My Big Gay Ears

John Cage on sound and silence

jody — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 12:40:11 +0000

“When I hear what we call music, it seems to me that someone is talking… But when I hear traffic… I don’t have the feeling that anyone is talking. I have the feeling that sound is acting. And I love the activity of sound. What it does is it gets louder and quieter, and higher and lower, and longer and shorter. It does all those things and I’m completely satisfied.”

Saratoga overview: Farewell season for Dutoit and Juillet

jody — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 03:51:29 +0000

Philadelphia Orchestra
Saratoga Performing Arts Center
August 4-21, 2010

After the Philadelphia Orchestra abruptly parted ways in 2008 with its seventh music director, Christopher Eschenbach, it turned to Charles Dutoit to fill in as chief conductor. It’s a mighty long interim status for Dutoit, who will depart in 2012 with the arrival of Yannick Nezet-Seguin.

The connection that made the Dutoit-Philly alliance a natural was his long status as artistic director and principal conductor of the orchestra’s annual August residency at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in upstate New York.

Dutoit ended his 21-year tenure in that post this August. The Spa City also bid farewell to violinist Chantal Juillet, who has been artistic director of the concurrent Saratoga Chamber Music Festival for 20 years. (Earlier this year Dutoit and Juillet were married.) The orchestra season runs for three weeks and Dutoit usually conducts three out of four nights every week (the other time is devoted to pops programs). The chamber music events, which draw on members of the orchestra and guest soloists, are tucked into the Sunday through Tuesday slots.

Because Dutoit and Juillet hightailed it out of town about half-way through the full season, the celebrations of their tenure were particularly intense and concentrated. So too were the musical performances. After they were gone, the orchestra was turned over to a series of guest conductors. Next season will see more of the same, since the SPAC management has no plans to name a replacement for Dutoit for at least a year.

But Saratoga hasn’t seen the last of Dutoit. During the farewell speeches at Dutoit’s last concert, SPAC president Marcia White offered him the title of conductor emeritus if he promised to return next summer for a performance. In his own remarks, Dutoit eventually got around to saying, “See you next year.”

As for the music, it was blockbusters all the way. Such has it always been. Opening night August 4 featured Yo-Yo Ma in a typically sublime performance of the Elgar Concerto followed by a blistering account of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring.” Sometimes, in one run-through after another of standard rep, Dutoit can veer from being remarkably efficient to a tad mechanical. Likewise, it feels like the Philly musicians could deliver certain pieces in their sleep. But this “Rite” had them all working plenty hard, despite the fact they’d played the piece together several times on an Asian tour earlier in the season.

Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” on August 6 featured a return by actor Alec Baldwin, who narrated Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait” last season. (He’s quickly becoming a regular presence in classical music, by the way, serving as the radio host for the New York Philharmonic.) The concert featured more muscular Stravinsky, with the Suite from “The Firebird.” Another guest for the night was pianist Kirill Gerstein, who gave an attractive and lyric performance of the Liszt Piano Concerto No. 2.

Big crowds in the amphitheatre and lawn, totaling about 4,000, turned out for these nights as well as for an all-Gershwin evening on August 11 with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, who’s an annual presence in Saratoga and, apparently, close pals with Dutoit and Juillet. He began the Piano Concerto in F with austere tone, but it was just a tease that made the blues inflections and flashy runs all the more appealing. The opening work, “An American in Paris” felt remarkably fresh and, even more surprisingly, like a real workout for the orchestra. It was Dutoit’s penultimate night and the players were clearly delivering.

Would Shostakovich’s Festive Overture have been quiet so loud and crisp were it not Dutoit’s farewell concert? Probably not. The August 12 concert proceeded with Korngold’s Violin Concerto with Juillet as soloist. She’s an ambidextrous and modest presence at the chamber music events, some times playing first or second violin or even picking up the viola. Whatever role Juillet takes on, her chamber music work has been nimble and appealing. But this was my second time to hear her in a full concerto and the sound was, again, weak and unsure. Dutoit ended the night with commanding reading of Respighi’s “Pines of Rome.” During his final curtain calls, he waved and mouthed “bye-bye” to the cheering crowds.

