{"id":30515,"date":"2015-11-13T15:11:49","date_gmt":"2015-11-13T21:11:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=30515"},"modified":"2023-12-03T10:54:49","modified_gmt":"2023-12-03T16:54:49","slug":"composers-wanted-dead-or-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/composers-wanted-dead-or-alive\/","title":{"rendered":"Composers: Wanted Dead or Alive"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"la-et-cm--andrew-norman-ted-hearne-usc-2013071-001\"<\/a><\/h5>\n
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In three days, two\u00a0of Utah’s premiere classical music organizations collaborated in Salt Lake City in\u00a0a way that will continue\u00a0on four additional weekends\u00a0for the 2015-2016 concert season. Both\u00a0entities\u00a0premiered compositions by a living composer \u2013 one being a world premiere, and the other two Utah premieres. The now-venerable but lively NOVA Chamber Music Series<\/a> gave the Utah premieres of the young American composer Andrew Norman’s string quartet\u00a0An Index of Peculiar Strokes\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Gran<\/em>\u00a0Turismo<\/em>\u00a0(for violin octet), and the Utah Symphony <\/a>gave the world premiere of\u00a0Switch<\/em>, his percussion concerto \u2013 the official title page of the published score says “for Solo Percussion and Orchestra.\u201d Such unity of artistic vision is entirely admirable, and hopefully will continue in succeeding seasons. All three concerts were triumphs and all three premiere compositions created sound worlds that are arresting in their tactile immediacy. Those seeking a deluge of melodies may need to look elsewhere, but lyricism in textures, colors, and at times even rhythms\u00a0is present in all three scores, sometimes in abundance. The three Andrew Norman compositions are for the adventurous musical spirit that desires compelling sonic tapestries.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The NOVA Chamber Music Series has in recent years engaged decisively and on multiple fronts with the works of living composers. Almost every recent concert (six per season on the Subscription Series, two per season with the now almost two-year old Gallery Series) has featured one or more compositions\u00a0by a living composer. The compositions of dead composers are still in many ways the ideal complements to compositions by living composers. Such pairings\u00a0move beyond\u00a0any clash of contrasting styles and ethos to one of eras and musical outlooks. The living and the dead composer are both wanted and needed. The Utah Symphony and even Utah Opera have attempted this overall approach too in recent seasons, but not as consistently and to the same degree. It is often a difficult, daunting, and expensive\u00a0prospect. The most recent concert experience was\u00a0Sunday\u00a0afternoon,\u00a0November 1 at Libby Gardner Concert Hall at the University of Utah. The most recent Utah Symphony experiences were the two concerts given on November 6 and 7 in Abravanel Hall. All three premieres\u00a0were received enthusiastically by many in the audiences, but\u00a0Gran Turismo\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Switch<\/em>\u00a0were the clear winners.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Andrew Norman’s (b. 1979) compositions\u00a0Gran Turismo<\/em>\u00a0(for violin octet) and string quartet\u00a0An Index of Peculiar Strokes\u00a0<\/em>enlivened what could have been a sedate NOVA concert. They each followed works by the great German composer Johannes Brahms (1833-1897). An Index<\/em>\u00a0followed five waltzes from opus 39, and\u00a0Gran Turismo<\/em>\u00a0followed the Scherzo from the F.A.E. violin sonata. Gran Turismo\u00a0<\/em>originally received its world premiere in 2004, and\u00a0An Index of\u00a0Peculiar\u00a0Strokes\u00a0<\/em>in\u00a02011.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

