up the pitches and projected a strong, pure tone. This was quite startling at first; the striking of the forks had a small, distant sound – like silverware dropped on the floor in another room. But once applied to the drum heads the sound took on a boldness as the various frequencies mixed together, and then slowly died away. The process was repeated, with different sets of tuning forks, and this consistently produced a clean, but somewhat alien feel. The sounds produced were impressive nonetheless, and one could sense that the energy was being concentrated in a set of single frequencies. false positives was an interesting experiment in the perception of a small pure sound that is suddenly amplified.
After the intermission SLIPS (2015) began by six performers who recite “…a text distorted via loosely synchronized extensions to vowels or sibilants.” This took the form of speaking in unison the word taken from an image-filled story while every few seconds a tone was sung and held for a few moments by a single reader. The pace of the speaking was fairly rapid and this often carried the suggestion of a rhythm or cadence. As the story progressed a picture begins to form in your mind and when a pitch was sung by one of the performers your brain quickly associates an emotional color to that text, separate and apart from the image created by the words. It was as if the tone was shorthand for the longer effort of constructing a word image from the story and connecting it with a distinct feeling. The text seemed to veer off at odd times, restarting the process of assembling a mental image – and then a tone would be heard that produced an immediate emotional reaction. This contrast in the timing of the contending feelings provoked by two compartments of the brain are a fascinating study in personal perception and SLIPS would seem to have much to teach us about the relationship between lyrics and music.
The final piece of the evening was KARAOKE (2015) and for this five performers with headphones listened to the same album and individually created a sort of “quasi-private accompaniment.“ The audience heard only what was produced by the performers and this took the form of some humming, singing and whistling along with various kinds of drumming, tapping and rhythm-making, as well as the occasional piano run or saxophone riff. None of this was intentionally coordinated, each performer being fairly well isolated by headphones from the sounds produced by the others. Even so, the combined sounds heard by the audience often achieved a noticeable groove. This had an authentically primal sound, like something that might be heard around a camp fire fifty thousand years ago. As the album played through its various tracks you could sense a regrouping by the performers and it took a few minutes for the aggregate sound to come back into focus, much like a street-corner quartet feeling for tune. KARAOKE is an engaging piece that produces music almost as if by telepathy and makes an interesting point about the necessity of an organizational performance structure.
The performers in this concert were Casey Anderson, Jon Armstrong, Rick Bahto, Brendan Carn, Josh Gerowitz, Morgan Gerstmar, Todd Lerew, Liam Mooney, Stephanie Smith, Christine Tavolacci, Colin Wambsgans, Joe Westerlund, Michael Winter, and Andrew Young.
The next concert at the wulf will be May 5, 2015 at 8:00 PM featuring the music of Michael Pisaro and Graham Lambkin.
Review: Colin Wambsgans at the wulf
The wulf in downtown Los Angeles was the venue for a performance of the compositions of Colin Wambsgans on Saturday night, March 21, 2015. The cozy spaces of the Wulf filled up with a friendly crowd ready to experience experimental music and field recordings in a concert titled wherever you are, there you’re at.
The first section of the concert consisted of three pieces described in the program notes as “text scores, mostly in unison.” The structure of these was similar – a stopwatch is used to set ten second intervals, followed by the start of a phrase with all the players in unison. For the first piece, 55 Things (2013), each of the various players to continued to play independently for the number of times indicated in the text score. The instrumentation was varied and diverse, consisting of everything from a soprano saxophone, an accordion, a number of toy percussion items, a large rat trap and what seemed to be the contents of several kitchen drawers.
Each passage began in unison with a wonderful roar of sound that gradually lessened and changed in timbre and texture as the various players finished the sequence of their assigned soundings – all in the span of just a few seconds. The approximately equal mixture of traditional acoustic instruments and found objects produced a unique texture and feel to each passage as it was played. Sometimes the effect was alarming and chaotic and at other times more familiar and musical. Every ten seconds the listener was presented with new and instantaneous decisions about how to deal with the timbre, textures and emotions that were being broadcast. Interestingly for the listener, the brain would often impose a musical context over the combination of sounds that were heard. 55 Things is an intriguing piece that challenges the listener’s instinctive discrimination between sound and music, ultimately sharpening and extending the limits of our aural perceptions.
