Todd Tarantino's Blog

Kurtag

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Thu, 14 May 2009 13:52:00 +0000

It strikes me, looking back through this postings, that I've never posted my impressions of Gyorgy Kurtag, the Hungarian composer, who recently celebrated his 80th birthday, by being feted (as all composers are on high numbered birthdays) here in New York. I began to look at his music becuase so many had spoken so highly about it, and I came into the process knowing nothing at all about his style, influences or approaches. I have learned and am finding the journey to be alternately challenging and frustrating. One thing I have learned, afte working diligently to create a chronology, is that it is well nigh impossible to do such given the opus numbers and the years attached to certain pieces, not to mention revisions and withdrawals. A good example of this is the Four Capriccios, Opus 9: the dates listed are 1959-1970 with a revision in 1993 - so when do I listen to that? In the end I put together a list and have been trying my best to listen in an order. What follows are my current impressions.

Suite, pf, 1943, unpubd
Cannot find

Klárisok [Beads] (A. József), 1950
Elegant little chorus in shifting meters based on a poem of József Attila. Shows promise. Clear harmonies.

Suite, pf duet, 1950–51
It's a little neoclassical suite - there is no recording. In four movements, the second a slow movement in F minor, the third a minuet, and the fourth a presto chango with bell-like false octaves. Cheery little pieces that would be easy to put together, in the style of many pedagocial pieces for four hands. Some fun choreography as well.

Táncdal [Dance-Song] (S. Weöres), children's chorus, pf, 1952, withdrawn
Nothing

Koreai kantáta [Korean Cant.] (K. Kotzián), B, mixed chorus, orch, 1952–3
Nothing

Viola Concerto, 1953–4
One movement is still out there and recorded by Kim Kashkashian. It seems like a first movement, sounds considerably like Shostakovich. I get the sense of a sure handling of the orchestra, though not necessarily a sure handling of tension. Carla liked it, in that it is tuneful, sequential and so forth, but it doesn't do it for me. I'd much rather listen to Shostakovich.

Dalok Vasvári István verseire [Songs to Poems by István Vasvári], Bar, pf, 1955, unpubd, withdrawn
Nothing

untitled piece, pf, 1958, unpubd, withdrawn
Published in the book by Beckles Willson "Gyorgy Kurtag: The Sayings of Peter Bornemitzsa"(p.34) It has the look of a serial work, but is filled with thirds and Webernian diminuendos and crescendos on held piano pitches.

String Quartet, op.1, 1959
This is not a particularly strong piece though presumably it betrays future tendencies. Six mini movements each a series of quasi-expressionistic gestures juxtaposed, often like a loud and not-as-subtle Webern. Sometimes he moves into a groove, as in the more successful fifth movement. The sixth begins with a touch of sorrowful melody, which he would have done well to continue exploring. Otherwise, I'm not impressed in the slightest.

Wind Quintet, op.2, 1959
This ranks up there with the stronger of the wind quintets that I have heard. In eight tiny aphoristic movements, each setting a mood rather than developing a theme or a mood. Of these #5 with its improvised form - each instrument repeats a phrase more or less independent of the others, which gives an overall bird-sound feel, is successful. I'm also fond of #7, Mesto a flute morse code against long lines in the bassoon and clarinet.

8 Pianoforte Pieces, op.3, 1960
These are eight tiny strange almost to the point of being mysterious piano visions. They run the gamut from Eonta-esque (before Xenakis did it) randomness to Cowell clusters to Schumann like enigmas. An interesting set. Doesn't really make a narrative in the overall.

8 Duos, op.4, vn, cimb, 1961
Again totally inscrutable, a series of tiny aphorisms - the whole thing lasts about 6 minutes - of a rather harsh character at least for the violin, the violin writing is quite good and gives the players a lot to work with (which may account for Kurtag's popularity). Number 7 is nice an expanding variation of sorts, as is number 4 which juxtaposes violin trills wih cimbalom strkies. It is almost as if the violin is playing the cimbalom at points with its tremolo figures, see number 5 and quick trills and col legnos.

Jelek [Signs], op.5, va, 1961, rev. 1992
Six, guess what, short fragmentary movements for viola solo. These were revised again in the 1990s. I'm not particularly moved by these, at best I find the moment up into number 5 where he calls for a scordatura and the tuning is heard to be most interesting. Though there are also nice moments in number three with is organic and gentle-almost use of the four strings as if the bow is exploring the four strings.

Cinque merrycate, op.6, gui, 1962; unpubd, withdrawn
No information

Jelek, op.5b, vc, 1961–99
Reviewed later

Bornemisza Péter mondásai [The Sayings of Péter Bornemisza], op.7, S, pf, 1963–8, rev. 1976
An almost forty-minute virtuosistic cycle in four movements, each, with the exception of the first, comprised of a number of smaller sections. On a first listen I'm struck by the piano writing which has a nervousness and agitation that never seems to go away. It is constantly inventive and seems to hold numerous mysteries, always providing some new material some interesting conception of the piano. Obviously influenced by Messaien's writing - especialliy in its additive rhythms and multiple canonic structures. Note also the way that he composes for the piano in complex overlapping rhyhtmic figures in one hand anticipating later developments. Notice also the soprano singing into the piano for the resonance. The best I think is the first movement which has a sharp nervousness that is sustained for its four minute duration - a long time for Kurtag.

Egy téli alkony emlékére [In Memory of a Winter Sunset] (P. Gulyás), op.8, S, vn, cimb, 1969
Cannot obtain

4 Capriccios (I. Bálint), op.9, S, chbr orch, 1959–70, rev. 1993
Later

24 Antiphonae, op.10, orch, 1970–71, inc., unpubd, withdrawn
No information

Transcriptions from Machaut to J.S. Bach, pf duet, pf 6 hands, 2 pf, 1973–91
Regarding the Bach settings, which are exquisite loving recastings, orchestrations for the piano, a few comments. These are remarkably subtle from the notated crossed hands of the Sinfonia to Gottes Zeit which makes it balance the volume in a way that is so true for amateurs, to the toy-piano like acoustical weirdness that ensues with the melody harmonized at the steady octave plus a fifth of O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig. Others are similarly elegant: Aus Tiefer Not with its bells and almost mechanical unfolding of the keyboard, it is like a bell is tightened and the whole piano sounds this glorious Bach, the remarkable moment in Allein Gott with its too crossed hands and sparkling bells, the massive Durch Adam's Fall again the whole piano sounds, and Liebster Jesu with its unresolved harmonies and cimbalom grace notes. All are very special. Of the other works in the collection - the Machaut is a loving interplay of hands, I'm not as fond of the Lassus: Qui sequitur me or the Frescobaldi - a real favorite for the Hungarian set (consider Ligeti's Frescobaldi work). The Schutz (from the Seven Words and the Matthew Passion) are touching fragments. The Purcell is also nice - the Queen's Funeral March and the Fantasia. Lovingly done hausmusik.

Szálkák [Splinters], op.6c, cimb, 1973
I'm returning listening to Kurtag after a summer off with this set of four miniatures for cimbalom. There are some nice moments, the harmonic motion in the opening piece and the ending with its repeated low D overlaid with small fragments and isolated notes. I feel like I've heard a good deal of this before, not sure whether it was in the duos of Opus 4 or the piano pieces of opus 3 or was it something else. These pieces I'm not sure where to go with them and maybe that's their success, the second movement with its outbursts that stop in a cluster which is sustained - memorable.

Elő-Játékok [Pre-Games], pf, 1973–4
Cannot obtain

Játékok, pf, 1st ser., 1975–9
Cannot obtain

4 dal Pilinszky János verseire [4 Songs to Poems by János Pilinszky], op.11, B-Bar, chbr ens, 1975 [nos.1–3 arr. B-Bar, pf, as op.11a, 1986]
Four works for varied instruments with Bass voice. The first a drone on D with a monotone, the second with violin and bass stopping and starting, the third with trio isrambunctious and quick. Finally the fourth which brings in various other instruments is tiny - and sets up a looping repetition of a dreamlike gesture. The sort of thing you could only perform if you weren't paying the players.

In memoriam Zilcz György, 2 tpt, 2 trbn, tuba, 1975
Cannot obtain

Eszká emlékzaj [S.K. Remembrance Noise] (D. Tandori), op.12, S, vn, 1975
Seven small works for violin and soprano evoking memories of something lost - I'm fond of the evocation of the electric razor in the second song. There is also a token song that plays with words.

untitled pieces, op.15, gui, 1976–7, unpubd, withdrawn
Withdrawn. No information

Hommage à Mihály András (12 Microludes for Str Qt), op.13, 1977
12 Aphorisms for string quartet. I think what makes these so dificult to comment on is their breivity. This is obvious we never are given enough to really make much of a judgment on the particular piece and the quantity of them in a given setting makes it all the more difficult to retain anything from the experience. Let's say there were four even then it may be too much. Better to have each stand on its own, but then you're shuffling around for thirty seconds of music - so new solution, take a concert have a quartet on the side between each piece reacting with one of these microludes. Again a ridiculous concept - so we are left with works that are unplayable in that sense and moreso don't warrant that fact in the quantity we are given. Perhaps the Jatekok strategy is better: pick and choose.

A kis csáva [The Little Predicament], op.15b, pic, trbn, gui, 1978
Aparently this short absurdist piece was written for an art opening. It is in four movements and scored for the unlikely combination of piccolo, trombone and guitar, a combination which is nearly impossibe to balance even on a recording. This absurdity is played up in the opening - a solo for trombone, calling to mind Mussorgsky, and the second movement a chorale a la Stravinsky. The final movement a nachtstuck tries to work with glissandos in the piccolo and trombone over the guitar chords. It could work better with a slide whistle - in this way we'd evoke those Bartok night pieces, the slide whistle a stand in for birds the trombone growling in the low registers trying to be winds and the guitar an Aeolian harp - this I think is the idea, but it isn't conveyed on the otherwise excellent Starobin recording - I'm not sure if it could be conveyed at all. Interesting potential.

Szálkák [Splinters], op.6d, pf, 1978;
No information

Grabstein für Stephan, op.15c, gui, ens, 1978–9, rev. 1989
Later

3 pezzi, op.14e, vn, pf, 1979
Oddly this tiny piece is not recorded. In three small movements, the first playing with the ambiguity of B as a tonic of a suspended tonality (I mean primarily a suspended chord like C#-F#-B which can have the B suspended in an F# chord or the C# wanting to go to the minor) and the open strings of the violin, which puts the B as a third, its lovely and not too difficult. The second movement works with the harmonic E and the final "Aus die Ferne" is a small moving around B - like very very slow mordents with both the naturals (C-B-A-B-C-B-A-B) and the sharps (C#-B-A#-B etc) with tones hung out to dry in the piano. It is moody and evocative and with few enough segments that it makes its point.

Poslaniya pokoynoy R.V. Trusovoy [Messages of the Late R.V. Troussova] (R. Dalos), op.17, S, ens, 1976–80
Not knowing about the late RV Troussova - frankly I don't think one should get gravitas from the circumstances of the portagonist, one should rather get it from the music - I find this a bit overlong and the multitude of small aphoristic pieces do the opposite of their intention by breaking things up far too much for the many ideas to coalesce into one piece. Kurtag's plan is certainly to have the world be put together in these various details, but there is never enough time to live in the rich worlds he builds. Some worlds are angry, others lyrical, the horn is put to good use and some worlds are Stravinskian - love the Les Noces ensemble sound. I think Kurtag's real skill is not as a melodist, or realy as a narrativist, but in orchestration and I know I've said this before, but again here there are stunning moments of orchestration - the clarinet, vibraphone and bells in the first of the third section is a particular standout.

Herdecker Eurythmie (E. Lösch), spkr, fl, vn, t lyre, op.14a–c, 1979
There appear to be three volumes of this work, 14a is scored for flute with chromatic tenor lyre. In four - surprise - enigmatic tiny movements, one of which is borrowed from the Sayings of Peter Bornemisza. The last Blumen die Menschen 2 is probably the most lovely. I don't know the other two parts, which were unavailable to me.

Omaggio a Luigi Nono (A. Akhmatova, R. Dalos), op.16, 1979, rev. 1985
Later

Stsenï iz romana [Scenes from a Novel] (R. Dalos), op.19, S, vn, db, cimb, 1979–82
This series of fragments - an opera of sorts acts like an anti-Frau und Leben und Lieben or whatever the real title of the Schumann cycle is. Set for the odd and unlikely combination of soprano, violin, cimbalom and double bass, it works. Much stronger than many of the other Kurtag aphorism collections - this is tied together by the text which provides the sort of narrative dramatic framework that I find lacking in the smaller duos and the like. Kurtag's idea of narrative is very French New-Wave, we don't need the actual setting up shots, all we need are the events and the drama works from there. The music is really too short to comment on directly, but in line with the Truffault style he does present clear crisp musical images that don't need to be defined: the Hommage to Mahler, for instance with its rustic open fifths in sixteenth notes had me laughing in its quick characterisation just from a single gesture - yes that was Mahler, as with the Hommage to Schnittke which with its quirky waltz was like looking at the composers work with a loupe. Nice.

József Attila-töredékek [Attila József Fragments], op.20, S, 1981
I come into this knowing nothing about Josef Attila, I can only assume based on the setting, for soprano alone, that Attila was working in a mock-folk idiom and working alone. The settings, 20 fragments - setting is too strong a word, are presented in a style that seems to borrow more from unaccompanied folk lament, though there are few if any repetitions within the works. Instead we have 20 finely crafted melodies many of them moving around a pitch axis and filling in space. By way of example consider #17 "A Kerten" he sets up chromatic descending sixth and then finishes the pattern with three dyads that aren't a part: C#-C, C#-A, F-Ab the remainder of the line takes the space left open in these three and fills it in: E-D#-E#-F#-Ab-G-A-F#-Bb-F-E making it all but inevitable that the next pitch be B which it is the space in the wedge which hasn't been filled.

Look also at #20, which like the endings of many of these Kurtag pieces ends with an almost "white-note" fragment. Again the opening line is an expansion from a pitch wedge: C-B; add a new note E-C-B; and then the wedge expands in both directions: F-A-G. A new wedge then starts: E-G#-D#-D-F#-C#-C (this can be understood as three overlaid descending lines: E-D-C; G#-F#; D#-C#)we then return to the first wedge: G up high, Eb below. The empty space is then filled and the wedge extends lower: E-C-Ab-F and Db and so forth until the end.