An Index of Peculiar Strokes\u00a0<\/em>was performed with aplomb by the Fry String Quartet (in long-term residence at Utah State University in Logan, Utah). An Index\u00a0<\/em>is a short piece (about\u00a09-10 minutes), with seven brief movements: Release, Rebound, Scrape, Up, Skim, Down, and Skip. The movements explore different ways that bows can move across the strings. For example, “Release” uses quick and smooth repeated and slightly varied upbows with short pauses in between, “Up” only uses one upbow by each string player, “Down” one long downbow by each musician, and “Skip” extremely rapid and leaping fingerings. “Skim,” with its deeply intricate sense of tone colors, and “Skip,” with its liquid tones, were the highlights for this listener. Both\u00a0An Index<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Gran Turismo<\/em>\u00a0are visceral, in that their sounds emphasize textures far beyond any sense of even a hint of fragmented melodies, although tone colors still manifest themselves in a more or less readily discernible way. In the case of\u00a0Gran\u00a0Turismo<\/em>, incessant and varied\u00a0rhythms are part of the concentration on textures, which expand and contract. Eight violinists from the Utah Symphony provided a school in the s\u00e9ance of oscillating and invigorating textures. Kathryn Eberle, who played in the premiere in 2004, led the group of violinists with precision and feeling.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Johannes Brahms composed over twenty masterpieces of chamber music. Andrew Norman has composed\u00a0about half that number of chamber music works. His string trio\u00a0A\u00a0Companion Guide to Rome<\/em>\u00a0(about\u00a025 minutes\u00a0duration) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize\u00a0for Music in 2012, and received its United States\u00a0premiere via NOVA\u00a0on November 13, 2011. I heard that performance, and believe this string trio to be an exceptional composition, although it is noticeably more lyrical than the two works heard on November 1. In the end, the pairing of two of Norman’s chamber music works with several smaller scale compositions by Brahms was an excellent choice. Both composers exhibit a mastery of form, and in\u00a0its own way Norman’s compositional style is as precise and efficient as Brahms’ — and at times as psychologically elusive. Yet Norman’s interest in musical architecture, and architecture more generally, is an additional reason why these two works of his parry well with the works of Brahms, whose\u00a0compositions are known for their adherence to this focal point. Norman is a fastidious craftsman, and so was Brahms. Of course, only time will unveil\u00a0what place the two modern compositions will find in the chamber music repertoire.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The\u00a0five piano four-hands (duet) compositions by Brahms that began the afternoon concert, five surreptitiously gallant\u00a0waltzes from opus 39 (from a total of sixteen short ones composed in 1865),\u00a0were dashed off with a probing wit, but also with at least some weight in tonal density and shafts of beaming lyrical radiance. Kimi Kawashima and Jason Hardink (husband and wife) were intuitively unified\u00a0and reflective\u00a0in their rhythms and little inflections of melodic line. Mr.\u00a0Hardink\u00a0is\u00a0Principal Keyboard of the Utah Symphony, and Kimi Kawashima\u00a0is a superb pianist in her own right, on the faculty at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, and Executive Director of the NOVA Chamber Music Series.<\/p>\n

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Brahms’ contribution to the F. A. E. violin sonata, the\u00a0aggressively lilting and longing Scherzo<\/em>\u00a0third movement, was played by Claude Halter with fine gradations of tonal warmth and insouciant colors. Halter is the Principal Second Violin of the Utah Symphony. Pianist Jason Hardink added just the right amount of rhythmic underpinning to make the performance complete. The sonata has four movements. In a twist, the\u00a0sonata was composed in 1853 by three composers,\u00a0first played in that year, but not published complete until 1935. The German composers Robert Schumann and Brahms composed three of the movements, Schumann the second and last. Schumann’s student Albert Dietrich composed the initial movement. The work was a tribute to the great Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim. Joachim’s personal motto was\u00a0Frei aber einsam\u00a0<\/em>(“free but lonely”), a German Romantic phrase. Joachim premiered the work.<\/p>\n

