Arnold Schoenberg (Viena, 1874-Los Angeles, 1951), pionier al muzicii atonale exilat în Los Angeles, a vrut, în 1934, să compună muzică pentru filme. Aşa că Irving Thalberg, director de producţie de la Metro, a stabilit o întâlnire în biroul său cu artistul. Thalberg a încercat să fie politicos spunându-i: “duminica trecută, când am auzit muzica încântătoare pe care o compuneţi…”. Atunci Schoenberg l-a întrerupt ferm: “eu nu compun muzică încântătoare!”.

Într-adevăr, muzica lui Schoenberg nu este încântătoare, armonia muzicii lui este stranie şi intensă. E ceva ce nu pot defini în cuvinte, trebuie ascultată. Tatăl muzicii contemporane a scris o muzică nouă, diferită de cea tradiţională. Cele 12 tonuri au însemnat începutul dezvoltării unor noi idei muzicale, unei revoluţii. Neînţeles de publicul şi de critica epocii sale, Schoenberg rămâne figura centrală a evoluţiei muzicii secolului XX.  Dodecafonismul din muzica lui, mai mult decât sfârşitul tonalităţii, a însemnat intenţia de-a sistematiza o nouă metodă care să-i permită să-şi depăşească contradicţiile. Cele 12 tonuri au ajutat la extinderea definiţiei muzicii.

Anul 1899 marchează prima sa operă maestră, sextetul de coarde Noapte transfigurată. Simfonia de cameră nr 1 şi Cvartetul de coarde nr 2 iniţiază etapa expresionistă sau atonală a maestrului. Urmează Monodramele Erwartung şi Mână fericită, cele Cinci piese pentru orchestră şi ciclul de 21 de „melodrame” Pierrot lunaire. În 1923, încercând să depăşească limitările atonalităţii, Schoenberg iniţiază „metoda de compoziţie cu 12 sunete” prin Cinci piese pentru pian Op.23, şi în 1924, într-o manieră definitivă, în Suite pentru pian Op.25. Cu acest sistem Schoenberg compune Variaţii pentru orchestră, opera comică într-un act De azi pe mâine şi una dintre partiturile sale cele mai ambiţioase, rămasă neterminată, Moise şi Aaron.

Nu pot să nu amintesc, în două vorbe, prietenia dintre Schoenberg şi  Kandinsky, doi artişti care au revoluţionat arta (despre pictor veţi găsi postări extrem de interesante pe blogul lui -X -). Kandinsky a asistat la un concert de-a lui Arnold Schoenberg. Concertul l-a surprins foarte mult pe Kandinsky, care avea o înclinaţie deosebită pentru muzică(cânta la violoncel şi la pian). Schoenberg, la rândul său, picta. Kadinsky a fost impresionat de muzica lui Schoenberg scriindu-i o scrisoare compozitorului , pe care nu-l cunoştea, iniţiind astfel o corespondenţă care va continua timp de mai mulţi ani. Pentru amândoi artiştii opera de artă nu mai înseamna reprezentarea frumuseţii (ca reprezentare a adevărului sau a realităţii obiective) ci un mod de comunicare intelectuală care în acelaşi timp exprima şi suscita puteri spirituale. 

Schoenberg  a fundat a doua şcoală de muzică din Viena şi a avut elevi de seamă precum Alban Berg şi Anton Bebern. 

Vă invit să ascultaţi azi Schoenberg String Sextet (part 1).

My review of last month’s Radius concert at the Purcell Room has just been accepted for publication in Musical Opinion. It won’t be out until the January issue,  but I wanted to pick up some overspill here.

Firstly, John Reid’s playing of Berg’s opus 1 Piano Sonata was stunning. I ran out of space in my short review to really expand on why I thought it was so good, but the main thing I got was a sense of Berg’s full spectrum tonal palette, and his skill in slipping from one of its regions to another. Reid gave the music quite a lot of space, so it was possible to follow the intricate voice-leading and thus follow the logic of Berg’s tonal-atonal transitions. The final pages were breathtaking.

More generally, I thought this was the best-programmed Radius gig I’ve seen. I love the Boulez, Cage, Vivier and Xenakis rarities that have been a feature of their Wigmore Hall concerts, but I’m always a little anxious that the concert doesn’t always hang together as a whole. In this instance, however, Tim Benjamin’s Mrs Lazarus was well complemented by the Berg and Schoenberg’s First Chamber Symphony.

Should programming matter that much? I’m beginning to notice it when it does. Or perhaps it’s not programming so much as setting. What does bother me is when the memory of one work, still being processed and pieced together, is wiped over by beginning of the next piece. When the second piece perfectly complements the first, this is less of a problem, but that’s a difficult match to pull off. Better, perhaps, is to set each piece in enough space so that those memories can be processed before one’s attention is back in demand. It’s not just a question of silence either side of a piece, although that helps a lot. It’s also something to do with the environment in which the music is being heard, the priorities of the audience (listening to, or being seen), the building, and so on. The Wigmore Hall, more than some venues, conditions a certain kind of listening: the seats are quite low in relation to the stage, and aren’t raked,; the acoustic is sound-studio flawless; the architecture and decor all point towards a certain style, set of values and historical moment. It’s a bit like being inside a Muse’s womb: there’s no real life in there, and what is in there has been genetically pre-programmed.

On the other hand, I invariably enjoy concerts in churches more. They’re cold, the seats are hard and creaky, you can hear the street outside and the lighting is uneven. Not womb-like, they’re more like a translucent box in which art and real life (two sides of the same coin after all) can interpenetrate. And church architecture – particularly of the Hawksmoor/neo-classical variety that you get all over central London – is more of a blank slate. Yes, it expresses a number of things like power, majesty, and a certain moral code. But those things are generalised enough to applicable in new historical contexts. The architecture of the Wigmore (and I’m sorry for picking on it like this) speaks more specifically and is more historically reified.

Funny, hip advocates for classical music complain that concert halls are too much like churches, and here I am saying that they don’t go far enough.

Zapraszam do przeczytania tekstu o co lepszych dziełach austriackiego kompozytora okresu międzywojennego Albana Berga w Kulturze Liberalnej. A oto próbka dźwiękowa, druga część Koncertu skrzypcowego:

Całe archiwalne nagranie do przesłuchania/pobrania na Internet Archive.

Oprócz tego, linkuję jeszcze do fajnej reklamy DVD z operą Wozzeck oraz do najważniejszego: wpisu na blogu Alexa Rossa, gdzie zamieścił dość ciekawą “reklamę” Twelve-Tone Greatest Hits (zawiera “krzyk Lulu”).

Może Was zainteresować również wpis o dwudziestowiecznych koncertach skrzypcowych (w tym Berga).

Le Off

Votre correspondante Emma qui rit qui pleure aura rédigé cette CultEnews entre la terrasse de la Cinémathèque les beaux jours, la BNF l’air d’un rien dans ses yeux maquillés par tant de beauté, quelques cafés presque berlinois, il y en a, et nombre de nuits blanches à l’eau minérale… La So Reel, qui ne simule jamais, danse la splendeur d’une rentrée comme elle n’en rêva même plus, sauf peut-être en Sixième… D’un coup d’ailes et quelques lettres de l’alphabet, la revoilà pour vous distraire avec une nouvelle édition. Comment ça, Emma est ivre  ? Mais non, elle est plus livre que jamais… Please feel free to enjoy and share, elle aime tellement ça, vous faire plaisir.

Les jolies contes-offerts de nos veilles

French Courvoisier -Un film de Valérie Mréjen et Bertrand Schefer - 2009 - Avec l'autorisation des auteurs

Boire, c’est la santé

C’est pudique, ça frappe fort, c’est CultEnews. French Courvoisier, le court-métrage de Valérie Mréjen et Bertrand Schefer, a impressionné la pigiste cinéma d’un jour, pas seulement parce que c’était joli de retrouver quelques abonnés, présents et souriants à la projection très réussie.  Emma avouera qu’elle supporte assez mal les “scènes de dîner” classiques du cinéma français, il est vrai qu’elle s’est dispensée depuis longtemps des “scènes au dîner” puisqu’elle mange seule, ou ne mange pas. Par un tour plus fort qu’un Armagnac hors d’âge, French Courvoisier, avec l’accent s’il-vous-plait, tord le cou au cliché de l’exercice de style et dissèque la frontière toujours délicate entre intime et alter, sans tomber dans les affres des autofictions et les écueils des confessions. Le film, pour le moment, n’est pas diffusé au grand public, et même si votre camériste myope, maniaque de la prise de note, en a relevé la dernière réplique si cinglante et si juste, elle ne gâchera rien de la surprise lucide, et dira simplement que c’est important de bien nettoyer ses lunettes, mais point trop non plus car ensuite la buée perle aux cils des autres. C’est cette buée que le film a saisi à l’instant de rendre larme.