As a whole it requires a lot of the singer to pull it together into a coherent unit. (I read now after writing this that Attila is considered one of the finest Hungarian poets of the 20th century, may have been schizophrenic, and committed suicide in 1937.)

Più Dallapiccola

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:09:00 +0000

Tre poemi für Singstimme und Kammerorchester nach Texten von James Joyce, Michelangelo und Manuel Machado (1949)
I listened to this in a dreadful recording of a piano-vocal reduction by Duo Alterno; I was unable to get a hold of a score. The two outer movements, bell-like, serene, bookend a processional dark central monologue by the dead. As a whole, the work is strong with the second movement the strongest. This is the first of Dallapiccola's works to use a single row throughout and based on sketches it seems that he associated this row with his daughter - it is inscribed on a letter sent to her for her fourth birthday. With this in mind and given the deep association these poems have with death, we can read a poetic meaning within: Dallapiccola did use his rows as signifiers - the iconic use throughout his compositions bear this out - thus we can perhaps place the following on Dallapiccola: the passing of generations through birth and family is a sufficient response to the passing of generations through death.

Tre Episodi dal Balletto ‘Marsia’ für Klavier (1949)
Three sections from the piano arrangement of Marsia. If you like Marsia, you'll like this.

Job. Eine Sacra Rappresentazione nach dem Buch Hiob (1950)
I was able to play through this from a vocal score - there is a recording but it is really difficult to get a hold of. The work builds up to the great monologue of God, which Dallapiccola sets for chorus with a rumbling accompaniment in between phrases - together with this is a slower canon that uses parts of a chant. Before this big scene we have the open reveal of the twelve-tone row to the phrase - don't be afraid of man, be afraid of God and lo! when he comes ere blooming one need be afraid. The harmonic control is tight and the work as a whole is quite strong and worthy of far more performances than it gets. There is a small clip on YouTube which shows even more how strong this work is.

Some more Dallapiccola

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:22:00 +0000

I realize its been several months since I've posted here last, and I hope to remedy that somewhat in the future. There's been a lot of changes recently, mainly my loss of library priveleges at my alma mater, but that was scheduled to happen. In the weeks leading up to the end date, I furiously set to scanning scores and such to help me continue my listening. I guess in the rush I actually wanted some time off, so since then, about a month now, I've actually not been listening to much. I'm slowly getting back into the game and listened this morning to some Dallapiccola. Attached here are some more of my tasting notes on Dallapiccola's music - my last entry on the composer got only so far as Volo di Notte - so continuing the chronology:

1940
Critical Edition of Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition: Piano
No information on this

1938-41
Piccolo Concerto per Muriel Couvreux für Klavier und Kammerorchester
In two movements and with a prominent role for the piano this piece seems to be a mishmosh of some ideas that Dallapiccola was working out but doesn't succeed for me. The first movement is a pentatonic hodgepodge and the second explores bell like sonorities in melodic thirds and harmonic fourths in a pandiatonicism. The influences are legion - I think - sort of gamelany (though this may be my imagination) also shows the influence of Monteverdi's string writing (particularly some of the interludes from the operas) also Stravinskian rhythms and the sort of notation where each part has their own meter that you see in the Webern Cantata 2 and some early music. I wasn't able to hear the recording.

1938-41
Canti di prigionia
Dallapiccola worked on these exquisite settings for choir with 2 harps, 2 pianos and percussion in the beginning of what would be World War II. They are tied together by the use of the Dies Irae chant in various guises, though oh so often audible in the counterpoint. Its opening harmonization is touching as is the stately processional pace of the works reminiscent of the last movement of Stravinsky's contemporary Symphony of Psalms with its same resigned 4/2 meter. The harmonies are gorgeous and the flexibility of the rhythm striking - in the second movement the hyperrhythm is constatly shifting losing the listener in a wash of piano arpeggios, in the others the interplay of the dotted rhythms and the straight rhythms provides a sense of unease fitting for the pieces. We can hear all the points in his earlier music still at play - Dallapiccola is constantly working with what he knows and refining it, taking it a step further with each subsequent composition. According to Fearn, Dallapiccola had difficulty in finding texts to go along with Mary Stuart's, eventually choosing from Boethius' Consolation fo Philosophy and Savonarola's meditation on the Psalm "In te Domine speravi".

1941-1942
Monteverdi: Il Ritorno di Ulisse in patria: Transcription/revision
According to Fearn, he modernized, and revised the work - cutting section and preparing a wartime performance. I have not seen the score.

1942
Studio sul "Capriccio No. 14" di Niccolo Paganini - piano
Became fourth movment of Sonatina canonica. Apparently written as part of a collection of Italian piano pieces published during the war. On seeing the publication and its 80+ contributors of varying quality Dallapiccola was enraged and decided to take this little bit and make it a part of its own work.

1942-3
Marsia. Ballett in einem Akt
I played through the piano reduction of this work. One can see the clear conneciton to almost all of what has come before - he has clearly reached an impasse in his compositon, or else he had to compose this quite quickly. This is Dallapiccola contribution to the rise in ballets on Neoclassical themes of which Stravinsky's Orpheus and Apollon Musagette stand as highpoints. Here again is the use of the row as an emblem of aloofness and feeling, here again is the 3+3+2+2 that is the opening of Volo di Notte, here again are the pentatonics woven together that is the bread and butter of the Piccolo Concerto. Here again we have a syncopated exotic dance in various combinations of 3+2 eighths. All in all, it is totally well-heard if a pastiche of cliches of the 1940s and Dallapiccola's own writings. There is too the potential for great rhythmic subtlety and harmonic nuance, except that he is trapped in the exotic scales of the time. It is a frustrating work for Dallapiccola has so much potential for so much more - the kind of thing that would have his compositon teacher scratching his head in disbelief.

1942-3
Frammenti sinfonici dal balletto Marsia für Orchester
This is taken from the ballet. It leaves out the interesting opening of the tryptich and begins with the Magic Dance which alternates with parts of the ostinato of the prologue. The orchestration is limp giving a pastoral sensation with smooth edges. Still not my favorite.

1942-5
Cinque frammenti di Saffo
I never get the sense listening to Dallapiccola - and this work is no exception - that there is an extra note or an ill-thought out passage. In this introverted work for soprano with chamber orchestra, I again have this feeling: each pitch is thought out both for its twelve-tone resonance and its harmonic sense. The works move forward harmonically and there are elegant cadences. It is almost like a neoclassical twelve-tone writing. He has a glorious way, dating back to Volo di Notte, of having a strong triad or triads over which there is a meandering twelve-tone melody. It works, we hear each note for the interval that it wants to define and I think there lies the essence of the mysticism of the row for Dallapiccola. There is apparently a strong formal sense to this work with the use of canons and a pallindrome in the third song - not particularly audible and that's not a bad thing.

1943
Sonatina canonica in Es-Dur über Capricen von Niccolò Paganini für Klavier
Four movements, which explore (often in the tinkly range of the piano) several canonic ideas. We can see this in the context of his nascent dodecaphony, particularly the third movement with its prime versus retrograde (helpfully pointed out with arrows) - this one might even be audible. Otherwise the first is an ABA a lovely lullaby with a fast section between. The second and fourth are sparky and bring out the qualities I find most anoying in any of these Paganini inspired works, whether Brahms or what have you. The quick runs in dazzling keys - the second is particularly annoying with its rushing switches between major and minor. Challenging.

1942-5
Sex Carmina Alcaei
These miniatures dedicated to Webern are real contrapuntal gems. Again there is not a spare note and again the rhyhmic flexibility is lovely. I think this rhythmic flexibility results from the use of the row combined with Dallapiccola's natural lyrical/modal sense - he needs to find a way for the counterpoint to "work" legitimately and so stretches things here and there. What we have are a number of canonic elements. The first movement for soprano and piano lays out the fifth-based row in an elegant beautiful way. The other movements are masses of mixed meters, one instrument in 3/4 another in 4/2 to bring out the connection to Renaissance polyphony, as Webern does in the Second Cantata. These are indeed lovely and elegant works.

1942-5
Due Liriche di Anacreonte
These two were composed last of the three Greek lyric sets and are intended to be played second so as to create a narrative of more and more twelve-tone and canonic writing over the course of the triptych. Two movements, the first is an exquisite work that remains poised on that moment just between things, between waking and sleeping, between tonality and twelve-tonality, between fast and slow, loud and soft. Somehow he manages to do this, with the suspended bell-like Ab octaves in the piano no doubt contributing greatly. The second is more violent, though not strident. Near its two-thirds point we hear the row that will become the opening of the third set of the triptych. Dallapiccola knew a good moment within the piece when he saw one and was wise to extract this for the next segment.

1945
Ciaccona Intermezzo e Adagio per violincello solo
I've never been a big fan of works for solo instruments, though the Bach suites and partitas are the obvious exception. These three movements for solo cello fit my general prejudice with the exception of the lovely thrid movement Adagio with its theme of open fifths. What makes the Adagio work though is the sequence at about the midway point in three and four voice harmony, it is there that Dallapiccola suceeds in moving beyond merely stating melody and actually moving the work forward hamronically. In a twelve-tone context, a solo work is remarkably challening, if we unmoor our melody from tonal backing what's to make that melody cohere? becuase for the most part a twelve-tone framework doesn't provide a strong enough aural connection between individual pitches. The Intermezzo fails in this regard - its a typical 1940s fast section with meter changes and the like, here interrupted by a slow melody. In his monograph Fearn tries to draw connections to Berg, but I don't see this at all. The opening Ciaccona loses the harmonic framework for me - here the Chaconne theme is likely the row harmonized in the first eight measures. Again, though unlike in a Bach Chaconne we lose this harmonic framework over the course of the movement. Nonetheless, this is an important work of twentieth-century solo cello writing and this could, depending on one's point of view, point to the greatness of this work or else the paucity of competition.

1946
Rencesvals. Drei Fragmente aus dem Rolandslied für Bariton und Klavier
Post-war Dallapiccola and this is essentially a scena for high baritone and piano - well worth seeking out; in three connected movements. There is a great drama in the vocal line with its angular leaps of minor ninths. The row used comes from the opening chords and the text describes a fateful battle in the Chanson de Roland. I think there is some great personal connection to this work that is hard to put into words.

1946-7
Due studi für Violine und Klavier
Two very powerful movements for violin and piano. The first is labelled a sarabande, but I don't hear the rhythms, instead there is an astonishing sense of completeness to it, the row keeps recycling and it sounds more like a chaconne, with an ending that gives us the sense that we've returned from where we came from. The opening portends that it will take off and it doesn't instead it is a mysterious unease which opens into anger in the second. "Fanfare and fugue" an angular, swarthy and metrically free challenge for the players. Rough and powerful.

1947
Due pezzi für Orchester (arr. Of Due studi)
An arrangement of the Due studi for violin and piano, this version is scored for orchestra. In the orchestral rendition I think a good deal is lost, the sarabande comes off as precious with an almost self-conscious use of klangfarben melodie. The fanfare and fugue becomes muddied, though the horns are used to good effect. Apparently a major scandal broke at the premiere brought on by a claque who were against twelve-tone writing.

1944-8
Il Prigioniero
A one act opera telling the story of a prisoner who seeks escape is left with the door open and feels himself to be free, only realizing in his hope, that what he thought was a tender jailer who called him brother, turns out to be the Grand Inquisitor himself. The music is strong, though it takes some time for it to actually work itself up. The opening is powerful bold chords with the shouting of the mother, eventually breaking into a chorus at its climax. The second scene is not as strong, but the work picks up when Dallapiccola begins a series of polyphonic setpieces based on fragments of song - in this way he is able to transform the spoken sentiments - overtly political as they are - into music, first "Father, Guide my Steps" then "Brother." Twelve-tone fragments arrive in much the same way they do in Dallapiccola's earlier works as melodic moments over triads at especially important dramatic points. Rows are used as leitmotifs. Lyricism is everpresent and the final scene with a choral prayer underscoring the prisoner's suffering is reminiscent of The Godfather and Mafioso before it and its original forefather Tosca.

1948
Incontri con Roma (music for film)
Unavailable

1948
L'esperienza del cubismo (film music)
Unavailable

1948
Quattro Liriche di Antonio Machado für Sopran und Klavier
Four tiny songs to poetry of Machado about the springtime. I'm not as ipressed by these works, which seem to have less of the rhythmic flexibility, I've come to appreciate in Dallapiccola and whose melody lines become more efflorescent than lyrical. This original version is for soprano and piano.

Composing: fragments from "The Wanderer" and my new piece for guitar and mandolin

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 19:23:00 +0000

I’ve begun and am now more than halfway done with a work for soprano and nine instruments based on fragments of the old English poem “The Wanderer.” I decided to use transcriptions (creative transcriptions) of wind sounds recorded at various places around the world – among them the ruins of Tughlaq’s palace in Delhi, the Turfan depression in China and others to develop chords and from there composed more or less freely. It is a very strong powerful work that I’m having a great time writing and am proud of. Shockingly it is among the more rhythmically simple of my pieces. I’ve taken little phrases and words here and there from the poem, so to say it is a setting of The Wanderer would be wrong – instead it is a setting of my feelings about the poem in general viewed at through the lens of memory. The text is an instrument, perhaps for the sentiments. One aspect of the poem that seems to be among the more salient is that of decay – the poem has a happy ending per se, but I’ve avoided that part. I’ve decided to enact that in a structure of changing instrumentation – different instruments will drop out with each section become “wanderers” if you will, joining with the voice or going off on their own. I’m quite pleased with it and hope to have it finished by mid-March. No performance scheduled or in the works – any takers?

After working diligently for several months, I decided to take a break from the guitar/mandolin piece in early January as things had reached a point of wrapping up. I was still unsatisfied with the piece and thought that some time away would allow me to return to it with a fresh perspective. Parts that I liked had begun to be changed beyond recognition, I had eliminated parts that I felt didn’t work in an effort to see if they were necessary and so forth. Ultimately, I think time away is the right idea.
I sat down yesterday and listened to what was there of the score and remained dissatisfied. Last night, I got up in the middle of the night with an I’d like to try out on it. First, create a version of the score that is simply the two parts and then two blank staves underneath – to make the composing over easier. Then consider the structure – making it more codified in a form of Introit, Sostenuto and Dance. Reinstate some of the introit figures which I always felt worked well as a beginning. Redo the middle section in order to create the thing that I felt I could never get from the ensemble – sustained pitches. Rewrite it so that it is a sustaining section in beautiful harmonies. The final dance section can be just that. Perhaps three movements instead of one? Or else divide the one movement into three movements with mock tuning and instrument arguments – in this way the performance becomes a part of the piece. Perhaps this will save the piece – the other option is to create a series of ephemeral moments – jumping in in the heat of action perhaps. I think I’ll try the first now and if that doesn’t work, try the second later.

