December 30, 2011 - Comments Off

My Favorite Music Books of 2011 by Mary Jane Leach

Here are my favorite music books that I read in 2011. Full disclosure: I either know the author (all of them), the subject (Russell and Ashley), or the publisher (MusikTexte). However, I would have chosen these books without knowing any of them.

1. Outside of Time: Ideas About Music, Robert Ashley, MusikTexte.

If you don’t know Ashley’s work, you should. Alex Ross has described him as the “musical counterpart of David Lynch.” What I didn’t know before was how opinionated (in a good way) the soft-spoken Ashley is. Besides writing about his work, he also discusses his involvement with the Once Festival and the music program at Mills College, and all of the composers and performers associated with them.

2. How Johanna Beyer Spent Her Days, Amy C. Beal (who also has written the fantastic New Music, New Allies: American Experimental Music in West Germany from the Zero Hour to Reunification, a must-read if you want to know how a lot of American new music got its initial support). Available on her web site.

This is a short essay about the enigmatic Beyer, who served as Henry Cowell’s secretary, but has come to be known as a wonderful composer in her own right. That such a good composer can leave such a small footprint on the musical world is baffling. Read this, but be prepared to be depressed afterwards, frustrated that more is not known about this composer.

3. Schoenberg’s New World, The American Years, Sabine Feisst, Oxford University Press.

Whether or not you like Schoenberg (I do), this is a really interesting book, as it writes about his years in America, a topic not written about much before. He was beloved by such diverse musical figures as John Cage and Lou Harrison, as well as influencing numerous film composers. One issue cleared up for me was Cage’s study with him – it turns out that he studied with him for years, just not composition. So many writings leave you thinking that they only had a brief encounter, when Schoenberg told Cage he couldn’t help him compositionally, but it turns out that Cage took many other music courses with him, as well as chauffeuring him around Los Angeles.

4. Hold On to Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-1992, Tim Lawrence, Duke University Press.

If you’re interested in Arthur Russell’s music, or, more generally, new music, this book is a good place to start. It is more than a biography of Russell, who was active in several different music scenes, as it also writes a lot about the New York new music scene, which is fascinating. One interesting tidbit I didn’t know before was Julius Eastman’s role in the cult disco hit Go Bang, in which he sang a long, mad glissando, perhaps as startling vocally as his performance in Peter Maxwell-Davies Eight Songs for a Mad King.

5. This Life of Sounds, Evenings for New Music in Buffalo, Renee Levine Packer, Oxford University Press.

Believe it or not, Buffalo was a hotbed of new music at one time, thanks to the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts in the State University of New York at Buffalo, which was founded by Lukas Foss and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. Lejaren Hiller and Morton Feldman were later also the Center’s music directors, during its short lifespan (1964-1980). Seemingly every important composer and musician passed through it at one time or another. This book is a fascinating read, and fills in a lot of blanks about contemporary music.

December 22, 2011 - Comments Off

Yet another Best of 2011 List by Mary Jane Leach

Here are my favorite, mostly music, events of 2011:

1. Niobe, Queen of Thebes by Agostino Steffani, presented by the Boston Early Music Festival in June at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center.

This was an amazing production on all counts – the sets and costumes were sumptuous, there were flying chariots and dragons, dancing, and the singing was especially amazing. I’d only heard Philippe Jaroussky singing Handel on YouTube before this, but hearing him on stage was wonderful. His Anfione was stunning, especially the aria Palace of Harmony, in which he remained still, while children circled around him while holding images of the planets.

2. Kagel Nacht, at the Grand Street Community Arts Center in April.

Kagel Nacht, was an evening of work by Mauricio Kagel performed by Kagel Nacht, an ensemble dedicated to presenting his work, which combines equal parts music and theatre. It was a full-throated theatrical performance of new music, helped in no small part by Rick Burkhardt, an Obie-winning playwright and performer, who delivered virtuosic performances. The whole ensemble (which includes the Capital area’s Sam Sowyrda), though, performed well, both musically and theatrically.