***

Heiner Goebbels - I Went to the House but I did not enter - Photo: Mario del Curto

Dans la maison d’Heiner

Les Doctorantes l’attendaient avec une très grande impatience, et avaient bien raison. I went to the house but I did not enter, d’Heiner Goebbels, n’a pourtant vraiment pas fait l’unanimité du public – assez odieux, on aurait cru que la grippe A avait frappé les bronches, et encore moins de la critique qui en assaisonna méchamment un déjeuner, pas de nom, la pigiste n’est pas intime. Mettre en scène la chanson de la littérature, en des tableaux statiques où la vie s’insufflait par d’infimes déplacements, était certes un pari très risqué, mais deux Belles sensibles s’y sont laissées bercer sans un instant sombrer dans l’ennui. Oui, certes, l’ânonnement de T.S Elliott ou de Beckett tenait du murmure des Laudes, mais nos jarretelles adorent le détournement des transsubstantiations. La Réd’Chef, qui reconnaîtra parfois des émois indignes d’amour, y a bu très exactement ce qu’elle désire du bord des scènes, ce miracle de la consolation qui surgit dans la suspension apparente de l’action et du sens. C’est si rare, si sensuel, que ce calme.

***

Le Si de la jalousie

“Wir, arme Leut…”

C’est si précieux, pour les snobs désargentées, d’aller à l’Opéra, qu’elles se donnent tout le mal possible pour rencontrer des exigences à la hauteur de leur fantasme, ça arrive. Par la grâce d’une rentrée qui se déroulait ailleurs, et de conseils amicaux très éclairés,votre correspondante réserva à la dernière minute et d’un énième découvert une place au poulailler. Mais la CultEnews, c’est un conte en mode majeur, alors la mélomane du sentiment se retrouva placée au parterre et en bonne compagnie. Au-delà de l’anecdote plaisante, le spectacle fut magnifique et les voix humides portèrent jusqu’aux fonds des rétines. La jalousie, c’est toujours une erreur, n’est-ce pas, et quand Christoph Marthaler l’illustre, c’est un décor entier qui devient le poison, un pas-de-deux qui étreint le meurtre, tandis que les hurlements de corps de garde teignent les chemises de brun. Cruel, dit-elle, violent, soupire-t-elle, que cet avortement des illusions, oui, ta mère est morte, et toi aussi, tu sais. C’est pourtant exactement ça, l’art lyrique au sommet qui nous sied… Alors, c’est promis, nous offrirons un baiser sur la pelouse, à l’heure de l’entracte et des paniers pique-nique, à qui nous parrainera pour voyager à Glyndebourne d’où nous vous écririons bien un conte halluciné.

***

Avec deux L comme libre livre / Photo: Emma Reel.

El Oro de Malcolm

Longtemps, presque cinq mois exactement, la SR en grève de zèle a écrit Malcolm avec un seul L, en oubliant qu’il en fallait deux pour voler. Quelques coups de règle sur le clavier plus tard, 2009 est encore, pour quelques mois qui se résumeront vite en semaines l’année du centenaire de la naissance du grand Lowry… il n’est donc pas trop tard pour une amende honorable… l’oubli, jamais, a chuchoté la Muse apprentie auteure à à la ponctuation qui la dressa. Il y eut deux colloques, l’un à Fontevraud en mode mondain, l’autre à Vancouver en mode universitaire. Une biche recalée en licence a beaucoup appris, à cette occasion, auprès d’un grand américaniste lillois et le remercie d’un sourire, ne serait-ce que pour son étude titrée “Pathologies of Knowledge”, qu’elle aimerait beaucoup lire. Lowry, dans le vidéo-projecteur de Guy Cassiers qui dévoile ou masque le Mexique et son Consul, est peut-être une pathologie de l’aveu, cette caricature d’un savoir partagé par erreur et finalement vomi comme le mot tombé par trop plein d’une mâchoire sous l’effet de l’alcool. Sous le Volcan, descente en enfer pour une paix qui jamais jamais ne se trouve…

…Bien Borracha, Emma.

A nous les contremarques

Orhan Pamuk, Lecture, Odéon, le 5 octobre.

Il faut bien avouer que la Renvoyée spéciale de tous les passe-droits cite cette soirée pour frimer. Car oui et sans comprendre pourquoi, elle y fut invitée, par Gallimard, s’il-vous-plaît, ce qui laisse un espoir pour décrocher un entretien avec Monsieur K. A priori la guest list n’est pas venue de Laclavetine, bien descendu époque Triste Tristan, pas lu plus tard, alors qu’il a pourtant de bons goûts musicaux. Ne gâchons pas notre joie, contrairement à quelques malheurs de la gratuité, le moment fut exquis, même si la littérature de Pamuk n’est pas tout-à-fait celle qui nous fera le plus frémir… quant à Fanny Ardant, on commentera d’une sobre indulgence que sa voix magnifique compense le port d’un crucifix assez voyant qui nous interrogea beaucoup. L’anormalienne excentrique a encore plus adoré le débat qui suivit, et les questions pertinentes, le mot est bien mérité et c’est trop rare, de la Chercheuse, CNRS tout de même, ULB aussi et Dieu sait s’ils sont doués, Madame Sophie Basch (beaucoup de ses conférences sont en ligne si vous suivez le lien). Brillant, efficace, rigoureux, intéressant, vingt-cinq fois “J’aime”…  quand les femmes savent y faire et pas que leurs ongles… c’est so CultEnews.

L’interlude classique de la quinzaine

“Le moyen le plus sûr de cacher aux autres les limites de son savoir
est de ne jamais les dépasser.”

Giacomo Leopardi, Pensées, Editions Allia.

Georges de la Tour - Le Jeune Chanteur - 1640/1650

Brèves de trottoir

Agenda vite vu

C’est presque trop tard et donc encore temps, La Douleur, de Marguerite Duras, fait parler d’elle au coin de l’oreille par les plus douces bouches, pas très étonnant puisque c’est tout de même une mise en scène Chéreau Adoré et Thierry Thieû-Niang le complice. De jolies jambes, elles essaieront, y joueront les discrètes en fin de semaine. C’est au théâtre de l’Atelier, qu’on aime bien, c’est officiellement complet, on aime moins… mais si vous vous fiez à l’expérience des Kamikazes CultEnews, vous savez de longue date que se déplacer permet souvent de racheter un siège égaré, alors…

Très hautes recommandations, aussi, pour La Commission centrale de l’enfance, mise en scène de David Lescot. Comment ça, ce n’est plus joué? Mea maxima CultEnews, nous ne l’aurons pas vu, mais c’est repris en province.

Aucune excuse, en revanche, pour manquer Des Témoins ordinaires, la nouvelle création de Rachid Ouramdane, à partir du 8 octobre au Théâtre de Gennevilliers, et d’ailleurs la Correspondante y sera. Ah bon, Gennevilliers, c’est loin? Mais non! Promis, pas besoin de prendre l’Eurostar ni son passeport: le passe Zone 2 suffit! C’est aussi un très beau théâtre, tout de même beaucoup plus près qu’Avignon, où les snobs Demoiselles se ruent si goulûment… Merci, au passage, au Philippe So Casse-Tête qui accompagne souvent la pigiste de ses mots doués et lucides, et a rappelé à la CultEnews cette programmation-là. Le beau plan CultEnews qui ne laisse personne en rade: le 27 octobre, une rencontre avec le chorégraphe est organisée au théâtre, c’est gratuit, c’est un atelier!