It kind of warms the heart

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:38:00 +0000

of an old craggy modernist like myself to read some of John Adams' recent interview with Newsweek. After saying some not particularly interesting things about a proposal for a Secretary of the Arts and the like, he goes on to mention briefly about some of the young comnposers who are composing in a style that mixes "indy" music with classical. I quote:

" How should concert halls go about attracting new listeners? Does government play no role in this?
Well, the one and only way to interest people in classical music is to get them to play it as children. People who grow up not having learned an instrument or not having been exposed to playing Bach on the piano—or playing, as I did, clarinet in a concert band—they have no understanding and no exposure to it. When I was a kid, we all had music lessons as part of the school program.

Isn't that changing, to some degree? Aren't composers who cross streams with "indie" or experimental rock—people like Nico Muhly or Caleb Burhans—bringing non-instrumentalists into the concert hall?
But both of those guys, they're highly trained musicians

Yes, but their fans aren't, necessarily.
Possibly. But there's another side to that. Some of the music that these composers are producing is so simple that it's in danger of dumbing-down. Not necessarily Nico and Caleb. But there are a lot of young composers in their 20s and 30s who are very anxious to appeal to the same audience that would listen to indie rock. But they are creating a level of musical discourse that's just really bland. I don't think it will have a very long shelf life. The bottom line is art really can't be made easy and palatable without simply losing its meaning and importance. I had this conversation with the new executive director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. We all went out to dinner and this fellow said, "I think we should make concerts interactive." Here I am, someone who's always been the renegade. "Wait a minute," I said. "You can't listen to a really important piece of music and have people banging on their BlackBerrys."

Is there more to say? Well I would add that for me the problem really is is that these folks aren't doing anything interesting with this potentially fertile blend of genres. There is no translation - moving the essence of "indy-rock" (itself a misnomer given how many people listen to it) into a new music framework. Essentially what we get instead is no different than transcription or arrangement - there is no imperative for this music to be scored for the forces it calls for. An equivalent might be if I took David Allen Coe's "Hank Williams Junior Junior" and arranged it for pierrot ensemble, although that might be more interesting than some of these things I've heard.

An Award and a Recollection

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:08:00 +0000

Last night, I received word that Haziri was awarded honorable mention in the Millennium Chamber Players of Chicago’s annual Composition Competition. Out of over 300 scores received Haziri was one of less than ten that received mention. It came as a nice surprise at the end of a long day and after a meal of not-so-good Mexican food at Mama Mexico on Broadway – a restaurant I had avoided for nine years for philosophical reasons, but that’s another story. The jury for the prize was Bernard Rands, Augusta Read Thomas, Kyung Mee Choi and George Flynn. It’s particularly heartening because as far as I know none of these composers know my work. One of the other honorable mentions was the composer and flautist Ned McGowan.

Seeing the jury and Ned’s name I was reminded of the wonderful summer I spent at the Aspen Music Festival in 1998 when I was a part of the Advanced Composition Master Class led at the time by Rands and John Harbison. It was one of the last, if not last times this seminar ran concurrently with the normal composition program at Aspen and there were tensions between the two groups.

When I drove cross-country, my car stuffed with belongings for the summer – I overpacked - I had just finished my undergraduate work and wasn’t quite sure what to do next. For the program we were asked to write a work for the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble – my contribution was the Septet - and I was floored by the virtuosity of the ensemble: I still remain in touch with some of those players, Michael Norsworthy who played clarinet for instance or Blair McMillan who was the pianist. The composer and percussionist Nathan Davis played marimba. My cohort in the seminar were equally brilliant and have all gone on in their careers: Ken Ueno, Keeril Makan, Suzanne Sorkin, Ben Sutherland, and a composer from the Midwest named Colin Anderson. We spent a few weeks discussing music, listening to music and having an all-around good time. John Adams visited and discussed his use of computer software to tweak Slonimsky scales in his new piece Slonimsky’s Earbox, Augusta Read Thomas gave a presentation about a new piece she had done for a Chicago fish exhibit. David Zinman gave a masterclass at which I played a midi realization of my then-unheard and now-never-really-played orchestra piece Ma Fin. I'll never forget Bernard Rands comment on hearing the very poorly realized midi on cassette. "Never play that for anyone again." The midi did no justice to what is actually a very beautiful piece. Zinman didn’t like that the horns played so high at the beginning. I was young, I didn’t know any better – at the reading later in the summer, Jeri Johnson conducted beautifully – I remember our meeting beforehand to discuss how to approach the mood of the piece.
At the end of the session we had a big party at Rands’ Aspen apartment. We all ate and drank a lot of beer and whiskey – surely there are pictures out there – and at a certain point John Harbison brought an enormous smoked salmon.

This appears to be my 100th blog post, what a happy coincidence.

A Good Day for Classical Music

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 17:01:00 +0000

Yesterday was the inauguration. It was also, I think, a good day for classical music for myself and the country. We spent most of the day in front of ABC and CSPAN watching the festivities, enjoying Charlie Gibson’s enthusiasm and the uncommented upon ceremonies. I was particularly impressed by Obama’s choice to have a small musical interlude before the actual swearing in – not only because I did the same thing at my wedding last year, but because I think it put the oath taking in a special light. The performance was elegant – Perlman’s tone was exquisite and Ma’s cheeriness infectious. The pianist, Gabriella Montero wore fingerless gloves and the McGill, the clarinet player had a velvet tone.

Now to the music. It was written by John Williams and was a small set of variations on the Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts,” made more famous by its use in Copland’s Appalachian Spring and no doubt used here to convey a sort of Americana reverence. The variations were simple, after an introduction – moody and serious – it continued in the manner of a modernized version of a Mozart variation, more and more notes in the same amount of time. The music was cheery and upbeat, a good advertisement for classical music – the were a few angular moments but all in al a pretty good revamp of Copland. Let’s hope that Obama continues the trend toward support of the arts – and not just John Williams.

Analyze This

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:34:00 +0000

About a year or so ago I was contacted by a German scholar about writing an article for a festschrift about the music of John Luther Adams. Since that point, the scholar has put together an impressive list of contributors for a book that, from what I imagine, could easily find a publisher. After shopping it around a bit, Bernd came to the conclusion that we needed the actual article’s rather than the proposals if we were to find a publisher. The deadline approaches and I’ve been sitting down recently to try to put together my contribution.

My initial thought for an article stemmed from thoughts I developed in writing an article on for Lou Harrison, and I would basically provide a primer for listening to, experiencing or composing JLA’s music. Basicaly, if you wanted to write a piece like JLA what would you do. This I think would be a very useful contribution to the book as there is no other real overview for the music. In terms of specific pieces, essentially I’d be looking at the colorfield pieces like Dark Wind or Red Arc /Blue Veil.

My next thought was to try and put the understanding of the music in the context of the Aeolian Harp which I think is the proper metaphor for Adams’ music. I did some research on how Aeolian tones work (the work of Lord Rayleigh is particularly interesting in this regard) and thinking of that in the context of what I know about constructing JLA’s work – ultimately, I think the Aeolian harp metaphor is useful but really only applies fully to the pieces with auras: Mathematics, Veils and Vespers and the like – mainly because of the extreme high partials of these pieces.

Next thought was to understand the work in relation to the actual mechanics of creating a sound. I recall from a class I had with Robert Cogan a long time ago that bit from the Abime des Oiseaux movement of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, and how when you listen to the long pitches held you actually begin to hear the higher and higher partials of the piece. I thought that this was aparticularly apt metaphor for the construction of Adams’ music which often begins with a wash and then adds quicker and quicker moving layers over that wash. Through the brilliant sound analysis program created by my friend Michael Klingbeil: SPEAR, I was able to encode and analyze that very sonority from Messiaen and saw that in fact as the sound increased in volume so did the higher partials of the fundamental enter in the picture.

So my next step was to look at a colorfield piece: I chose my old standby The Light That Fills the World and try to determine whether this enhancement of partials was matched by the actual mechanics of the music rather than in the abstract. I thought to borrow from Lewin’s analysis of Carter’s String Quartet in GITT, particularly his method of dealing with tempo relations by translating them into harmonic relations to sort of create an “harmonic” language of tempo. Once I translated out the tempo relationships I could build a large-scale harmonic understanding of tempo over the course of the work. My initial work suggests that I’ll find a structure similar to the pitch saturation in the tempo saturation – mainly that the same tempo relations are always in play.

I spent this morning mapping out the tempi of the various layers in the individual sections (I’m halfway finished) and from there translating those tempi into pitches. The real pitches given by the tempi are subsonic (recall Cowell’s idea that considering the fact that pitch is a function of frequency, tempo is related to pitch) so I’m simply mapping them onto a standard acoustical formation.

I’m further borrowing from Lewin in treating the timepoint and duration of events as an ordered pair: thus (29, 24/5) means that at beat 29, a pitch enters for a duration of 24/5 beats. I’m using the quarter note as normative, although Adams sets tempo at half=60.

For this to be important to the narrative of the piece I’ll need to demonstrate that pitch is unimportant – simply a coloring on the tempo map. I think this won’t be too hard to determine. Through this transformational approach we’ll determine that the piece is a realization (through tempo and gamut) of an abstract progression in essence creating an abstract generative model for a JLA piece that could be combined with the other techniques to generate a piece. From this model one could map out more and more complex progressions and from there translate them back into sound through a gamut.

As I write this, I think perhaps that this may not be what is needed for the book, probably the book will need a simple overview article instead as this could be too specific and complicated.

Some more Schoenberg

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 15:54:00 +0000

Back at the blogging after nearly a month away. A Happy New Year to all.

Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, op. 41 (1942) (voice, 2 violins, viola, violoncello, piano)
This work for reciter with piano qunitet seems to get a bad rap, primarily from those who see it as a tonal work where Schoenberg turned his back on his creation and returned to a more popular style. The Ode is a powerful work, uncompromising and adamant. Bristling moments abound - its striking opening - staccato chords in the piano with martial and regal rhythms in the strings creating an Ivesian bustle. Throughout Schoenebrg tailors his musical images to the text and sometimes is even funny - like the exagerated portamentos that accompany the talk of "Austria." This piece seems to be something timeless like the Byron poem it sets which looks at Napoleon fallen and desolate with little pity. Rich and engrossing.

Concerto, op. 42 (1942) (piano, orchestra)
Like the violin concerto, my memory of the piano concerto is of a work I found quite difficult to listen to, a work that was stodgy, full of those repeated rhythms and unpleasant. I recall feeling that it never got off its feet. That was ten years ago maybe, listening to it today, I hear it as a prototype of a number of angular pieces that I find attractive - I hear its repeated rhtyhms but just as often I'm surprised by a sudden shift of material, a new turn of phrase, a new rhythmic figure or a delightful object that appears and doesn't return, at least not in the same guise - like that lovely moment of high quartal-ish trills at 325 or the striking cadenza at 287 or the col legno battuto in the basses toward the end. This is chamber music with a lot of vibrato and massed sounds. But it has a romantic striving to it - it seems to be fighting against the walls. Harmonically it is twelve-tone but with a tonal core. Listening to it you can really hear how Schoenberg is using the twelve-tone language to justify the things he was writing about in the Harmonielehre here it is internalized - harmonies can go anywhere - and they need to be tamed. A bold, visionary work.

Theme and variations, op. 43a (1943) (band)
This, another example of Schoenberg having a go at neoclassicism, is a deep text. There are abundant cross references throughout its twelve-minutes that one could spend a good deal of time teasing out, but would it be worth it for the few minutes of genius? The theme itself is unmemorable, an oddly harmonized - though oddly only in the sense of the norm: Schoenberg is following the precepts he lays out in the Harmonielehre - melody that undergoes a number of transformations, a waltz, a fughetta, for instance, before apotheozing in the end into a broad expansive restatement, but still the melody is unmemorable. You see Schoenberg trying to get his point across, there is a new expression marking, joining the haupt and nebbenstimme, this is an arrow pointing forward at the beginning of a phrase and an arrow pointing backward at the end, to bring out the phrases in the dense polyphony of Variation V. Variation 5, like Variation 1 is quite nice. In Variation 1 the harmonic structure of the original is buried under triplet mud obscuring its contours. Otherwise an odd curiosity. Originally commissioned by the president of G. Schirmer, Carl Engel. According to Schoenberg: "It is the kind of piece one writes in order to enjoy one's own virtuosity."

Bartok

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:46:00 +0000

Catching up on my Bartok notes. Many of the early works are not availble in score or recording and so I can only comment on the fragments presented in the Dille catalog.

1897
Scherzo or Fantasie for Piano (Scherzo oder Fantasie für das Pianoforte), Op. 18, DD 50
A grand scherzo in ABA form. It sounds like Brahms, but with a regularity born of Strauss. Satisfying for the player and for the listener, though not particularly adventurous harmonically. Incidentally, a sketch appears in Bartok's Greek textbook of the Odyssey.

1898
Sonata for Piano, Op. 19, DD 51
This is a big four movement sonata in the 19th century large scale format. Orchestral sonorities, almost like something MacDowell would do. It is firmly accomplished and would no doubt whet the appetities of many listeners. Demonstrates the Bartok is not coming out of nowhere, but is firmly within the tradition.

1898
Piano Quartet in C Minor, Op. 20, DD 52
The whole thing apparently exists down to the individual parts. It's in four movements in a prevailing C minor tonality, though the Scherzo is Eb and the the Adagio also outside the key. Again Brahmsian with orchestral texture in the piano.

1898
Three Piano Pieces (Drei Klavierstücke), Op. 21, DD 53 Adagio-Presto; (untitled); Adagio, sehr düster
#2 and 3 are published in "Der Junge Bartok" they are quite lovely, convential late Romantic works in the style of Brahms and Grieg. The Intermezzo has some elegant arch form, while the Adagio features a song-like feel and modal mixture.

1898
Three Songs (Drei Lieder), DD 54
In Eb flat opens with a gentle melody - why did they make these people write these songs when Schumann had created such a masterpiece?

1898
Scherzo in B Minor for Piano, DD 55
Nothing special scherzo and trio opens with a simple period. The trio is in nine eight with a pastoral opening.

