Isang Yun's Duo for Cello and Harp (1984) is yet another convincing example of Yun’s lyricism in his later works - it is accessible and mellow-toned; but it is still quite intricately worked-out. The main expressive weight lies in the outer movements - the third movement is particularly beautiful - and the mood relaxes in the dance-like middle movement. It is also one of Yun’s happiest works, probably because it was composed on the occasion of his son’s wedding. Watch a performance of Yun’s Duo by cellist Holgen Gjoni and harpist Ina Zdorovetchi . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.
Dutch composer Michel van der Aa is one of Europe’s most sought-after contemporary composers. His style is strikingly subtle, playful, poetic, and transparent but not, however, expressive or melodious in the traditional sense. His music has an idiomatic sense for the stage, combining sounds and scenic images in a play of changing perspectives. Dramatic personages take on various identities or have an alter ego: musicians on the stage, not always audible, mime or lip-sync with their electronic counterparts on soundtrack. Van der Aa is in fact a playwright in music. His sounds - like real people - can be flexible or stubborn: they either take control or get the short end of the stick; they reinforce or counteract each other, affecting audiences with their expressive power. Hear Michel van der Aa talk about his opera After Life and watch excerpts from it . . . our current COMPOSER PORTRAIT.
According to Tamsin Nutter, "In the beautiful, plotless Sinfonietta (choreographed in 1980), Jiri Kylian plays deftly with patterns and movement dynamics, and yet the result is wonderfully humanist. As befits a great work of art, movement, music, backdrop, and costumes feel indivisible. Leos Janacek’s spine-tingling music (composed in 1926), a golden cacophony of trumpets and trombones, seems to echo off the rolling hills of Walter Nobbe’s gorgeous backdrop. A swirling community of men and women run, leap, and hit the floor, punctuating the large-scale patterns with bewitchingly unexpected little gestures: a bow of the head, a hand drawn in slow motion across the eyes. Sinfonietta is lushly romantic, yet skewed — familiar, yet strange — striking a perfect balance between ballet’s past and future." Watch a performance of Sinfonietta by the Netherlands Dance Theatre . . . this week's DANSES PYTHEUSES.
Icelandic composer Jón Leifs' Hekla (1961) for chorus and orchestra describes the eruption of the volcanic mountain Hekla in 1947, the largest of the 20th Century, which Leifs witnessed. The music is one massive, ever-intensifying depiction of volcanic eruption, beginning quietly but graphically increasing in intensity and power reaching a tumultuous climax during which one hears a brief chorus (almost overwhelmed by the massive orchestra/percussion sound), singing: "In the dark depths, violent cries of death/ There the red flames carried/ The steaming lava across the land." Leifs scored Hekla for orchestra and a huge complement of percussion. Nineteen percussion players are needed. Percussion instruments required include "rocks with a musical quality," steel ship's chains, anvils, sirens, church bells, shotguns and canons. Listen to a performance of Leifs' Hekla . . . it's this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.
Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
On January 19, 1936 Paul Hindemith travelled to London, intending to play his viola concerto Der Schwanendreher, with Adrian Boult and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. This was to be the British premiere of the work. However, just before midnight on January 20th, King George V died. The following day, from 11 am to 5 pm, Hindemith sat in an office made available to him by the BBC and wrote Trauermusik (Funeral Music/Mourning Music) in homage to the late king. It, too, was written for viola and orchestra and was performed that evening in a live broadcast from a BBC radio studio, with Boult conducting and the composer as soloist. The work consists of four very short movements, last of which is the heart of the work. In it Hindemith quotes the chorale Vor deinem Thron Tret ich hiermit (Here I stand before Thy throne). Though Hindemith was unaware of it at the time, the tune was also very familiar in England as Old 100th, to the words All creatures that on Earth do dwell. Watch a performance by the magnificent violist Yuri Bashmet with the Soloists of Moscow . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.
Our FEATURED THOUGHT & IDEA for the week is a conversation between Korean-German composer Isang Yun and Bruce Duffie (at bruceduffie.com). Here's how things start . . . "Bruce Duffie: Let me start out with an easy question - Where is music going today? Isang Yun: I don't think anyone can really answer this question, myself included. I can say for myself that my music is becoming more understandable, and I find a quality of human sympathy is becoming more prevalent in it. BD: Is this something being added now that was missing earlier, or is it an outgrowth of the way your music has been going all these years? Yun: It's part of a natural process, and I've just noticed it through observation. This is a process that started about ten yeas ago and I think it will be at least another ten years before it is fully developed. BD: Did something specific happen at that point ten years ago to make this change? Yun: My experience of the personal side and political area in Korea happened twenty years ago, and it took ten years for me to be able to translate these experiences into my music. I think today our world very badly needs music that brings us closer together, particularly because there are so many grave problems that people everywhere are having to deal with. In order to be able to articulate these problems in art, we need a great deal of musical understanding . . ." Read more at Pytheas.