Et dans la série “Arrrrrggghhhh, j’voulais, j’ai oublié”, la clopeuse et jouisseuse Emma est very furieuse de n’avoir pas pensé à réserver bien en avance pour le concert de Brigitte Fontaine au Palace… quoi que nous doutions fort qu’en ces temps de Prohibition la voix de la Dame indigne y suffise à faire oublier l’interdiction de fumer. Avis aux fans: elle est à Lille le 6 novembre, entre autres.

Consolation: le même soir, le trio de Doctorantes pleurera devant le magistral (A)ppolonia de Warlikowski à Chaillot. Faites vite si vous êtes tenté de goûter l’air de la tragédie polonaise, la plupart des dates sont déjà complètes.

La nécro dont on se passerait bien

Nelly L’Archange a choisi de décoller le 24 septembre, après quelques récits, “autofictions” qui connurent un petit succès en France dans les années 2000, et aucun ou presque dans son pays d’origine, le Québec. Nelly, nom de guerre Arcan, était l’auteur de Putain, éditions du Seuil, qu’elle fut un instant. Nous ne l’avons pas lue, nous avons juste très bien aperçue qu’elle est partie sur beaucoup moins de bruit qu’on n’en fit de son travail d’escort. Et nous avons pensé d’une émotion de trop combien souvent, les hommes étaient autorisés à être doués, et les femmes à devenir folles, pas forcément aidées par le marketing de leurs charmes – mais oui, bien sûr nous sommes si belles, nous nous devons d’être belles pour être publiées… C’est faux, bien sûr, mais peut-être pas assez, pourraient dire Mireille H., Camille C., Sarah K. et quelques autres qu’une édile dût trahir pour ne jamais les rejoindre.

Le baiser de la fin

La beauté surgit parfois d’une intention ambigue.

Remerciements particuliers pour cette édition: Philippe K., Philippe C,
Mathieu D., Valérie M., Vincent L.
Cette CultEnews est dédiée à vous faire sourire.

Prochaine édition: 16 octobre or so.

]]> http://theballetbag.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/agon/ Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:41:15 +0000 Linda http://theballetbag.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/agon/

Go If

Agon is probably one of the quintessential Balanchine pieces in every balletomane’s punch card. You should go if you love Balanchine, abstract, short and/or neo-classical ballets. Or try it for the landmark score: this is where Stravinsky began exploring his twelve-tone technique (more on this below).

Skip If

You are a strictly 19th century classical ballet fan and all of the above makes you cringe, especially the thought of music without an overall melodic theme (as you often exit the theatre whistling to Swan Lake!).

Dream Cast

NYCB (particularly if Wendy Whelan dances the pas de deux), after all, they are the Balanchine company per excellence.

Background and Structure

Balanchine and Stravinsky. Source: Oberon's Grove. Copyright belongs to its corresponding owners.

Around 1948 Balanchine’s benefactor Lincoln Kirstein had an idea for a ballet which would form a “greek trilogy” together with that choreographer’s earlier collaborations with Stravinsky: Apollo and Orpheus. The concept was discussed at the time but a couple of years would pass before concrete plans were drawn and a structure agreed. Stravinsky started composing for the new ballet in 1953. He came up with the title Agon, the greek word for contest but also a  reference to the various 17th century French court dances he had studied from Lauze’s Apologie de la Danse (1623) and this set the frame for Balanchine’s choreography.

Agon marked the third and last time Stravinsky would specifically compose music for a Balanchine ballet (though the choreographer continued to use other Stravinsky music in  later works). On the other hand it was the first time where Stravinsky applied to his work 12-tone serialism techniques, which he had just started experimenting with.

Stravinsky’s previous compositions had been structured in diatonic scale, in other words, they had been based on major and minor scales (click links for audio examples), which give a strong feeling of a tonal center, the major keys a bright sound and the minor keys a moodier sound. One can build a diatonic scale by playing the white keys on a piano keyboard within an octave, in the sequence -Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do – (see figure) 

Octave on a Piano. Image: Guido Tattoni © Source: Smack my pitch up

Between two half steps or semitones (Mi-Fa and Ti-Do – or in the picture Si-Do) there are either two whole steps or tones (Do-Re-Mi) or three whole steps (Fa-Sol-La-Ti), giving the diatonic scale its rich tonality and clear sounds.

There are however, other types of scales. Chromatic scales for instance are sequences of tones (whole steps) preceeded by semitones (half steps). One can build a chromatic scale by playing a sequence of black and white keys in order, without leaving any out. The result is uniform and different to the major scale above where tones and semitones are arranged in a particular way. A chromatic scale has 12 tones (NB: there are 12 tones or notes in an octave. Just count the number of keys in the figure above: Do, Do Sharp, Re, Re Sharp, Mi, Fa, Fa sharp, Sol, Sol sharp, La, La sharp, Ti).

The twelve-tone technique of serialism arranges notes from a chromatic scale so that in an octave none of its 12 notes prevail over another, each note appearing just once before a new series begins. This method was developed by Arnold Schoenberg in the early twenties and later developed by his disciples Alban Berg and Anton von Webern. The resulting music is often referred to as atonal and cerebral.

Even though Agon starts with a diatonic, non-serial structure, Stravinsky combined parts that had a tonal centre (think of the violin solo in the coda of the first pas de trois) with serialist parts (the flute, mandolins & harps in the Galliard). In order to concentrate on other works and further his experience with serialism Stravinsky shelved Agon for a couple of years and then returned to create the central – very serialist – part of the work (the first coda and the bransles, ie. the moves from side to side), following Schoenberg and Webern’s ideas. 

Besides the new composition techniques, Stravinsky also used specific instruments to identify the dancers in the ballet – brass for men and woodwind for women – as well as traditional French court dance references: the bransles (couples dancing in circle, side to side), galliards (an athletic dance with plenty of jumps),  sarabande and pas de deux/quatre.

NYCB in Agon. Photo: Elliott Franks © Source: The Telegraph

Balanchine built his choreography in response to Stravinsky’s score. Taking into account the serial 12-note concept he  conceived a ballet with 12 dancers (4 men and 8 women) and 12 movements (4 sections of 3 dances each). The ballet starts with the four male dancers facing the back of the stage and the dances develop as follows:

Pas de Quatre – the men
Double Pas de Quatre – the women
Triple Pas de Quatre – the ensemble

Prelude – 1 man, 2 women
Saraband-step – 1 man
Galliard – 2 women
Coda – 1 man, 2 women

Interlude – 2 men, 1 woman
Bransles:
Simple – 2 men
Gay - 1 woman
Double – 2 men, 1 woman

Interlude – 1 man, 1 woman
Pas de Deux – 1 man, 1 woman*
Four Pas de Deux – the men and 4 women
Four Pas de Trois – the ensemble
Coda – the ensemble

NYCB in Agon. Photo: Tristram Kenton © Source: The Guardian

The *pas de deux is one of Agon’s most unique features. The music sounds disjointed, with few instruments being used at a time, but it is still possible to identify the basic components: an adagio, two variations and a coda with the key difference of a role reversal for the dancers, the woman seeming to lead the male into assorted extreme poses rather than the opposite. There are several famous images such as the one where the ballerina wraps around her partner with her leg in attitude, or her 180º arabesque whilst the male dancer is lying on the floor.

PNB's Olivier Weavers and Louise Nadeau in Agon. Photo: Angela Sterling / PNB © Source: ArtsPlace

When the score calls for serial 12-note themes, dancers respond with isolated movements and hints of the courtly dances on which they are based (the men bowing to the women). If the music presents a canon of two trumpets, the dancers perform in canon (ie. successively) to match the trumpets in the music. In the final section, as the score goes back to opening motifs, the dancers resume the same opening image of four male dancers facing the back of the stage.

Stravinsky finished the score in the spring of 1957 and Agon premiered on December 1, 1957, as part of a triple bill featuring Apollo and Orpheus. It was an easy winner with the audience, since it depicted classical ballet in a different and novel way, showing conflict and resolution between various forms of dance, movement and shape.

Videos

Sorry no YouTube videos! But there are certain DVDs and VHS* tapes (if you are able to view these) featuring glimpses of Agon.