The second piece on the program was Five* Minutes for Percussion Quartet (2014), and this consisted of a more traditional array of drums, gongs, triangles and wood blocks. The stopwatch was again employed to set the ten second intervals, but just prior to the unison entrances one of the players would conduct a tempo for the others to follow. In this way a more familiar musical sound and pulse was produced and this acted to enhance the listener’s organization of the sound into a musical perception. The phrases lasted only a few seconds, but they had a strong feel of familiarity, like hearing a fragment of something you knew, but couldn’t quite identify. The use of the more familiar instruments and gestures in Five* Minutes for Percussion Quartet made for a somewhat more accessible entry into Wambsgans methods.
Soft Targets (2015) was next and this was scored for piano, guitar and several percussion pieces, all led by a violinist who kept time for the ten second intervals. As before, the players entered in unison but for this piece there was just a single note played or struck. When the piano was included the chord that was sounded by the ensemble has a strong musical feel – otherwise the percussion, guitar and violin – playing her notes pizzicato – tended to produce a sharp, short chord that dissipated somewhat more rapidly than would have been ideal given the acoustics of the room. Even so, there were detectable feelings of tension at times and a more optimistic sound at other times. As the piece progressed the pitches gradually rose and some of the chords took on a questioning feel, while others seemed to be offering an answer. The chords could be delicate and ethereal, but also sharp and edgy. Soft Targets was perhaps the more structured and intentional of the works in this concert, but the short duration of each chord made for challenging listening and inevitably the outside noise that floated in occasionally obscured the hearing.
Another variant of Wambsgans composition technique was heard last year at Boston Garden employing an ensemble of horns and strings that produced chords of sustained – and powerful – tones. This arrangement delivered a somewhat less ambiguous sound than some of the more subtle instances in this concert at the Wulf. The three variations heard on this occasion were all interesting explorations of an experimental style that offers the observant listener much to examine.
After an intermission an extended field recording was heard titled wherever you are, there you’re at (2014-2015). This began with the sound of a soft rain falling, water running in a downspout and a whistling tea kettle – as if this was the beginning of the day. Presently outside sounds were heard – the voices of neighborhood kids, a jet in the distance and more street sounds. All of this gave the impression of embarking on some sort of journey and more clues came in the form of vehicle sounds, train station announcements and a busking clarinet player. The audio-only track tends to focus the concentration of the listener, and the game of trying to determine the destination continued as the piece progressed. There was a stretch of hearing a distant trumpet player practicing and some animated street conversation in a foreign language. At the end of the recording, the lively street conversations were accompanied by the chirping of birds, conjuring an affectionate equivalence. wherever you are, there you’re at invites the audience to listen carefully in order to assess the location and intentions of the unseen traveler while enjoying the rich visual detail constructed thereby in the mind’s eye.
The performers in this concert were:
Casey Anderson
Justin Asher
Corey Fogel
Liam Mooney
Chris Porter
Stephanie Smith
Michael Winter
Todd Rue
The next event at the wulf will be on March 29, 2015 featuring the music of Powerdove and Ulrich Krieger.
Review: Cold Blue Music + Formalist Quartet at Monk Space
Monk Space, in the Koreatown district of Los Angeles was the venue for a concert titled Crazy Quilt, string music from the Cold Blue recording label as performed by the Formalist Quartet. A nice midweek crowd turned out on March 10, 2015 – Crazy Quilt being part of the monthly Tuesdays@Monkspace series of new music concerts.
The Formalist Quartet
Hymn of Change (2010) by David Rosenboom was first, in an arrangement by Andrew Tholl, one of the violinists in the Formalist Quartet. This piece derives from an earlier work by Rosenboom, as he writes in the program notes: “In my 1998 work for piano, Bell Solaris- the Sun Rings Like a Bell, initiating waves of influence that traverse, shape, and create space, time and life – twelve movements emerged from subtle and grand transformations of the Hymn of Change, which I had written earlier in 1992. Some years later, after hearing Bell, Andrew Tholl was inspired to arrange the Hymn, a kind of slow, gospel waltz, for string quartet.” The result of Andrew’s efforts is a warm, traditional sound with full four part harmony and good balance that perfectly recalls the sunny days of late-19th century Americana. Although not a long piece, the careful playing of the Formalist Quartet and accommodating acoustics of Monk Space combined to bring Hymn of Change into a vivid realization that brought complete tonal satisfaction.