Two nights prior, Juillet’s farewell concert with the Chamber Music Festival became an extended musicale in the sold-out 500-seat Spa Little Theatre, a stone’s throw from the amphitheatre. Schumann’s Quintet for Piano and Strings surged with life but was overwhelmed in scale by Dohnanyi’s Sextet for piano, strings, clarinet and horn, a fascinating essay that reached orchestral scale. Gerstein and Thibaudet alternated piano duties, played a charming duet by Faure, and kept the proceedings going for a while with a series of miniatures in tribute to Juillet. For the finale, a duet from Ravel’s “Mother Goose,” Dutoit turned pages while gently resting a hand on Gerstein’s shoulder. Such unedited intimacy gave the feel of a family concert, albeit with some very high caliber relatives.

Things changed dramatically during the final week of orchestra concerts with guest conductors Peter Oundjian and Lawrence Foster. One was reminded of Dutoit’s abilities to work some magic on just a morning of rehearsal time. There were no major errors in either night, but the Brahms Second Symphony under Oundjian lurched more than a bit. And the Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1 only came to life when Sarah Chang tore into the cadenza after the third movement.

Lawrence Foster, who debuted with the Philly in 1977, had a better time of it. Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, with the remarkably relaxed soloist Garrick Ohlsson, was both soupy and choppy in the opening but ensemble matters soon settled in. And the Dvorak Symphony No. 8 ended with night with fine color and charm.

The parade of fresh faces on the podium will continue through next season at least. Sometimes there may be struggles between orchestra and conductor, whatever the repertoire. But after 21 years of Dutoit serving up dependably good, sometime rote performances of rather unimaginative programs, that doesn’t feel like such a bad thing at all.

Concert review: Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music

jody — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 04:00:01 +0000

Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra
Ozawa Hall, August 16, 2010

Who better than a 102-year old man to ask the question, “What are years?”

Composer Elliott Carter, who’s centennial was celebrated two summers ago at Tanglewood, was back again Monday night for the finale of the annual Festival of Contemporary Music in Ozawa Hall. One of his newest pieces is a setting of five poems by Marianne Moore and uses her line, “What Are Years,” as the title.

Judging from the score, performed by the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra and soprano Sarah Joanne Davis, Carter’s longevity has given him a sense of economy and restraint. Not a note was wasted in the lean and communicative music.

The composer remains true to his style. It was austere and crunchy as ever, even when the writing is for harp. And yet it was also powerful, charged and a tad humorous.

The vocal line, though, never felt garbled or overly complicated. Davis sang with perfect diction and a hint of sensuality, almost as if it was a hit aria, not something that required rigorous advanced study. Oliver Knussen had the small orchestra in top form.

The stage was packed with musicians for the rest of the night. For the cap to a week of chamber concerts, Tanglewood pulls out all the stops. As is tradition, the orchestra nearly blows the roof off.

One’s ears rang after Aaron Copland’s heroic Symphony No. 3 ended the night. Faculty member Robert Spano conducted. The opening two movements never flagged in tempo and had an attractive depth and clarity to the sound. But Pitch problems crept into the violins in the more restrained third movement and never quiet disappeared.

Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” begins the final movement and Spano’s vague beat allowed ensemble problems in the brass. After a smudge on such iconic moments, the remainder of the piece felt sullied.

The late Jacob Druckman’s modernist essay “Aureole,” from 1979, opened the concert. The atonal writing and steady beat put the emphasis on the brilliant orchestration, which erupted like a series of explosions. Student conductor Keitaro Harada led the admirable performance.

British composer Colin Matthew’s “Turning Point,” written in 2006, came next. At the podium was another conducting fellow, Christian Macelaru. The music’s grim seriousness made the Druckman seem downright playful. Yet the volatile writing had a mysterious and surprising emotional force, as did the entire concert.