• Balanchine (1984) [link]
• The Balanchine Celebration, Part Two* [link]
• Bringing Balanchine Back [link]
• Dancing for Mr. B: Six Balanchine Ballerinas [link]
• Peter Martins: Dancer* [link]

Music

Agon had its first concert performance in June 1957 in Los Angeles. It is still often performed on its own and much valued as a piece which combines both serial and non-serial elements. At an average length of 25 min, it can be easily uploaded to your favourite mp3 player. It can be downloaded from iTunes [link] or streamed via Spotify [link].

Mini-Biography

Choreography: George Balanchine
Music: Igor Stravinsky
Original Cast: Todd Bolender, Barbara Milberg, Barbara Walczak, Roy Tobias, Jonathan Watts, Melissa Hayden, Diana Adams and Arthur Mitchell.
Premiere: December 1, 1957, NYCB. City Center of Music and Drama, New York.

Sources and Further Information

1. Agon in Context by Richard Jones. Ballet.co Magazine, April 2004. [link]
2. Wikipedia Entry for Agon (ballet) [link]
3. NYCB Agon Repertory Notes [link]
4. 50 Years Ago, Modernism Was Given a Name: Agon by Alastair Macaulay. November 2007, NY Times [link]
5. The Bransles of Stravinsky’s Agon: A Transition to Serial Composition by Bonnie S. Jacobi. [link]

The season at the Royal Theatre has kicked off with one of the essencial operas in the 20th century: Lulu, by Alban Berg. The protagonist is a femme fatale who, just like a praying mantis, destroys all the people that are attracted to her fatal charm. Israeli maestro Eliahu Inbal directs the young Swedish soprano Agneta Eichenholz. From September 28th to October 16th.

It was a late decision for me to go to see Welsh National Opera’s production of Wozzeck last night (Friday 2nd October) at the Wales Milennium Centre. It has been a busy week and I’m travelling at the weekend too, so I wasn’t sure I could fit it in. In the end, I am really glad I did because it was by far the best of the three operas WNO are presenting in the current season; you can read about the other two here and here.

Stylistically, Wozzeck (composed by Alban Berg) is a far cry from Madam Butterfly and La Traviata but it is also a tragedy of some sort. The principal character – Wozzeck himself –  is one of life’s losers. The Opera opens with him establishing his servile nature by shaving a character called the Captain in order to supplement his salary. The original story has a military setting, but in this production it is moved to a factory producing tins of baked beans.

Wozzeck has fathered a child out of wedlock with Marie and is doing everything he can to earn money for her and their son. Later on we find out that he is also trying to earn cash by helping another character, the Doctor, in a medical experiment the main element of which seems to involve eating a large quantity of the baked beans produced in the factory.

Perhaps caused by his peculiar diet as well as the stress of his personal situation, Wozzeck is clearly losing his marbles. He suffers from hallucinations. Then Marie has an affair with another character, the Drum Major - we know he’s a bad guy because he likes golf and wears nasty white shoes. The Doctor and the Captain see the Drum Major and Marie in flagrante delicto and subsequently taunt Wozzeck with his lover’s infidelity. Wozzeck goes berserk, challenges the Drum Major to a fight and gets himself badly beaten up for his trouble. He takes  out his frustration on Marie, luring her outside and then killing her by cutting her throat with an opened baked bean tin. He doesn’t have the sense to wash the blood from his hands and when this is spotted he returns to the scene and tries to find the murder weapon. In the original story Wozzeck had thrown the weapon (a knife) into a lake: trying to get it back in order to hide it in a better place he falls in and drowns. In this production he had thrown the tin can into a huge hopper full of similar tins. He falls into this and dies among the rubbish. In the final scene, his young son is told of the death of his mother and father but it doesn’t really sink in. He sings a childish song and opens a tin of baked beans. Like father, like son.

The stark industrialised scenery and drably austere clothing  serve to reinforce the steady dehumanisation of Wozzeck and accentuate his descent into madness.  The subtext is about the exploitation of the poor and disadvantaged; the message is that those to whom evil is done, do evil in return. Wozzeck’s actions are not condoned, but we know from the start that he’s a man in trouble and if only someone had helped him rather than everyone tormenting him, things might have turned out for the better. Shades of Peter Grimes.

Peter Hoare was a creepily comical Captain and Cliver Bailey an appropriately ghoulish Doctor. Marie was sung beautifully by Wioletta Chodowicz. But even these were somewhat eclipsed by Christopher Purves’ wonderful and deeply moving performance as the tortured Wozzeck. His singing and acting raised the level of this to truly world-class. One of the best I’ve ever seen.

The real star of the show for me, though, was Berg’s amazing music, which managed to be both sumptious and edgy at the same time. This is an atonal piece, and I know some people are pretty much allergic to music that doesn’t rest on a tonal framework. But the orchestral colours Berg achieves have a remarkable effect in combination with the action on stage and some of the more lyrical passages are intensely beautiful.

Actually, it’s a remarkable opera altogether. For a start it’s exceptionally compact. Three Acts each of five Scenes but the overall running time is about 90 minutes (with no interval). The music for each act is constructed like a concert work. The three Acts are marked Five Character Pieces, Symphony in Five Movements and Six Inventions (five of the latter accompany the scenes, the sixth is an orchestral interlude before the final scene). There are leitmotifs, unusual vocal techniques such as Sprechgesang and Sprechstimme, innovative rhythmic explorations with strange uses of percussion, and so on. Berg packs so much into this work that it is definitely one to listen to over and over again.

I and the rest of the audience responded very enthusiastically both to the performers on stage and  to the Orchestra of WNO who did full justice to a 20th Century masterpiece. Bravo!

El Teatro Real ya ha abierto sus puertas. Desde el pasado 28 de septiembre y hasta el 16 de octubre, el escenario del coliseo estará ocupado por una mujer muy especial: Lulú, una superwoman que quiere sobrevivir y triunfar en la vida y a la que no le gustan los límites que le impone la sociedad. Con esta primera propuesta, la ópera de Madrid pretende dar inicio a una temporada que tiene un hilo conductor muy definido: mostrar cómo ha evolucionado la figura de la mujer en la historia de la ópera.

En 1928, Alban Berg, comenzó la adaptación de las dos tragedias de Wedekind, Espíritu de la tierra y la Caja de Pandora, como base del libreto de su ópera Lulú, pero en 1935 el compositor moría dejando sin terminar la orquestación del tercer acto, aunque sí dejó resuelto el esquema musical del mismo. Esta extraordinaria herencia quedó en manos de su viuda, quien pidió a Arnold Schönberg que acabase el tercer acto. Éste se negó y la obra permaneció oculta hasta la muerte de la mujer, siendo el compositor y director austriaco Friedrich Cerha el encargado de terminar musicalmente la herencia del compositor de la Segunda Escuela de Viena.

Por lo tanto, existen dos versiones de la obra. En primer lugar, la original de Berg, formada de dos actos y un epílogo, que vio la luz por primera vez en 1937. Y en segundo lugar, la de Friedrich Cerha, con un prólogo, tres actos y un epílogo, que fue estrenada el 24 de febrero de 1979 en la Ópera Garnier de París. La redacción definitiva es la que llega por primera vez a Madrid, puesto que los aficionados más veteranos recordarán que la versión incompleta ya se pudo ver hace varios años en el Teatro de la Zarzuela.

En esta ocasión, se trata de una coproducción con el Covent Garden de Londres y está dirigida por el alemán Christof Loy, reconocido hombre de teatro por sus montajes de Monteverdi, Mozart, Verdi y Berlioz. En el foso se situará una de las grandes batutas de nuestros días, Eliahu Inbal, que hace con Lulu su presentación en la Ópera de Madrid. Y en escena veremos a grandes artistas internacionales como es el caso de Agneta Eichenholz (Lulu), Jennifer Larmore (Condesa) y Gerd Grochowski (Dr. Schön y Jack).

Para ayudar al público a entender mejor la obra, el coliseo madrileño ha programado para todos los días antes de la representación una charla que dura media hora y que trata de acercar y explicar a los espectadores el mito de Lulu. No podéis perdéroslo, ya no hay excusas para no acudir a la ópera.