1898
String Quartet in F Major, DD 56
In four or five movements, the Adagio opens with fugal entries, the Trio also seems quite nice in F# minor.

1899
Piano Quintet Fragments, DD B10 & B12
Very rich strong powerful fragments for piano quintet.

1899
Tiefblaue Veilchen for Soprano and Orchestra, DD 57
A rich beginning in D minor.

1899
Scherzo in Sonata Form for String Quartet, DD 58
A scherzo and trio seemingly it is in sonata form, the Trio seems like it might be more harmonically interesting.

1900?
Scherzo in B Flat Minor for Piano, DD 59
Very standard opening, again a scherzo and trio.

1900
Six Dances, DD 60
Six, seemingly fun, dances for piano. One was published in facsimile in the Pressburger Zeitung on Christmas 1913. The first and second were orchestrated as DD 60b.

1900
Valcer for Orchestra, DD 60b -- orchestrations of nos. 1 and 2 of DD 60
Orchestrations of numbers 1 and 2 of the above.

1900
Drei gemischte Chore DD 61a
Three mixed choirs for four and then six and six voices. Can't get muxh sense from the opening, thogh there is nothing harmonically special about these brief snippets.

1900
Was streift vorbei im Dammerlicht DD 61b
For men's choir, cannot tell much from this simple opening.

1900
Liebeslieder, DD 62 -- Diese Rose pflück ich hier (I pluck this rose), Ich fühle deinen Odem (I feel your breath)
Tho of the six of these are published in Der Junge Bartok. The first is a dramatic and rangy song in Eb minor its works its way up and up and then throws in a high Bb for good measure, a little bit much in what is otherwise a folksy-ish setting, kind of Brahms mets Mahler. The second is again somewhat over the top with as many as three contrapuntal lines against an unsupported melody, which while retaining standard late Romantic accented dissonances just is a bit too sweet. The remainders are in a similar vein. There is a sort of reuse of materials throughout - for instance, number 5 a nature-love song full of horn calls is refreshed in number six.

1900
Scherzo in B Flat Minor for Piano, DD 63
A quick and commonplace opening, the trio makes use of an interesting two against three beginning.

1901
Variations on a Theme by F.F. (Változatok F.F. egy témája fölött) for Piano, DD 64
Published in "Der Junge Bartok" this is a massive set of variations on a theme. It is full, strong, accomplished in the style of late Romantic rhetoric. Fit for a strong full piano and texutred as an orchestra. It sounds somehwat like early Brahms. Demonstrates Bartok's consumater skill of construction and sense of the instrument. Perhaps a bit overlong.

1901
Scherzo for Orchestra, DD 65
A two against three opening, the trio in the nasty F# Major.

1901
Tempo di minuetto for Piano, DD 66
Very closely related to one of the six dances DD60, nearly the same beginning.

1902
Four Songs, DD 67
These are four somewhat folksy sounding works, though there is tied up with them a good deal of late Romanticism. He seems caught in two worlds, but such a comment as that I just made is silly.

1902
Symphony, DD 68
The scherzo is recorded in the Hungaraton complete edition. It is a well orchestrated quick scherzo in a Dvorak manner - it almost sounds like one of the Slavonic Dances. This was the only movement of the symphony orchestrated by Bartok.

1902
Duo for Two Violins, DD 69
A small two voice contrapuntal study, short, only forty seconds in G major.

1902
Albumblatt in A Major for Violin and Piano, DD 70
A rather lovely work in the late Romantic style for violin and piano. It has some curious modulations (almost from nowhere, but they work). The center is a strong development of the opening and it ends in quiet. Bartok really has worked a strong sense of hamronic motion in his music.

1903
Four Piano Pieces (Négy zongoradarab), DD 71
These are four works for piano that are the sort of late romantic things that pass by on the radio and your mind wanders, you hear them but you don't listen and then they are over and you think, well that was fine, like Dvorak. Unobtrusive in a virtuosic way. Nothing special.

1903?
Andante in F Sharp Major for Violin and Piano, DD B14
What a lovely beginning, big rolled chords from which the violin emerges.

1903
Violin Sonata in E Minor, DD 72
Three movements and published in Documenta Bartokiana volume 1. The first movement is a solidly accomplished sonata with a fugue in the development. The second is darker, a slow movement in variaiton style. It begins rhapsodic and then takes the players through various "gypsy" styles - must be incredibly rewarding, it takes some risks that pay off. The third movment (not published in the volume) is a several times interrupted rushing and angular national, perhaps Slavis, that A minor-y feeling sort of thing that emphasizes the tonic on strong beats. In the end I'm torn about this music, it's immensely accomplished and sounds great, it must be a joy to play (though the piano part, like many of Bartok's early works, is quite difficult). With the exception of the second movement, it doesn't seem like Bartok is really doing anything special, nothing beyond Dvorak, Tchaik, or late Strauss, themselves all excellent composers. It has nothing to distinguish itself beyond simply being good. That said, still worth a listen.

1903
Est (Evening) for Voice and Piano -- lyrics by Kálmán Harsányi;
Published in Der Junge Bartok, this is a mass of augmented seconds and enharmonic spellings. It gets big in the center with quick chord arpeggiaitons in the piano and higher notes. It seems to want to be more than it is.

1903
Est (Evening) for Male Chorus, DD 74 -- text identical to the above, music entirely different
Completely different than the melodramatic song for voice and piano on the same text. Here this is a gentle work for male choir, almost in the mold of the much later Janacek male choir works, there isn't a sense of hard-core late romanticism, but rather a simple folksiness, without naiveté.

1903
Kossuth, Symphonic Poem in Ten Tableaux, DD 75a
A rather strong if studied tone poem. The overall sound world is like Richard Strauss and it has several strong moments, there is nothing really special in it, although the reused melody is solid and the orchestration is totally competant if in a seemingly studied way that may not be the best for the music. It tells the story of Lajos Kossuth a Hungarian revolutionary in the revolutionary year of 1848. The work was a big hit in Hungary in that it tied in with a sort of nationalist independence, which allowed the audience to look beyond things that we laughed at when it was premiered in England. Makes use of many Hungairan style figures as well. A rather important piece in understanding the development of Bartok.

1903
Marcia Funèbre for Piano, DD 75b -- arrangement of two sections of Kossuth (DD 75a)
Rich and elegant this works very well as a piano piece, requires a strong but not prodigious technique with the need for good separation of the hands. Makes use of the ornamenting of important notes school of folksiness.(A - G#-E-F-D-E-F for instance toward the end) A Schenkerian's dream!

1903
Four Songs, DD 76
Lost

1903
Piano Quintet, DD 77
A massive, repeat massive orchestral work for Piano Quintet in four movements each played attacca. It is vibrant and large with a strong opening gesture that begins a journey - this opening figure will emerge triumphant at the end and perhaps is found throughout the piece. The scherzo is a brash hemiola of an affair with true joke rhythms while the slow movement is a meditation on the whole-tone scale, its opening gesture is F#-C-D-E which he works with in a lovely way eventually teasing some E minorness out of it. Finally the final movement is a bold Gypsy dance that culminates, after a fugetta that appears at about the golden section of the piece, in the return of the opening material. It is said that Bartok got very angry and wanted to distance himself from this music, when some people told him they liked this better than what he had done since, he threw the score into a corner. The piano part is shockingly virtuosic and the string parts no less challenging, the type of thing that warrants an enormous applause and lots of sweat raking. Scholars tend to see in this the late version of Bartok's searching for a folk idiom, he had, like Liszt and Brahms before him (two clear forebears in this music) thought that the gypsy bands of Vienna were the true folk music of Hungary; he would soon start an investigation into this in Transylvania.

1904
Rhapsody for Piano, Op. 1, Sz 26
In the style of some of Bartok's other Hungarian works it begins with a rhapsodic improvisatory opening that evokes the violinist warming up the crowd and eventually erupts into a couple of bold dances before apotheosizing into a wooly pianistic rhapsody. This becomes pianisitc writing at its best with long lines, the full range of the instrument exploited and remarkably chordal figuration. It's a real crowd pleaser in a Lisztian sense. Once again, Bartok displays his powerful use of tonality and consumate mastery of late Romantic harmonic practice.

1904
Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 1, Sz 27 -- arrangement of Sz 26
I'll admit I was never all that fond of this piece as a piano piece it is accomplished and the like, but it is also that sort of flashy thing that I find annoying. As a piano concerto it works better, the flashiness is more justified. Consequently, we have basically the framework of the earlier rhapsody, some things have simply been orchestrated (and I don't like what he's done to the tranquillo at page 16 of the score) other parts have added virtuoso flourishes within and between sections of the original. Nonetheless, I imagine it is still a crowd pleaser. I was unable to get a score and followed in the piano version.

1904
Scherzo for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 2, Sz 28 ; also known as Burlesque
I couldn't see a score for this. It begins with a slow minor entrance and ventually moves into various somewhat programmatic sounding dances. If Bartok had continued along in this vein he would have become a pretty good Dvorak. For our sakes it is good that he didn't. A nice moment toward the end when the piano becomes introspective.

1904
Hungarian Folksongs (Magyar népdalok), Sz 29 --
#1 is published in Der Junge Bartok

1904
Székely Folksongs (Piros alma), Sz 30
Said to be the song that kicked off Bartok's passion for folk music when he heard a peasant singing it in the Slovakian countryside. Bartok sets the modal melody with a relatively staid Romantic-ish accompaniment. I don't have strong feelings about it.

1905
Petits morceaux for Piano, (DD 67/1)
Published in Der Junge Bartok

1905
Suite No. 1 for Orchestra, Op. 3, Sz 31
A long and very ambitious work for orchestra that shows the young Bartok trying to reach beyond a superficial folksiness. It is said that the folksiness of the early Bartok was the urban gypsy music that which he heard in the cafes, after hearing some non-urban folk he made his way to the coutnry to discover that the real was different than the urban. It's kind of like Chinese food, you can only - with rare exceptions - get the true Chinese food in China. This is definately a student work with great hopes - notice how he studiously combines the themes of the various movements in the finale. The themes are rough with a mix between gypsy improvisations - such as in the second movement and more off accented bits like in the third and fourth movement. Yet at the same time, there is still a good deal of Dvorak in the rhythms and Strauss in the overall sound and orchestration. As a whole it could be a crowd pleaser, but it remains rambunctious just a tad too much and could stand some editing - as noticed by the fact that in the revision of 1920 Bartok suggested eliminating certain portions.

1905
To the Little 'Tot' (A kicsi 'tot'-nak), Five Songs for Voice and Piano, Sz 32
No information

1906
Hungarian Folksongs (Magyar népdalok), Ten Songs for Voice and Piano, Sz 33 (BB 43/2?)
Bartok's first go at many of the Hungarian songs that he would return to several times over the course of his life. The settings of these ten are a big step from what he was doing before - it is almost like day and night. Wherea before, Bartok's harmonies tended toward the Straussian with a clear contrapuntal motion between chords, herehis harmonies are more blocky, there is less direct motion from one chord to the next. My guess is that the melodies of these chords could allow for multiple harmonizations, but tended to work best with simpler. Bartok tired of this, he was after all no longer writing the early works that he wrote while a young teenager, and sought new ways to bring out the modality of the meloies, the lack of leading tone, the gapped scales and the like. Also the rhythmic interest is there with the front accented rhythms. these would be very good recital fodder for a mezzo, and with an easy piano part.#4,5,6,8 are published in Der Junge Bartok. It is very difficult to determine which of these is Sz 33, which Sz 33a, which BB42 and which BB43 - suffice it to say these are the ones with the more full piano accompaniment.

1906
Hungarian Folksongs Sz 33a, BB 42/3
There are ten of these of which only four were published, all ten are included in the Hugaraton Complete Edition. These ten songs are harmonized in a much simpler vein - there are no piano preludes or postludes and often the accompaniment simply mirrorsthe vocal line or else add simple harmonies to it. It seems in a way to be th epolar opposite - artistically that is - of the Sz33 songs. The songs are left mainly to fare for themselves.

1906
Two Hungarian Folksongs for Voice and Piano, Sz 33b -- selection from Sz 33 made in 1906
Two small songs from the collection of Sz 33, perhaps? They are simpler in style but with a harmonic adventurousness, like those in Sz 33. #1 - Edesanyam Rozsafaja is published in Der Junge Bartok. #2 in Documenta Bartokiana 4 (1970)

1907
Suite No. 2 for Small Orchestra, Op. 4, Sz 34
This second suite of Bartok's is a curious bird. It was revised in the 1940s and I'm not entirely sure how much of a revision there was. If the first suite seemed to be a compilation of folksongs, this second suite seems to take the folk song as a realm of possibilities, its motives become a gamut from which Bartok can draw his musical language and we end up with this work which uses folksy fragments but freely moves about in pitch area. There is a fugue in the second movement, the first has a quirky rhythmic feel and the fourth reminds me a little of Mahler. That said, these ideas seem ill-fitted to the suits they are wearing, the developmental stratergies of the late nineteenth century, motivic transformations, a not entirely well-juxtaposed fugue. Beyond that, I got a real sense that this music is orchestrated although orchestrated beautifully. One notes the unison oboes and clarinets to yield a peasant flavor as well as the long bass clarinet solo in the third movement. Ultimately, it seems a step toward something else - this is something I appreciate about Bartok, he is flailing, flailing beautifully, but not entirely certain where he is going.

1907
Three Hungarian Folksongs from the Csik District (Három Csik megyei népdal) for Piano, Sz 35a
Fascinating little piece, three actualy, said to be trnscribed from a Sixty-year-old flute player of the Csik district. The idea being that this is the real-folk music. Bartok gives it a reliquary-like setting allowing it to shine with all its vagarities. The piano part is consistently in the upper registers and it is unlike anything Bartok had done before.

1907
From Gyergyo for Reed Pipe and Piano, Sz 35 -- arrangement of Sz 35a made in 1907
I love this version for reed pipe and piano - essentially the exact same as Sz 35 with the right hand assigned to the reed pipe.

1916
Four Slovak Folksongs for Voice and Piano, Sz 35b -- based on Sz 35, completed in 1916
Four settings of Slovak folksongs for mezzo and piano. Of the four the first is most effective. He treats the folksongs here quite dramatically and often provides long prologues and postludes. In the first, the postlude takes the form of a verse of the folksong missing the singer. Published in Der Junge Bartok.

