Neoromanticism

Listening this week focused on the Neo-Romantic School. What a farce. These composers don't belong together at all. It is like pairing Shostakovich and Debussy together because they both worked with the symphonic orchestra. Pairing these completely different composers together is like putting Disturbed back to back with N'Sync.

As a result, this week's listening was rather angular, but had some beautiful moments, even if these pieces don't make a lot of sense together. The works themselves each have some merit.

Rochberg's String Quartet no. 3 was the first one I dove into this week, a more complex work than it will get credit for most of the time I imagine. As it is based on Pachelbel's Canon, it may be glossed over as simple and easy, when in reality, it is quite a complex and deep work. It does not begin to take on it's own life until after the first full minute, following the baroque work practically to the letter. Here the change is simply in ornamentation, a subtle change to decorate this relatively simple melody, but gradually the work moves away from Pachelbel entirely. Moving from an unstable sound around the second minute to full blown uncertainty and confusion in the third minute. The pulse is intentionally lost and obscured, and the work even becomes dull through it's lack of stability around the fifth minute. Gradually it comes full circle to reinstate the theme at one of the more unstable points. An intriguing take on Pachelbel's overplayed work, and very enjoyable overall.

Moving from Rochberg to Crumb's Black Angels was a mistake to be sure. I listened to his Departures. This movement alone was enough to get a sense of the work. I really liked it at first, grating and in your face, unapologetically dissonant. However, it never moves away, provides any contrast, and begins to sound like noise. At one point it does gain a little stability or sense through a little tempo, which doesn't last. Why, how, who thought it was a good idea to lump George Crumb together with Rochberg and Adams? How does this make any sense? Occasionally this gains the sound of raw, seething emotion, like Ruggles or Cowell, but Crumb's emotional content lacks substance and contrast. It never culminates with anything or reaches any pinnacle.

Now for something completely different I move to Adams Grand Pianola. Without prefacing this work, I assumed it would be for Piano alone. I enjoy walking into a listening without any preconceived notions or background knowledge. Adams was a composer I had heard about but never heard, and before reading, I decided to jump right into the listening. I think that by listening this way, it provides us a much truer sense of objectivity, an ability to judge without any prejudice or restriction. In his Grand Pianola, Adams does not sound like anyone else. His work moves tonally steadily along, and transcends many stylistic trends. At moments it will sound like Reich in it's continuing melodies, moving slowly through one another, at other times I hear Respighi, grand moving lines with ethereal motives in the high register over moving lines. And yet, I can almost hear the heavy pulsations and intensity of Stravinsky emanating through his occasional dissonances coupled with a driving, almost forceful ostinato. 

Lastly was Rzewski. Compared to our recent listenings, he is pretty tame. Again, I see no corollary between him, Crumb, and Adams, how are these four the same genre?!
The only reason for these four to be combined is based upon time frame. Rzewski sounds like Shostakovich a lot of the time to my ear. Quiet pulsations and intensity permeate the opening of the People United, but then it moves to a more Joplin-esque sound, somewhere that the heavy Russian hand of oppression meets a lighthearted, syncopatic dance. A truly captivating sound, his Cotton Mill Blues creates the same aura. Where did he get this unique mood? It has the hypnotic elements of minimalism, but the intensity of Shostakovich Symphony no. 5.

All in all a cool set of listening. Every piece had it's merit, not without their flaws, but still intriguing enough to hold attention.

Breaking Glass

Philip Glass was one of the first twentieth-century composers I learned of in my undergrad. His music struck me then, as it does now, as mesmerizing. His haunting melodies and interesting counterpoint make him a joy to listen to again and again.

Yes, tonality helps, I appreciate a little consonance, there I said it.

The first work I was ever exposed to by Glass was his Beauty and the Beast, an opera written after the fact of a movie by the same title. This work was interesting to say the least, and although I did not grasp it upon my first listenings, I grew to appreciate it more and more, as I endeavored to soak up more of his music in my time at NAU.

This week I learned about Glass' life in conjunction with his works, something I glossed over in my initial studies on the composer. Now his ideas have much more grounding and make more sense since learning he studied 12 tone theory, the ideas of Schoenberg and Webern, before delving into the worlds of Mozart and Bach, two composers whom Glass keeps close at hand.

Einstein on the Beach is a beautiful, brilliant work. The idea of a non-plot had never occurred to me in music. It makes sense upon review of things like Beethoven's Pastorale, which sets moods and settings rather than telling a story, but with Glass, he deliberately does things like using syllables and reciting poetry to avoid or elude dealing with a plot.

