Elliott Carter has written about his song cycle Mirror on Which to Dwell (1975): "When I agreed to write a cycle of songs for the ensemble Speculum Musicae I decided, first, that it should be for soprano and chamber orchestra. The poems of Elizabeth Bishop impressed me because they have a clear verbal coherence as well as an imaginative use of syllabic sounds that suggest the singing voice. I was very much in sympathy with their point of view, for there is almost always a secondary layer of meaning, sometimes ironic, sometimes passionate, that gives a special ambiance, often contradictory, to what the words say. The order of the songs is entirely mine, alternating as they do between considerations about nature, love and isolation. A Mirror on Which to Dwell, a line from the poem Insomnia is the title I chose partly because it seemed to characterize the general world of the poems, partly because I wanted the music to be a mirror of the words and partly because Speculum Musicae commissioned the work in honor of the U.S. Bicentennial. Watch a performance of Anaphora, the first song in Elliott Carter's Mirror on Which to Dwell, with soprano Jo Ellen Miller and the East Coast Contemporary Ensemble, Jeffrey Means conducting . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Mario Verandi is an Argentinean born composer, sound and media artist. He primarily works with new technologies as an aid to exploring and expanding the boundaries of sound, space, perception and meaning. A distinct characteristic of his work has been the exploration of the poetic and evocative potential of concrete and environmental sounds and their incorporation in sound compositions, audiovisual installations, live performances and radio art pieces. His works have received prizes and awards in the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition (France), Musica Nova Competition (Prague), CIEJ Electronic Music Awards (Barcelona), Prix Ars Electronica (Linz), Stockholm Electronic Art Awards (Sweden), SGAE Electroacoustic Music Competition (Spain) and the European Bell Days Composition Prize (ZKM, Karlsruhe). He has a long-standing interest in interdisciplinary projects and as a result has created music and sound designs for art installations, dance, theatre, films and the radio. Verandi has collaborated among others with the American visual artist Catherine Ferguson, German choreographer Helge Musial, Polish theater director Grazyna Kania, German visual artist Corinna Rosteck, Berlin-based visual artitst Lillevan, Russian visual artists Igor and Svetlana Kopystianski, and German film-maker Harun Farocki. Listen to Mario Verandi's Klangbuch der imaginaeren Wesen (2007) . . . it's our SOUND ART for the week.

Composer Kaija Saariaho writes: "Grammaire des Rêves/Grammar of Dreams (1988-89) was born from my curiosity about the relationship between human voice and instruments, a subject which I had put aside for many years. As the title of the piece indicates, another source of interest was the structural life of dreams. Different ideas concerning the research of dreams (for example, how our moving body affects our dreams, changing their directions or interrupting them; in this piece the harp is imagined as a collection of restless limbs, which by their movements direct the musical flow), are drawn to the background during the compositional work, or are transformed into purely musical form. Another interest was to search for a fusion in this rather heterogeneous ensemble. For this reason the musical texture is maybe more simple than in some other of my recent pieces, and the more radical textural changes have been replaced by vibratos, trills, glissandi, dynamic evolutions and other gestures, used here as imaginary matrices, through which the instrumental parts are ‘filtered’. The major part of the text is a collage from the texts of Paul Eluard. Some longer fragments have been used from his poem Premierèment. Listen to Kaija Saariaho's Grammaire des rêves/Grammar of Dreams . . . it's one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS for the week.

Alban Berg  Altenberg Lieder (1912) . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Elliott Carter  March, from "Eight Pieces for Timpani" (1950) . . . it's our BANG, CLANG and BEAT -  New Music for Percussion for the week.

Gustav Holst  Terzetto (1925) . . . it's one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS for the week.

Elliott Bark  Reminiscence (2006) . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