1907
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 1, Sz 36 -- begun in 1907, completed in 1908
Bartok wrote this in his early years and it was performed, but only published and performed again after Bartok's death. It is a two movement work with some charms. The opening movement is long ruminative slow taut and polyphonic. Beginning with a triad plus leading-tone figure - D-F#-A-C# he brings in parts of the orchestra with this melody, moving to B minor before returning to D. It's a tonal tour-de-force with somehow this odd counterpoint working togethe rin new ways. the second movement is not as successful, too much activity for the sake of activity that seems to episodic.

1907
Two Portraits (Két portré) for Orchestra, Op. 5, Sz 37
An oddly proportioned combination of two works that are found elsewhere. The first movement is the striking opening movement of the Violin Concerto Sz 36 while the second is the last of the Fourteen Bagatelles op. 6 orchestrated, which bears a certain resemblance to parts of one of the suite. While the firs tmovment is slow and stately and over ten minutes, the second is rustic and only two. What they share is the opening figure - an arpeggiated Dmaj7 chord.

1908
Fourteen Bagatelles for Piano, Op. 6
I feel like these fourteen miniatures are in a way akin to Schoenberg's Sechs Kleine Klavierstucke - they are part of a genre of evocative miniatures that I'm not altogether fond of. It's almost as if here Bartok is calling into the question many of the standard notions of what consittutes musical discourse, including notation and genre. The opening work is bitonal, others features changing and accelerating metronome markings, clusters, ostinato; the more successful make use of folk songs. He also seems to have his own harmonic system at play - are they octatonic? There are Ivesisms - the off kilter carousel in #14 and the doppler shifted clanging in #5. I find them overall important and worthy of study but uneven.

1908
Ten Easy Pieces for Piano, Sz 39 -- composed in 1908:
These ten works plus on ededication are much more fun to play than they are to listen to. Many have painfully slow tempos, likely because of the pedagogic need, and many are in the style of thebagatelles, that I'm not very fond of. Bartok again uses that Major-Seventh chord (D-F#-A-C#) opening as he does int he violin concerto, in the very beginning of the quite odd dedication.

1908
Two Elegies (Két elégia) for Piano, Op. 8b, Sz 41 -- first version composed in 1908, completed in 1909
It is a shame that Suchoff's notes in the Dover edition are so right on because it makes my observations seem to be a rehash of his. First, Bartok as we've seen back in the piano accompaniments of even the earliest songs, tends to favoor the busy arpeggiated Romantic piano lines and in these works (which recieved a premiere nearly ten years after they wrre composed) Bartok returns to these roots, though mixed with the harmonic language he began exploring in depth only in the piano works of the previous few years. So there is a mix of Romantic technique and modernist language, which works here well. Second we have aother fixation on the Leitmotive from the violin concerto - what Suchoff calls the "Stefi Geyer" motive after the violin player with whom Bartok was in love. It with an added pitch becomes the chord of the second elegy - the chord that stays and returns as accompaniment tonic and activity - here A#-C#-E-G#-A. The remainder are long torridmelodies with lots of left hand: the left hand creates the activity that the right soars over.

Some more Schoenberg

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:52:00 +0000

Including some canons this time

Darf ich eintretern - Canon for Alban Berg (complete works XXIV) (9 february 1935)
An unending canon to signify the unending nature of the freindship of Berg and Schoenberg - short and chromatic and with a strange melancholy. Would work well for brass.

Man mag über Schönberg denken, wie man will (for Charlotte Dieterle) (Bärenreiter XXIII) (1935) (4 voices)
A hymn -like mirror canon with augmentation and an opening. It is somehwat odd harmonically but is a rich little exercise for a string quartet or viol consort. Not his finest canon. Makes use of a descending fifth (E-A) as a motive - this appears in octaves in the middle with the words "ach, ja" written above.

Kol nidre, op. 39 (1938) (voice, chorus, orchestra)
Schoenberg set this version of the Kol Nidre prayer for "Rabbi", chorus and orchestra for, I believe, synagogue use. It is a powerful and strong work, in a tonal system that is purely Schoenberg - we see actual use again here of the precepts that he lays out in the Harmonielehre. Also, frankly, the mannerisms that mar muc of his work are not a part of this. That said the counterpoint is dense, not Verklarte Nacht dense, but present dense. Choral parts are not too difficult. Effective, strong and enjoyable.

Double canon (Bärenreiter XXV) (1938) (4 voices)
An infinite double canon in which the canonic voice is proportionally related to the other rhythmically. It has the sound of something by Obrecht.

Mr. Saunders I owe you thanks (for Richard Drake Saunders) (Bärenreiter XXVI) (December 1939) (4 voices)
A sweet charming little canon, though also chromatic, written as a Christmas greeting in 1939 to a certain Mr. Saunders, who assisted the Schoenbergs in their transition to LA. Nice how it ends with a greeting to Mrs. Saunders as well - the words bear writing: "Mister Saunders, I owe you thanks for at least four years. Let me do it in four voices so that every one of the mcounts for one year. Merry Christmas four times, listen how they sing it! Also Merry Christmas to Mrs. Saunders." Reminds me of those Glenn Gould canons, which were no doubt influenced by these.

Catching up on Schoenberg

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:35:00 +0000

Here's some of my recent notes - continuing the chronicle of my dysfunctional relationship with Schoenberg:

Begleitmusik zu einer Lichtspielszene [Accompanying music to a film scene], op. 34 (1930) (orchestra)
Amazingly this seems to step away from many of the Schoenberg cliches to provide a potent, evocative work. The melodies are interesting, the tensions and climaxs are fresh in a nineteenth century way. Jokes circulate as to what Schoenberg's film music would be - apparently he asked for tons of money and way too much time.

6 Stücke [6 Pieces], op. 35 (1930) (male chorus)
Devasting, at least the fifth and sixth pieces. One to four sound overburdened by counterpoint, it becomes a texture. Five is split up between voices as drums and others in an almost narrative way enacting soldier life, it reminds me of Mahler's Revelge. Six is a beautiful D minor.

Quarter note = mm. 80 (Gesamtausgabe fragment 13) (February 1931) (piano)
A lot of activity but not overcrowded, almost always four-part texture. Large leaps.

Double Mirror Canon (Bärenreiter VIII) (April 1931) (4 voices)(complete works 6)
This is the Schoenberg of the Christmas Music, a lovely canon that would sound well for strings and with a charming and quirky ending. Recommended.

Sehr rasch; Adagio [Very fast; Slowly] (Gesamtausgabe fragment 14) (July 1931) (piano)
Not recorded on the Fragments CD. It is an alternation of whole step octave displaced octaves with some Adagio sections and then almost imitative sections. Feels like a cadenza of sorts.

Andante (Gesamtausgabe fragment 15) (10 October 1931) (piano)
Barely worked out, mainly a single melody with bare accompaniment at the beginning.

(Bärenreiter IX) (Dec 1931)(Complete Works 7) (4 voices)
Crowded, too busy, high in conception, but clumsy. Quirky ending. #7 in the complete works.

Concerto “after Monn’s Concerto in D major for harpsichord” (1932/33) (violoncello, orchestra)
Schoenberg seemed to have a blast with this concerto dedicated to Casals who, not surprisingly, never played it. The orchestration is elegant and the cello line fiendishly difficult. Often the cello is buried in the score, which has a feeling like Schumann's orchestra. I suppose this is Schoenbeg's attempt at neoclassicism.

Double Mirror Canon (Bärenreiter XII) (Dec 1932) (4 voices)(complete works 9)
Small, only seven measures, it has potential to be expressive.

Concerto “freely adapted from Handel’s Concerto grosso in B-flat major, op.6, no.7” (1933)
If the concerto for cello is one crazy instrument with the ensemble then this concerto "freely adapted" from Handel is four crazy instruments with ensemble. Triple stops, double stops, eight parts in the strings, fast. Either this is Schoenberg's sense of humor or perhaps at the same time, his way of outdoing all the neoclassical works that were out there at this time.

Jedem geht es so [No man can escape] (for Carl Engel) (Bärenreiter XIII) (April 1933; text 1943) (3 voices)
This and it companion (Mir auch ist es so ergangen) form a birthday greeting to Schoenberg's friend Carl Engel, lamenting on how people say that at sixty you cannot do what you did before, but that once you are sixty this is nonsense, and ending with the English: "Life begins at 60" It's a rather straightforward D minor mensuration canon that becomes major in the final section. Quite charming. Ends with the musical realization of their two names. Of the canons I have heard this is the most succesful.

Mir auch ist es so ergangen [I, too, was not better off] (for Carl Engel) (Bärenreiter XIV) (April 1933; text 1943) (3 voices)
See above

Perpetual canon, A minor (Bärenreiter XV) (1933) (4 voices) (complete works x)
This canon (#15 in the Barenreiter collection and #10 in the complete works) a highly chromatic work that is elegiac in nature.

Mirror canon, A minor (Bärenreiter XVI) (1933) (4 voices) (complete works xi)
Stodgy and not particularly artful.

Piece (Gesamtausgabe fragment 16) (after October 1933) (piano)
A tiny twelve-tone fragment with a melody in the tenor and accompaniment in the bass. 3 measures only.

Moderato (Gesamtausgabe fragment 17) (April 1934?) (piano)
Weak, begins almost like a canonic exercise with all of Schoenberg's cliched figures prominent - the dotted rhythms, the slurred descending leaps. Never gets off its feet.

Es ist zu dumm [It is too dumb] (for Rudolph Ganz) (Bärenreiter XXII) (September 1934) (4 voices)
Schoenberg wrote this jaunty little canon as a response to an invitation to Chicago. The words that leap out are schade and Chicago which both are assigned a seufzer. Interesting.

Suite, G major (1934) (string orchestra)
It has been some time since I heard a full Schoenberg work and not a canon or fragment. This is the Schoenberg of the folk songs, and the Schoenberg of the Weihnachtsmusik. Coming to this sort of Schoenberg fun piece I hear the things I like about Schoenberg and the things I don't. So for instance, let's reflect on the way that Schoenberg beats a rhythmic fragment into the ground, usually a dotted figure (which here makes its entrance in its original guise - as a French overture figure). The reason these things become so tiresome is found in their chiseledness. Schoenberg will choose a figure that has a very strong profile, rhymically and often in the shape of the melody. These are then often broken up into small fragments which themselves are repeated and varied lending an overall sameness to the music. So in the final - otherwise quite enjoyable especially with its polyrhythmic divison of the 12/8 meter - Gigue we have a fragmetn reminiscent of Three Blind Mice (they all go under the mulberry bush, etc) the dum-da-dum, dum-dum-dum figure which is short and catchy and repeats over and over - if Arnie could shake things up more melodically we could enjoy it much more. In this light, look at the B section of the Gavotte which plays with the divisions, or the A section of the same which puts the listener in a constant state of losing the meter. The opening is lovely with a full diatonic complement that reminds me of Pulcinella mixed with Purcell in its moving back and forth from Adagio to Fugue. In this opening we see the beauty of Schoenberg's harmonies and the techniques he talks about in the Harmonielehre at play in the way that he views any harmony as able to move potentially to any other harmony and this in the very first phrase with its modulation from G major to B minor - following exactly as he does in his textbook (this was a piece for a student orcestra, so why not teach them something about harmony). We see this also at 165-169 of the otherwise tedious Adagio with its play of harmonies moving one into the other - the narrative at the point is simply harmonic motion and harmonic motion in a new and interesting way. The minuet is like an old man's bad joke - you feel like you have to laugh along. The polyphony is superdense which makes it almost impossible to bring out the proper melodies espcialy in the bluesy Gavotte.

Concerto, op. 36 (1934/36) (violin, orchestra)
It strikes me that this is the sort of work that one has to grow into. When I first heard it nearly ten years ago in the old Krasner recording I found it ponderous and annoying, with its overreliance on harmonics and squeaky high notes that didn't really sound well in the instrument. Hearing it now with the benefit of much of Schoenberg's catalogue in my ears I have a different appreciation for it, though not entirely a full appreciation. I recognize the remarkabe virtuosity of the part with its preponderance of triple and quadruple stops as well as harmonics as coming out of the Schoenberg string concerto school - one needs only think of what he did to that Monn cello concerto or the Handel concerto to see these as Schoenberg's playing around with virtuosity. Second, it seems to me that one of the most understudied aspects of Schoenberg's work is his use of rhythm - perhaps this is a result of a Boulez bias stemming from the infamous article and the fact that in taking serialism to the next level rhythm was what was addressed among other things. But Schoenberg's rhythms here, while in many cases strongly influenced by martial rhythms retain a sense of flexibility - I was struck by how often the meter goes against the notated meter, whether it is the constant syncopation that makes the accentuation fall off the beat or the fact that a good deal of it is in 4/4 when the sounding surface doesn't match with that. It seems to me that much could be gained from a study of Schoenberg's music from that level - it's similar to counterpoint study in the unmeasured period, the smaller rhtyhms may parse well but on a larger scale we have a constant interplay of mismatched meters. We saw somthing like that in the Suite for String Orchestra as well. Otherwise, I recognize now some of the great tension builds that Schoenberg does, the obsessive return to Ab in the second movement, the refrain-type formal scheme in the third movement, but this is not a warm piece, not a piece that is welcoming. I could care less about its twelve-tone construction, you don't hear that in the piece. I wonder if this is a music that we are still simply not ready for, or else what will make us ready for it is still to be revealed, rather one needs to open up the rhythmic possibilities in it to really allow it to shine.

Quartet no. 4, op. 37 (1936) (2 violins, viola, violoncello)
The famous fourth quartet evokes the same disease in me as the third. One detects that Schoenberg is on top of his game, he is working with his system in a way that demonstrates that it is his being, it has the same unifying rhythms that have plagued the composer for decades and the same difficult to pull off conflicting metrics - an almost poetic conceit - that I've noted in the violin concerto and the G Major suite. Nonetheless, It is, beyond a few stray moments, not really a pleasure to listen to and while it points the way toward new directions of expression - metric modulation for instance (I wonder if one some level this wasn't a strong model for Carter's First Quartet) - I can't help but feel that it does't warrant its reputation from a narrative, listening point of view; it may very well warrant the reputation from a serial point of view - indeed, the segmentation of the row would become a major factor in later serialism. I've tried to wrestle with what it is about the work that bothers me. One thing is the use of the registral space - the first violin so often stands out from the rest in an unpleasant way, we'll have the two lower strings in the octave below middle C, the second violin in the octave above and then the first violin way above that. In line with this consider the solo and accompaniment effect of much of the work, not only its famous opening. As contrast, often the exact opposite problem is found with the cello. I detect also a lot of sameness in the sound and perhaps its a question of performance (I'm talking about the Vienna Quartet performance) but the rhythms are stiff - I think Schoenberg wants a more flexible rhythm to allow the tensions to grow. I'm stuck with this piece again.