Music for Airport Furniture (2011) by Stephen Whittington was next, and this was a US premiere. An Australian musician with a long history of involvement with contemporary composers, Whittington gave the first performances in Australia of music by Christian Wolff, Terry Riley, James Tenney, Peter Garland, Alan Hovhaness and Morton Feldman – among many others. Whittington’s extensive travels were the inspiration for Music for Airport Furniture – which owes far more to Erik Satie than to Brian Eno. This is not music to fill public spaces but rather tailored for the interior of the human heart. Whittington writes: “I was interested in the airport departure lounge as an arena for human emotions – boredom, apprehension, hope, despair, loneliness, the tenderness of farewells – all taking place within a bland, often desolate space.”
Music for Airport Furniture consists of a series of long sustained phrases, lush and warm, broken only by the occasional pizzicato arpeggio in the cello. The sweet sadness of farewell is slowly released with a distant, introspective feel. The string quartet is the perfect ensemble for this music. The delicate texture was nicely realized by the Formalist Quartet who kept the long, quiet passages interesting by infusing just the right amount of energy while at the same time carefully controlling the dynamics. The brick wall acoustics of Monk Space allowed the intimate and heartfelt sensibility of this piece to reach all parts of the audience. Music for Airport Furniture slowly unpacks all the emotions of the lonely traveler waiting for an airline boarding call.
After an intermission the concert concluded with a world premiere – String Quartet No. 4 Crazy Quilt (2014), by Peter Garland. Crazy Quilt is based on an earlier work for solo cello – Out of the Blue – written the year before, which consisted of a rising, then descending arc of 44 pitches. The other instruments of a string quartet were then added to this foundation to increase the timbrel possibilities. As Garland writes, “I chose different basic time units: with the cello maintaining its 60-second unit, the viola uses a 75 second unit, violin 2 uses a 90 second unit; and violin 1 uses two different units – first a 45 second one, then shifting to a 30 second unit, and finally going back to 45 seconds. The common denominator for all these is that they add up evenly to 45 minutes (2700 seconds). I.e. what starts together, ends together…” For this performance page turners were employed as the players were continuously engaged in sounding the long, sustained tones called for in the score.
The beginning of Crazy Quilt is a quiet, sustained chord in the lower registers of each instrument. The bowing by the players was, of necessity, achingly slow – but the sound produced was warm and full. As the time units rolled by, the chord would change slightly, – generally rising in pitch – but very slowly and deliberately. Each change of tone by a player would reveal an entirely new feeling in the sound, sometimes adding tension or anxiety and sometimes resolving into mellowness and warmth. There was no beat per se; the players had to concentrate and be in good communication as each was working to a different time unit. Overall the effect was very engaging – like watching a slow-motion kaleidoscope. In the lower registers the feelings were mostly smooth and reassuring, but as the pitches increased the more stressful and anxious sensations predominated. At the very top of the arc the violins soared above the rest of the ensemble – sometimes heroically and sometimes with great angst – but always bringing another interesting variation to the sound. As the piece floated gently downward in pitch, the chords seemed to become gradually more consonant and consoling. The familiarity and harmonic cohesion in the middle registers added to the feeling of solace, and by the conclusion of this piece there was a comforting sense of return.
Crazy Quilt is an ambitious work, attempting as it does, to conjure so many different colors and feelings from the sound. It is also a difficult piece to play given the different time units and sustained pitches required – with no conventional tempo or harmonic progressions to follow. Despite these challenges, the Formalist Quartet brought this piece fully alive so that the vision of Peter Garland was fully articulated.
The Formalist Quartet is:
Andrew Tholl, violin
Mark Menzies, violin/viola
Andrew McIntosh, violin/viola
Ashley Walters, cello
The next concert at presented by Tuesdays at Monk Space will be on Saturday, March 21, 2015 at 8:00 PM at Villa Aurora, featuring The Varied Trio (Yuri Inoo, Aron Kallay, and Shalini Vijayan). Music of Lou Harrison, Bill Alves and others will be performed.