A piece of American music seldom stays fresh, even surprising, to succeeding generations of audiences. Datedness sets in so quickly, while nostalgia takes a long time to show up.

George Crumb’s “Black Angels” is an exception.

Written almost 40 years ago during the height of the Vietnam War, “Black Angels” is scored for electric string quartet and is subtitled “Thirteen Images from the Dark Land.” The score is structured on theories of numerology and includes references to Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” and the “Dies Irae” theme from Gregorian chant.

In 1972, Time magazine named the debut LP of “Black Angels” as “Avant Garde Record of the Year.” A CD recording by the Kronos Quartet made it a hit again in 1990. And this weekend, Bang on a Can places it as the centerpiece of a full day at MASS MoCA celebrating the music of George Crumb, who lives in West Virginia and turned 80 last fall.

Composer David Lang, a co-founder of Bang on a Can, will lead a discussion and performance of Crumb’s music in the afternoon. The evening event features performances of “Black Angels” as well as the trio, “Vox Balaenae” (voice of the whale) and a series of madrigals to poems of Federico Garcia Lorca. More than a concert, it will also include live video by Jim Findlay.

A New York City visual artist, filmmaker and performer, Findlay has worked extensively with Bang on a Can on various theatrical happenings and comes to the music of Crumb with a typical sense of wonder and excitement.

“This was music you could blow people’s heads off with,” says Findlay, recalling his first encounter with “Black Angels” during the early ’90s. “It’s classical music, with classical instrumentation and serious intent, but it wasn’t repetitive and had a level of noise and the aggressiveness that I could relate to. This was like rock with violins!”

The new project has allowed Findlay a wider exposure to Crumb’s music and its inherent theatricality. For example, Crumb’s score to “Vox Balaenae” says that the performers should wear masks and perform under blue lighting.

“We’re going take that one step further and make a full stage environment,” says Findlay. He’ll be controlling three video cameras during the performance, but adds that more specifics of the show will be worked out during the week prior to the performance, during Bang on a Can’s annual summer residency in the galleries of MASS MoCA.

Asked whether the war-resistance roots of “Black Angels” might come into play, Findlay turns to a more contemporary struggle.

“With ‘Vox Balaenae,’ I’m having trouble getting away from the BP disaster,” he says. “I’m creating this black-and-white world and think about oil and water and all the things that are dying. It’s the kind of topicality that in classic art is transferable, but it’s always better when the audience makes that connection themselves. I trust it’s in the music.”

Bang on a Can presents
George Crumb Celebration
Mass MoCA, North Adams, Mass
July 25, 2010

Bang on a Can is dedicated to the forefront of contemporary music but the organization is still respectful of its elders. Concerts have often featured music from way back in the 1980s.

Saturday night’s program at Mass MoCA was practically ancient history with five pieces dating from 1965 through 1971by George Crumb.  The American composer, who turned 80 last fall, helped create the musical avant garde and these works are full of what’s called extended instrumental techniques, like singing into the flute, bowing on the bridge of a double bass, and strumming on the inside of the piano.  Tuned wine goblets and occasional whispers and shouts from the players were also part of the mix.

Over the years such stuff has become rather cliched, especially in the hands of lesser composers.  Yet the whole program was performed with great dignity and professionalism by the 17 musicians. Most appeared to be in the early to mid-20s.

The pieces were mostly trios and quartets, yet there were no set changes nor breaks between pieces.  Jim Findlay organized the staging and from a corner of the stage he created a live video backdrop.  His grainy, black and white images were mostly close ups of various rotating objects. They lent a cool reverence to the proceedings.  The only technical flaw in the night was a persistent noise floor from the amplification system.

The most startling and varied piece was the string quartet “Black Angels.”  Apart from all that the players had to do, including play gongs and wine glasses, the piece also traversed a world of styles, including a couple of hushed but jolting references to early music.  Did Crumb foreshadow postmodernism?

The three female vocalists were especially impressive.  Mezzo Sonya Knussen and soprano Delea Shand soloed in what Crumb called his “Madrigals,” with Spanish poetry by Lorca.  Both singers maintained a dead-on surety of pitch and attractive tone. This was even while delivering some swooping and percussive vocal affects and performing with nontraditional accompaniments.

Also poised and accurate was Amanda DeBoer the soprano in “Lux Aeterna,” which was a surprisingly moving conclusion to the evening. The quintet included two percussionist who got a world of weird rattling sounds from their tympani and other apparatus.  There was also a guitarist and a bass flute player, who both sat on the floor.  The single image on the video was a candle flame.

Originally appeared in the Times Union.