3. Monodramas, New York City Opera in March. One act pieces for soprano and orchestra by Morton Feldman (Neither), Arnold Schoenberg (Ewartung), and John Zorn (La Machine de l’Être).

I went to opening night, which was a papered full house, a “who’s who in new music” audience. This turned out to be one of NYCO’s last productions at Lincoln Center, and it highlighted both the strengths and weaknesses of the company. It was admirable to reach out to the new music scene, but they undermined this attempt by trying to use trendy staging, which failed, and ended up looking cheap and tacky instead. The Zorn and Schoenberg, too, used singers with full vibratos, a style of singing pretty sure to put off that crowd, even me, who loves works for voice. There was a highlight, though – Feldman’s Neither with text by Samuel Beckett and sung by Cyndia Sieden. Even the awful staging couldn’t ruin this piece, and the singer was amazing, singing with great purity, soft high note after soft high note.

4. Verdensteatret’s And All the Question Marks Started to Sing at EMPAC in February.

This was a production that at first glance one might predict would be shallowly trendy, but it ended up being an engrossing night. The group is from Norway and somehow managed to make a stage full of junk work for them, without ending up being too precious. More please.

5. Voigt Lessons at the Glimmerglass Festival in July 29.

This ended up being entirely different from what I’d expected. It started out tamely enough, with soprano Deborah Voigt singing songs important to her in her youth, and I was thinking to myself “No, not a whole evening of this!” But, partway in, it began to change, and it became her odyssey, full of personal details that most of us can’t even admit to ourselves, and which made some in the audience uncomfortable, as she didn’t spare us many of the indignities that had happened to her. In the end it was very moving, and she even got to sing Nessun Dorma.

Honorable mentions:

6. The Battenkill Chorale in Cambridge in January.

Performing Rachmaninoff, Morten Lauridsen, Eric Whitacre, and Joseph Haydn (Lord Nelson Mass). The Haydn was wonderful to hear, and the conductor, Janet McGhee is simply inspiring.

7. Women in Music Festival at Union College in April.

Pieces by Michaela Eremiasova, Kristen Shire McGuire, Johanna Eränkö, Imogene Holst (Gustav’s daughter), and Hilary Tann, performed by musicians affiliated with The Eastman School of Music. Really good music performed by really good musicians, in which gender was irrelevant.

May 3, 2011 - Comments Off

“Kagel Nacht” – by Mary Jane Leach

Last Wednesday (4/27) the Capital District was treated to one the best new music events I’ve seen in ages, at the Grand Street Community Arts Center by Kagel Nacht, an ensemble dedicated to presenting the work of Mauricio Kagel. Kagel (1931-2008) was born in Argentina, but spent most of his adult life in Cologne, Germany. He was one of the major composers of the last fifty years, but unfortunately is not very well known in the United States. I keep forgetting this, as I lived in Cologne for two years, where he was ever-present in the music scene, as well as teaching at the Musik Hochschule, where seemingly every young composer studied with him. He wrote in numerous styles, but is best known for his music theatre works, most of which have a gentle humor. (Many of his earnest students write very serious humorous work.)

It is his theatrical works that Kagel Nacht presents. They toured up and down the east coast this April in a converted school bus fueled by vegetable oil, transporting the ensemble, as well as their many costumes, sets, and spotlights.

It is unusual to have full-throated theatrical performances in new music, but Kagel Nacht delivers in spades, helped in no small part by Rick Burkhardt, an Obie-winning playwright and performer, who delivered virtuosic performances. The whole ensemble, though, performed well, both musically and theatrically.

The evening was seamless, one piece leading directly to the next. A big hit with the younger set (under ten years old) was Acustica Jukebox, which had “song” buttons to be punched that would then trigger songs/events, including at one point, a succession of toy lambs that tumbled out of the set. The night ended with an absurdist ballet performed by the men in the ensemble.

To wrap up, it was an excellent night out. Next time Kagel Nacht is in town, be sure to look it up.