When we look at this idea in the context of Einstein himself, it becomes clear why Glass chose to do this.  Einstein is a name everyone knows, first of all. However, how many of us can point to his life with more detail than the anecdote about his red front door, or knowing that he was offered the post of President of Israel? All we commonly know of Einstein is his Theory of Relativity, his contributions to the worlds of Math and Science. Apart from this, we know nothing of his life. I think Glass is poking fun at our ignorance regarding a very important figure in the Mathematical world.

Glass' 'knee plays' play an important role in Einstein on the Beach, serving as frames for each of the opera's four acts. They really function more as Intermezzo's, musical interludes to put us in Glass' point of view before the beginning of each act, as well as at the close. The other interesting thing about Einstein on the Beach is the cast. Glass incorporates four roles into this opera, and it strangely seems to work. This framework makes me wonder if  more characters are necessary in operas in general. Although to be fair, it does incorporate quite a chorus.

Overall, this was an easy listen. Glass' music puts me in a trance, it allows time to slow and relax, even stretch as it passes through the minutes.

His Akhnaten is more conventional in scoring, containing a full cast and two choruses in the priests and the people. Akhnaten is the third biographical opera Glass wrote, after both Einstein and Satyagraha, about Ghandi. I still found myself stuck listening, engulfed in Glass' work, minute by minute just enjoying and processing the music. I can see why Glass is more well known than composers like Feldman and Wolffe.

Akhnaten is set in Egypt before the only pharoh that most Americans know, Tutankhamen. Glass tells a story in this opera, for a change, and gets us fully into the ancient Egyptian world. The motor figures in Akhnaten are similar to those we hear in Reich. They move from one idea to the next subtly, and sometimes without seam, but always with motive, drive, and purpose.

Minimalism

Minimalism is hypnotic, it stops time and requires not attention rom the listener so much as creative inattention. Minimalists use one idea to expound hours of ideas, motives, and sound. Like the postal workers in Africa, Minimalism moves time for us, by entrancing us. 


Steve Reich is not quite in the same vein. Learning about him was an experience in itself. The first fact that struck me was his parents divorce and subsequent locations, where Reich's time was divided between California and New York. I found myself imagining a kid going from coast to coast, this beginning when Reich was one! In any case, Reich more or less stumbled into music, stating that "I drove a cab in San Francisco, and in New York I worked as a part-time social worker. Phil Glass and I had a moving company for a short period of time. I did all kinds of odd jobs ... I started making a living as a performer in my own ensemble. I would never have thought that it was how I was going to survive financially. It was a complete wonder." 


Reich has had an amazing musical career. Studying with Persichetti, even taking the time to study drumming in Ghana. A Cornell grad, Reich wasn't even primarily interested in music or composition, earning his degree in Philosophy. His musical upbringing was rather narrow. He was not exposed to music before 1750 or after 1900 for quite some time. Today he is world renowned, performing works in London, Japan, even Australia. 


An amazing musician, Reich's impact on American music is yet to be seen, but he promises to be influential for generations to come. With his unique ideas about sound and motion, it is an exciting time to watch the growth and change that will occur as a result of his music. 

Chaos for the sake of itself

Conceptualism in some cases seems to exist without artistic value. Banging one's head on the piano, weeping, pouring shaving cream and ketchup on your head? How is that music?

Music existing as chaos for it's own sake does not seem to serve any aesthetic purpose. I cannot figure out how that becomes music, except to change our idea of expectation and challenging the idea of music itself. Much in the way of 4'33", these works seek to challenge us intellectually, but not musically.

The musical challenges these works represent boil down to a single element, committing oneself to the production of the work. Instead of calling them music, my inclination is to look at them as theater in which musicians are the performers, or even to say where sound is produced as a result of the performance.

The presentation of these works makes more sense as theater in that Conceptualism does not contain any performance aspect that cannot be produced by a pedestrian. Rice in his A Brief History of Anti-Records and Conceptual Records states "Shifting emphasis away from the music, they point to their own existence as cultural artifacts and objects to be consumed. These recordings transcend the sound contained within their packaging (often there is no sound at all) to question “‘extra-musical” elements such as music industry practice, the notion of “quality,” the role of the music critic, the role of the listener, etc.”