Kammersymphonie [Chamber symphony] no. 2, op. 38 (1906/39)
It's hard not to think of Schoenberg historically - that is, living in history - when we listen to this piece. It is in two movements, the opening an Adagio written in 1906 and reorchestrated in 1939 and the second more lighthearted, almost Copland sounding, neoclassical which reverts to the Adagio of the opening, which when it returns sounds more impassioned and clearheaded than it did in the opening movement. You get the sense that the cheery bubbling of the second movement hasbeen a foil for the deep-seated unease of the Adagio. This is what commentators have said and what one certainly hears in the work. On the other hand, if we think about it pureply from the perspective of the composer - he's got this old work, he wants to add another movement to it and then needs something to tie it together, so why not bring back the material from the opening. Similarly the Adagio material brought back - the brought back amounts only to the gestures, the overscored polyphony of the opening does not return, is more profound in this sense, if only becuase it has been stripped of the overworking. Another work I'm ambivalent - the ending is good and the second movement breezes along, but the first just doesn't work for me.

Composing Today

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:58:00 +0000

A full day of work on the guitar/mandolin piece. I was exploring more the concept of translation today – how can we make it work with a musical experience. Sure, with a physical experience I can take the essence of it and morph it into a structure or concept. With this piece, I want to reflect on the blind man of Urumqi playing his erhu down the street. The idea translates to the ensemble here in the concept of blindness – the surroundings may change but he will still remain walking the changing streets of China and playing the beggar’s fiddle, one of the oldest instruments in the country. To create the blindness, I retuned the guitar and mandolin to create an instrument that is the same physically (the alleys and anes that he walks) but that has a different existence – the pitches here are different though the streets are the same – to mix several metaphors simultaneously. Let’s go further and reflect on a musical experience, to translate the musical experience I can reflect on what works for me in the piece musically and then do something with those to create something new based on the musical parameters of something else. In this case, I’m not particularly interested in the musical parameters – he plays a relatively simple pentatonic song, with the addition of one grace note and a slide. It is his feeling that is what is interesting. Instead, I’ve decided to transcribe the gestures of the player – he has six positions on the instrument, plus the open string, that he moves between depending on the note he’s playing. I mapped this geography onto the instruments I’m writing for and from there chose little figures duplicating the rhythm – so the players here are playing his song on their new instruments, or at least the gestures of his song.
I’ve been playing around with the piece for a few hours today and have about a minute and a half of music – very rhythmic making full use of the open strings. I still don’t have much sense of the piece. The erhu player plays a song that is ABA, with the first and last phrases essentially duplicating each other. Perhaps I should simply map this structure onto the guitar/mandolin piece, which would mean that I have an A section and need to simply develop a B section and another A section and the piece is finished except for the crazy remapping of it back onto the guitar/mandolin. We’ll see where it goes.
In other news, I’ve found that the best way for me to hear it fully is to save it as a midi version on one track – this keeps similar sounds and the quarter-tones, which I’ve beenhaving a hell of a time getting on my nasty-looking four-staff finale version.

Listening to Bruckner

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:49:00 +0000

I have begun the perhaps foolhardy task of listening to Bruckner’s music. Foolhardy because much of it has not been recorded and the enormous difficulty that underscores the various versions of his works is also in play. That said there is the new Bruckner Complete Works edition and I have a piano. I have decided to take the listing compiled by the Nevada Bruckner Society as a chronological starting point making a few alterations ere and there. Any leads on recordings would be quite helpful and any choirs wishing to perform these works will find a willing conductor in me.

1835 Pange lingua in C for mixed chorus (WAB 31)
Touching hymn by the then twelve year-old Bruckner which he held on to, perhaps as an emblem of innocence into his old age, "restoring" it (according to Novak) in 1891. It is a simple exercise in four part harmony almost entirely in half notes, gentle and peaceful.

1835 Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina (WAB 136)
It is a sketch of 20+ measures for soprano voice and thought to not be Bruckner's work. I can't find it.

1837 Prelude for Organ (WAB 127)
This prelude originally believed to be by the 14 year old Bruckner is actually by his teacher Berger. It is a standard affair, the sort of things the organists imporivse al the time - chords moving one to another modlating followed by scalar passages over a similar harmonic framework.

c.1837 4 Preludes in E flat for Organ (WAB 128)
These four little organ prelude correspond to passages in the work of, perhaps, JB weis - the critical report says they match almost note for note parts of a collection. The first is a good exercise in enharmonic motion, while the other three are simple charming preludes that would work suitably in a litrugical setting. Worth seeking out if only for that reason.

c. 1842 Mass in C for Alto, mixed chorus and 2 horns "Windhaager Mass" (WAB 25)
Let's talk about this little mass for alto solo, organ and two horns. It is a real workman's mass, equivalent to the many things I have had to play for various churches, and which are still composed by organists. The intention is nothing special, simple melodies that are easily performable. Bruckner does just that - these are sight readable melodies and accompaniments and better than the Marty Haugen Mass of Creation that is the staple of Catholic masses in America. Of note is thelovely Benedictus in Eb (which is foreshadowed with a strange Eb harmony in the opening Christe). There are a few harmonic niceties but all in all very simple. Perhaps a good teaching piece.

1843 Tafellied (WAB 86)
Bruckner returned to this work in his old age. It is a lovely charming setting for male choir of a text by Knauer to be sung before going to the table. Lovely and warm. Recommended.

c. 1843 Libera me Domine, in F, for chorus & organ (kronsdorf?) (WAB 21)
It is absolutely lovely, this setting of the Libera me domine, totally honest and without the fire we come to expect from a requiem setting.

Composing Today

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:36:00 +0000

23 September 2008
A little history: about a year ago I received an email out of the blue from the Duo Ahlert and Schwab asking if I would write a piece for their mandolin guitar duo. It seems these folk are the foremost mandolin-guitar duo in Europe and like modern music and especially American composers. I wrote back and said I’d write something small by Christmas of this year. I’ve finally come to embrace the idea of writing this piece – on the one hand I have no performances scheduled and any performance is a good one especially if it gets me to write a new piece. I began to think about the instruments and realized that I could actually get some serious harmonies out of these two fretted instruments especially if I retuned the strings. So I began exploring the retuning possibilities of the instruments.
If we begin with the guitar, one problem I encountered was no matter how I tweaked the tuning I still ended up with that awful fourth-laden sonority that defines the guitar. I realize now that the problem was result of the fact that I was approaching the tuning from the wrong direction – I was trying to get the most quarter-tones I could get out of the combination of the instrument rather than rethinking the instrument completely. So today, I began trying to rethink the pitch continuum of the guitar. Guitars are normally tuned E-A-D-G-B-E which is a two octave span; 24 semitones or 48 quarter tones. I thought that what I should do to the guitar is divided this space up evenly. Thus the five intervals between pitches would be divided into the 48 quarter tones which obviously is uneven. So if I expand the space to 50 – I could tune in equal 10 quarter tones orfive semi-tones or P4 which sounds like the guitar. Instead I shrunk the space and tuned it in equal 9/4 tones: E – Aqb – C# - Fq – A# - Dq – this actually changes the sound of the instrument.
For the mandolin we usually tune in fifths like the violin: G-D-A-E. Instead I thought to again retune the space. My choices were equal 15/4 or 13/4 intervals. 13/4 intervals tend to sound a hell of a lot like tritones, but 15/4 intervals have their own special sound and that’s what I’ve currently chosen: Gqb – D – Aq – F. The other thought that comes to me now is to tune the mandolin like the guitar – thus with a smaller interval between strings 2 and 3, something like: G-Eb-Ab-E or something with quarter-tones, perhaps I’ll experiment with that as well.
I was talking with Carla about the poetic concept for the piece and the image that kept coming back to me was of a blind man we saw in Urumqi. He was being led around by his wife and was playing the erhu, she held a bucket to collect coins; most people gave. What is striking about this image in the context of the retuning of the guitar is that for this man, and for the blind, he could have been walking this path for fifty years playing his erhu. His path remained the same, but the environment around him changed – thus for the guitar and mandolin players we have a similar thing – they are strumming their strings but the instrument is different – the environment of sound is different though the fingerings and strummings are the same.
I realize also in retuning these instruments that we have then three separate pitch worlds possible: the tempered world; the quarter-tone world and the fusion of the two. Perhaps I can work something out whereby the environment moves from one to another. We’ll see.
Today I composed out some rhythmic sections that may make it into the final work – likely toward the end. We’ll see about that as well.

Xenakis' Oresteia

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:47:00 +0000

Last night I had the pleasure of seeing Xenakis' Oresteia in a performance at Miller Theater. The music remained elemental, glissandos throughout (the clarenettist remarked that he got good practice on them), it was honest and with a great dramatic force, the opening groans from the orchestra seemed as is the rocks and stones themselves were crying out. Other interesting musical notes, Agamemmnon's shrill fanfare - piccolo trumpet in the air. As for Agamemmnon, Wilbur Pauley - this man, newspapers reviews have spoken of his stature, is indeed enormous made all the more so by his stadning on a plinth to sing the Deese Athena moment at which point Athena establishes trial by jury. One beautiful moment of stagecraft came in the preparation for the Kassandra scene - Pauley stands, removes his sleeveless jacket, turns it inside-out and puts it back on, in the meantime a dancer hands him his psaltery. At the end the same happens in reverse. The music of Kassandra worked much much better in the theatrical setting. On the recording, it comes across as remarkably annoying but here is remarkably effective - the facial expressions bring out the two roles and the unreal falsetto ably reflecting on the lack of female performers in the Athenian stage. In the end, the gestures and switching from high to low gives the sense of the performer/character entering a trance for that section.

The chorus was remarkably effective, strong and powerful, the women singing with outstretched arms the men with the grace and strength implied in this music. Other intersting moments - the use of the children's choir at the end singing over the frantic activity on the stage, channeling almost Bach's St. Matthew Passion with its entrance of the children's choir in the chorale passages of the opening. The final rush into the audience seemed hokey and contrived - like something from a high school musical. (Though from my perch in the far balcony, I saw it only in absence.) As for the dancing, my companion wasn't too keen on it, but I found it to be a well-done writhing.

A final word on ICE - the International Contemporary Ensemble - showed themselves to be very able performers of this unremitting music. Obviously, one must signal out David Schotzko for his percussion work (he received an enormous ovation) as well as the less recognized players of low winds - Campbell Macdonald on contrabass clarinet (how nice to hear that) and Rebekah Heller on contrabassoon. Joy in these obscure combinations belching out sound is half the fun of Xenakis.

All in all George Steele, now leaving for Dallas, should be congratulated for bringing a good show to the stage and the performers pleased with their excellent showing.

Schoenberg Canons

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:55:00 +0000

In honor of Arnold Schoenberg’s recent birthday, it was the thirteenth, I present the following.

Those who set about to peruse all of Schoenberg’s work come upon the difficult issue of his canons. These appear in two publications (among others certainly), a volume from Barenreiter, the 30 Kanons, published in 1963 and the complete works edition (Schott 1980). Unfortunately these two don’t share the same numbering scheme and certain canons that are included in the Schott edition are not in the Barenreiter. What follows is a correspondence of the Barenreiter numbers to the Schott numbers. I’ve included the common name, when there is one, the Schott number, the Barenreiter number and a presumed date for the composition.
Some are recorded, but many aren’t. The recordings include Craft’s survey (only available on LP) , some on a Boulez recording, others on an obscure recording by Les Jouers de Flute and finally others on a saxophone album by Marcus Weiss on Hat Art called “Conquest of Melody.”
For more information see Wayne Shoaf’s spectacular discography.

Canon Name	Date	Schott Number	Barenreiter Number
Eyn doppelt Spiegel- und Schlüssel-Kanon	2/16/22	1	3
-	4/20/26	2	4
Von meinem Steinen	12/25/26	3	5
Arnold Schoenberg Begluckwunscht herzlicht Concert Gebouw	3/7/28	4	6
Dreistimmiger Kanon	4/8/28	5	7
-	4/1/31	6	8
-	12/15/31	7	9
Spiegle Dich im Werk	Dec. 1933	8	10
Doppelkanon (in der Unterquint) im Spiegelbild	12/27/32	9	12
-	4/14/33	10	15
-	4/14/33	11	16
Jedem geht es so	4/14/33	12	13
Mir auch ist es so ergangen	4/14/33	13	14
-	12/10/33	14	17
-	3/10/34	15	18
-	3/12/34	16	19
-	3/12/34	17	20
Wer mit der Welt laufen will	7/30/34	18	21
Es ist zu dumm	9/1/34	19	22
-	9/3/34	20	n/a
-	[1934]	21	n/a
-	[1934]	22	n/a
-	[1934]	23	n/a
fur Alban Berg	2/9/35	24	n/a
fur Charlotte Dieterle	11/15/35	25	23
-	1/22/36	26	24
-	[1938]	27	25
Mister Saunders I owe you thanks	12/25/39	28	26
-	6/7/43	29	27
I am Almost Sure	3/12/45	30	28
fur Thomas Mann	7/6/45	31	29
Gravitationszentrum eigenen Sonnensystems	8/1/49	32	30
-	undated	33	11

Dallapiccola

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 17:31:00 +0000

I have been impressed with the music of Luigi Dallapiccola ever since I first heard the Concerto per la Notte di Natale many years back. I was further impressed by his rhythmic use when various pieces of his were used in an atonal ear training class I took during my Masters' degree. (Now that was one of the hardest classes I've ever taken). So, I decided to give his work the chronological looksee. What follows are notes on what I've heard so far:

1924-6
Fiuri de tapo. Drei Melodien für Gesang und Klavier

Exists only in manuscript

1926

Caligo für Gesang und Klavier

Exists only in manuscript

1927

Due canzoni di Grado für kleinen Frauenchor, Mezzosopran und kleines Orchester

Exists only in manuscript

1928

Dalla mia terra. Vier Gesänge für Mezzosopran, gemischten Chor und Orchester.

Not available. Apparently a version of the third song exists in the Italian magazine Agorà from Turin, August 1946

1929

Due Laudi di Fra Jacopone da Todi für Sopran, Bariton, gemischten Chor und Orchester.