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After intermission, Brahms’ youthful String Sextet No. 1 in B-flat major, Op. 18 received a performance of stylish point and line. The whole sounded far more compelling than each moment — still gracefully delivered — and a surprising darkness crept into the interpretation. The work has four movements (marked\u00a0Allegro ma non troppo<\/em>,\u00a0Andante ma moderato<\/em>,\u00a0Scherzo<\/em>: Allegro molto, and\u00a0Rondo<\/em>: Poco Allegretto e grazioso), and lasts about\u00a0thirty minutes. It\u00a0was composed for two violins, two violas, and two cellos. For this performance, Utah Symphony principal violist Brant Bayless and Associate Principal cellist Matthew Johnson joined the Fry String Quartet. \u00a0The first movement had a sauntering clarity to its colors with an agile melodic pulse, the second a declamatory sense of lyricism, the third a vehement warmth of articulation, the fourth a hunt for a sense of unified warmth in the lyricism.<\/p>\n

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But the Everest of the second weekend to climb for all involved\u00a0was Andrew Norman’s\u00a0Switch<\/em>. Lasting\u00a0about 20 minutes, it received its world premiere in Abravanel Hall, with the Scotsman Colin Currie playing\u00a0all manner of percussive instruments, including, in striking fashion, tin cans, temple blocks, bongos, congas, wood blocks, vibraphone, and most compelling of all, at the very end,\u00a0seven tuned gongs. Currie actually made his United States orchestral debut with the Utah Symphony in Abravanel Hall a number of years ago, and has previously appeared with the Utah Symphony in 2014, 2011, 2008, 2005, and 1999. He was of course in his element after all these visits and performances. A\u00a0live recording of\u00a0Switch,<\/em>\u00a0edited\u00a0from the two performances (and an audience-less\u00a0“patch” session from late\u00a0Saturday\u00a0evening),\u00a0will be released just before the Utah Symphony’s return to Carnegie Hall in 2016. The two other Utah Symphony commissions given their world premieres this year will also be on the album.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All three Norman\u00a0compositions were received graciously by their audiences, but Switch<\/em>\u00a0should enter the standard percussion concerto repertoire, if there really is even such a thing at the present time. Over the last fifteen to twenty years, numerous percussion concertos have been composed by a range of prominent European and American composers. The genre is perhaps on the verge of inundation, with the number of soloists able and even willing to perform these concertos perhaps numbering less than the fingers on one hand — Evelyn Glennie,\u00a0Colin Currie,\u00a0and Martin Grubinger. One could begin to question the longevity of these concertos after their world premieres. Few have been recorded for commercial release, but then again one could argue that most new orchestral compositions seldom have a chance — or are given one — to even\u00a0enter the standard repertoire.\u00a0The most prominent percussion concertos of recent years include those by the Americans Christopher Rouse (1997), Jennifer Higdon (2005), Steven Mackey (2005), Elliott Carter (2010-2011), the Scot James Macmillan (two, one in 1992, the other 2014), and the Finns Kalevi Aho (finished 2010, premiered 2012) and Einojuhani Rautavaara\u00a0(2008).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Switch<\/em>\u00a0is eminently listenable and approachable. It is in one movement, with, according to the composer,\u00a0many “stories” and different “channels” that are changed by the slapsticks played by three\u00a0orchestral percussionists. It\u00a0is an exhilarating, inventive concerto — a piercing, gleaming, cosmically\u00a0radiating edifice to percussive and orchestral sound. It is perhaps the most visceral of the three Norman compositions performed in Salt Lake City the past two weeks. It begins and ends with some of the quietest orchestral dynamics \u2013 made by the flutes and clarinets, then horns (I believe)\u00a0with no pitch and just an air sound — and then quickly and at times suddenly\u00a0moves into and out of\u00a0busier, even lacerating, tactile, alternating lucidly stark and dense textures and colors, with increasing intensity in the string and brass lines moving in and out of the sonic maelstrom.<\/p>\n