As these works exist, they do not promote music, they promote a single idea. Be it single or complex, the end game of Conceptual music is not music. It is unable to be. Whatever else may be said about it, Conceptualism cannot help but seek out the questioning of some social construct. They are entirely political.

However, there is no room for miscommunication in Conceptualism. The explanation of the music is the music. Here there is no intermediary. Listening to a Shostakovich Symphony, twelve people may hear twelve different things. In Conceptualism though, this is impossible. The explanation of the work provokes the idea of the work itself. The explanation manifested is the piece. Therefore, without a composer explaining what is meant by his notes, the explanation comes before the performance, leaving no room for miscommunication.

This aspect is very appealing, thought provoking too. In practice, it does not seem to carry any musical or aesthetic weight, is this due to the pieces themselves or is it a byproduct of the times and avant-garde's seeking out of all that provokes a response out of us?

More study and listening time is needed to answer that question, maybe tomorrow.

Graphic Notation

Honestly, for the graphic notation project, I spent a long time simply thinking about how to make this work. After reading through several of the examples in class I discovered that there were many creative ways of going about making a piece with graphic notation.

There were times when I thought composers were just doing it to try and be published, without actually taking the time and energy to write a 'real' work of music. However, judging by their philosophies and ideology defending their works, I can understand why they wrote the music the way they did.

I became very interested in the idea of using something that I knew, something already in existence, to try and incorporate the idea that anything can be music. That strain of thought brought me around to the idea of chess and how Cage used a game to get close to Duchamp in the later years of his life, but I had no Duchamp. Then the idea of crosswords and puzzles struck me as unique in that they would leave so much to chance. However, the problem here was in determination. How does one incorporate every word, or every letter? It would take a lot of time, and a lot of thought. Then I thought of Sudoku.

This game is one I know pretty well, and I thought it would be easy enough to incorporate each of the nine numbers as it's own unit of sound. This brought me around to making each number have it's own separate identity. The ideas came to me all at once now. Each performer could have his own pitch class set, his own means of producing the sounds, even his own puzzle. Then this piece became very easy and versatile to write and innovate.

Each player now would have his own piece to play that will be totally unique, played in conjunction with any number of players together simultaneously! This concept allows so much chance and differentiation, not to mention the allowance it would make for future performances and availability of materials.

So, the question then became, how to interpret the numbers. I could leave an unfinished puzzle as is, of course, but to me it made more sense to allow the performer(s) to use the puzzle as a means by which to determine the sounds made. I then made the connection that each performer could play his part as he solved for any given number. This way I was controlling nothing except the fact that each performer would have a set number of sounds to make, and would have to make his sounds in a regular manner consistently throughout the work. The duration of the piece should be as simple as the length of time it takes all players to complete a sudoku puzzle.  I did not think it would work for me to try and draw pictures as I thought they might be interpreted by any given performer, but rather I thought it made more sense to leave that up to each player.

I think the real beauty of this lies in the chance that each performance will be something totally unique and different. That anybody can play it and make it work. The constraints of our upcoming performance of these works led me to reorder the piece so that each player would use the empty boxes as silence, rather than completing the puzzle as part of the piece. 

Cages influence and Interpretation

Reading about HPSCHD was enlightening in more ways than one. I was particularly struck by Cage's relationship to Marshall McLuhan. I knew his work from high school, when I read The Gutenberg Galaxy. Discussing Cage's philosophy was a basic parroting of the themes I had learned from that work, it was interesting to see that philosophy come to light.

McLuhan discusses how the printing press re-invented mankind by delivering information to the masses at a much lower cost. By allowing more access to information to mankind, it cheapened education and evolved the common man. McLuhan then draws a parallel between Gutenberg's printing press and the computer. A tough work to read, but interesting.

It enhances how I feel about Cage's optimism regarding future technology. It is McLuhan's theory in spades. McLuhan believes the new computer will re-invent mankind, and that's exactly what happened.

Cage's philosophy later states that art is an act without limitations or value, and uses that as a model for society run through anarchy.  One problem persists with the idea, it leaves personal responsibility up for grabs and assumes everyone will be tolerant of whatever 'music' plays. As we know, not everyone has the same taste in music, therefore, some will not enjoy this new model of society and will inevitably rebel against it, causing social dissonance. In any case, Cage presents an interesting idea thought out and well articulated for our consideration. 