Delia Derbyshire was a music-maker ahead of her time. She went to Cambridge, getting degrees in both Mathematics and Music. After being turned down for a position at Decca Records because they did not employ women in their recording studios, she eventually landed a position at another studio in London — Boosey & Hawkes music publishers. Derbyshire's move in 1960 to the BBC as a trainee studio manager signaled the beginning of a fruitful partnership with the organization. It was at the BBC that she was given the space and freedom she needed to experiment with sound — creating moods and soundscapes through strictly electronic means. It wasn't long before she'd recorded Ron Grainer's famous theme to the BBC series Doctor Who. On first hearing Derbyshire's version Grainer was tickled pink: "Did I really write this?" he asked. "Most of it," replied Derbyshire. So began, what some call, the "Golden Age" of the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop. A complete list of Derbyshire's works has yet to be compiled, but among other things she managed to do were: Special works and soundtracks for the Brighton Festival and the City of London Festival; Yoko Ono's "Wrapping Event" of the lions at Trafalgar Square; music for the award winning film Circle of Light, and Peter Hall's film Work is a 4 Letter Word; the White Noise LP An Electric Storm; and special sound and music for plays at the RSC Stratford, Greenwich Theatre, Hampstead Theatre and the Chalk Farm Roundhouse. Late in the 1970s, Derbyshire backed away from electronic music after feeling disillusioned at the direction it was heading in. It wasn't until the mid 1990s that she noticed a change in the genre and joined back in. Shortly before she died in 2001, she wrote: "Working with people like Sonic Boom on pure electronic music has re-invigorated me. He is from a later generation but has always had an affinity with the music of the 60s. One of our first points of contact — the visionary work of Peter Zinovieff, has touched us both, and has been an inspiration. Now without the constraints of doing "applied music", my mind can fly free and pick-up where I left off". Hear Derbyshire's Sea, from "Four Inventions for Radio" (1964), a work she made in collaboration with poet and dramatist Barry Bermange . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Joan Tower is one of the most prominent American composers to emerge in the latter part of the twentieth century. She initially made her mark as a pianist, but began composing in the 1960s. In 1969 she helped found the New York-based Da Capo Chamber Players and served as the group's pianist. Tower wrote a number of successful works for the Da Capo Players over the years, and the group received several awards, including a 1973 Naumberg Award. From 1985-88 she was composer-in-residence with St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Beginning with the 1999-2000 season, Tower launched a three-year stint as composer-in-residence with the Orchestra of St. Luke's. In 2005 she accepted a commission for a work, Made in America, to be played by 65 community orchestras spread across all 50 American states. The piece was played by all the orchestras in their 2005-2006 seasons, and its recording by Leonard Slatkin and the Nashville Symphony won three 2008 Grammy awards, in the fields of Best Classical Album, Best Orchestral Performance, and Best Classical Contemporary Composition. Her early music incorporated serial techniques, but in the 1970s, she turned to a more approachable style, writing works with more lyrical melodies, powerful rhythmic drive, and masterfully conceived instrumentation; the rhythmic character of her 1993 ballet Stepping Stones has been compared to that of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. In 1990 she became the first woman to win the highly prestigious Grawemeyer Prize. Hear Joan Tower talk about her life and music . . . our Pytheas COMPOSER PORTRAIT this week.

According to Graham Greene, Jean-Luc Godard's short film Je Vous Salue, Sarajevo (Hail, Sarajevo) (1993) is "a two-minute rumination on the once volatile situation during the period of the Bosnian War, presented in the form of a photo-montage with accompanying text. In the film, Godard takes a single photograph and shows us a series of close-up segments that conspire to abstract the overall meaning of the picture, turning the individual elements into mere symbols that are there to be deciphered". Adding to the impact of the film is the music of Arvo Pärt. Watch Je Vous Salue, Sarajevo . . . this week's PYTHEAS SIGHTING.

Elliott Carter writes about his Cello Sonata from 1948 . . . "The Cello Sonata was extremely modern at that time. I could not get it published. And cellist Bernard Greenhouse and his pianist played the first performance at Town Hall, and they were covered with sweat. It was so upsetting and so disturbing — we had hardly anybody in the audience. If they heard what I write now, they would run out of the hall screaming, I suppose." Watch a performance of the 4th movement of Carter's Cello Sonata . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

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

According to composer Adrienne Albert, "Musescapes had its beginnings in 2005 when I received a commission from Carol S. Gee to write a work for her amateur piano trio. At the time, I was listening to a lot of the music of Astor Piazzolla and thought it would be great fun to write a three movement work with roots in North American jazz and South American tango music. During the composing of this work, my mother passed away. She was a professional violinist and often played chamber music in our home when I was a child. For My Mother (2009), the second movement of Musescapes became an homage to her. It is a loving, melancholy, melodic work." Watch a performance of For My Mother by the Newstead Trio . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

The title of Elliott Carter’s Au Quai (2002) was suggested by Arnold Schoenberg’s short story To the Wharfs in which he describes the mounting anxiety of the members of a French fishing village as the boats and the sea-bound fisherman failed to appear after a storm and several days’ absence. When they were suddenly sighted all shouted "to the wharfs, aux quais, O.K." Hear the London Sinfonietta perform Au Quai . . . this week’s PYTHEAS EARFUL.

The London Wireless Soundscape Project aims to broadcast simultaneous "live" soundscapes from various locations around London. This is made possible using laptops to stream audio over the internet using 'Wifi' networking. The 'streamed' audio is then broadcast on Resonance 104.4 FM in central London. Using free internet access points around London LWSP broadcasts from different locations every fortnight. Their first show was broadcast from the heart of London with Leicester Square and Covent Garden on 5th October 2003. They have broadcast from the Hackney Road, Paddington Station, Greenwich Naval College, Greek St and a multicast from Picadilly Circus. A recent show featured hydrophones submerged in the River Thames and Camden Lock . . . check this all out at our current FEATURED NEW MUSIC WEBSITE.