Exists only in manuscript

1930
La canzone del Quarnero für Tenor, Männerchor und Orchester

Exists only in manuscript

1930

Due Liriche del Kalevala für Tenor, Bariton, Kammerchor und vier Schlaginstrumente.

Apparently no1 is supplement to March/April 1938 Revue Internationale de Musique

It’s a shame that this is all we have of this piece what is there is a bit for chorus with some humming and an Italian bass over it all come recitativo. Modal, and attractive.

1930-2
Partita für Orchester.

This appears to be the first work of Dallapiccola that I can get my hands on, it’s a large orchestral work, readily transparent, that is recorded only in a live recording from the 1960s on an old Stradivarius CD that is quite hard to get - the recording quality is poor. As for the piece: in four movements ending with a broadly lyrical soprano lullaby. It shows some sign of promise, with securely competent and confident writing throughout. The opening passacaglia is totally clasical in style beginning in quiet drumbeats working up to a fury and then returning. The second movement Burlesque is loud and angular melodically in a way that recalls Hindemith and other exercises in quartal harmony. The lullaby itself is quite lovely if overlong. Shows interest in neoclassical techniques and an almost Respighi-like neo-gregorianism. Dallapiccola must have been thinking laudi with the closing lullaby. Keen ear for harmony - trichordally derived.

1932

Tre studi auf Texte aus dem Kalevala-Epos

Exists only in Manuscript

1932
Estate für Männerchor a capella auf ein Fragment des Alkaios

For men's choir with big strong chords in an almost neo-gregorian modality that then expand into something far more chromatic. Has an almost sense of antiquity to it in a fascist manner.

1932-3

Rapsodia. Studie zu La Morte del Conte Orlando für eine Singstimme und Kammerorchesterauf

No information

1933

Sei Cori di Michelangelo Buonarroti il Giovane - Malmaritate, Malammogliate

Two works for mixed choir on bawdy lyrics of Michelangelo the younger - the sculptor's nephew. The flavor of Istria is apparent in the repetition of the names of relatives and the household busybodiness. Musically thought they are quite tame in a style that is 1930s tonal, I don't know how else to phrase it. More modal than chromatic, with an occasional quartal flair. Not groundbreaking by any stretch of the imagination.

1934

Divertimento in quattro esercizi für Sopran, Flöte, Oboe, Klarinette, Bratsche und Violoncello

Very nice in four movements for the interesting combination of flute, oboe, clarinet, viola, cello and soprano. Uses baroque dance forms - note the closing Siciliana and the third movement Bouree. Harmony is astringent, yet modal. Plays with division of the measure simultaneously as 3, 2, and 4.

1934-5

Sei Cori di Michelangelo Buonarroti il Giovane- Balconi dela Rosa, Papavero

This is the second series of Michelangelo choruses, here scored for Sopranos and Contraltos with instrumental ensemble. There is no recording. The score shows a work almost like a pastorale, filled with open fifths and slow changes of harmony. The second movement has some almost bell like sonorities and shepherd pipe type wind gestures. It is no doubt a lovely work still in the style of Resphigi.

1935

Musica per tre pianoforti (Inni)

Conservative work for three pianos, though probably could be arranged to be played by two. Three movements, makes use of that easy mix of quartal harmonies and a pandiatonicism reminiscent of Pulcinella.

1936

Sei Cori di Michelangelo Buonarroti il Giovane - Coro degli Zitti, Coro die Lanzi Briachi

If only there were a recording of this work for orchestra and chorus, my playing through of the score can only give a hint to what is a constantly forward-looking tonally directed success. The opening chorus moves over an alternating major third-minor third bass line that alternates with fugal passages and some quartal harmonies. The second is third oriented much in the way that "Inni's” opening is, however the harmonies are well thought out and the lines lyrical. One gets the sense of each section of the work moving toward a larger and higher goal.

1936-7

Tre Laudi für hohe Stimme und Kammerorchester auf Texte aus dem Laudario die Battuti di Modena von 1266

It took my quite some time to sit down and actually play through this taut setting for soprano and orchestra - in a reduction for soprano and piano. It has some beautiful harmonies - the final chord is quite lovely. Two slower movements that surround a quicker movement in the staccato style of Inni. He is moving toward a more refined melody, with notes truly well chosen. I look forward to hearing a recording someday.

1937-8
Volo di notte. Operneinakter nach dem Roman Vol de nuit von Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Based on the same story that would become the actually-quite-good American film "Only Angels Have Wings" this is the sort of opera that only a young idealistic composer could write. The story is ludicrous, the mail must be delivered in South America and we learn over the radio (which is a major character in this) that a pilot has disappeared. The muisc is consistently solid particularly in the set pieces - Dallapiccola, borrowing from Berg (a little too much at times) is able to unite the various scenes around musical forms: there is a chorale and variations, an invention on a rhythm, and others. These though work and give coherence to the overall. Other elements include a good deal of sprechstimme (notated as Berg does) and the twelve-tone row borrowed from the Tre Laudi, which is presented over a B major triad and which is intended to be symbolic of the heavens: it appears at the beginning and end of the work as well as at the moment we lose the pilot - thus twelve-tone writing becomes an emblem for something beyond human comprehension. Otherwise there is no systematic twelve-tone writing, it remains a lot of quartal harmonies. I'd be interested in hearing a recording as my struggles with the piano-vocal score are not always so successful.

Bartok

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 15:26:00 +0000

A while ago, I had started looking into Bartok's works. After some difficulty I began with the works known only by their Dille numbers (after Denis Dille's catalog). Many of these came to me only in brief segments - the catalog provides only the incipits of the works. Some however have been published in the two collections "Der Junge Bartok" and in the "Documenta Bartokiana" series. Thus, here I begin my observations.

1890
Walczer for Piano, Op. 1, DD 1

The beginning is found in a Photostat in Dille's survey. Straussian - alternating tonic and dominant.

1890
Changing Piece (Változo darab) for Piano, Op. 2, DD 2

Beginning in Dille - tonic dominant alternation in duple time.

1890
Mazurka for Piano, Op. 3, DD 3

Again tonic-dominant, again only opening in Dille, again like Strauss - Johann that is.

1890
Budapest Athletic Competition (A Budapesti tornaverseny) for Piano, Op. 4, DD 4
Seems the whole thing exists though Dile lists only the opening in Allegro tempo a scalar passage followed by descending marcato thirds.

1890
Sonatina No. 1 for Piano, Op. 5, DD 5

Two movements, first opens over an Alberti bass, with alternation of you guessed it, tonic and dominant seventh. Second features a touch of imitation. Bartok is really trying to learn in this his first year of composing.

1890
Wallachian Piece (Oláh darab) for Piano, Op. 6, DD 6

About thirty seconds of this survives and begins like one of his folksong settings might, at least the easier ones.

1891
Fast Polka (Gyorspolka) for Piano, Op. 7, DD 7
A quick polka begins with what seems like it will be a parallel period.

1891
Béla' Polka for Piano, Op. 8, DD 8

Over an Alberti bass comes arpeggiations of tonic and dominant chords..

1891
Katinka' Polka for Piano, Op. 9, DD 9

Simple accompaniment, tonic-dominant. Children's songs all of them.

1891
Voices of Spring (Tavaszi hangok) for Piano, Op. 10, DD 10

This is a longer work - Dille lists it as being about five minutes, its opening is a Straussian melodic figure over a sustained D major harmony.

1891
Jolán' Polka for Piano, Op. 11, DD 11

Opens with a scale in octaves in dotted rhythm. Dille doesn't provide anything more and it's impossible to guess what might come next.

1891
Gabi' Polka for Piano, Op. 12, DD 12

Has an almost Venetian feel with its opening phrase in thirds.

1891
Forget-me-not (Nefelejts) for Piano, Op. 13, DD 13

It's a more pianistic work, in three with an arpeggiated bass line and an expressive cantabile beginning. All these openings beg their second halves - they are very much a solid thought and very much in a particular style, But still the boy is in his early teens.

1891
Ländler No. 1 for Piano, Op. 14, DD 14

There are five of them, they show some invention at least their beginnings. Number one scans with "Beautiful Dreamer"

1891
Irma' Polka for Piano, Op. 15, DD 15

About one minute survives in B major.

1891
Radegund Echo (Radegundi visszhang) for Piano, Op. 16, DD 16

Simple and sustained, it calls out for a contrasting section in the minor.

1891
March (Indulo) for Piano, Op. 17, DD 17

A march for piano in 4, sounds like it could be Vive la Compagnie.

1891
Ländler No. 2 for Piano, Op. 18, DD 18

16 measures with a little rhythmic interest. He has also by this point started using a predominant chord.

1891
Circus Polka (Cirkusz polka) for Piano, Op. 19, DD 19

The opening four measures show a leap down of an octave.

1891
The Course of the Danube (A Duna folyása) for Piano, Op. 20, DD 20

It is believed that Bartok performed this nearly 17-minute cycle in 1891. It seems like a set of variations but admittedly, it’s hard to make any judgment based on what I've seen. The beginnings look similar and the harmonies are as you might expect tonic and dominant, so if this were the measure of variation, then the entire corpus that he's composed to this point could be variation. The opening movement shows promise.

1894
The Course of the Danube (A Duna folyása) for Violin and Piano, DD 20b -- arrangement of DD 20

An arrangement of number 20.

1891?
Sonatina No. 2 for Piano, Op. 21, DD 21

Two movements, the first fast the second Adagio with sustained triads in the left hand and a melody homorhythmic above.

1892
Ländler No. 3 for Piano, Op. 22, DD 22

LOST

1892
Spring Song (Tavaszi dal) for Piano, Op. 23, DD 23

Perhaps the first work here in the minor, the accompaniment is simply arpeggiated chords, but the melody makes use of the five and six scale degrees of the minor.

1892
Szöllos Piece (Szöllosi darab) for Piano, Op. 24, DD 24

LOST

1893
Margit' Polka for Piano, Op. 25, DD 25

The beginning of what must be a parallel period.

1893
Ilona' Mazurka for Piano, Op. 26, DD 26

Amazing how much he does with tonic and dominant and all of it not particularly interesting. These would be good compositional exercises for a harmony class.

1893
Loli' Mazurka for Piano, Op. 27, DD 27

Parallel period in I and V7 then adding embellishing 2 - its really close to Johann Strauss especially also with its leading-tones jumping to supertonics on the downbeat (F#-A-G-C#-E-D|B)

1893
Lajos' Waltz ('Lajos' valczer) for Piano, Op. 28, DD 28

Good one for looking at appoggiaturas and their use. Very close to #28.

1894
Elza' Polka for Piano, Op. 29, DD 29

Tonic dominant opening with a trio in scalar passages and using the secondary dominant.

1894
Andante con variazioni for Piano, Op. 30, DD 30

A five minute set of variations with an exhortatory opening.

1894
X.Y. for Piano, Op. 31, DD 31

LOST

1894
Sonata No. 1 in G Minor for Piano, Op. 1, DD 32

It seems with this four-movement piece and judging just from the openings of the movements, that Bartok had got his hand on a collection of Beethoven's sonatas. The first references the Appassionata and the fourth the Tempest.

1894
Scherzo in G Minor for Piano, DD 33

A scherzo with trio in the minor and then the major - the melody is actually put in the left hand.

1895
Fantasie in A Minor for Piano, Op. 2, DD 34

Definitely made at the piano.

1895
Sonata No. 2 in F Major for Piano, Op. 3, DD 35

A twenty-minute sonata that shows the influence of Mozart.

1895
Capriccio in B Minor for Piano, Op. 4, DD 36

More Beethoven in this opening.

1895
Sonata in C Minor for Violin and Piano, Op. 5, DD 37

A lot of promise in this multimovement piece. The first movement is a monument of diminished chords. It seems at this point that Bartok is consistently tuneful, consistently foursquare and shows major influence of Beethoven and Mozart - Beethoven for openings and slow movements and Mozart for Rondos and lighter elements.

1895
Sonata No. 3 in C Major for Piano, Op. 6, DD 38

LOST

1895
Pieces for Violin, Op. 7, DD 39

LOST

1896
Two Fantasias for Violin, Ops. 8 and 9, DD 40 and DD 41

LOST

1896
String Quartet No. 1 in B Major, Op. 10, DD 42

LOST

1896
String Quartet No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 11, DD 43

LOST

1897
Andante, Scherzo and Finale for Piano, Op. 12, DD 44

LOST

1897
Three Piano Pieces (Drei Klavierstücke), Op. 12, DD 45 Spring Song (Tavaszi dal), Valse (Valcer), In Wallachian Style (Oláhos)

Only number one is fully printed - in Der junge Bartok, it's a little presto that's reminiscent of Elf-Mendelssohn and Grieg - without the harmonic fun. The other two I've seen only the opening, the third is an adagio in Abm.

1897
Piano Quintet in C Major, Op. 14, DD 46

LOST

1897
Two Pieces for Piano, Op. 15, DD 47

LOST

1897
Great Fantasy for Piano, Op. 16, DD 48

LOST

1897
Sonata in A Major for Violin and Piano, Op. 17, DD 49

LOST

Beginning Kempe

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 11:56:00 +0000

Kempe Notes

I’ve begun reading the Margery Kempe book in the hopes of somehow making it into a piece. My initial thoughts are that it will prove hard to make this into a seven or eight minute work. I’m thinking it may have to be something longer – on the order of twenty minutes or so, but this is really preliminary. Today, I read the episode where Kempe begins her series of pilgrimages, first to Jerusalem and then to Rome. After a fairly standard leave-taking – she has the priest announce her leave and call for any debtors to take some sort of payment as these were dangerous trips and many died. She then confesses, during the confession her priest suggests to her that when her faith will be most shaken she will receive the help of a “broken-backed man” in the Middle English “brokebakkyd man” who eventually turns out to be an Irish pauper named Richard. On the pilgrimage she is as I remembered basically ostracized from the rest of her countrymen who grow tired of her constant crying and her desire to bring up godly things at their meals: they would rather make merry at lunch and dinner – effectively Margery is a downer. Nonetheless, she is much admired by the religious whom she meets particularly the Franciscan friars who controlled many of the sights that were part of a standard pilgrimage. She parts company from this group several times, but as is the case on these things, they meet up again at other points. I recall myself when I did the pilgrimage to Compostela that you would lose your group and then eventually join up with them again later. The company, as much as they hate her, seem to believe her – if she decides to take a different ship (on advice from Jesus) the group of Englishmen follow.
The difficulty is going to be pulling a text out of all this. Margery doesn’t do much talking, mainly we hear about how she cried and cried – I’ve come to accept that this crying is sobbing crying, not shouting out crying in the manner that the man who shouts “Hallelujah” on my corner in New York cries. I take this from a passage which tells why she cried – in much the same way that people cry if a friend dies, etc see page 52 in the Staley translation. This is obviously a major part of her personality and should be incorporated somehow and in a way that cannot be trite, for her crying was not trite.
Other things that may be incorporated – the way she is a called a “creatur” or the constant admonishing and calming voice of the various Godly voices, perhaps set off with a different accompanying group or a tattoo of sorts in the manner that Stravinsky brings in God’s voice with a bass duet announced by a quick drum rap in “The Flood.” I’m also enamored of the device of the scribe and wonder if there is a way to put that into the piece, as well as strange notes that appear sometimes like this one at the end of chapter 16: “Rede fyrst the twenty-first chapetre and than this chapetre aftyr that.” - it puts a certain sort of indeterminancy in the reading, like a choose-your-own-adventure book, or Structures Book 2 of Boulez.
Ultimately the whole thing will be in Middle English, or else I can use the language as a way of differentiating – putting Kempe’s words in Middle English and translating the rest into my own words – thereby obviating copyright issues as well.

