Music After the Future

Orchestra of the League of Composers @ Miller Theater at Columbia University, New York, New York
Saturday, June 18, 2011

John Schaefer: host
Louis Karchin: conductor

More Melisma (2006) by Milton Babbitt
Fred Sherry: cello

Silent Voices (2010) by Shulamit Ran
Peter Van Derick: reader

Concertino for Bass Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra (2008) by Elliott Carter
Virgil Blackwell: bass clarinet

Sound Merger (2011) by Arthur Kreiger

Talking Points (Right Wing Echo Chamber) (2010) by David Rakowski
Fred Sherry: cello

Violent, Violent Sea (2011) by Missy Mazzoli

The Orchestra of the League of Composers is a medium for realizing a musical aesthetic that was once touted as "the music of the future." A musical vein that passes through the second Viennese School of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern and into the sonic worlds of Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter and Roger Sessions. Eventually, that future came and went and the emphasis of "the music of the future" dissolved into "a music of the future" as a plurality of stylistic approaches and aesthetics began to co-exist without a single set of rules to judge the "rigor" and intellectual brawn of each piece of new music. Now that careers and tenure are no longer gauged against fidelity to set theory it is possible to hear the current works within this tradition in a new light.

Milton Babbitt's More Melisma is a beautifully lyrical solo cello work. Fred Sherry gave an outstanding performance that never allowed the extreme virtuosic demands of the piece to overwhelm its gentle humanity. It was a ringing sonic reminder that Milton Babbitt possessed a remarkable compositional instinct and sense of humor that was in full command of the heady underpinnings of his musical language.

Silent Voices by Shulamit Ran is a piece based on Draft of a Reparations Agreement by Dan Pagis. Words and music about the Holocaust presented along side one another as Ran developed a sonic texture from the expressive qualities of her writing for chamber ensemble. The words and music were powerful enough to more than justify their temporal separation.

Speaking to the durability of the tradition of the League of Composers was Elliott Carter's Concertino for Bass Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra. A piece composed when Carter was 100 years old. And performed with Carter in the audience at age 103. Carter's own career has been intertwined with the League for many decades. Age has not dulled his ability to write demanding, virtuosic music.

Arthur Kreiger's Sound Merger is a tightly orchestrated piece for large chamber ensemble with an electronic track. It is an extremely polished set piece that blurs the distinction between the prepared recorded material with the live realization on stage. The widely dynamic sense of reverberation within the electronic component stood in stark contrast to the static, stage reverberation of the ensemble. While it was a nearly flawlessly realized and executed piece I was left craving a more improvised interplay between the two parts.

David Rakowski's Talking Points (Right Wing Echo Chamber) presented a transparency of process as the solo material in the cello part formed the generative material for the ensemble as a whole. This worked extremely well.

The program concluded with Missy Mazzoli's Violent, Violent Sea. A through-composed, lush work that drew more heavily upon intuitive sensibilities than the other pieces on the program. And it packed a more emotionally loaded punch as a result. It was a detail rich piece that deserves performances well beyond this world premier.

The Orchestra of the League of Composers reminds these ears that "the music of the future" thrives when it is so well rehearsed and presented. It is not served nearly as well by the in between interviews conducted by John Schaefer. While Schaefer is a passionate host who mercifully kept these interviews with the composers limited to the duration needed to change the instrument configurations on the stage, they were still an unnecessary dialog for a music that stands well on its own merits. Empty moments to reflect upon this music more introspectively would be an improvement.

Beats and Beatings

sfSoundGroup: sfSoundSeries @ ODC Dance Commons, Studio B, San Francisco, CA
Sunday, July 19, 2009

Fondamenta (1998) by Olga Neuwirth

ma++ ingalls: bass clarinet
John Ingle: tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone
Monica Scott: cello

n+1 (2009) by ma++ ingalls

ma++ ingalls: clarinet, bass clarinet
John Ingle: alto saxophone
Alexa Beattie: viola
Monica Scott: cello
Christopher Jones: piano

Lied (2008) by Hans Thomalla

John Ingle: tenor saxophone
Kjell Nordeson: vibraphone
Chirstopher Jones: piano

Improvisation (2009) by sfSoundGroup

ma++ ingalls: clarinet
John Ingle: alto saxophone, baritone saxophone
Alexa Beattie: viola
Monica Scott: cello
Christopher Jones: piano

Q (1996) by Alvin Lucier

ma++ ingalls: clarinet
Jen Baker: trombone
Alexa Beattie: violin
Monica Scott: cello
Richard Worn: doublebass