Libby Larsen Cowboy Songs (1979) . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

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

Paul Griffiths writes about Elliott Carter's Oboe Concerto (1987), "Expressing what the composer has called 'widely varying, mercurial moods,' the oboe sings from one end of this work to the other. Its songs are seconded by a concertino group of four violas plus a percussionist, while the main orchestra (still chamber-sized) 'opposes their flighty changes with a more regular series of ideas, usually on the serious side, sometimes bursting out dramatically'. The piece broadly follows the usual fast-slow-fast pattern of concertos, with the soloist challenged in the 'slow movement' by the trombone — but not for long before oboistic playfulness and expressivity win through. Paul Sacher commissioned the work for Heinz Holliger, who gave the first performances at the time of the composer’s eightieth birthday." Watch a performance by oboist Nicholas Daniel and the BBC Symphony Orchestra . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

This week Hubert Culot (MusicWeb International) reviews an RTE Lyric recording of orchestral music by Irish composer Seóirse Bodley . . . "Although he is one of the most distinguished Irish composers of his generation, Seóirse Bodley's music is still largely under-represented in recordings - so, this release is most welcome. The three works recorded here [A Small White Cloud Drifts Over Ireland (1976), Chamber Symphony No. 1 (1964) and the Symphony No. 2 (1980)] span some fifteen years of his long and busy composing life, thus shedding light on his stylistic progress over these years. These recordings from the RTÉ’s archives are excellent and so are the performances. This beautifully produced release is most welcome for Bodley's music has been neglected for too many years. It is to be hoped that more will follow. This music is far too good to be ignored . . ." Read more of this review and hear excerpts from this RTE Lyric recording . . . it's our FEATURED RECORDING for the week.

Newspeak is an eight-piece amplified ensemble working under the direction of composer David T. Little and clarinetist Eileen Mack. Named after the thought-limiting language in George Orwell’s 1984, Newspeak explores the grey area where art and politics mix. Through their programming, performances, and commissions, they seek to reconsider, redefine, and ultimately reclaim the notion of socially engaged music and its place in contemporary society. Embedding elements of a rock band into a classical new music ensemble, Newspeak confronts the boundaries between the classical and the rock traditions. Check them out . . . the current FEATURED ENSEMBLE at Pytheas.

Fratres (1977/1980) is one of Arvo Part's signature works from the early days of what he calls his "tintinnabuli style" (after the Latin word for 'small bells'). The work is based on recurrent harmonic progressions and rhythmic cycles that are reminiscent of the 14th-century isorhythmic motet (the most famous composer of the genre was Guillaume de Machaut). The structural backbone of Pärt’s work is provided by a sequence of rhythmic units arranged in successive groups of 7, 9, and 11, respectively. Each repeat is modified in some way so that the work becomes something like a set of variations. Watch a performance by violinist Vadim Repin and pianist Nikolai Lugansky . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

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

Susan Key, writing about Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto (1940) for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, notes that "Barber's romantic sensibility permeates his only concerto for violin. It was originally commissioned in 1939 by soap magnate Samuel Fels for his adopted son, Iso Briselli. The dedicatee, however, complained that the work was overbalanced: too much lyricism and not enough virtuosity. When Barber added a breakneck third movement, the complaint became that the entire work lacked unity. Eventually Barber revised it further and it was premiered by Albert Spalding and the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy in 1941". Regarding the work's final movement critic Nathan Broder writes, "Here an almost willfully cultivated Mendelssohnian simplicity is suddenly interrupted by a presto perpetuum mobile full of irregular rhythms and quite un-Mendelssohnian dissonances. It is as if the composer had suddenly lost patience with certain self-imposed stylistic restrictions". Watch violinist Anne Akiko Meyers' performance of this "un-Mendelssohnian" finale from Barber's Violin Concerto . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Elliott Carter is, according to Aaron Copland "one of America's most distinguished creative artists in any field." Carter was initially encouraged to become a composer by Charles Ives who had sold insurance to his parents, later going on to study at Harvard with Walter Piston and in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. With his explorations into tempo relationships and texture, Carter's consistently innovative and dynamic output of works is unmistakably American. Sometimes, in works such as the String Quartet No. 1, it is reminiscent of the vastness of the American landscapes; at other times, for example in the Concerto for Orchestra, his complex counterpoint conjures up the dense and hectic environment of the big cities. His intricate, mercurial work often mirrors human interactions and relationships. Hear and see Elliott Carter talk about his life and his music . . . as this week's COMPOSER PORTRAIT.

Zbynek Mateju's ballet Ibbur, or a Prague Mystery (2005), with choreography by Petr Zuska, is based on motifs from Gustav Meyrink's novel Golem. Its creators Daniel Wiesner, Petr Zuska and Elia Cmiral have shaped a story that strides the boundary between dream and reality, mythical vision and legend, and mirrors the fragile world of a human being's psychic balance. On the level of dance art, this production represents an effort to express the original theme of the novel using a contemporary choreographic 'language' and expand the artistic experience for our audience to include new staging procedures and performance techniques. See an excerpt from Ibbur featuring The National Theatre Ballet, Prague . . . this week's DANSES PYTHEUSES.

George Crumb writes of his Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale) (1971), "the work was inspired by the singing of the humpback whale, a tape recording of which I had heard two or three years previously. Each of the three performers (flute, cello and piano - all amplified) is required to wear a black half-mask (or visor-mask). The masks, by effacing the sense of human projection, are intended to represent, symbolically, the powerful impersonal forces of nature, i.e. nature dehumanized. Watch a performance of the first part of Crumb's Vox Balaenae (1971) by Pendulum New Music . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

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