John Taylor at blogcritics.org writes, "The music business loves the tried and the true; if one song’s a hit, let’s have another just like it! Once in a while, though, a serious work catches the public’s fancy, somehow striking a deeper chord and reminding us of the power music has to touch us and move us deeply. Such is the case with Henryk Górecki's Symphony No. 3 (1976). Subtitled "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs", it was a surprise hit in 1992 when it was recorded by David Zinman and the London Sinfonietta, with soprano Dawn Upshaw. It’s certainly not a typical chart-topper. There’s nothing bright and bouncy here, no catchy choruses or heavy beats. It’s a work of deep spirituality, slow and dense, almost unbearably sad, yet inexpressibly beautiful. Górecki has stated that the work is not "about" the Holocaust, but the horrors of one of humanity’s greatest crimes are undeniably a presence. It’s based on a series of texts, including words scrawled upon the walls of her prison cell by an eighteen-year old girl imprisoned by The Gestapo. Other inspirations come from a 15th century Lamentation and Polish folksong, but the central theme - a mother’s grief over the loss of her child – remains a constant throughout. Cast in three movements, the work unfolds slowly, gradually emerging from silence with a sense of ominous inevitability. The words are sung in Polish, but the language is irrelevant – the sorrow and grief are unmistakable, rising in anguish, falling in resignation. The suffering is almost unendurable – and yet the very purity, the sublime beauty of the human voice holds out hope, the possibility of benediction. It’s nothing less than the sound of the human spirit, infinitely alone, as fragile as a flickering flame yet ultimately indomitable". Watch a haunting performance of the symphony's first movement by soprano Isabel Bayrakdaraian and Sinfonietta Cracovia with John Axelrod conducting . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

The Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble is one of the nation's oldest professional ensembles devoted to the music of our timedest professional ensembles devoted to the music of our time. PNME's summer festival presents new music in a way you won't encounter anywhere else. If you think you don't like modern music, or if you're bored with the "same-old same-old" concert routine, you'll find something at PNME to entice and inspire you. PNME is a mission-driven organization, striving for compelling presentations that will challenge, delight and move you. "We have the future behind us" is more than a catch-phrase, and it articulates a philosophy of continued artistic growth, a commitment to embracing the New and expressing it with wit, power, insight and beauty. Find out more about this fablous ensemble ... Pytheas' FEATURED ENSEMBLE.

This week's FEATURED RECORDING is a performance of Cornelius Cardew's monumental 193-page graphic score Treatise (1963-67). This performance was recorded live in Prague in 1967 by the Czech QUaX Ensemble, directed by composer/flutist/conductor Petr Kotik. This historical recording offers a unique perspective to hear Treatise (1963-67) as interpreted by Cardew's contemporaries. Kotik met Cardew in Warsaw in 1962, and they began exchanging scores by mail, including Treatise (1963-67), which was a work in progress. Upon meeting again in London (1966), Cardew provided Kotik with additional portions of the score and insights. Fresh from this encounter, Kotik started the QUaX Ensemble upon his return to Prague in 1966. The first thing QUaX did was to rehearse Treatise (1963-67), working through the pages Kotik had: "The piece was very important for getting all of us together, musically speaking, besides having a lot of fun working out individual pages by having all the musicians contribute ideas and suggestions. We worked regularly over a long period of time, ending up with a 2-hour version of the piece, performed only once, at the concert on October 15, 1967 in Prague". Read more about (and hear excerpts from) this unique recording ... this week's FEATURED RECORDING.