All Set (1957) by Milton Babbitt

ma++ ingalls: alto saxophone
John Ingle: tenor saxophone
Tom Dambly: trumpet
Jen Baker: trombone
Richard Worn: doublebass
Hadley McCarroll: piano
Loren Mach: vibraphone
Kjell Nordeson: percussion
Chirsopher Jones: conductor

The first half of this concert featured a music working through a language of harmonic beating, rhythmic hocket patterns tossed between instruments and a restless shifting through textural territories - even the more obsessive, process heavy constructions of ma++ ingalls would shift on a dime. Olga Neuwirth's Fondamenta was a particularly stunning example of this as the sequence of ideas held seamlessly in place through a gentle prism of psycho acoustic phenomena.

The second half featured a work singularly focused upon the rhythmic and harmonic qualities of beating with Alvin Lucier's fantastic Q for ensemble and sine tone generator. The sine tones playing a steady major second that the ensemble played against, adjusting to the minute range of tight frequencies that produce the phenomenon of beats between slightly detuned pitches as they go in and out of phase with one another. The result was a beautiful, droning wash of sound that opens the ears to the physics of sound.

The final work, All Set by Milton Babbitt is a piece that gives the performers a beating of a different sort as they navigate the wickedly difficult score. The interpretive angles of this performance taking on a particular interest as one who played this piece with Mobtown Modern back in December. The brush work on the drum kit made for a nice texture and I was struck by the sense of teetering on the brink of being utterly lost and out of control I recognize from rehearsing this piece. I thoroughly enjoyed watching other performers sweat bullets through what is a remarkably endearing work of swinging pointillism.

Doing Hard Time with the Mob

Mobtown Modern: Hard as F#@!
Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, MD
December 15, 2008
(featuring video by Guy Werner)

Mnemosyne (1986) - Brian Ferneyhough
Katayoon Hodjati: bass flute

Dances of Earth and Fire (1987) - Peter Klatzow
Wojciech Herzyk: marimba

Still (2007) - Jason Eckart
Brian Sacawa: baritone saxophone

Gra (1993) - Elliott Carter
Jennifer Everhart: clarinet

Scrivo in Vento (1991) - Elliott Carter
Sarah Eckman McIver: flute

Esprit Rude/Esprit Duox (1985) - Elliott Carter
Jennifer Everhart: clarinet
Sarah Eckman McIver: flute

All Set (1957) - Milton Babbitt
Brian Sacawa: alto saxophone
Christopher Blossom: tenor saxophone
Philip Johnson: trumpet
Todd Sturniolo: trombone
Wojciech Herzyk: vibraphone
Devin Hurd: piano
Joel Ciaccio: double bass
Todd Harrison: drum set

Music with its roots in serialism, "new complexity," set theory or academic pan-tonalism has a reputation for being dry, acerbic stuff.  A movement that has inspired dense and visually beautiful scores that can admittedly tax the cognitive abilities of the listener.  So when Katayoon Hodjati dove into the deep end of Brian Ferneyhough's lush textures of bass flutes there was the unexpected awe of talent, ability and musical extremes forming a compelling answer to why listen to this body of music.  This is compelling material.

Over the span of solo performances that followed came the reinforcement of how this music thrives in presentation.  Guy Werner's video accompaniment - realized in real time in response to the dynamic contours of each performance - added surprising depth to a music more often presented in drier settings.  The juxtaposition and association of video image set against the brutal focus these pieces demand from the performers made for an inviting mix of media that was attractive on multiple levels.

The tension of Jason Eckart's Still, a study of multiphonic technique for the baritone saxophone, made particular demands of Brian Sacawa's abilities to control sustained tones right on the brink of slipping into a chaos beyond control.  A tension that was a beautiful mix of tranquility and complexity.

Milton Babbitt's swinging nod to set theory All Set closed out the evening.  A piece I experienced from behind the piano and over a sequence of rehearsals leading up to the performance.  The final performance achieved a loose, relaxed quality as one finds their way through this high-tempo, atonal work of pre-bop.  The big band timbres of the instruments and the feel of the rhythm section brings an off kilter energy to the angular licks and serial lines that make up the harmonic and melodic material.  While Babbitt and his associates have formed an aesthetic with a reputation for being "serious" and "daunting" it is works like this, and performances such as those featured by the Mobtown Modern, that reveal "fun" and "compelling" to a body of music that spans as full a spectrum as any movement.  And there are many reasons to listen to it.