For Stefan Wolpe (1986) is among American composer Morton Feldman's last works; one of many dedicated to composers, painters, and writers he admired. Written for chorus and two vibraphones, the work alternates between choral sonorities and instrumental passages, creating a series of refrains which at first seem like simple repetitions, but which in fact change and expand gradually over the piece's thirty minutes. Described by Feldman as "crippled symmetry," this technique was inspired by the slight alterations in repeating patterns he observed in oriental carpets. Hear a performance of Feldman's For Stefan Wolpe . . . one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS for the week.
In 1940, when Thornton Wilder's Our Town was about to become a film, the Hollywood producer Sol Lesser asked Aaron Copland to compose the music. Copland admired Wilder, and when he heard that Our Town had been written mostly at the MacDowell Colony and that Grovers Corners was patterned after the town of Peterborough, N. H., where Copland had composed several works, the combination was too much for the composer to resist. After Our Town was successfully released, Copland arranged about 10 minutes of the film score into an orchestral suite and adapted some excerpts for piano. Watch a performance of the piano excerpt Conversation by the Soda Fountain from Our Town (1940) . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.
Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music
Our FEATURED THOUGHT & IDEA for the week is a conversation between Korean-German composer Isang Yun and Bruce Duffie (at bruceduffie.com). Here's how things start . . . "Bruce Duffie: Let me start out with an easy question - Where is music going today? Isang Yun: I don't think anyone can really answer this question, myself included. I can say for myself that my music is becoming more understandable, and I find a quality of human sympathy is becoming more prevalent in it. BD: Is this something being added now that was missing earlier, or is it an outgrowth of the way your music has been going all these years? Yun: It's part of a natural process, and I've just noticed it through observation. This is a process that started about ten yeas ago and I think it will be at least another ten years before it is fully developed. BD: Did something specific happen at that point ten years ago to make this change? Yun: My experience of the personal side and political area in Korea happened twenty years ago, and it took ten years for me to be able to translate these experiences into my music. I think today our world very badly needs music that brings us closer together, particularly because there are so many grave problems that people everywhere are having to deal with. In order to be able to articulate these problems in art, we need a great deal of musical understanding . . ." Read more at Pytheas.
For Stefan Wolpe (1986) is among American composer Morton Feldman's last works; one of many dedicated to composers, painters, and writers he admired. Written for chorus and two vibraphones, the work alternates between choral sonorities and instrumental passages, creating a series of refrains which at first seem like simple repetitions, but which in fact change and expand gradually over the piece's thirty minutes. Described by Feldman as "crippled symmetry," this technique was inspired by the slight alterations in repeating patterns he observed in oriental carpets. Hear a performance of Feldman's For Stefan Wolpe . . . one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS for the week.
In 1940, when Thornton Wilder's Our Town was about to become a film, the Hollywood producer Sol Lesser asked Aaron Copland to compose the music. Copland admired Wilder, and when he heard that Our Town had been written mostly at the MacDowell Colony and that Grovers Corners was patterned after the town of Peterborough, N. H., where Copland had composed several works, the combination was too much for the composer to resist. After Our Town was successfully released, Copland arranged about 10 minutes of the film score into an orchestral suite and adapted some excerpts for piano. Watch a performance of the piano excerpt Conversation by the Soda Fountain from Our Town (1940) . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.
Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
John Rutter is one of England's best-known composers of the late twentieth century, as well as a widely respected choral conductor and music scholar and editor. While his choral works (including the Te Deum, Magnificat, and Requiem) are the most familiar, he has also written instrumental works and two children's operas. He has a strong sense of the English musical traditions, and some of the more significant English musical influences on his work include Vaughn Williams, Walton and Britten. Listen to his beautiful setting of the 23rd Psalm, The Lord is My Shepherd (1978) . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.