It’s difficult categorizing the new disc “Three Fervent Travelers” from the young string trio

Time for Three is made up of violinists Zachary De Pue and Nick Kendall and bassist Ranaan Meyer.  They started improvising together in the halls of the Curtis Institute about eight years ago and have given hundreds of concerts across the country.  In New York’s Capital Region, they’ve appeared several time at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, most recently with the Philadelphia Orchestra a blue grass-infused concerto written for them by Jennifer Higdon who got to know them in their days at Curtis (and who won the Pulitzer Prize in April).

(8/23/08 Times Union review)

American vernacular styles dominate the new disc, which concludes with two popular cuts: Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” followed by “The Orange Blossom Special.” The remaining selections are all original, with writing credits mostly going to Meyer. Whatever the source material though, everything seems to emerge from a quick-thinking improvisational style.   What’s more, the lively string playing is so rich and sophisticated that there’s no mistaking it for back roads hillbilly music.

“Three Fervent Travelers” is further evidence of a fresh new strain of American classical music that’s already occupied by Mark O’Connor and Daniel Bernard Roumain.  I can’t decide which is more invigorating — the griping quasi-improvised music of these artists or the fact that they’re connecting with audiences.  Just keep it coming.

David Leisner can’t escape Spanish music. He’s a guitarist.

“It’s been a crusade since early in my career to demonstrate that guitar programs don’t need to have Spanish music,” says Leisner.  “Most of the guitar repertoire is not Spanish at all! The pieces most people think of by Albeniz and Granados were originally piano pieces.

“The majority of music written for the guitar before the 20th century is from Italy and from Central Europe.   In the 20th and 21st centuries, only a very few important composers for the guitar were Spanish, the most famous being Rodrigo.  The masterpieces of the modern literature are by Britten, Ginastera, Henze, and Takemitsu.”

Leisner thinks there’s one new masterpiece about to arrive, “Facts of Life” by David Del Tredici. Leisner commissioned the piece, worked extensively with the composer in its creation, and will premiere it on April 29 at Symphony Space in New York.

A composer himself, Leisner, 56, has already written extensively for his instrument (as well as plenty of orchestral, chamber and vocal music).  With his concert series Guitar Plus, he’s now focused on expanding the repertoire for the instrument by commissioning other composers. Though Del Tredici has never written for the instrument, he was at the top of Leisner’s list.

More than an admirer of Del Tredici, Leisner also studied orchestration with him some years back.  During the two-month process of birthing “Facts of Life,” the tutoring seemed to go in both directions.

“David and I were in contact through phone calls and visits at least a couple of times a week.  I wanted to make myself available as much as humanly possible for this great composer who knew little about the guitar,” recalls Leisner. “We both discovered how valuable my input was because of my abilities and perceptions as a composer.  I had certain capacities as an editor that a non-composing guitarist simply wouldn’t have had, and I believe David found that helpful.  And observing David’s composing process so intimately was like one big composition lesson.”

Leisner originally approached Del Tredici for a 10-minute piece. Yet as with many other DDT commissioners, he got far more than he bargained for. Del Tredici countered that original offer with a suggestion of 15 minutes, yet the piece continued to grow.  In final form, it stands at four movements and more than half an hour in length.  Leisner likens it to a symphony.

“He wrote what he thought was 26 minutes of music, but because tempos on the piano (his composing instrument) tend to be faster than what’s possible or sounds good on the guitar, it’s turned out to be closer to 35 minutes.”

The piece includes two fugues – a challenge for the guitar that both composer and performer relished. And then there’s the final movement.

“A request I made at the beginning was not to write Spanish-flavored music.  I told him it was a cliche. A couple of months later he wrote the humongous last movement of the piece, called ‘Flamenco Forever,’ which centers totally on a typical Spanish Flamenco rhythm and style.  He was being very naughty and he knew it.  Probably only DDT can get away with this, but it’s fabulous!”

Along with the Del Tredici premiere, Leisner’s program features pieces for guitar and harp by Alan Hovhaness and Xavier Montsalvatge, performed with harpist Yolanda Kondonassis.  Another Guitar Plus event, also at Symphony Space, happens on April 23 with the trio known as Crazy Jane, which consists of baritone Patrick Mason, guitarist David Starobin and percussionist Daniel Druckman.  Their program features Leisner’s Three James Tate Songs plus works by George Crumb, Akemi Naito, Paul Lansky and William Bland.

By the way, next month Leisner and his partner Ralph Jackson will celebrate their 29th anniversary. Ralph is vice president of concert music for BMI.  But they’re an integrated musical family. To wit: Del Tredici is a member of ASCAP.

Composer Robert Baksa readily admits that he writes music in which the underlying intelligence and rigor is not always apparent on first listen.

And he’s comfortable with that — mostly.

“A review of my first Flute Sonata said that the harmony was so simple it would make Mozart or Handel climb the walls,” Baksa says. “Actually, there’s polytonality in that piece, it just doesn’t sound that way.”