Regarding John Cage's Third Construction (1941) the All Music Guide writes, "The four performers called for in Cage's Third Construction play a large and varied battery of exotic instruments, including a teponaxtle (Aztec log drum), quijadas (jawbone rattle), lion's roar (a washtub with a small hole through which a rope is noisily pulled), and an assortment of cymbals, shakers, claves, tom-toms, and tin cans. By combining the endless possibilities of percussion colors and rhythms within a controlled, telescopic structure, Cage creates a work that is continually surprising yet holistically unified. Check out a performance of the Third Construction by Ensemble 64.8 ... this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music

According to composer Michael Daugherty "No rock and roll personality seems to have inspired as much speculation, adulation, and impersonation as Elvis Presley (1935-77). In Dead Elvis (1993) the bassoon soloist is an Elvis impersonator accompanied by a chamber ensemble. It is more than a coincidence that Dead Elvis is scored for the same instrumentation as Stravinsky's L’histoire du Soldat (1918), in which a soldier sells his violin - and his soul - to the devil for a magic book. I offer a new spin on this Faustian scenario: a rock star sells out to Hollywood, Colonel Parker, and Las Vegas for wealth and fame. I use the Dies Irae - a medieval Latin chant for the Day of Judgment - as the principal musical theme of the composition to pose the question, "is Elvis dead or alive beyond the grave of Graceland?". In Dead Elvis we hear fast and slow fifties rock and roll ostinati in the double bass, violin and bongos, while the bassoonist gyrates, double-tongues and croons his way through variations of Dies Irae. Elvis is part of American culture, history and mythology, for better or for worse. If you want to understand America and all its riddles, sooner or later you will have to deal with Elvis." Check out a performance by bassoonist Hayley Pullen at the Royal Academy of Music, London ... one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Michael Horwood's more than seventy compositions constitute a kaleidoscope of the traditional and the avant-garde, spanning a wide variety of contemporary idioms including twelve-tone, theatre pieces, electroacoustic (both live and pre-recorded), jazz, minimalism and neo-romanticism. He has written for conventional ensembles, unusual instrumental combinations and even flexible scoring. Horwood seems content writing in any genre and, similarly, feels a composer today should be able to adapt and create in a variety of styles. From all the deliberate variety in Horwood's music, a few personal traits have tended to emerge. One of these is an acute sense of sonority, the knack of exploiting the unique ranges and timbres of his instrumental forces, whether solo or in combinations. This use of instrumental sound is occasionally coupled with an overt sense of theatricality or humour, even in his non-theatre works. Hear Michael Horwood talk about his life and works ... this week's COMPOSER PORTRAIT.

sound festival 2009 is an exciting festival of new music in North East Scotland, driven by the passion to make new music more accessible to audiences of all ages and backgrounds. They try to avoid pigeon-holing, wanting people to experiment and discover for themselves the different types of music that are out there today, taking risks to find out what they enjoy (or don't!). Hoping to create a live music experience that leaves its audience eager to explore sound in new ways, they introduce this wide range of music and sound (classical, contemporary, improvisation, traditional, popular, jazz, experimental, ambient, sound art, electro-acoustic, etc.) through a variety of events including concerts, talks, installations and workshops. This year the festival runs from October 28th through November 22nd ... check it all out at Pytheas' NEW MUSIC FESTIVAL page.

Silvestre Revueltas wrote of his childhood, "As a small boy (and maybe as an adult) I always preferred banging on a washtub or dreaming up tales to doing something useful. And that is how I spent my time, imitating instruments with my voice, improvising orchestras and songs to accompaniments on the washtub, one of those round galvanized tubs that I always preferred to drum on more than to bathe in." Hear how that "all came out in the wash" with the Martinez Bourguet String Quartet's performance of the first movement of Revueltas' String Quart No. 4, "Música de Feria/Fair Music"(1932) ... this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music

In the words of Peter Jacobi (Herald-Times, Bloomington, Indiana) "TomFlaherty's Trio for Cello and Digital Processor (1991) has his instrument communicating with itself. The effect actually suggests the presence of three players rather than just the one who appears on stage. An impressive tour de force." Watch a performance of this "Trio" - with the composer/cello soloist, his cello and the cello's transformed self ... one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

For those who know the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, the last thing most of us would associate the composer with is film music - yet he DID compose eleven film scores from 1940 to 1958. For some insight into RVW's film music excursions, take a look at this week's FEATURED ARTICLE Ralph VaughanWilliams and '49th Parallel' by Rolf Jordan.

