Giacinto Scelsi's mature music is marked by a supreme concentration on single notes, combined with a masterly sense of form. Scelsi revolutionized the role of sound in western music, and his best known work is the Quattro Pezzi per Orchestra/Four Pieces for Orchestra (1959), each on a single note. These single notes are elaborated through microtonal shadings, harmonic allusions, and variations in timbre and dynamics. It is impossible to express the immense power of this apparently simple music in words - (Todd McComb/ClassicalNet). Hear what Todd McComb is writing about in a performance of Scelsi's Quattro Pezzi by the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra with Peter Rundel conducting . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Hubert Culot (MusicWeb International) writes that, "Isang Yun is undoubtedly the most important composer to have emerged from Korea during the second half of the 20th century. He studied with Boris Blacher who made him aware of modern techniques, such as twelve-tone and serial writing; these Yun adopted without ever strictly adhering to them. His music is rooted in classical Korean music, of which we know very little, whereas its formal framework is often found in 20th century music. Although some of his earlier pieces are more experimental or more overtly "modern", Yun steered clear of strict serial practice, and allowed his deeply rooted lyricism to flower freely". Read more of this CD review and hear excerpts from Capriccio Record's CD of "Chamber Music by Isang Yun" . . . it's our FEATURED RECORDING here at Pytheas.

The film How Green Was My Valley (1941) is one of John Ford's masterpieces of sentimental human drama. It is the melodramatic and nostalgic story, adapted by screenwriter Philip Dunne from Richard Llewellyn's best-selling novel, of a close-knit, hard-working Welsh coal-mining family at the turn of the 20th century as a socio-economic way of life passes and the home-family unit disintegrates. Episodic incidents in everyday life convey the changes, trials, setbacks, and joys of the hard-bitten community as it faces growing unemployment, distressing work conditions, unrest, unionization and labor-capital disputes, and personal tragedy. Domestic life, romance, harsh treatment at school, the departure of two boys to find their fortune in America, unrequited love between the local preacher (Walter Pidgeon) and the only Morgan daughter (beautiful 19 year old Irish actress Maureen O'Hara), and other events are portrayed within this warm, human story. The original musical score by the great Alfred Newman was nominated for an Academy Award. Watch an excerpt from this classic film . . . our current PYTHEAS SIGHTING.

Sergei Prokofiev's Violin Sonata No. 1 in F minor, written between 1938 and 1946 (and completed two years AFTER the Violin Sonata No. 2), is one of the darkest and most brooding of the composer's works. Prokofiev described the slithering violin scales at the end of the 1st and 4th movements as "wind passing through a graveyard". The work was premiered by violinist David Oistrakh and pianist Lev Oborin, under the personal coaching of the composer. During rehearsals, Oborin played a certain passage, marked forte (loud), too gently for Prokofiev's liking, who insisted it should be more aggressive. Oborin replied that he was afraid of drowning out the violin, but Prokofiev said "It should sound in such a way that people should jump in their seat, and say 'Is he out of his mind?'". Watch a performance of the 4th movement of Prokofiev's Violin Sonata No. 1 by violinist Xenia Akeynikov . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

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

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

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