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When\u00a0the soloist\u00a0plays certain percussion instruments, the orchestra, or sections of it, play or stop playing, freeze in place,\u00a0enter different sonic realms, play louder or softer, or higher or lower pitches. The soloist\u00a0moves on a journey from stage left to stage right, with a loop back — or as Andrew Norman says, the orchestra attempts to rewind\u00a0the progress of the soloist. At times the soloist engages in a rush of interplay — an\u00a0unexpected highlight —\u00a0with three other arrays of percussion, placed at stage right, stage center (back), and stage left. These station\u2019s percussion instruments were played dynamically by three members of the Utah Symphony\u2019s percussion section: Michael Pape, Keith Carrick, and Eric Hopkins. Colin Currie, the percussion soloist,\u00a0only emerged from the audience door closest to stage left after the first minute or so of the concerto, and when it ended he slowly and quietly walked to the closest door on stage right. In what is a challenging work for all concerned, Utah Symphony Music Director Thierry Fischer guided all with a sure and exacting control. Colin Currie played smoothly, suavely, and with microscopic precision, and all sections of the orchestra performed as passionately and precisely as ever. This was — I hesitate to say it — an\u00a0absolute triumph for new music.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Switch<\/em>\u00a0does not reveal its secrets in\u00a0one listen, and after hearing it\u00a0twice\u00a0Friday morning (during the Symphony’s Finishing Touches series),\u00a0once\u00a0Friday\u00a0evening, and once\u00a0Saturday\u00a0evening, I am inclined to view it as something of a sonic obsidian stone, which can be perceived as a cleansing sonic bath from multiple moods and perspectives. Not once did I tire of hearing it. It is indeed an indelibly fascinating piece, and is really the only suitable centerpiece for the Utah Symphony’s return to Carnegie Hall\u00a0on\u00a0April 29, 2016\u00a0after an absence of just over forty years.\u00a0Carnegie Hall is still a vibrant concert venue, and the Utah Symphony deserves to play a superb composition there by a living American composer. Switch<\/em>\u00a0can successfully endure comparison with, and complement, the three other compositions that will be performed alongside it: Franz Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 96 “Miracle,” Richard Strauss’ orchestral Suite from his opera\u00a0Der Rosenkavalier<\/em>, and B\u00e9la Bart\u00f3k’s Suite from his lurid ballet The Miraculous Mandarin. The audience will\u00a0thus move from the Classical era, to\u00a0a twilight of late Romanticism, to\u00a0one of the\u00a0initial flowerings of twentieth century modernity, to the contemporary soundscape.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After the brisk and immersive sonic aura of\u00a0Switch<\/em>,\u00a0the second half of the concert\u00a0attempted to conjure the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No.\u00a05 (composed in 1901 and 1902, premiered in 1904 in Cologne, Germany). This symphony\u00a0is in three parts and five successive movements. Part I\u00a0has two movements. The first movement is marked\u00a0Trauermarsch\u00a0<\/em>(Funeral March).\u00a0In gemessenem Schritt.\u00a0Streng.\u00a0Wie ein\u00a0Kondukt\u00a0and\u00a0the second\u00a0St\u00fcrmisch bewegt, mit gr\u00f6\u00dfter\u00a0Vehemenz<\/em>\u00a0(Moving Stormily, with the greatest vehemence). These movements last about thirteen and fifteen minutes respectively. Part II\u00a0has one movement — the third — marked\u00a0Scherzo<\/em>: Kr\u00e4ftig, nicht zu schnell (Strong, not too fast), and it lasts about eighteen to nineteen minutes. Part Three is in two movements. The fourth movement is marked\u00a0Adagietto<\/em>.\u00a0Sehr langsam, and the last movement is\u00a0Rondo<\/em>.\u00a0Finale<\/em>.\u00a0Allegro — Allegro giocoso.\u00a0Frisch (Fresh). The fourth movement lasts about twelve minutes, and the last about\u00a0fifteen.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Fifth Symphony, along with Mahler’s Symphony No.\u00a07 (also in five movements), is perhaps the most difficult of\u00a0his\u00a0nine canonical\u00a0symphonies to play with the utmost conviction — the array of emotions sought after and conveyed in the first three moments alone is like a vast rift or chasm — despair, anxiety, hope, possible triumph — it’s all there, sometimes at the same time or right next to each other. The array is certainly present in his first four symphonies, just not in such a tortured, almost ever present climactic series of battles.<\/p>\n