McLuhan and Cage's arguments make the mistake of assuming that technology breeds change in man, rather than change in man breeding new technology. An important distinction, this leads us to understand that instead of reinventing mankind, these 'new technologies' (as McLuhan puts it) are simply external devices which impact our lives, rather than guide them. Following this line of logic boasts the fact  that they are simply new ways of interpreting and collecting information, and communicating with one another. I believe it is a mistake to believe that an external device can hold any responsibility or accountability, as an extension of mankind's consciousness. It is an unfeeling device, not a means by which to evolve man. We are the same people we were thousands of years ago, but today we learn and communicate differently, that is all.

Later on the article speaks of Yatha butham, or 'just as it is.' To Cage, works of art aren't symbols, they are things or actions which are implicitly nothing. So at this point, it represents nothing to Cage, which would be to say, anarchy, social change. Therefore, Cage's music functions as a representation of the social change he would like to see in the world. If this logic follows, then Cage is trying to have his cake and eat it to.  It would be realistic to say that nothing would be nothing, not something. So if Cage had done nothing, we would not remember him, but his ideology would be more airtight. He wants his music to be 'an action which is implicitly nothing.' Explicitly he communicated just that social change, but without implying anything from his work, he still puts forth symbology of social change, a change to nothing. By taking Cage at face value, he is advocating against himself by what he states. 

The idea a little later of treating the audience as a score of individuals instead of a group struck me as a very radical idea. Performers have always treated the audience as a unit. The English word for audience, the only one used regularly, is in the singular. This idea changes the entire scope of music. 'How does the audience interpret x' will be different for every piece and probably different from every player's perspective. The audiences seems more appropriate, to say that each person is an audience unto himself. One person listening to Beethoven's 5th Symphony, for example, would be an audience, would they not? Why then is every person not treated as such?

Cage continues to contradict himself in this article, his logic becomes very flawed and I lose confidence that even he knows what he is saying. For example:

"The second performance [of HPSCHD], in Albert Hall on May 22, differed in many obvious ways from the Roundhouse performance, especially, according to Cage, "because of the architecture." In the Albert Hall, the audience was seated with Cage and Tudor on the stage and ten loudspeakers at the back of the auditorium. Cage described how he was forced to accept that the audience was seated, but at least wanted the loudspeakers to surround the audience, "so that  people sitting on one side could later converse with people who had been sitting on the other and discover that they had heard something different." Unfortunately, Cage said, "that too was not possible.""

I found this so ironic, a man like Cage, whose beliefs were inexorably tied to his work, allowed his musical ideology to be abandoned for the sake of a performance. One would think he would prefer to hold the performance outside, in the gymnasium, or unbolt and move the chairs to allow the interactive space for HPSCHD. I cannot get over that he abandoned this aspect of the performance.  How can he continue to hold his belief. This realization shakes my confidence that Cage could even have stood for what he said he stood for. It seems that the importance of HPSCHD was the audience interaction, the work experienced as a living piece, but without the audience able to move, Cage was fine holding the performance anyway? Really?

"What is the average person in the US when he is grown up and he has a job and makes his living and pays his bills? He spends his evenings looking at TV. The TV would not let me on a program. Therefore I'm not a court jester, I'm more a teacher." No, Cage was on a TV Program, we watched it in class. If he truly believes what he says, would that not make him a jester by his own admission? How can we take anything he has to say seriously when there are these serious gaps in his logic.

On p. 491 Cage may have been hampered in his medium by creating a European structure that did not yield to relevant American social issues. Cage however, created a structure that was free-form, that anyone could walk to, into, around, and through to experience. How is this exclusive? How does it pertain solely to a European structure? Admittedly, the inherent racism at Illinois U at the time the work was performed may have led to his hampering. But Cage was not opposed to this treatment of the blacks, rather he says "They [blacks] mostly think they would like to be just as powerful as the whites. That's not the proper way." In that statement, does he not imply that blacks are not supposed to have as much power as whites? If not, how are we to say he is not a racist? Clearly he has turned a blind eye to the issue in his backyard, or is unaware of it, which seems very unlikely. Moreover, he contradicts himself enough to provoke one to ask if this situation is even worth questioning.

Overall, the comparison of Gesamtkunstwerk to Cage and HPSCHD was refreshing and relevant. A thought provoking idea, but it led me from a dim realization of Cage's farce to a full belief that his ideology was a facade, and the true nature of Cage is something we have not yet realized, or that he himself did not realize, or allowed to happen by chance, not by choice and true belief, as his music does.