Baksa’s newest CD, “Journeys” (MSR Classics), features more than an hour of flute and guitar music performed by the Heim Duo from Alabama. And it is, indeed, more warm and sweet than it is flashy or grabby.

“It makes it difficult to win grants and contests,” says the 72-year old composer with a knowing grin.  And he’s right on that count, too.  When a piece is being reviewed by committee, something ear-popping usually needs to happen in the first minute or two, otherwise the agenda usually moves on to the next application.

While his music may take its time in making impact, Baksa certainly doesn’t hold back much in conversation.  He’s been in the music business long enough to have more than few juicy stories and a seasoned perspective for how the world works.

“Things never really jelled for me in New York. I don’t think I was pretty enough for those guys,” he says, referring to several decades of living on Manhattan’s upper west side and mingling in gay musical circles, where he was better known as a music copyist than a composer. “But Copland did get me into Tanglewood and he certainly ogled me when I was there.”

Baksa also has an imaginative view on the hand of fate.

“John Corigliano and I were born two weeks apart,” he says. “John had a famous father and relatives in television.  I always liked to think we were up in heaven ready to get born and God was dividing up the talent and opportunity but the phone rang.  He stepped away and I went on down to earth and then God came back and gave John a bit more opportunity.”

Baksa landed on earth in New York and was raised in Arizona.  He was about 12 years old when his family bought their first piano and he immediately began composing.  “There are three pieces from my high school years that still get performed,” he says.

Another youthful talent was drawing. While in high school he had a series of original cartoons appear in the Arizona Daily Star. And that flair for the printed page served him well as a music copyist, first with pen and paper, later with computers.  Asked which of the most popular engraving programs he uses — Finale or Sibelius — Baksa proudly says he’s stayed true to Score, a DOS application that he’s able to use with Windows 98. “Its appearance is unbelievable,” he says. But he adds it necessitates having two computers. Adding, “I don’t want he internet connecting with my music.”

While most of Baksa’s catalog is vocal and chamber music, he’s written two one-act operas. The first, to Edna St. Vincent Millay’s play “Aria da Capo,” necessitated his trip into the Hudson Valley to negotiate for the rights with Millay’s sister.  The opera went on to be premiered further north at the Lake George Opera in 1969.

His next stage effort, “Red Carnations” was commissioned by the Lincoln Center for the Metropolitan Opera Studio. It’s had a healthy life over the years, primarily through education programs introducing opera to children.  But it was most recently performed by the Diamond Opera Theater, a fledgling group in Hudson, in an imaginative double bill that began with a performance of the original play by Glenn Hughes.

About 10 years ago Baksa and his partner of 14-years Allen Schaefer relocated to the township of Kinderhook in Columbia County, when Schaefer took retirement from a 35-year career in the airline industry.  Settling in the Hudson Valley was a compromise. “Allen wanted Vermont and I said if you go to Vermont and then I’ll stay here (in Manhattan). It was just too far.”  But country life in the Hudson Valley seems to suit Baksa. “I look out my office window on incredible beauty.”

Daniel Bernard Roumain & The Mission

January 22, 2010, The Egg, Albany

Daniel Bernard Roumain, also known as DBR, is a composer with ample classical chops, but he also knows how to improvise — and not just with notes. He turned his long-scheduled return to The Egg on Friday night into a benefit for the victims of the earthquake in Haiti, which is where his own family roots lie. His opening violin solo was a kind of theme and variations on the country’s national anthem.

The musical heart of the program remained mostly in tact, a series of string quartets written in honor of civil rights leaders. During one lengthy movement, a striding tribute to Adam Clayton Powell and Harlem style, Roumain didn’t have to read the vibe of the room to know that the crowd was down with the music. They’d started calling out their appreciation, as at a gospel service. Immediately Roumain brought the audience into the performance, leading them in finger snaps of increasing rhythmic complexity.

A few minutes further into the piece, a telephone sang out in the hall and Roumain halted the quartet. He’d warned us that something might happen during the piece, but a phone call?

Through the speaker system, Roumain conducted a conversation with two American friends who recently arrived in Haiti, asking them to describe in detail the situation and how they’re getting by. If the musical program was curtailed for a while to make time for the dialogue, no one seemed to mind and members of the local Haitian community were allowed to ask a few questions.

Roumain’s series of Civil Rights Portraits features five quartets and portions of four were performed. The music is post-minimal with most sections consisting of a perpetual rhythmic motion. Much of it might feel pretty stagnant when played by a traditional quartet, politely seated on stage. But Romain’s amplified band — the SQ Unit, he calls them — swayed their bodies, grinded their bows and made it all rather gritty and gripping. Their encore of free improvisation was full of daring and personality.