Born in La Plata, Argentina to Romanian-Jewish immigrants nearly 50 years ago, composer Osvaldo Golijov now lives just outside Boston, as one of the world's most admired composers. The reason why his music connects so magnetically with performers and audiences alike is its clear appeal to the senses. "I want my music to be intuitive," the composer explains. Each of Golijov's compositions is different. The influences include South America, the synagogue and the shtetl, wrapped in a life-filled tonal shimmer. It wasn't always easy for Golijov to express himself this way in university – he completed his graduate studies in Israel and the U.S. "I was feeling alienated from that aesthetic," Golijov says of the tyranny of serialism and other atonal experiments in the 1980s. "Then, in one week, my first daughter was born and my mother, who taught me how to play piano, died. It was that whole cycle of new life and death. It opened my eyes, and I realized I don't have to please academic orthodoxy. "You don't become a musician to get rich," he adds, laughing. "So I decided I should do what makes me happy." Golijov describes his method of writing as a combination of "intuitive impulses." "It's like Michelangelo, who said that the shape is inside the piece of marble. All you need are the right tools to find it". Listen to Osvaldo Golijov speak about his life and music . . . he's our current FEATURED COMPOSER.
Here's what Jacob Swanson of the Erie Saxophone Quartet has written about Sarah Horick's Deleted Scenes (2008), "Recently our quartet was SO FORTUNATE to have the opportunity to work with Sarah Horick, a composer currently working in Florida. She wrote a lovely piece for our ensemble, "Deleted Scenes," which consists of seven short movements - each portraying a different character. Our ensemble is looking forward to growing with this work and performing it for a long time to come. I'd love to hear what you think of the piece!" Have a listen for yourself to Deleted Scenes (2008) and let US know what you think . . . the work is one of this week's PYTHEAS EARFULS.
In 1920 Maurice Ravel was asked to contribute to a special commemorative supplement of La Revue musicale dedicated to Claude Debussy. Appearing in December 1920, the supplement included what would become the first movement of his Sonata for Violin and Cello (1920-22). Ravel had begun this movement in April 1920, and would need almost two years to complete the four movements of the Sonata. Of the Sonata Ravel wrote, "In my own work of composition I find a long period of conscious gestation, in general, necessary. During this interval I come gradually to see, and with growing precision, the form and evolution which the subsequent work should have as a whole." "The music is stripped to the bone," Ravel wrote. "Harmonic charm is renounced, and there is an increasing return of emphasis on melody." This lean, ruthlessly linear Sonata is dedicated to the memory of Debussy. Watch a performance of the second movement of Ravel's Sonata for Violin and Cello performed by Paul and Yan-Pascal Tortelier . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.
Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music
Born in La Plata, Argentina to Romanian-Jewish immigrants nearly 50 years ago, composer Osvaldo Golijov now lives just outside Boston, as one of the world's most admired composers. The reason why his music connects so magnetically with performers and audiences alike is its clear appeal to the senses. "I want my music to be intuitive," the composer explains. Each of Golijov's compositions is different. The influences include South America, the synagogue and the shtetl, wrapped in a life-filled tonal shimmer. It wasn't always easy for Golijov to express himself this way in university – he completed his graduate studies in Israel and the U.S. "I was feeling alienated from that aesthetic," Golijov says of the tyranny of serialism and other atonal experiments in the 1980s. "Then, in one week, my first daughter was born and my mother, who taught me how to play piano, died. It was that whole cycle of new life and death. It opened my eyes, and I realized I don't have to please academic orthodoxy. "You don't become a musician to get rich," he adds, laughing. "So I decided I should do what makes me happy." Golijov describes his method of writing as a combination of "intuitive impulses." "It's like Michelangelo, who said that the shape is inside the piece of marble. All you need are the right tools to find it". Listen to Osvaldo Golijov speak about his life and music . . . he's our current FEATURED COMPOSER.
Here's what Jacob Swanson of the Erie Saxophone Quartet has written about Sarah Horick's Deleted Scenes (2008), "Recently our quartet was SO FORTUNATE to have the opportunity to work with Sarah Horick, a composer currently working in Florida. She wrote a lovely piece for our ensemble, "Deleted Scenes," which consists of seven short movements - each portraying a different character. Our ensemble is looking forward to growing with this work and performing it for a long time to come. I'd love to hear what you think of the piece!" Have a listen for yourself to Deleted Scenes (2008) and let US know what you think . . . the work is one of this week's PYTHEAS EARFULS.
In 1920 Maurice Ravel was asked to contribute to a special commemorative supplement of La Revue musicale dedicated to Claude Debussy. Appearing in December 1920, the supplement included what would become the first movement of his Sonata for Violin and Cello (1920-22). Ravel had begun this movement in April 1920, and would need almost two years to complete the four movements of the Sonata. Of the Sonata Ravel wrote, "In my own work of composition I find a long period of conscious gestation, in general, necessary. During this interval I come gradually to see, and with growing precision, the form and evolution which the subsequent work should have as a whole." "The music is stripped to the bone," Ravel wrote. "Harmonic charm is renounced, and there is an increasing return of emphasis on melody." This lean, ruthlessly linear Sonata is dedicated to the memory of Debussy. Watch a performance of the second movement of Ravel's Sonata for Violin and Cello performed by Paul and Yan-Pascal Tortelier . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.
Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Composer Arnold Schoenberg was personally affected by Nazi policies of Kulturkampf and antisemitism. He was obliged to resign his position at the Prussian Academy of Arts shortly after Hitler's rise to power in 1933, and his music, branded "degenerate" and "Bolshevist," was banned throughout the Third Reich. That same year he left Germany forever; friends and family who stayed behind perished in killing centers. A prophet in the field of music, Schoenberg also turned a visionary eye toward the political scene. Of Europe's threatened Jewry he wrote in 1938: "Are they condemned to doom? Will they become extinct? Famished? Butchered? ...[T]he fate of the Austrian and Hungarian Jews was sealed years ago. And can a man with foresight deny that the Jews of Romania and Poland are in danger of a similar fate?" Schoenberg spent the war years in southern California, in reduced circumstances and ill-health, only rarely able to compose. On hearing a personal account of the Warsaw ghetto rebellion, however, he created A Survivor from Warsaw in a ten-day burst of inspiration, drawing the text almost directly from the survivor's words. The work received its premiere in 1947. A Survivor from Warsaw is in two short sections, played without pause. The first part, for speaker and chorus, consists of the survivor's account of his ordeal. The second part depicts a chorus of panic-stricken Jews en route to the gas chambers, where—to the survivor's amazement—they begin to intone the traditional confession of their faith, the Sh'ma Yisrael. Eyewitnesses affirm that such chanting did occur in Treblinka, Auschwitz, and other killing centers. Sh'ma Yisrael was by custom the final utterance of Jewish martyrs, sages, and others—a last profession of trust in divine will. In the face of an annihilation that promised to wipe out both the individual and the culture whose essence the prayer embodied, the act of reciting the ancient creed was more than a demonstration of faith or submission. As Schoenberg recognized, and as the music to A Survivor from Warsaw forcefully asserts, to pray Sh'ma Yisrael under such circumstances was also an act of defiance. Watch a stunning performance of Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw by Hermann Prey and the Bamberger Symphoniker conducted by Horst Stein . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.
About the Naxos Records recording Leroy Anderson - Orchestral Music, Volume One David Hurwitz (ClassicsToday) writes, "All in all, it's hard to deny this release the strongest possible recommendation. The music may be light, but the craftsmanship and standard of quality are second to none. It's a special mystery that Leroy Anderson was dissatisfied with the concerto, his only large-scale orchestral work, withholding its publication during his lifetime. We could use a "Gershwin alternative", and this piece is just the ticket. From the "Rachmaninov without the gloom" opening, to the Latin interludes in the Andante, to the finale's hoe-down reel of a main melody, this piece is a winner. Both Leonard Slatkin and pianist Jeffrey Biegel give the piece the royal treatment, playing with both passion and humor. You'll love it. And Biegel's rendition is the best on record. Check it all out . . . it's our current FEATURED RECORDING.
El signo de la muerte (The Sign of Death) is a curious film from 1939 made by prestigious Mexican collaborators: director Chano Urueta, comedian and actor Fortino Mario Alfonso Moreno Reyes, known professionally as Cantinflas (a pioneer of the cinema of Mexico), and composer Silvestre Revueltas. According to Carlos Monsivais, "The plot promises much more than it deliver: Cantinflas is a "peladito" [a certain class of urban 'bum' in Mexico in the 1920's] employed in a museum who, quite by accident, discovers the clue to a series of crimes caused by the madness of an Aztec grand priest attempting to restore human sacrifice and Moctezuma's empire." Have a look and listen (sorry, it's in Spanish without subtitles) . . . it's this week's PYTHEAS SIGHTING.
Much of Luciano Berio's music, the Sequenzas included, inhabits a world of inner drama which interacts with the outside world in a surreal fashion. It's the kind of drama which confronts and subverts within the mind, entering and rummaging around in the subconscious and then rearing up in front of you like a giant balloon clown when you least expect it. The relationships of perspective between the player and his/her instrument, and between the player and the audience, are in state of constant distortion and flux. This is summed up in a way by that single word 'why' in Sequenza V (1966) for trombone. The 'wha' of the mute being moved over the bell of the instrument is given an added declamatory significance after that moment, and a musical conversation or monologue - real or imagined, ensues/Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International. Watch a performance of Berio's Sequenza V (1966) for trombone played by Dave Day . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.
Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music
About the Naxos Records recording Leroy Anderson - Orchestral Music, Volume One David Hurwitz (ClassicsToday) writes, "All in all, it's hard to deny this release the strongest possible recommendation. The music may be light, but the craftsmanship and standard of quality are second to none. It's a special mystery that Leroy Anderson was dissatisfied with the concerto, his only large-scale orchestral work, withholding its publication during his lifetime. We could use a "Gershwin alternative", and this piece is just the ticket. From the "Rachmaninov without the gloom" opening, to the Latin interludes in the Andante, to the finale's hoe-down reel of a main melody, this piece is a winner. Both Leonard Slatkin and pianist Jeffrey Biegel give the piece the royal treatment, playing with both passion and humor. You'll love it. And Biegel's rendition is the best on record. Check it all out . . . it's our current FEATURED RECORDING.
El signo de la muerte (The Sign of Death) is a curious film from 1939 made by prestigious Mexican collaborators: director Chano Urueta, comedian and actor Fortino Mario Alfonso Moreno Reyes, known professionally as Cantinflas (a pioneer of the cinema of Mexico), and composer Silvestre Revueltas. According to Carlos Monsivais, "The plot promises much more than it deliver: Cantinflas is a "peladito" [a certain class of urban 'bum' in Mexico in the 1920's] employed in a museum who, quite by accident, discovers the clue to a series of crimes caused by the madness of an Aztec grand priest attempting to restore human sacrifice and Moctezuma's empire." Have a look and listen (sorry, it's in Spanish without subtitles) . . . it's this week's PYTHEAS SIGHTING.
Much of Luciano Berio's music, the Sequenzas included, inhabits a world of inner drama which interacts with the outside world in a surreal fashion. It's the kind of drama which confronts and subverts within the mind, entering and rummaging around in the subconscious and then rearing up in front of you like a giant balloon clown when you least expect it. The relationships of perspective between the player and his/her instrument, and between the player and the audience, are in state of constant distortion and flux. This is summed up in a way by that single word 'why' in Sequenza V (1966) for trombone. The 'wha' of the mute being moved over the bell of the instrument is given an added declamatory significance after that moment, and a musical conversation or monologue - real or imagined, ensues/Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International. Watch a performance of Berio's Sequenza V (1966) for trombone played by Dave Day . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.
Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music
Friday, April 30, 2010
We couldn't resist putting these two videos together this week. Zoltán Kodály's music for Háry János (1926) is a classic and quite unusual in featuring a cimbalom, the Eastern European version of a hammered dulcimer. Other composer who have used the instrument include Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók Pierre Boulez, Peter Maxwell Davies and even Frank Zappa and Elvis Costello in concert works of theirs. And so it is that we find film composer Hans Zimmer using it in his 2009 score for Sherlock Holmes. To celebrate the musicians who helped perform the music for Sherlock Holmes we're given this quite fun music video of music from the film score . . . this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS. Enjoy!
Jennifer Higdon started late in music, teaching herself to play flute at the age of 15 and then beginning formal musical studies at 18, with an even later start in composition at the age of 21. Higdon makes her living from commissions and her music is known for its technical skill and audience appeal. Hailed by the Washington Post as "a savvy, sensitive composer with a keen ear, an innate sense of form and a generous dash of pure esprit," the League of American Orchestras reports that she is one of America's most frequently performed composers. From a PBS special called Being Creative in Philadelphia we hear Higdon talk about her life and her music . . . it's our current COMPOSER PORTRAIT. And by the way, her Violin Concerto just won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music. Congratulations Ms. Higdon!
According to Art Lange (Fanfare Magazine), "Rumor has it that there's a big chunk of the classical music listening public that is afraid of contemporary music. When it's played with the passion and conviction that violinist Jennifer Koh generates on behalf of these 21st-century scores, the skeptics have nothing to fear. She displays impeccable technique and a flawless tonal range regardless of their degree of difficulty, and more important, uncovers the lyrical impulse at the music's core. Jennifer Koh is a hell of a violinist (sorry, couldn't resist), and this is a most impressive collection." Check out Jennifer Koh's CD Rhapsodic Musings - 21st Century Works for Solo Violin . . . this week's FEATURED RECORDING.