Conductor Alan Pierson in the Times’ wedding/celebrations pages

jody — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:28:15 +0000

Alan Pierson, artistic director, conductor and keyboardist of the group Alarm Will Sound, and his partner David Scott Herszenson, a physician, appeared in yesterday’s New York Times announcements of weddings/celebrations. The couple “affirmed their partnership” in a ceremony in Chicago. Congratulations!

Jean-Yves Thibaudet plays Gershwin

jody — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 17:29:25 +0000

All Gershwin. All good.

That pretty much describes the line-up as well as the outcome of Wednesday night at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. It was Charles Dutoit’s penultimate program as artistic director and principal conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s annual summer season and also a rare immersion into all-American terrain.

Opening the program was “An American in Paris.” The honking strains of its opening bars are so ubiquitous that the rest of the piece felt revelatory, if still quite familiar. Beyond the bouncing appeal, the piece is actually quite a workout for the orchestra and, no surprise, the Philly musicians made easy work of it. The whirlwinds in the percussion, the sassy muted brass and the heavy stride of the tuba were among the many highlights.

Somehow the score got Dutoit to engage his players in a different kind of choreography than usual. A fluttering left hand and a sudden, deep bend of the knees were some of his more startling podium antics not seen previously. His mix of economic understatement and spontaneous drama are something to savor.

Dutoit’s regular collaborator, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, was the pianist in two works. It was no accident that Thibaudet has a new Gershwin album. He probably wishes there were enough repertoire by the composer to release a boxed set. Gershwin’s mix of classical gestures and blues-inflections suit the French showman very well.

The Piano Concerto in F came first and Thibaudet began it with a restrained and austere sound. But that was just a tease to make the fast runs in the treble all the more sparkling and pronounced. A standout passage came in the second movement when the piccolo echoed notes Thibaudet had just played and with the very same inflections.

After intermission, pianist and orchestra united again for a brief romp in the “I Got Rhythm” Variations. The tune is so catchy that this is one set of variations it’s almost impossible to get lost in. The major second dissonances in the piano part stood out in Thibaudet’s interpretation.

Robert Russell Bennett’s symphonic picture from “Porgy and Bess” ended the program. When the strings played “Summertime,” the loud August crickets didn’t feel out of place. The arrival of a pair of saxophones midway through the suite was a dollop of fresh color in a night already saturated with vibrancy

Originally appeared in the Times Union.

By the way, Jean-Yves looked smashing as usual, wearing a blazer with a variety of black tones, textures and unusual seams to it. The garment is surely an original by Vivienne Westwood, his favored designer. At his waist he wore her line’s distinctive logo, fashioned out of crystals. On Monday night at the Saratoga Chamber Music Festival, Jean-Yves wore a different sport coat for each half of the program. First it was a charcoal grey number with light trim and then it was the same jacket he wore Wednesday with the orchestra. Somebody should do a fashion shoot with him.

Vivian Perlis remembers Aaron Copland

jody — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 04:00:53 +0000

Most music lovers are interested in composers’ notes, but Vivian Perlis is obsessed with their words. Interviewing all manner of figures in American music over the past forty years, she’s been a leader in the once emerging, now established field of “oral history.”

Perlis’ ten-year association with the late Aaron Copland resulted in their co-authoring his two-volume autobiography. She’ll give a talk about the composer this coming Saturday morning in Cooperstown, as part of a seminar weekend at Glimmerglass Opera, where Copland’s only full-length stage work “The Tender Land” is currently running in repertory.

“Usually people ask what he was really like, and so this won’t be a musicological presentation but a personal one,” says Perlis. “I will use some video clips that project Copland’s personality and his easy going and attractive manner and will connect it to his so-called Americana works and certain aspects of ‘The Tender Land.’”

“He was friendly and generous and open and unselfish and so forth,” continues Perlis. “But as you got to know him and how he operated, it’s a more complex personality and he had many paradoxes. He was certainly the gentlemen people described but he was very confident in what he did musically.”

Perlis’ work in oral history began in the late 1960s when she tracked down everyone she could find who knew Charles Ives. The result was the acclaimed 1974 book, “Charles Ives Remember.” That project gave birth to the Oral History of American Music, an archive based at Yale University that today contains more than 2,000 interviews with some 900 individuals.