No Ornitologia de hoje, destaque para o fim-de-semana Stockhausen na Gulbenkian, em Lisboa, com cinco estreias portuguesas e uma mundial do ciclo Klang. Em escuta, um excerto de Sirius por Markus Stockhausen. O Teatro Real de Madrid estreia nova produção da ópera Lulu de Alban Berg. Para acompanhar, o interlúdio do Acto I por Bruno Maderna com a orquestra da RAI. O dia mundial da música, 1 de Outubro, é comemorado pela  Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa com um programa escolhido pelo público. Audição integral de uma das obras seleccionadas: o Idílio de Siegfried de Richard Wagner, em versão original por Otto Klemperer dirigindo a orquestra Philarmonia.

In today’s Ornitologia the preview of Gulbenkian’s Stockhausen weekend that brings to Lisbon five Portuguese and one worldwide premiere of works from the last cicle of the composer, Klang. On this show, an excerpt from Sirius played by Markus Stockhausen. The Teatro Real in Madrid premiers a new production of Alban Berg’s Lulu. Ornitologia selects the interlude from Act I by Bruno Maderna and the RAI orchestra. Finally, the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa celebrates the internatinal day of music with a concert featuring an audience selected program. Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll was one of the choices and Ornitologia airs the complete Otto Klemperer with Philarmonia Orchestra recording.

Aho: Symphony No.1; Hiljaisuus; Violin Concerto
Manfred Grasbeck, violin
Lahti Symphony Orchestra
Osmo Vänskä
(BIS)

Berg: Wozzeck
Fischer-Dieskau, Lear, Stolze
Chor und Orchester der Deutschen Oper, Berlin
Karl Böhm
(DGG)

Remembrance, Music of Schoenberg, Bernstein, Bloch and Zeisl
Sharon Bezaly, flute
Vadim Gluzman, violin
São Paolo Symphony Choir and Orchestra
John Neschling
(BIS)

Schoenberg: Gurrelieder
Andersen, Isokoski, Groop
Philharmonia Voices
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Esa-Pekka Salonen
(Signum Classics)

 
Great Big Sea: Play
(WEA Canada)

One of my favorite tributes to the Second Viennese school:

Closing with one of my favorite Alexander von Zemlinsky works:

Resumiendo un poco la cosa, un profesor decía que hoy en día hay dos tipos de compositores: los que componen sobre el papel y los que componen con el oído; los que hacen un desarrollo impresionante de su obra a base de cálculos matemáticos, proporciones, progresiones, relaciones interválicas y medidas rítmicas que responden a patrones cíclicos, a veces desarrollados en espiral, a veces ensanchándose y encogiéndose, etc. (en mi opinión, una cagada); y los que se enfrentan al proceso creativo guiándose principalmente por el oído, la experimentación, el contacto directo con los instrumentos y su sonoridad. Una de las principales diferencias es que los primeros no siempre saben cómo va a sonar su obra, ni falta que les hace. Lo principal es vender bien el producto, hablando sobre él, analizándolo, pero no necesariamente escuchándolo. No es broma. A veces se escudan en lo matemático de las composiciones de Bach. Esto también es una cagada, porque, entre otras cosas, Bach suena muy bien, y no nos importa tanto su complejidad y perfección formal, sino lo que nos provoca al escucharlo. Que juegue casi constantemente en la estructura, en la relación interválica y en el ritmo con el número catorce, que surge de adjudicar un número a las letras de su apellido, siguiendo el orden alfabético: A=1, B=2, C=3, etc. (B=2+A=1+C=3+H=8, en total 14), no nos emociona tanto como la audición de sus composiciones. No nos interesa tanto su gusto por la simbología aplicada a su obra, realmente impresionante y sorprendente, como el contacto directo con su música. Reducir su música a simples cálculos matemáticos sería, como digo, una cagada.

Este último trimestre tuvimos la suerte de recibir en el Conservatorio al compositor David del Puerto, que estuvo durante dos tardes dando unas charlas sobre música, composición, la música del siglo XX y su obra. Fue muy crítico con la situación actual de la música y especialmente con los compositores, al fallar completamente la funcionalidad de su trabajo, por ser incapaces de conectar con el público y estar siempre dependiendo de subvenciones públicas que los mantienen vivos como si de una UVI móvil se tratara, a base de respiración asistida y electroshock. Si a esto sumamos que los programadores de teatros y salas de concierto tampoco hacen mucho por variar esta situación, ofreciendo principalmente música clásica tradicional por un lado y por otro, y en una mínima medida, música contemporánea que entre en la misma línea de la subvencionada, podemos sacar la conclusión de que hay muchísima música contemporánea que no conocemos y que podría perfectamente tener aceptación por aficionados a la música, sin necesidad de ser expertos, sino simplemente oyentes que tengan ganas de experimentar con el sonido a través del oído y no del papel o la palabra.

Mi profesor llegó a comentarme que este compositor, David del Puerto, llega incluso a tener serios problemas para que su música se interprete en teatros por dejar en ridículo a los demás compositores que estén programados en el mismo día. La comparación los deja en pañales. Tiene esa clase de problemas a pesar de ser Premio Nacional de Música. Pues ésa es la situación, una auténtica cagada.

El límite de una música que de antemano establezca unas normas de organización del sonido bastante estrictas lo podemos encontrar en el sistema dodecafónico, o serialismo, creado  y desarrollado a mediados del siglo XX por Arnold Schoenberg y sus discípulos, Alban Berg y Anton Webern, la denominada Segunda Escuela de Viena. Pero el caso es que incluso Schoenberg decía que nunca se podía componer sin inspiración, a pesar de que su sistema pudiera parecer encorsetado. Sin inspiración, cualquier obra que simplemente siga unas normas al pié de la letra sería una cagada. Su sistema se resume a grosso modo en crear una serie (de ahí su nombre) que incluya los doce semitonos de la octava que no puede volver a repetirse hasta que se concluya. Se puede desarrollar en distintas voces, en distintas octavas, con distintos ritmos, etc., pero respetando siempre esta condición. Posteriormente otros autores desarrollaron el serialismo integral, aportación de Anton Webern, que no es más que una mayor complicación y sofisticación del sistema original, ampliando la aplicación de la serie a los restantes parámetros musicales, como la intensidad o la duración.

Aficionado como Bach a la simbología numérica, además de a la cábala, Webern sufrió por ser judío la represión intelectual del gobierno nazi. Otra cagada más de Adolf y sus pamplinas.

Y hablando de cagadas, y de las buenas, la del soldado (paradójicamente americano) que hacía la guardia en el toque de queda establecido en Austria al finalizar la Segunda Guerra Mundial. El bueno de Anton salió tras la cena a fumarse un cigarro al portal de su casa, para no molestar a su familia con el humo. El soldado percibió algún tipo de actitud peligrosa en el músico y simplemente le pegó un tiro. Ya se sabe que el tabaco mata. Pero yo qué sé, más bien creo que son la guerra y sus consecuencias las auténticas y mayores cagadas.

On Thursday (4th June) I went to the first night of the Royal Opera’s new production of Lulu, an Opera by Alban Berg. I was planning to blog about this yesterday but after the Opera my birthday celebrations descended into drunken chaos and I ended up getting back very late to Cardiff yesterday; I had to catch up a number of things so I didn’t have time. After the performance and dinner in a nearby restaurant we sat out on Joao’s roofgarden in Notting Hill drinking until the sun started to come up. That part is a bit of blur, but judging by the scale of my hangover yesterday it must have been good. Anyway, I’ve now recovered enough write something about the Opera.

Before Thursday I hadn’t seen Lulu in a live performance, although I do have it on DVD so I knew a bit about it. Berg was a student of Arnold Schoenberg, but he developed his own take on the twelve-tone techniques developed by his mentor. Not everyone finds  serialist music easy to enjoy, but I think if you’re going to have a go at it this Opera is one of the best places to start. I think the score for Lulu is completely wonderful: it’s constantly changing texture, sometimes lushly romantic (with a big  nod in the direction of Mahler in Act I), sometimes bleak and jagged. Sometimes there is no music at all and the singers use a stylised method of vocalisation in between speaking and singing (called Sprechstimme). This  is used only sparingly in Lulu, but it is wonderfully effective dramatically when it is.