Director William Wyler returns for a second week here at Pytheas, though in a completely different context then when last we saw him. Our previous PYTHEAS SIGHTING was The Heiress, the 1949 film with music by Aaron Copland, directed by Mr. Wyler and set in late 19th century New York City. Our current PYTHEAS SIGHTING is Ben Hur (1959), with music by Miklos Rozsa, again directed by Mr. Wyler and set in 26 AD Rome. The film and the music (which won an Academy Award) are CLASSIC! ... check it all out at this week's PYTHEAS SIGHTING.

FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES this week brings us a very unique convergence of cultures - John Cage performing one of his pieces on the popular 1960 TV game show I've Got A Secret. From Jens Mügge at NetNewMusic: "At the time, Cage was teaching Experimental Composition at New York City's New School. Eight years beyond his groundbreaking work 4' 33", he was (as our smoking MC informs us) the most controversial figure in the musical world at that time. His first performance on national television, presenting his piece Water Walk,was originally scored to include five radios, but a union dispute on the CBS set prevented any of the radios from being plugged into the wall. Cage gleefully smacks and tosses the radios instead of turning them on and off. While treating Cage as something of a freak, the show also treats him fairly reverentially, canceling the regular game show format to allow Cage the chance to perform his entire piece." Quite a wild ride! Have a look ... this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music

According to Steve Schwartz/ClassicalNet.com, "In the last decade of his life Ralph Vaughan Williams took to experimenting with what could well be considered "unusual" instruments; in the 7th, 8th and 9th Symphonies he included a wind machine, tuned gongs and a flugelhorn respectively. During the same period Vaughan Williams also wrote two works for soloist and orchestra, the Romance for Harmonica (1951) and the Tuba Concerto (1954), and both works emphasize the fact that Vaughan Williams was still full of musical ideas well into his eighties. Vaughan Williams seemed to have quite liked the tuba as an instrument, and often included parts for it in his orchestral works. However, in the Tuba Concerto it gets center stage, is given two cadenzas – in the first and last movements - and proves that it can hold its own as a concerto instrument". See a performance of the first movement of Tuba Concerto by the youthful Leswi Pantoja and the Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra ... one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

The conceptual and multifaceted composer Tan Dun has made an indelible mark on the world's music scene with a creative repertoire that spans the boundaries of classical, multimedia, Eastern and Western musical systems. Central to his body of work, Tan Dun has composed distinct series of works which reflect his individual compositional concepts and personal ideas - among them a series which brings his childhood memories of shamanistic ritual into symphonic performances; works which incorporate elements from the natural world; and multimedia concerti. Opera has a significant role in his creative output and of his many works for film, the score for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, received an Oscar for best original score. Hear Tan Dun talk about his life and music - Pytheas' current COMPOSER PORTRAIT.

William Schuman's Symphony for Strings (his Symphony No. 5) was completed on July 31, 1943, at New Rochelle, New York. The work was a Koussevitzky Foundation memorial for Natalie Koussevitzky and was premiered on November 12, 1943 by the strings of the Boston Symphony Orchestra with the dedicatee's husband, Sergei Koussevitzky conducting. The work, which clearly espresses its angst-ridden World War II era, enjoyed immediate success and has since received many performances, recordings and broadcasts. Have a listen to its first movement ... this week's PYTHEAS EARFUL.

Lousadzak (The Coming of Light) (1944) was composed during the years 1944–54, the period during which Alan Hovhaness created his greatest music. Subtitled Concerto for Piano and Strings, the work is unlike any other piano concerto in the repertoire. There is not a single chord, not a single passage of octaves in this one-movement work. The piano is employed to emulate various Armenian and Middle-Eastern instruments of the dulcimer and zither families, and the music is composed very much along the lines of what those instruments typically play, which includes striking the same key repeatedly to simulate sustained notes, and playing a melody against a drone-note, often in rapid, irregular rhythmic patterns. The strings provide a largely accompanimental backdrop like a small folk orchestra, in simple, almost improvisatory modal polyphony. The effect is truly unforgettable. The result is a highly exotic work suggesting an ancient pagan rite of unearthly, primitivistic fire and passion, as well as, at times, tender tranquility. (Walter Simmons, Fanfare) Hear and see an excerpt of this beautiful work ... this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music