Scelsi some more

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 14:16:00 +0000

Ko-Lho (1966): For flute and clarinet and a minor work. We get the sense of a continuum of sound that is sustained between the two instruments. Somewhere half between the solo and duo works of the late fifties and early sixties and the unison works like the Duo.

Elegia per Ty (1958/1966): In three movments and scored for viola and cello, this is elegiac though I wonder how much I'm being pulled in by the title. Ty was a pet name for Scelsi's wife, if I recall correctly. The first movment, based around Gb and F quarter-sharp gives off a remarkable keening in the beating between the cello double stops and viola lines. The second movement more dramatic with its powerful octaves. Overall moving, breathing, calming piece. Notice the use of nonpitched pizzicati. I read somewhere that in the trnascriptions, Scelsi would want everything on the tape transcribed - getting into the sound perhaps? - including the noise of the street, the tape hiss, the occasional knock of the radiatior. Could this be the daily life of Scelsi intruding on the composition and enlivening it? I find myself when listening to my old recordings that I expect the cough, I expect the paper turn - I even at one point incorporated sound from the recording - paper rustling - into a very early piece of mine. You get used to the wrong notes and they become the right ones.

Ohoi (1966): One big inexorable siren-like work of 8 miniutes for strings. Ascends from an ominous chord to louder and higher range always with interesting ornament. Doesn't really climax instead gets loud and then peters out. Could not get the score.

Uaxuctum (1966): The real Uaxuctun - "eight stones" in Mayan - and a pun on "Washington" - was a Mayan city close to Tikal that sruvived from the 4th century CE and was abandoned sometime after 900 CE. Scelsi's Uaxactum, the full title is "Uaxuctum: The Legend of the Maya City which destyroyed itself for religious reasons," programmatizes the mystery of this abandonment. For choir and orchestra in 5(?) movements. Ritualistic and strongly influenced by the breath - I get a sense very much like that of the people frozen running from Pompei. No doubt for Scelsi, Pompei would be in his mind even if Popol Vuh was in his library. So we hear the frozen sounds, the choir shouts at mezzo-forte. Fits in a vein of Scelsi's work that includes Yamaon and Hurqualia - Scelsi as prophet here - recreating this ritual act. I think also to really understand this we need to think of it in line with - now don't come down hard on me - Italian movie music - Morricone, the wordless choirs, the programs. Could not get the score.

Elohim (1965/67): Very much out of the ordinary for Scelsi, more like Xenakis. Alternation of differetly agitated chords with clusters. About four minutes and for strings. Striking. Very much about breathing, no doubt influential to spectralists. Could not get the score.

Crumb

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 19:22:00 +0000

Pastoral Drone for organ (1982): A very minor piece for organ, over a constant 11th in the pedal a variety of quasi-medieval pastoral figures, recall a not-so-great medieval krumhorn dance. The score betrays a not entirely well-formulated sense of the organs possibilities.

Trio for Strings (1982): No information - does anyone know anything about this?

Processional for piano (1983): On the keys! A one movement, eleven minute work for piano, completely out of character in form, method, and to a certain degree content. Pandiatonic cluster chords with off notes, a satisfying form. It shows that Crumb can do longer things when he wants. Quite satisfying.

The Sleeper for soprano and piano (1984): A song based on Poe written for Jan DeGaetani and Gil Kalish. The piano part is almost entirely inside the piano. Moody, somewhat evocative, the sound of bells evinced by harmonics on the lowest three strings of the piano. Nothing special.

A Return to Scelsi

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 19:19:00 +0000

Taiagaru (1962): Not too enthused about this one.

Yliam (1964): Definitely one of his better works, for female choir up to I think 8-10 parts spreads from an A out in both directions to a chord. There is a narrative sense to the piece which makes you listen even through the somewhat dull stretch in the middle, also in the female voices there are great means to realize the vision of this sliding alterately dirtied pitch world. A great success, if quite difficult to sing - woe be to whomever is singing Soprano 1 and 2. The literature that has sprung up around this musi is a bit overblown, but this is a cosmic sound experience made all the better to beheard in a reverberant space.

Duo (for violin and cello) (1965): Two movements for violin and cello, both of which seem to play in a strange area in which it is not supposed to be dramatic yet at the same time there are dramatic gestures - just when you think you can safely live in a detuned octave, say, the violin comes with a loud ponticello in the high register and so forth. THe first movement is about detuning a G octave, the second, more meditative. Just as Scelsi thoroughly explored one idea - for instance the piano for a while, he is now been in the strings, primarily for several years. I imagine he will soon move on to something else.

Anahit (1965): "Concerto" for violin and 18 instruments, spectacularly beautiful, with phrases based on breathing it seems. The orchestration is supple, the entry of the violin stunning - like the Sibelius concerto even - after the cadenza the violin is apotheosized - stunning.

Anagamin (1965): I was unable to see a score for the work. A piece for strings that moves around an octave and its higher harmonics. There is a sense of impending doom in this. The orchestration is ever lovely of course.

Pärt: 2

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 19:15:00 +0000

Diagrams for piano opus 11 (1964): I was able to hear only one movement of this - the first a rant almost a figure- violine played throughout the range of the piano before a series of banging down on clusters which dissipates. Hiller speaks of the row material used and again a B-A-C-H motif as well as a sort of aleatoric quality.

Musica Syllabica for 12 instruments (1964): I can find no information. Hiller mentions it and remarks on its use of a twelve-tone row laid out in a particularly formal and followed through way, no surprise to me given the work Part is doing in other pieces.

Quintettino, opus 13 (1964): Beginning with a massive G major chord and ending with an Ab Major the remainder of the three short movements for woodwind quintet are pervasively dissonant second-based harmonies spread over extreme range - the progressions are fine when he does them, more often he pounds out the dissonances to pound them out - he's trying to be heard in this work, though the shave and a haircut of the ending clothes it in an air of ironic detachment - new musicologists would have a blast with this piece. Makes use of the BACH figure which became so prominent in his work of this year.

Solfeggio (1964): A logical, if radical, followup to what was done in the Perpetuum Mobile. Instead of a twelve-tone row however he is simply using the major scale. Every two beats another pitch enters and some drop out, at around m. 20 there is an odd bit where the altos sing an octave and for twelve beats instead of six, this leads me to believe that there is a mirror point there, though of what is not readily apparent.

Collage on B-A-C-H (1964): Developing out of the quintettino there are many similarities, the ironic oopening and closing chords, the toccata duplicated many of the quintettino's sonorities and methods - chang, chang, chang, chang downbows take over for martellato wind chords. The second movement is a Bach alternately orchestrated for oboe, harpsichord and strings and then piano and strings - the version with piano replaces Bach's harmonization with clusters, perhaps a needed thumb-nose at the time, but sounding stupid today. The third movement a ricercare on B-A-C-H is not particularly appealing either. Overrated.

Maekula Piimamees (film) (1965): No information

Pro and Contra concerto for cello and orchestra (1966): Three movements (of which the second is a four bar Baroque half-cadence attacca) for cello and orchestra that exhibits a well made dramatic sense and some tendencies that are becoming part of Part's stylistic bent - especially the process moments - cello 3 notes, ensemble 3 notes, celo 4 notes, ensemble 4 notes and so forth - perhaps from minimalism though I highly doubt it made it over there at this point, more likely from Schnittke, Penderecki etc, though I don't know that music really at all. Begins with the mock ironic Major chord ends with a mock ironic cadence, could stand to edit out the parts where the cellist plays the "cello" - i.e. not the strings. Some impassioned melodic lines. Excellent.

Symphony No. 2 (1966): Three movments and full of the sorts of things that Lutoslawski and Penderecki were doing at the time almost to the point of cliché. The second movement a massive cluster melody builds over pizzicato rain, the final movement uses a process much like what would take over the later music, timpani palys eight notes - strings a figure - timpani plays seven notes - strings a figure - timpani plays six notes and so forth. This dissolves into a tonal carnival-like melody (tchaikovsky) treated mock ironically yet with nostalgia. Also of note the (again) use of the B-A-C-H figure in the first movement. Hillier sees the use of tonality as foreshadowing a break - "it is the confession of a composer for whom a certain kind of expressiveness is inobtainable within the style that history has apparently ordained for him" I find this sort of reverse history disturbing.

Kurepoeg (animated film) (1967): No information

Operator Kopsi Seiklused (animated film) (1968): No information

Credo (piano solo, mixed choir, orch) (1968): Based on Bach's C Major Prelude and the Guonod Ave Maria-ization of it the beautiful strains break down through a controlled process of degeneration (set to the Latin "an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth") into aleatoric noises - played poorly in the recording I have (more like repetitive squawks than real improvisation) this too breaks down through a clear process into the Ave Maria again which sounds quite beautiful in this refrain. Part has a clear narrative sense of where he wants to go in the piece and organizes his 12-tone row (used just for the sake of having one it seems) so that when it degenerates into 11, then 10, then 9 pitchs it will end with the diatonic collection. He also puts a similar process onto his orchestration in which 5 instruments play, then 6, then 7 and so forth. Very lucid.

Symphony 3 (1971): Said to be a transitional piece in three movments attacca. Makes use of three motives, the most salient of which is a Landini cadence. These "gregorian" features are treated in an almost post-romantic or better neo-tonal way though someone like Hovanhess does it much better in any of his so-called mystical pieces. I hear this though not as a break at all but rather as a continuation of the collage techniques that Part had been using, however now the materials are neo-modal instead of twelve-tone - he never really used the twelve-tone rows in a comprehensively serial way in the same way that now he uses these medieval elements. I also hear a relation between the Landini cadence and the B-A-C-H motive that is so much a part of his previous works. On the whole, the work is dull.

Part - early works

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Tarantino) — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 15:41:00 +0000

I've begun listening anew to the works of the Estonian composer Arvo Part. When I was younger - much younger, I was really enamored with some of his music, particularly the Stabat Mater and the Miserere, which I found accesible and arresting at the same time. On seeing some of the scores , I was a bit turned off by the simple mechanics of the pieces. Nonetheless I've decided to give him a second chance. I've begun as per usual chronologically and so far have been impressed with some of the early works. Here begins my notes. I've been using Paul Hiller's volume - Arvo Part - as a companion.

Music for a Children's Theater (1956): Four pieces for piano based on children's tales: Puss in Boots, Little Red Riding Hood, Butterflies and Walking Ducklings. The kind of music that would be perfectly appropriate as background in a puppet theater, nothing more. Sounds like Kabalevsky or one of these minor early twentieth-century Russian composers whose music shows up in beginner's piano methods. Negligible.

Sonatina Opus 1, no. 1 (1958): Two movements for piano. It has that quirky, sardonic tonality of quartal harmonies in which sharps easily become flats that I find so annoying in Shostakovich and also some Prokofiev - though this seems more Shostakovitch than Prokofiev. Could work well dramatically. Minor.

Sonatina Opus 1, no 2 (1958): Again minor, less Shostakovich than number one and in three movements of which the second is a largo that provides just the right wrong notes when the right right notes would suffice. An air of menace hangs over it, but that's just the mood. Has tension without counterpoint - the kind of piece that bangs a few big chords and then hits a low octave. Searching for skills. A curiosity nothing more.

Partita for Piano op. 2 (1959): An overwrought piano piece in four movements attacca. Less of Shostakovich than before though very similar to the Sonatinas. These are no doubt study pieces for developing something new - I can hear a voice in there, but its tied up in this accepted sound.

Meie aed for children's chorus and orchestra (1959): A piece like this - a fifteen minute poem about planting gardens - standard socialist realist stuff whether done by Part or Copland (he's got children's choir pieces like this too) - is only worthwhile to listen too whn we put it in the Adorno frame of ironic detachment in which all Russian artists are mocking the system, where wrong notes (to quote the liner notes) "get corrected" and have more import than simply as wayward harmonies. Painless.

Nekrolog (1960): Like 12-tone Shostakovich. I'm not certain if it is strict twelve-tone writing, but nonetheless there are rows. Military rhythms, and a dramatic sense to it - an accompaniment without a script: the solo melody first langorous in the oboe and then taken up again at the end after a high call in the trumpet. Ends with the clarinets - like Berg - in trio falling to the low reaches before taken up in a funereal timpani. Ok.

Vanda Polka (1960): No information

Perpetuum Mobile, opus 10 (1963): A simple gesture spread over seven climactic minutes for orchestra. A twelve tone row is sounded one pitch at a time throughout the orchestra and sustained in sections. Each pitch enters at a slightly faster speed than the previous. This gesture occurs in waves builiding to a powerful climax. Bold, strong.

Symphony 1 (1963): A number of interesting ideas, harmonies and drama, but some of the way in which it is couched should have been reconceived - for instance the second movement which builds up to a great sound is understood as a prelude and fugue. Give me a break, the fugue subject which coming as it does after a rambling, quasi-recitative for orchestra prelude is unecessary, redo the whole beginning. Similarly in the first movement eliminate the point from about 2/5 to 3/5 of the piece. Nonetheless, a lot of potential and a powerful sound. Hillier makes na interesting comment about how the twelve-tone rows were poured into the orchestral sounds that Part envisioned.