Ever since the Ives project, Perlis’ methodology in profiling her subjects has included interviews with their friends and colleagues. Currently in the works is a new single-volume edition of the Copland autobiography. As in its original incarnation, it’s laced with anecdotes from those in Copland’s illustrious circle.

“Bernstein would kid him about being frugal, and he was frugal in not spending money on clothes or furniture but also in always using good music,” says Perlis.

Not an uncommon practice among composers, Copland would take the best music from one short-lived or failed project and incorporate it into something else, hoping for a longer shelf life. Portions of “The Tender Land,” for example, were originally written for a 1945 musical theater work “The Tragic Ground.”

Dating from the mid-1950s, “Tender Land” comes from one of the more troubled periods in Copland’s life, something Perlis plans to touch on in her talk. In 1953, he was called to give closed-door testimony before Joseph McCarthy and a congressional committee, as part of the senator’s anti-communist campaign.

Though Copland kept a low profile afterward, his response came through a few years later in the opera.

“There’s very little dissonance in ‘Tender Land’ and it’s been pointed out that the one part where he does use a more dissonant musical language is when Grandpa gets angry with the two farmhands,” says Perlis. “Even though they are quickly exonerated, Grandpa says, ‘You’re all the same.’ That guilt by association very definitely came from the McCarthy hearings.”

“He was very fond of saying, ‘agonizing is not my thing,’” recalls Perlis. “But it took a lot more out of him than he realized.”

“He was very much a nationalist,” continues Perlis, “with an old fashioned patriotism that came from his parents being first generation Americans. He really believed things like Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. It was a simple patriotism that nobody finds anymore and he lost some of that because of McCarthy and the cold war.”

Just as Perlis has a rare insight to the lesser known sides of Copland’s personality, she also likes to emphasize the breadth of his compositional output.

“He would say in a mock joking way, ‘nobody remembers me as the wild eyed modernist anymore,’” recalls Perlis. “He was a successful and established conservative composer. Also modest in his appearance and manner, he considered old fashioned to many people. But in earlier years he was a modernist and he regretted that people didn’t remember him in more ways.”

“He was interested in a lot of different things and always wanted to try new things, even serialism, which he used in one of his last pieces, Connotations for Orchestra,” says Perlis. “I remember him saying, ‘People just want me to write another ‘Appalachian Spring.’”

Originally appeared in the Times Union, Albany, NY.

Photos: Courtesy Oral History of American Music project at Yale.

Previously on MyBigGayEars: Aaron Copland: Restive Patriot

Preview and review: Schreker’s “The Distant Sound” at Bard College

jody — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 04:00:59 +0000

The name of the opera is “The Distant Sound.” Yet the new production at Bard College’s SummerScape, which opens Friday night, will probably focus on plenty more than just sound. If it holds true to the festival’s recent track record, it will also be spectacular to look at.

Last year’s staging of “The Huguenots” was a feast of visual wonder with enormous set pieces, imaginative costumes and, most memorably, numerous staged references to famous paintings, starting with a tableaux of Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.”

Returning from his success with “The Huguenots” is director Thaddeus Strassberger, winner of the 2005 European Opera Director’s Prize.

“It’s another big production and orchestrally it’s a huge sound. We’ve decided to set it in the time of Schreker,” says Strassberger, referring to the almost forgotten Franz Schreker (1878-1934). An Austrian composer, conductor and teacher, he was hailed during his day as the most successful theatrical composer since Wagner. “The Distant Sound” is the second of his nine operas and is about a composer who forsakes a woman to pursue a mirage-like sound.

“I prepared by spending reading about his life and listening to his other works. Some significant correlations between the main character’s quest and autobiographical elements of Schreker’s own experience soon emerged,” says Strassberg. “We’re looking at the inter-war years and the conflict between 19th century romanticism and the post-war 20th century.”

To translate history and sound into a theatrical experience, Strassberger is again turning to pre-existing visual works. Rather than religious iconography, as with “The Huguenots,” this time it’s the emerging medium of photography and film.