The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, conducted by Antonio Pappano, were absolutely fantastic throughout the performance. I’m no musician but I reckon this music must be extremely difficult to play, especially in the brass section, but they played with great passion as well as flawless precision. They really brought Berg’s music to life, and invested it with a vitality that positively glowed throughout the performance. With playing like this, it was easy to understand why Berg is such an influential composer: you can hear in this Opera the ideas behind many Hollywood movie scores, for example.

So what about the Opera itself? The play revolves around the character of Lulu, an enigmatic figure who is at times innocent and vulnerable and at others cynical and manipulative. Her personality is only revealed to us through her interactions with men, all of which end in disaster. Lulu’s first husband has a heart attack and dies; her second commits suicide. She then shoots another man and is imprisoned but eventually escapes. By the end of the opera, many years later on, she has wound up in London and is living in poverty working as a prostitute. She dies at the hands of Jack the Ripper.

The structure of the Opera is like a mirror, with Lulu’s reversal of fortunes happening after an intermezzo in the middle of Act 2, at the centre of which there is a remarkable musical palindrome (shown above). Before this her role in the drama is to drive the men around her into obsession, madness and death, although she never appears to understand why she has this effect on them. After the dramatic fulcrum of the piece she becomes more and more of a victim. The reason for this is not some great change in her own psychological make-up but just that she is getting older and  losing her looks. No longer sexually desirable, she has lost the only way of controlling the men in her life. From this point on, her decline is inexorable and death inevitable.

The new production is quite unlike the recording I have on DVD in that the staging is resolutely minimal. There is no set, just an occasional translucent screen, the costumes are modern and colours are monochrome. Lulu is dressed at one point  in a black cocktail dress very like that worn by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. This might have been a deliberate reference to the parallels between Lulu and Holly Golightly (at least in Truman Capote’s novella, which is a much darker concoction than the film based on it); soprano Agneta Eichenholz bears more than a passing resemblance to Audrey Hepburn too. Her slender build -unusual for an opera singer with such a powerful voice – allowed her to play Lulu’s vulnerable aspects very well.

Against a sparse backdrop  the characters emerge as series of grotesques, which – at least in principle - is not a bad way of  presenting this Opera. Set in such a way it appears as a piece of absurdist theatre which is definitely part of what it represents. There are two problems, however.

One is that the sets give very little clue as to the location of the drama: I wouldn’t have known that the last scene was meant to be Victorian London unless I’d seen it before, so Jack the Ripper’s appearance must have been very  confusing to those who hadn’t picked up on that. Lulu is also meant to be a lot older in the last Act, but no attempt is made to age her in this production.  The libretto makes repeated reference to a painting of her, and it serves at the end to remind her of her age, but no portrait ever appears; I found that a bizarre omission.

The other problem is that there are strong links between the story of Lulu and the Grand Guignol  genre of horror plays, with their  opulently macabre  stagings and exaggeratedly gory endings. Throwing all those connections  away robs the Opera of all of its schlock value and, with that, a great deal of the irony needed to make this blackest of black comedies work the way it should. The killing of Lulu in fact happens off stage in this production which makes the ending very tame. I wouldn’t want to go over-the-top in depicting the horror of Lulu’s death – I wanted to see an Opera, not a snuff movie – but the audience should be shocked by the brutality of her final moments; these are the key to what the Opera is about. Perhaps the director was concerned not to let the drama descend into mere titillation. There’s always a danger of crossing the line into vulgar pornography in depicting explicit sexuality and violence, but I think this production is too afraid of taking risks. This opera should feel more dangerous than this setting allows it to be. Ypu’re not meant to feel comfortable about this Opera.

Although limited by the stylized nature of the production, the principals were good. Agneta Eichenholz’s is a  desensitized creature, damaged by abuse and inhabiting a moral vacuum. Her detachment in the face of the death and destruction around her is perfectly judged. She sang beautifully for the most part but - possibly because of first night nerves - her voice came apart on a couple of high notes early on. Other characters worth mentioning are Michael Volle who was outstanding as Dr Schön and Philip Langridge in the dual role of the Prince and the Marquis.

This morning I read Andrew Clements’ review in the Guardian which I thought was a bit harsh: only two stars doesn’t really do justice to a fascinating evening. I would have  given three stars for the quality of the music alone. Personally, I could have listened to the whole thing in a concert performance and still enjoyed it. But having decided to go for a full staging,  it seems to me a bit perverse to have stripped  it down so drastically. Clements claimed he was “bored” by what happened on stage. I certainly wasn’t, but I did find myself more perplexed by the production than by the moral ambivalence of the story itself, so I’d have to say it didn’t really do justice to an Opera which I still think of as masterpiece.

From Jazz & Pop Magazine, 1970

To anyone still questioning the validity of the systems and methods at which Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman arrived, I would first of all recommend that he listen more attentively to the work of those men. But I’d also suggest that he make it a point to hear the strong and very exciting musics of an emergent collection of musicians from Chicago who constitute what is already a third generation of New Music players (Ayler, Shepp, Dolphy, etc., representing the second), and whose very existence serves to certify the innovations which Taylor and Coleman forged.

Anthony Braxton

Anthony Braxton, Maurice McIntyre, Joseph Jarman, Lester Bowie, Roscoe Mitchell, Malachi Favors, LeRoy Jenkins, Leo Smith, Steve McCall and Henry Threadgill are just some of the gifted and mostly very young musicians involved in the Chicago movement. These men have not only embraced the new aesthetic, they are adding remarkable dimensions to it. In addition to the utilization of extraordinary instruments like harmonicas, accordions, sirens, Chinese gongs, Hawaiian tipples, whistles, etc., the Chicago players are into using objects like garbage can covers, chairs and beads to make sounds with. They are also incorporating theatrical effects with provocative results.

Although I’d heard most of the Delmark albums (the Chicago label that’s recorded many of these players), my first live exposure to what these guys are doing came on an evening last May when a five-man cooperative group calling itself the Creative Construction Company of Chicago played its first New York concert at the Peace Church in Greenwich Village.

The music which Anthony Braxton, LeRoy Jenkins, Leo Smith, Richard Abrams, Steve McCall and Richard Davis made that evening was lifting and invigorating, full of movement, wit, adventure and surprise. It reminded me in its spirit as well as its setting of the loft and coffee house gigs that Archie Shepp, Bill Dixon, Albert Ayler, Marion Brown, Don Cherry, Pharaoh Sanders, et al used to play seven or eight years ago. The music was as new and as fresh, and the same kind of joy exuded from the musicians, as though each sound they made represented a new discovery about music and themselves, and each discovery surely had an extraordinary significance.

Especially impressed by Anthony Braxton, I introduced myself to him at the completion of the concert and invited him to be interviewed. We got together to talk several days later.

Braxton was born on Chicago’s Southside and turned twenty-five this past year. He is classically trained—he studied for a few years with private teachers and at the Chicago School of Music—and has composed orchestral pieces and piano music. Although the alto saxophone is his chief instrument, he plays all the reeds, woodwinds, some brass and various other conventional and unconventional instruments.

The first jazz group Braxton remembers hearing was the Dave Brubeck Quartet. “That was at a very early age. I didn’t dig Brubeck that much, but I was attracted to Paul Desmond. Actually, it was after listening to Desmond, whom I heard before Charlie Parker, that I decided to play woodwinds. He was very important to me and he’s still one of my favorite musicians.”

In 1961, Braxton heard Ornette Coleman’s The Shape of Jazz to Come. “I had gone by a friend of mine’s house, his father listened to jazz, and he said, ‘Listen to this, because this is what’s going to be happening. This is where the music will be going.’ When I heard Ornette I was immediately affected by him. I was afraid of him, because he was so different in relation to what I’d been hearing. I was very conscious of the fact that something was happening with this music—it drew me very strongly, and I knew that someday I would have to deal with it.”