Roumain, 38, is one of the most prominent of the new generation of composers who don’t hide offstage. He’s a dynamic emcee and showman, who sometimes scratches the violin like it’s a turntable. Also part preacher and music instructor, he brings a so-called classical concert to life like nobody else can. Cheers to The Egg for bringing him here regularly.

Mahler’s Fifth Symphony

Albany Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Zander, guest conductor

Saturday January 23, Palace Theatre, Albany

If Benjamin Zander wasn’t already friends with half of the Capital Region by the time he led the Albany Symphony Orchestra on Saturday night, it wasn’t for lack of trying. The Boston conductor had a string of public appearances throughout the week, starting with a well attended talk on leadership Monday night at the Massry Center.  It all culminated with Saturday’s concert in the Palace Theatre featuring Mahler’s Fifth Symphony.

A prescient depiction of modern angst, the Fifth dates from 1902 and is cast in five movements that stretch well more than an hour in length.  Eight-three players were on stage for the performance.

To heighten the effect of Mahler’s stormy vision, Zander began the program with a lilting picture of old Europe in the form of Johann Strauss’ Emperor Waltzes.  He used plenty of rubato, with most passages either racing along or almost dragging.  Though the music was intimate, Zander’s gestures were huge. Since he stands at least six feet tall, the crowd in the balcony could have probably followed along easily.

As if wiping away the exuberant life of his earlier symphonies, Mahler begins the Fifth with a desolate cry from the trumpet.  Eric Berlin handled it and many more solos with aplomb

The first two movements are a near constant tug of war between romanticism and modernity.  Imagine a joyous song accompanied by the march of soldiers.  Yet Zander’s interpretation seemed to accentuate the tender, such as the cello section’s smooth composure during a descending melody in the second movement.

The central Scherzo was most arresting when the strings played pizzicato, followed by a number of solos from the woodwinds and brass. The passage culminated with one of Mahler’s most obvious allusions to the waltz, which prompted a brief return of Zander’s grand beat. He nearly touched the ceiling.  Also memorable in the Scherzo was the sustained and full bodied playing of first horn William Hughes.

The string choir was all heart in the gentle Adagietto, with a delicate underpinning from harpist Lynette Wardle. When the music faded to nothing, the thrilling ride of the finale commenced immediately.  The string of climaxes included a series of descending chords from the mighty brass.

Along the way there were moments to quibble about — an out of tune tympani in the opening movement, a sour tuba solo near the end of the second, and a vague and weary line from a horn near the end. But the larger perspective was Zander outlining a picture of the piece that a talented and dedicated orchestra filled in with both vivid color and deep sentiment.

Brentano String Quartet plays Beethoven

Sunday January 24, 2010, Union College Concert Series, Schenectady

Whether a listener or a performer, everyone in classical music must address the works of Beethoven. But the Brentano String Quartet has a special obligation because it’s named for Antonie Brentano, who scholars believe was Beethoven’s unrequited love interest, his “immortal beloved.”

On Sunday afternoon, for the Brentano’s second solo engagement at the Union College Concert Series, the group stepped up to the challenge with an all-Beethoven program. It was obvious that the material was hardly new to them. Though its members are youthful looking, the Brentano has been around for 18 years already and it couldn’t have earned its many awards and accolades without having a firm grip on Beethoven. From start to finish, they played with a polished sound and impeccable ensemble.

The three quartets at hand date from Beethoven’s early, middle and late periods and were offered in chronological order.  It was an immersive listening experience that got deeper, though surprisingly less interesting, as things progressed.

The String Quartet No. 1 in F Major, Op. 18 No. 1 has more than a few touches of Hadyn and Mozart, yet the Brentano brought out the romantic side.  After starting with some beautiful unison trills, the opening Allegro became quite forceful, almost explosive. Then the Adagio was so meditative that the writing seemed a little incoherent, even listless. The spell wore off soon enough as the material turned increasingly grave. The Scherzo had an admirable articulation and bounce but the final Allegro, with Beethoven’s return to classical gestures, rattled on a bit.

Even more free form was the String Quartet No. 9 in C Major, Op. 59, No. 3 “Rasumovsky.”  In his program notes, founder and first violinist Mark Steinberg described it as feeling “at sea.” The piece really came to life in the spare Andante, when a curvaceous rather Eastern melody got passed around for solos.  Cellist Nina Maria Lee had a fun walking bass figure and throughout the afternoon she added more low register support than most quartets have.

After intermission came the Quartet No. 12 in E-flat major, Op. 127.  It’s the first of the so-called late quartets, yet it’s not the late late kind that got into such weird harmonies and forms. It actually turned out to be the most cohesive writing of the afternoon, and one was reminded that E-flat is one mellow key, popular for lullabyes.  As the sun was setting and the piece droned on, it felt good that duties to Beethoven were nearing completion.