March 20, 2011 - Comments Off

The Magic of Carlos Kleiber – by Mary Jane Leach

My current musical obsession is the conductor Carlos Kleiber. I wasn’t familiar with him until a few months ago, when I read about him in Michael Colgrass’s blog post (here) on conductors. (Colgrass is a composer and percussionist.) Colgrass evaluated the conductors he’d worked with (including a great anecdote of Stravinsky conducting a recording of Rite of Spring near the end of his life), and declared Kleiber his favorite conductor to work with.

At first glance, this would seem an odd choice, since videos of Kleiber show him seldom giving the beat. Instead, he seemed to shape the music with his arms and expressions, to embody the phrases, a sort of method conducting, if you will.

There are two contrasting videos of Kleiber (here) and Herbert Von Karajan (here) conducting Johann Strauss’s Unter Donner und Blitz, and the contrast is startling. There is nothing wrong with Von Karajan’s interpretation, but the joy and understanding that Kleiber brought to the piece is astonishing. In short, I became intrigued, and then hooked.

Kleiber is enigmatic, someone who didn’t play the publicity game, who focused on a few pieces (by comparison to other conductors), that he seemingly knew inside out, conducting without a score (although I haven’t seen a video of him conducting operas, so I can’t state this categorically). He also didn’t make many recordings. There is a wonderful documentary on him, Spuren ins Nicht (Traces to Nowhere) that can be seen on YouTube (here), that shows his rehearsal technique and clips of performances, as well as information about him and testimonies from people who worked with him. How I wish I had heard him while he was alive. It seems he performed in New York only when I was living in Germany. There is also a BBC audio documentary on him, Who Was Carlos Kleiber? In 1975, he recorded Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in Vienna. The album was acclaimed by critics to the point that one reviewer wrote that “it was as if Homer had come back to recite The Iliad“.

Indeed, there is an air of mystery if about him. “Carlos Kleiber: Enigma, maverick or genius? Opinions about the most mercurial conductor of his generation range widely: He is unpredictable, unwilling to commit himself to future projects and reticent in dealing with the world at large. Many artists say they hardly ever give interviews; Mr. Kleiber has never been known to give one. But the musical verdict is overwhelming: ‘He makes other conductors look like fools,’ said one musician who did not wish to be named for fear of the future of his career under lesser conductors. ‘He is a genius, an extraordinary man,’ said the conductor Bernard Haitink. Placido Domingo has called him ‘a wizard.’”—Nicholas Kenyhon, New York Times, Oct. 15, 1989. [full article]

Check him out. Once you start listening, you won’t be able to stop.

August 9, 2010 - Comments Off

Take 2 Stravinskys and Call Me in the Morning

How great is it to go to a couple of orchestral concerts in a week and not hear the usual tired repertoire, but two pieces by Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring and The Firebird? And played well to boot. Granted, these pieces are basically a hundred years old, but counting in orchestral years, that’s pretty new.

Last week I went to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC), where the Philadelphia Orchestra was performing, with Charles Dutoit conducting. The orchestra is blessed with a really good woodwind section, which is especially important for Stravinsky, since he writes so well for them and features them prominently. The Rite, written in 1913, opens with the bassoon playing in a high register, which doesn’t seem unusual today, but was unusual for its time. Camille Saint-Saëns, who was at the premiere, was astonished when told that it was the bassoon playing at the beginning. In this performance, besides the bassoonist, the oboist and clarinetist were especially, nay, exceptionally good. The composite sound and energy were thrilling, especially after Elgar (Rite) and Liszt (Firebird). Sorry, my biases are showing.

Both pieces were written for dance. This performance of Firebird (1909) used the 5 movement suite that Stravinsky prepared in 1919. Rite was played in its entirety, which can seem a little pokey in a concert setting. In fact, it occurred to me that Rite has a similar problem as Verdi’s La Traviatta – they both start out with big, expansive first sections, and then have quieter, more intimate subsequent scenes/sections. This works dramatically, but it can be difficult for an audience to calm down and listen, after being wound up.

The only thing better than hearing Rite at SPAC last week, would have been to have peepers croaking in the background instead of crickets.