Braxton continued to play with his “Desmond sound” for several more years, during which time he was also listening to Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and Charlie Parker, as well as to Lee Konitz—“whom I still love. I have every record Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh ever made. Konitz, even by today’s standards, was into some far out things—‘Marshmallow,’ ‘Ice Cream Konitz…” Later Braxton encountered Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman. “Those guys really turned my head around. They were so advanced even then it was incredible. I thought I had some knowledge of music, but I found I didn’t know anything.”

In 1963, Braxton went into the army, spending most of his hitch in Korea. When he was discharged, in 1966, he met again with Jarman and Mitchell who were by then involved with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the cooperative of some thirty or forty musicians that is nearly four years old now. He began then to really get into Ornette, and Eric Dolphy and John Coltrane, and to “stop playing like Paul Desmond.” He also, during this period, got seriously turned on to ‘classical’ music.

“One day I happened to put an Arnold Schoenberg record on by accident, and I almost passed out. So there was something else for me to check out. I was very much affected by Schoenberg, and he led me to other people like Berg and Webern and Stockhausen, and finally to John Cage.”

Braxton was playing concerts with other AACM musicians by this time, and he also recorded two albums for Delmark—3 Compositions of New Jazz and a two-record set of alto solos, which was scheduled for release in late 1970. He also played on Richard Abram’s Levels and Degrees of Light.

In 1969 Braxton went to Europe with LeRoy Jenkins, Leo Smith and Steve McCall. He spent nearly a year there, working all over and recording two albums for BYG and Polydor. He also participated in an album of Alan Silva’s on BYG, Luna Surface. While in Paris, Braxton met Ornette Coleman, who heard him play and invited him to come to New York. Braxton responded to the invitation and, with LeRoy Jenkins, got here early this spring and stayed with Ornette until he was able to get his own place. Of Ornette, Braxton says, “I’ve always loved him, loved and respected his music. And after getting a chance to meet and to know him, I’m thoroughly in awe of him, of the kind of person he is. He’s been such a good friend. He has my deepest respect, musically and personally.”

Despite Ornette’s hospitality, the aforementioned concert, a gig with Chick Corea and record dates with Corea and Marion Brown, Braxton hasn’t had that easy a time of it in New York, though it’s been no worse for him than for most New York musicians. He had, he told me, been looking for a day job, but without success.

We talked about the dismal economic realities of the scene and then Braxton began to discuss his music and what was happening with the Chicago players.

“When I got out of the army I joined the AACM and found everybody deep into exploring different avenues. Roscoe Mitchell talked of colors. Steve McCall was into shadings—he knows more about shadings, I think, than any other percussionist. Joseph Jarman, at the time, was into theater and getting politically involved; he was very concerned about the social aspects of what was happening in this country. Henry Threadgill was talking about healing through his music, and he was learning about different sounds and how these sounds affected people—like the relationship of one note to a particular illness. Richard Abrams was concerned with the spiritual aspects of music. So many different things were, and are, happening. If you talked to Leo Smith, he would talk to you about composition and about theater. LeRoy Jenkins, a master string musician, he’s concerned with opening up avenues for the violin and arriving at different approaches. He wants to utilize the whole instrument without having someone call him a ‘classical’ violinist.

“I myself was into mathematics and philosophy, seeing music from a mathematical perspective and working with mathematical systems. I wanted to make up my own vocabulary because I didn’t want to follow anybody else. I wanted to find my own avenues. Now my music is a combination of all I learned in the AACM plus what I was working with in mathematics in terms of sound relationships, densities, textures, different forms—what I call ‘conceptual grafting,’ which is about mixing different elements. I’m moving now toward trying to free the music in other ways, like playing in the streets and bringing carpenters and automobile mechanics into the music. I’m starting to see the music, and to me the notion behind the music is just as important as the music itself. I can see how in the next ten years or so everybody will be able to bring something into the music from whatever their occupation is. Like, you bake cookies? You make ice cream? Well, we’ll find a way we can create with that.

“I’ve just finished a piece for one hundred tubas. I’d like to go to all the high schools and get all the tuba players and have a parade and go down to City Hall playing this piece. I want to make music that is socially usable and from which there can be direct results. Like, I dig watching shoemakers, watchmakers, ceramicists, work. I wish my art could be as useful as theirs is—I wish somebody could put tea or coffee in my music, or put their feet in it.

“But there are so many different types of music happening in the AACM. Chicago is a new center of the New Music. The atmosphere there seems to be more conducive to real creativity than New York’s. Nobody’s famous there and nobody’s working, so if you’re in music it’s only because you love it.

“Each person is realizing the different things he can do—his capacity for creating in different areas. This is something that’s just beginning—we’ve been practicing and working for three years now, but it’s still just beginning. What’s happening now is really just a stepping stone and a way of people getting their minds together. The music has just begun. That’s why the AACM is so important, because it’s given us the opportunity to study exactly what’s been opened up by people like Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, and ‘classical’ composers like John Cage—to find out what will be the disciplines that we have to learn and what new avenues are available for the young musicians to explore.”

I asked Braxton to elaborate on the ‘classical’ influences in his music.

“I want to be able to make use of everything that’s in the air,” he said. “I want to arrive at a world art that takes in everything. Nobody can tell me that John Cage, or David Tudor playing Stockhausen (which I just heard the other day, and which knocked me out), is not my music. There are a lot of people contributing in ‘classical’ music who I’m attracted to. I listen to ‘classical’ music an awful lot and I’m very involved with it. Like, for me, John Cage is one of the two most important composers in the country today—the other is Duke Ellington. Cage’s knowledge and use of so many different concepts, textures and properties have been a major contribution to music, and anybody who’s in contemporary art has to know about them. Cage has done so much in terms of materials he’s worked with and notions he’s gone through—even the unsuccessful notions. And the fact that he’s always trying to assimilate new concepts into the music, I find that very attractive.

“Of course there are a lot of things Cage hasn’t come to terms with. His music is almost all intellectual, all conceptual. He’s so conceptual that the only way you can really deal with him is through some kind of intellectual system. That’s true of Stockhausen, too. Stockhausen (who is just the end of Webern) and Cage are like at the opposite polls of the same thing—Stockhausen with his empirical intellectualism, Cage with his metaphysical intellectualism. I met Cage once and we talked about this. I was telling him that when you look in this life you see trees and rocks, but you also see people—people exist, egos exist (in the sense that each person is coming from his own head), and if that’s true then his music isn’t reflecting nature as much as he thinks it is, because people are just as much a part of nature as rocks and trees.

“I’m also aware that Cage has put down black art. But that’s something I overlook because that’s something he has to deal with, not me, and I devote my attention to the positive things he’s contributed. Actually, I think Cage, in regard to jazz, is starting to listen now and going through a period of change. He’s been a victim of the scene, like everybody else; his inability to really expose himself to black art, to really be open to it and acknowledge it, has led him to a lot of wrong conclusions. But now I think he’s becoming aware of the importance of black musicians, aware that he can learn from Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman. It’s basically about improvisation. Nobody who walks into the next twenty years and calls himself a contemporary musician will be able to do it without having some understanding of what improvisation is all about in terms of the emotions behind it. Improvisation has been a property of world art—with the exception of Western art—for as long as this planet’s been here. Most contemporary ‘classical’ musicians have now come to the juncture where they’re starting to understand that they’re going to have to know about Duke and Miles. If you don’t know about them, you’re missing some essential knowledge, because they’ve been through it gloriously.

“But I’m saying that in spite of themselves and their emotional deficiencies, people like Cage and Stockhausen have done so much. One thing for sure, the next stage of creativity will employ the gains that Cage has made, as well as the gains that black art has made. That much is undeniable.

“Getting back to the music in the AACM,” Braxton went on, “what’s happening is that we’re coming to realize that we have to bring all the different arts, all the different avenues, together. Music, painting, sculpting—they’re all, in themselves, very limiting. We’re working on getting to a wider spectrum with a label like ‘art’ or ‘activity’ or ‘environment,’ rather that ‘music’ or painting.’ We want to incorporate as many different approaches and avenues as possible. We’re working together in different kinds of groups with different kinds of approaches. We have pieces where each musician plays ten balloons. I have a piece in which I conduct four chairs and four shovels; another piece where an audience comes, the musicians play three blocks away, then someone comes to tell you the concert is over. Leo Smith wrote a lot of plays that we perform. All these different avenues are being covered.