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The performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 on Friday November 6\u00a0most assuredly engaged the aural senses, but came across to this listener as less cohesive and coherent than\u00a0Switch<\/em>. I suppose\u00a0Mahler 5\u00a0should be discursive\u00a0in a way, since performances usually last about 70-75 minutes. Perhaps my sense of the performance’s qualities was affected by my third tier seat close to one of the corners furthest from the stage. Transitions of mood and dynamics were somewhat too smooth. Instrumental lines\u00a0seemed a little too fragmented and sluggish. There was a lack of the rugged intensity of line necessary at times to make Mahler sound like more of his time — connected to nature and intimations of death. So I felt\u00a0Friday’sperformance was a good one, but some distance from exceptional. The audience certainly enjoyed it though, and voiced their approval accordingly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Saturday’s\u00a0performance was simply resplendent. The smoothness — of the lyrical lines especially —\u00a0was still there when most needed (the\u00a0Adagietto<\/em>), but the transitions were played with compelling doses of character and a sense of their own little worlds, as in the third movement\u00a0Scherzo<\/em>, the architectural node of the composition.\u00a0The longest movement, this received its diligent but idiomatic due. The whiplash of tone colors and dynamics felt thoroughly haunted and desperate, with passionately conveyed escapades of lyricism — a whimsical, almost carefree interpretation. The famous\u00a0Adagietto<\/em>\u00a0was taken at a broad tempo and was never maudlin or cloying, but perfectly suited the galvanizing sense of expansion and release that engulfed the entire interpretation. The first movement was shapely, the second’s pace craftily sustained, the final movement’s textures a sleekly expansive series of weaving waves. Music director Thierry Fischer and all the orchestral musicians executed this mission of the two-season Mahler symphony cycle with enticing aplomb. Saturdays ovation was markedly more intense that that forSaturday’s\u00a0Mahler 5.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, Salt Lake City witnessed two weekends of splendid sonic wonders. Be on the lookout for young American composer Nico Muhly’s compositions on\u00a0November 29 (NOVA)\u00a0and\u00a0December 4-5 (Utah Symphony), with a world premiere on December 4. Hopefully the thrills of these past two weekends will be experienced again. Will Muhly’s\u00a0Control (Five Landscapes for Orchestra)<\/em>\u00a0withstand the pairing with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 “Choral?” Will the forty-four year old German composer Matthias Pintscher’s\u00a0Idyll<\/em>, with its Utah premiere\u00a0on\u00a0March 4-5, 2016,\u00a0find itself in any way the equal of French composer Claude\u00a0Debussy’s orchestral masterpiece\u00a0La mer<\/em>, with Pintscher conducting? Here’s to hoping\u00a0that both modern compositions\u00a0will survive the scrutiny, at least\u00a0for some audience members<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The living composer, whose premieres are at times received ardently by at least a small\u00a0section of an audience,\u00a0should never be dismissed\u00a0outright for sonic worlds he or she creates. Who among us would\u00a0go so far as to say that we would have\u00a0immediately welcomed Mahler’s Symphony No.\u00a05\u00a0at its world premiere? Some critics and audience members were far from unleashing crusades of praise. We like to think that we would have been one of the initial admirers, but perhaps we are better left to ponder whether we would have been one of the critics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In three days, two\u00a0of Utah’s premiere classical music organizations collaborated in Salt Lake City in\u00a0a way that will continue\u00a0on four additional weekends\u00a0for the 2015-2016 concert season. Both\u00a0entities\u00a0premiered compositions by a living composer \u2013 one being a world premiere, and the other two Utah premieres. The now-venerable but lively […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1519,"featured_media":30520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/la-et-cm-andrew-norman-ted-hearne-usc-2013071-001.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-27 01:59:18","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1519"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30515"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54304,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30515\/revisions\/54304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}