“Celluloid, plastics, and film-developing technologies were beginning to forever alter the world these characters inhabit,” says Strassberger. “The very first image that you’ll see in our production is a huge photograph of a forest scene. Right away, we see a natural world that is filtered through man-made machines.”

Famous paintings are also part of the visual language. Strassberger, who’s collaborating with set designer Narelle Sissons, says they won’t be quoting previous works, as he did with the literal reproductions of paintings in “The Huguenots.” Instead, it will be a more subtle process of “referencing” such artists as George Grosz, who painted caricatures of Berliners in the 1920s, and Otto Dix, another German painter who’s grotesque style raised the ire of the Nazis.

Explaining such selections, Strassberger says, “There’s a bit of irony and cynicism that begins to seep in during the 20th century.”

Bard’s new production is the first American staging of “The Distant Sound,” which debuted in 1912 in Frankfurt. Just four years ago the college’s president Leon Botstein conducted the American Symphony Orchestra in the opera’s American concert debut. Writing in the New York Times, Anthony Tommasini called the work an “arresting masterpiece.”

It’s become a summer tradition at Bard’s Fisher Center for such obscure and forgotten behemoths to be revived on a lavish scale and play for hardly more than a week. (There will be only four performances of “The Distant Sound.”) It’s exceptional in an era when most opera companies must join forces in order to share the financial burdens of any new productions, especially of unknown works.

Strassberger sounds rather philosophical about the month of intensive rehearsals that goes into such a short run.

“We’re not creating a finished product,” he says, “but starting a dialogue and hoping to inspire other people to explore the composer’s work.”

Schreker: The Distant Sound
Fisher Center, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson
Friday, July 30, 2010

It’s surprising that composers haven’t written more operas about being a composer. At first glance, Franz Schreker’s “Der ferne Klang” (The Distant Sound) is the exception. It’s about Fritz, a composer who forsakes his marriage and most everything else of value in order to chase after some ethereal music he hears either in his head, or off in the distance, or out of the orchestra pit.

But really the opera shows what a mess ensues every time he renews contact with his long suffering wife Grete. Families of high strung artists might have some identification.

The opera premiered in 1913 in Frankfurt and made the career of Schreker who died in 1934 in Berlin. Bard College’s new production, which opened Friday night at the Fisher Center, was it’s American staged debut. As part of the college’s SummerScape festival, it’s the latest oversized historical oddity dug up by visionary Leon Botstein, who conducted the performance with the American Symphony Orchestra.

Just as Fritz can’t quiet get a grip on that distant sound, the entire opera is a bit vague and out of focus. Thaddeus Strassberger’s staging, with sets by Narelle Sissons, only heightens the elusiveness of everything, with an emphasis on reflective surfaces.

The opening scene shows the weightiness of domesticity, with the living room furniture all tied together by heavy rope. From a visual perspective, the second scene is the most captivating of the night. Grete sits in a movie house and muses about her plight. We see her through a scrim, onto which is projected a black and white film about a lonely women. The historic footage -- from Fritz Lang’s 1921 film “Der Mude Tod” (The Tired Death) — is beautifully edited to follow the contours of the live music.

Schreker’s writing has some highly dramatic interludes and snappy bits for the character roles. In contrast, the arias are long and wandering, floating and hovering on the edge of tonality.

Tenor Mathias Schultz, as Fritz, sang even his highest notes with a firm and sturdy voice. But he always looked hunched and distraught if not in outright pain. In the role of Grete, soprano Yamina Maamar was best when the character was far from Fritz, trying to build her own life even if in a brothel.

The lively second act happens in a cabaret decorated with dozens of etched mirrors. The women from the chorus parade in and out, wearing one new set of feathery costumes after another. Bard’s lavish productions always make even the most curious pieces worth attending.

Originally published in the Times Union.
Images courtesy Bard College.

Chester Biscardi goes to China

jody — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 10:55:22 +0000

My friend Chester Biscardi says he wishes he had something gay to tell me about his recent trip to China in May. But two weeks of performances of your music on the other side of the planet is nothing to apologize for.