Sinfonía India (1936) by Mexican composer Carlos Chávez is one of the best examples of his forays into musical nationalism. Based on mestizo music from Chávez's childhood as well as including a massive array of native percussion, this is one of the most impressive and accessible pieces in the composer's repertoire. Watch a fabulous performance of the Sinfonía India (1935-36) by Gustavo Dudamel and the Berlin Philharmonic . . . this week's FROM THE
PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.
Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music
Jennifer Higdon started late in music, teaching herself to play flute at the age of 15 and then beginning formal musical studies at 18, with an even later start in composition at the age of 21. Higdon makes her living from commissions and her music is known for its technical skill and audience appeal. Hailed by the Washington Post as "a savvy, sensitive composer with a keen ear, an innate sense of form and a generous dash of pure esprit," the League of American Orchestras reports that she is one of America's most frequently performed composers. From a PBS special called Being Creative in Philadelphia we hear Higdon talk about her life and her music . . . it's our current COMPOSER PORTRAIT. And by the way, her Violin Concerto just won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music. Congratulations Ms. Higdon!
According to Art Lange (Fanfare Magazine), "Rumor has it that there's a big chunk of the classical music listening public that is afraid of contemporary music. When it's played with the passion and conviction that violinist Jennifer Koh generates on behalf of these 21st-century scores, the skeptics have nothing to fear. She displays impeccable technique and a flawless tonal range regardless of their degree of difficulty, and more important, uncovers the lyrical impulse at the music's core. Jennifer Koh is a hell of a violinist (sorry, couldn't resist), and this is a most impressive collection." Check out Jennifer Koh's CD Rhapsodic Musings - 21st Century Works for Solo Violin . . . this week's FEATURED RECORDING.
Sinfonía India (1936) by Mexican composer Carlos Chávez is one of the best examples of his forays into musical nationalism. Based on mestizo music from Chávez's childhood as well as including a massive array of native percussion, this is one of the most impressive and accessible pieces in the composer's repertoire. Watch a fabulous performance of the Sinfonía India (1935-36) by Gustavo Dudamel and the Berlin Philharmonic . . . this week's FROM THE
PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.
Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
George Tsontakis has received two of the richest prizes awarded in all of classical music - the international Grawemeyer Award, in 2005, for his Second Violin Concerto, and the 2007 Charles Ives Living award, given every three years by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Ryan Morris writes of Tsontakis' Violin Concerto No. 2 (2003), "This is an extraordinary violin concerto. The more you listen to it, the more you will enjoy it and the more it will call to you with its strange glasslike textures and rolling rhythms. There is much lyricism here, as can be heard in the first movement and the "cantilena" - the heart - of the concerto; it's one of the finest pieces Tsontakis has composed." See a performance of the Violin Concerto No. 2 with violinist Paul Kantor and the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra conducted by Michael Adelson . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.
Hikurangi Sunrise was composed by Christopher Marshall for the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in 1999 as the result of a quest by the orchestra and ConcertFM Radio to find a piece to mark the turn of the millennium. In 2000, after several performances throughout New Zealand it was judged overwhelmingly the audience's favorite work. According to the composer, "Hikurangi Sunrise, is a festive overture expressing my feelings for Aotearoa-New Zealand. Hikurangi is the sacred mountain on East Cape in the North Island of New Zealand. It is the first place in the world to see the sun. I imagined myself standing on the summit as the sun rose, with a bird's-eye view of the beach, forests and farmlands below. The music is strongly melodic throughout, with an unmistakably Romantic flavor and not without the occasional, slightly ironic nod in the direction of the nationalistic overtures of past ages." Listen to a performance of Hikurangi Sunrise by New Zealand Symphony Orchestra with James Judd conducting . . . our current PYTHEAS EARFUL.
Christopher Lydon at Open Source writes, "My subtitle for Alex Ross's addictive encyclopedia The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century would be: How the headquarters of musical composition moved from Vienna to Los Angeles: from the old home address of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms to its new home in and around Hollywood: home, that is, of the refugee modernists Stravinsky and Schoenberg and of course the movie business and the film score: name your monument from Bernard Herrmann's themes for Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941) and the great Hitchcocks, to Tan Dun's for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)." Read more and listen to an interview with Alex Ross about contemporary music . . . it's this week's FEATURED THOUGHT & IDEA.
According to composer Alex Shapiro, " I named my 2004 composition Bioplasm because 'Oozing Up From the Primordial Sludge' seemed a bit long for a title. Bioplasm is the stuff of life, the germinal matter that's essential for living beings to generate. This is a squishy piece: rather than exploit the individual voice of each flute, I wanted to create an organism that oozes across the sonic floor as one tethered entity, sometimes slowly, sometimes at a quick pace, but always as one, like a Slinky toy. The blend of homogenous sound with four flutes is a throbbing pulse of life; add to this four human voices, and it's a choir of plasma, looking for life to begin." Hear Alex Shapiro's Bioplasm, accompanied by artist Simon Kenevan creating a pastel study for After a Storm . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.
Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music
Hikurangi Sunrise was composed by Christopher Marshall for the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in 1999 as the result of a quest by the orchestra and ConcertFM Radio to find a piece to mark the turn of the millennium. In 2000, after several performances throughout New Zealand it was judged overwhelmingly the audience's favorite work. According to the composer, "Hikurangi Sunrise, is a festive overture expressing my feelings for Aotearoa-New Zealand. Hikurangi is the sacred mountain on East Cape in the North Island of New Zealand. It is the first place in the world to see the sun. I imagined myself standing on the summit as the sun rose, with a bird's-eye view of the beach, forests and farmlands below. The music is strongly melodic throughout, with an unmistakably Romantic flavor and not without the occasional, slightly ironic nod in the direction of the nationalistic overtures of past ages." Listen to a performance of Hikurangi Sunrise by New Zealand Symphony Orchestra with James Judd conducting . . . our current PYTHEAS EARFUL.
Christopher Lydon at Open Source writes, "My subtitle for Alex Ross's addictive encyclopedia The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century would be: How the headquarters of musical composition moved from Vienna to Los Angeles: from the old home address of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms to its new home in and around Hollywood: home, that is, of the refugee modernists Stravinsky and Schoenberg and of course the movie business and the film score: name your monument from Bernard Herrmann's themes for Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941) and the great Hitchcocks, to Tan Dun's for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)." Read more and listen to an interview with Alex Ross about contemporary music . . . it's this week's FEATURED THOUGHT & IDEA.
According to composer Alex Shapiro, " I named my 2004 composition Bioplasm because 'Oozing Up From the Primordial Sludge' seemed a bit long for a title. Bioplasm is the stuff of life, the germinal matter that's essential for living beings to generate. This is a squishy piece: rather than exploit the individual voice of each flute, I wanted to create an organism that oozes across the sonic floor as one tethered entity, sometimes slowly, sometimes at a quick pace, but always as one, like a Slinky toy. The blend of homogenous sound with four flutes is a throbbing pulse of life; add to this four human voices, and it's a choir of plasma, looking for life to begin." Hear Alex Shapiro's Bioplasm, accompanied by artist Simon Kenevan creating a pastel study for After a Storm . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.
Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music
Sunday, April 18, 2010
In his review of the Opera Theater of St. Louis' performance of Scott Joplin's Treemonisha (1916) Anthony Tommasini (The New York Times) writes, "But what ultimately ennobles the opera is Joplin's music. The score is often awkward, yet disarming. Though Joplin was the king of ragtime there are actually few real rags in the opera. The lilt and lyricism of ragtime music run through the score, as does the melancholia that is always part of Joplin's voice, even in such seemingly jolly works as The Maple Leaf Rag. A gentle sadness pervades every bit of Treemonisha: the recitatives; the moments of tension, thick with seventh chords; the confessional arias, like Monisha's moving account of her adopted daughter's origins; even the dances and choruses. And when the time comes for jubilation at the happy ending, what does Joplin provide? A Real Slow Drag, a wistful dance of subdued joy and hope." Watch a performance of this "happy ending" with soprano Carmen Balthrop and the Houston Grand Opera . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.
Krzysztof Penderecki has been an exceptional phenomenon in the history of music, not only in that of Polish music, but in the history music in general. And in twentieth-century music, no one has had a career quite like his. He enjoyed success from the very start. When the results of the Second Competition of Young Composers were decided in 1959, it turned out that Penderecki's compositions (submitted under different pseudonyms) had taken the first, second and third prizes - Krzysztof Penderecki, an unknown 28-year-old assistant professor at the Composition Department of the State Musical Academy in Krakow. In 1960, he wrote a work titled 8'37" (which is how long the composition lasts), for which he received a prize the next year from the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers in Paris. The work is now known as Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, and it has been played all over the world. During that period Penderecki became a leading representative of avant-garde music. Then in 1966 came the premiere performance of his Passion According to St. Luke. With this work, Penderecki parted with the radicalism of the avant-garde. He began composing works that were accessible to the average music lover - with a content, construction and emotions that were instantly understandable. Penderecki has said, "It is not important to me how the St. Luke Passion is described, whether as traditional or an avant-garde. For me it is simply one that is genuine. And that is enough." He is himself in each of his works, and he has not allowed the critics to discourage him. He stands his own and has continued to write music his own way. Hear Penderecki talk about his life and his music . . . our COMPOSER PORTRAIT for the week.