“I mean we can all play on changes, and most of us could read music in a symphony orchestra. But we’re really not concerned with that anymore. Sometimes I do it because I like that kind of music. But it’s not about proving anything anymore.

“What’s happening now can be seen as a logical reaction to the lies this country was built on. But this is not so much a revolution as it is a final curtain being drawn on a particular scene, and while the final curtain is being drawn, a curtain is opening on the next scene.”

Although he was determined to stay in New York, to “meet musicians, hear music, go to art galleries and get into new avenues of expression,” Braxton said that he’d found the scene here in many ways “depressing.”

“The musician’s here are so divided economically, because people who control things divide them that way. But they’re also divided from a lot of other standpoints, and the music in relation to the people is not as strong as it could be. There’s so much dissension here. I feel like what’s needed here is some kind of organizing by the artists along the lines of the AACM. In New York musicians are so separated. It would be nice if we could get together some kind of orchestra and take it to different neighborhoods. I mean there are so many remarkable people walking around now creating music, whose music could reach out to all the people. But those in control won’t let it get through to the public.

“There’s been a conscious, plotted attempt to suppress and wipe out creative music in this country. I think you realize the significance of art in a culture and what the new art represents and who it threatens if people are able to hear it. It becomes a threat to existing values because it can expand things and stimulate people to change the existing state of things. This is dangerous to people for whom change is not an advantage, so it becomes very…interesting.

“Let me tell you how deep this thing is. When our first record came out on Delmark, it was put down immediately. Immediately. And what was strange, the jazz cats said it wasn’t jazz and the ‘classical’ cats said it wasn’t ‘classical’ music. The critics said it wasn’t even music. One way they’d put it down, they’d use comparison to try to destroy the morale within the group—compare me to Roscoe, compare LeRoy to someone—and they would say, well, the conclusion is that this cat’s better than that cat. That’s a very good way to destroy unity, and that is what was done. Everybody in the group knew it, but we were not in a position to do anything about it. Like certain individuals—they know who they are—consciously exploited what we did and used it for something else.”

Braxton was ready to split. “You know,” he paused to say, “here I’ve been talking all this time about art and artists, but actually I’ve never really wanted to fully identify with the idea of being an ‘artist,’ or with the idea of playing music for a living. I’m afraid of being a ‘musician’ in the sense that society defines it—that is, of separating art from life, or of being in the music business. Art gets to be so manipulated. Like everybody’s a potential artist—butchers, bakers…I think the whole idea of art is something that Western culture has introduced so that it can be used on evil trips. Like, Western music was originally just a toy for rich people, something for the king to talk shit about. I feel that potentially we all are the music, our lives are art in the purest sense. So I don’t want to sell my music anymore than I want to sell my hands. It’s very evident, just checking out the scene, that if you tamper with the music and turn it into a synthetic, then in fact you turn yourself into a synthetic. It’s very hard to participate and not have that happen.

“Of course, I can see how right now we need ‘artists,’ as such, to help show people that they’re artists, too; to show them what’s meaningful. Consciousness is the most valuable thing that can be communicated right now—making people aware of themselves and their environment—and there has to be somebody holding the line and pointing out the options and the different avenues to learn about. In this country right now the people who are artists in the truest sense of the word are participating in an activity which will bring this consciousness about. And then maybe we will be able to stop categorizing ourselves.

“Actually, some of the most creative people I’ve met are not involved in music. They’re simply living what the music is about.”

Thu 1/29/09 12:07 PM
George Perle was a dedicated composer, teacher and theorist who accomplished something worthwhile in all three fields. He has created on the most accessible oeuvre’s of dodecaphonic-inspired musical composition, written two excellent books on composition both addressing different sets problems in rigorous but accessible fashion, he taught generations of students, and his insightful, meticulous and thorough analysis, especially of the works of Alban Berg, had depend our understanding and appreciation on many levels. It is unfortunate that he is almost virtually unknown outside of his students and academic specialists.

“Öffne dich, mein ganzes Herze!”

Kan man tala om söndagens geni utan att dra upp Bach? – ”Den Nja,  Förr eller senare måste man nog göra det, men det är inte helt lätt att hitta egenheter som inte känns igen. Alla känner till honom på något sätt, och många har utan att tänka på det sjungit en av hans melodier från Bondekantaten:

“Nu grönskar det…”.

Hans kännetecken som geni är många, men han var inte så känd för allt när han levde, eftersom de flesta då som nu inte funderar på varifrån musiken i kyrkan kommer, utan man sjunger med, lyssnar blir förtjust, men glömmer det sen igen när vardagens slit gör sig påminnt.  Det finns ju ett märkligt faktum att han hade väldigt stor energi, men också skrev så mycken musik att man undrar hur han har hunnit skriva den, så en förklaring skulle kunna vara att han faktiskt inte skrev allting utan ”spelade i ett band”

Yeah!!!  Groove it!!

Dvs alla gubar och gumor i stämmorna visste hur en chaconne i D-moll funkade så om han gav dem en där dessutom både melodi och generalbas var angivna så visste de hur de skulle spela, och när de fick göra sina solon. Så var det ganska många som gjorde. Och var det ingen som ställde upp fick man pröva allting själv. 

Här skulle damkören kunna improvisera över de ensamma långa trumpettonerna, samma idé men uppochnedvänd.

En annan lite skojig sak är att han trots sitt ganska pretentiösa tillmäle som evangelistäven skrev rent värdslig musik: En kaffe-kantat, en bonde-kantat, en tobaksmotett  

Annars är det han mest måste göras skyldig för att hans (bandets) musik hjälpt till att skapa det moderna tonspråket: Det är hel tiden en lek med melodier, temata och motiv som flätas hit och dit. Drar man bort en melodi på ena stället repas hela väven upp. Men för detta behövs regler om hur man får leka med melodierna:

I citatet här är dialogen mellan sopranstämman och oboen väldigt tydlig, samtidigt är alla modulationer, (samma snutt upprepad lite högre upp eller lägre ned) både i arian och körsatsen. Hans experiment gick så långt att han systematiserade den ganska populära kompositionstekniken ”fuga” med fasta regler – så till den grad att lyckades skriva en väv med fyra självständiga melodier som skall vändas och vridas hit och dit utan att slås knut på.

Tolvtonsmusiken i blöjor:

Detta näst sista stycket är alltså en fuga, en rent matematiskt skrivet – men spelas givetvis med en viss känslomässig inlevelse

HÄR har vi också grunden till den märkliga musik som skrevs för ca 100 år sen. Alban Berg har i sin opera Wozzeck skrivit in en fuga – förmodligen helt korrekt, men vridit på Bachs regler så mycket att musiken helt tappar styrsel och riktning för våra öron – så fiffig var alltså idén, och så mycket betyder klanger, skådespel, rösterna och dramaturgi. Även för en helt otränad i modern musik och opera går det att hänga med. Speciellt som han vid 9:00 minuter citerar Gustav Mahler.

Men för att citera en annan samtida med Schönberg och Alban Berg – Einstein som nämndes i förra inlägget.

“Wenn man zwei Stunden lang mit einem netten Mädchen zusammensitzt, meint man, es wäre eine Minute. Sitzt man jedoch eine Minute auf einem heißen Ofen, meint man, es wären zwei Stunden. Das ist Relativität.”

(Om man under två timmar sitter tillsammans med en söt flicka så tycks det som vore det en minut, men om man å andra sidan sitter en minut på en het spis, så tycks det som två timmar. Det är relativitet.)

Så därför slutar vi väl där vi började, med min förtjusande julupptäckt Christine Schäfer som sjunger om ”hjärta och mun” ………………  - Suck!!!

(märk hur stråke och sopran har en dialog mot en blyg och dov bakgrund, två solostämmor som delvis kan improviseras mot den färdigskrivna generalbasen)

*

Äh!! Vi avslutar väl förresten med en fräckis om Bach och hans åtminstone 21 barn :

First man: – Do you know why Bach had so many children?

Second man: – No!

First man: – Because his organ had no stops

(Hans orgel hade inga registerandrag)