He was featured composer at the Beijing Modern Music Festival and from the look of the photos, he was treated very well. He kept a detailed journal of the experience and the folks at Sarah Lawrence College, where Chet teaches, prepared a fine summary. Click on the photos here for links to their page.

In other Biscardi news, finishing touches are going into a Koussevtizky/Library of Congress commission for voice and 10 instruments, to be premiered next spring and a new full-length CD on Naxos is also scheduled for release next year.

Opera review: Copland’s Tenderland at Glimmerglass

jody — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 04:00:55 +0000

The late composer Aaron Copland created a signature American sound in just a few distinctive orchestral works, including Appalachian Spring, Rodeo and Fanfare for the Common Man. Pungent excerpts from these pieces are a part of every presidential inauguration.

But his catalog is deep and not everything in it was one for the ages. His only full length opera “The Tender Land,” which is currently playing at Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, is a reminder that even the beloved Copland was a fallible human.

Outgoing Glimmerglass general manager Michael MacLeod made an admirable, if economic, decision in resurrecting the piece and casting it entirely with members of the company’s Young American Artist program. Some 800 singers apply every year for the program, one of more prestigious in the field. The chosen few – there were 38 this year – usually spend the better part of their summer playing small roles, singing in the chorus, and waiting in the wings as understudies.

This year they were in the spotlight. Too bad that they didn’t get a better opera to sink their teeth into.

“The Tender Land” (1952) is a troublesome piece primarily because of a thin story and the lousy libretto by Horace Everett (the pen name of Copland’s younger lover Erik Johns). It goes back and forth from mundane dialogue to attempts at poetry. The characters often announce their feelings (rather than letting the music communicate them) and certain words just get ground into the ground with repetition (“Will you hire a stranger? Yes, I’ll hire a stranger. Hey, he’ll hire a stranger. Now I’m not a stranger. No, you’re not a stranger”)

The score does up plenty of familiar, comforting Americana, especially in the lush instrumental writing. Glimmerglass’ former music director Stewart Robertson returned to conduct and got a mostly sumptuous sound from the orchestra. Occasionally the singers were covered a bit while some thin passages felt a bit frail and unsure.

Director Tazewell Thompson went for simplicity, an appropriate choice for the homespun theme and single unit set. Too often, though, he just didn’t give the singers enough to do. Some sprightlier tempos from Robertson might have also helped move things along.

On the other hand, at the end of the first act there was so much going on – the women doing chores, the men packing their bags – that it detracted from the brief pleasures of “The Promise of Living,” one of the opera’s two popular choruses. The other, “Stomp Your Foot,” could have used a real choreographer.

As the lead character Laurie, soprano Lindsay Russell sang beautifully and negotiated the emotional turns about as well as could be expected. In three short acts she goes being a moody school girl to a jilted women ready to face the world on her own.

Tenor Andrew Stenson as Martin had a sweet romantic voice, but it wasn’t quiet big enough for the house. His companion Top was played with more gusto by baritone Mark Diamond. As the grandfather, Joseph Barron hit all the bass notes with plenty of volume, but his authoritative anger was unvaried. Of the adult characters, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Foley Davis as the mother gave the most believable and well-rounded performance.

I arrived at Glimmerglass hoping for the best from “The Tender Land,” having good memories of production at Bard College’s SummerScape festival in 2005. But that performance was in an even more intimate theatre (about 150 seats as I recall) and of a chamber version arranged by Murray Sidlin, who added some of Copland’s “Old American Songs” into the score. They added some welcome life to the score and gave the chorus more to do. Bard’s production standards are also on a higher level than Glimmerglass lately. The sets for both productions had tall grasses in the background, yet Bard’s stage was a quarter the size and yet had far more interesting structural aspects.

Another kind of Americana is in store next summer at Glimmerglass, during Francesca Zambello’s first summer as the boss. The news that opera star Deborah Voigt will sing the lead in “Annie Get Your Gun” is a huge sign of the company’s new direction. (Read the full announcement of the 2011 season here.)

Preview and review: Bang on a Can celebrates George Crumb

jody — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 02:19:15 +0000

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.