The Silencers (1966) is a quintessential 1960's spy spoof movie, directed by Phil Karlson. It is the first (and best) of four colorful Matt Helm fims, with debonair 'Rat Pack' member Dean Martin cleverly cast as a womanizing smoothie, the Man from ICE (Intelligence Counter Espionage). The attitudes may have dated — this is very much of its time — but the women continue to delight, especially Stella Stevens as a divine klutz. According to Mark Hasan (Film Score Monthly), "The film score of The Silencers fused big-band arrangements with a level of playful yet aggressive writing, imbued with a vigor reminiscent of composer Elmer Bernstein's classic 1950s output. That isn't to say his 1960s scores to that time were weak, but The Silencers exudes such vitality and goofiness that the final result is utterly addictive." Watch a montage from this over the top film backed by the infection music of the great Elmer Bernstein . . . our current PYTHEAS SIGHTING.
Conductor Andre Kostelanetz expressed nervousness at premiering William Schuman's New England Triptych with the New York Philharmonic, so he instead first performed it with the University of Miami Symphony Orchestra on October 26, 1956. It was played in New York the following week. Critics gave glowing reactions - and the New England Triptych became an instant classic. The music is based on three hymn tunes by 18th century American composer William Billings: "Be Glad Then, America," " When Jesus Wept," and "Chester." With the exception of his arrangement of Charles Ives’ organ piece "Variations on America," New England Triptych is recorded and performed more often than any work by William Schuman. Hear a classic performance of the New England Triptych with Max Rudolph conducting the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.
Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music
Krzysztof Penderecki has been an exceptional phenomenon in the history of music, not only in that of Polish music, but in the history music in general. And in twentieth-century music, no one has had a career quite like his. He enjoyed success from the very start. When the results of the Second Competition of Young Composers were decided in 1959, it turned out that Penderecki's compositions (submitted under different pseudonyms) had taken the first, second and third prizes - Krzysztof Penderecki, an unknown 28-year-old assistant professor at the Composition Department of the State Musical Academy in Krakow. In 1960, he wrote a work titled 8'37" (which is how long the composition lasts), for which he received a prize the next year from the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers in Paris. The work is now known as Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, and it has been played all over the world. During that period Penderecki became a leading representative of avant-garde music. Then in 1966 came the premiere performance of his Passion According to St. Luke. With this work, Penderecki parted with the radicalism of the avant-garde. He began composing works that were accessible to the average music lover - with a content, construction and emotions that were instantly understandable. Penderecki has said, "It is not important to me how the St. Luke Passion is described, whether as traditional or an avant-garde. For me it is simply one that is genuine. And that is enough." He is himself in each of his works, and he has not allowed the critics to discourage him. He stands his own and has continued to write music his own way. Hear Penderecki talk about his life and his music . . . our COMPOSER PORTRAIT for the week.
The Silencers (1966) is a quintessential 1960's spy spoof movie, directed by Phil Karlson. It is the first (and best) of four colorful Matt Helm fims, with debonair 'Rat Pack' member Dean Martin cleverly cast as a womanizing smoothie, the Man from ICE (Intelligence Counter Espionage). The attitudes may have dated — this is very much of its time — but the women continue to delight, especially Stella Stevens as a divine klutz. According to Mark Hasan (Film Score Monthly), "The film score of The Silencers fused big-band arrangements with a level of playful yet aggressive writing, imbued with a vigor reminiscent of composer Elmer Bernstein's classic 1950s output. That isn't to say his 1960s scores to that time were weak, but The Silencers exudes such vitality and goofiness that the final result is utterly addictive." Watch a montage from this over the top film backed by the infection music of the great Elmer Bernstein . . . our current PYTHEAS SIGHTING.
Conductor Andre Kostelanetz expressed nervousness at premiering William Schuman's New England Triptych with the New York Philharmonic, so he instead first performed it with the University of Miami Symphony Orchestra on October 26, 1956. It was played in New York the following week. Critics gave glowing reactions - and the New England Triptych became an instant classic. The music is based on three hymn tunes by 18th century American composer William Billings: "Be Glad Then, America," " When Jesus Wept," and "Chester." With the exception of his arrangement of Charles Ives’ organ piece "Variations on America," New England Triptych is recorded and performed more often than any work by William Schuman. Hear a classic performance of the New England Triptych with Max Rudolph conducting the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.
Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music
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