This week, I had the pleasure of listening to Eleanor Alberga’s “Shining Gate of Morpheus.” This is a really stunning work written just eight years ago, in 2012. The piece manages to create a strong sense of story and a wide variety of textures with only a string ensemble with an additional horn. After listening to this work, I was genuinely surprised to see that it had such a minimal orchestration. The sweeping landscapes and various textures she produces seem to create the illusion of a much wider instrumental palette.

I couldn’t resist the temptation to look up the reference Alberga makes in her title. I learned that Morpheus is a deity associated with sleep. (Oh, Morpheus, please be with me through this finals week!) Understanding this mythological reference helps me understand why the composer organized this piece in a fluid way, but not one informed by any particular structural conventions or forms.

Helping to reinforce this dreamlike aesthetic, the piece seems to wonder in and out different tonal centers. Some figures, like the idea being exchanged between the violins in the first page of the score center around A, being in the key of A minor. After a long voyage of different tonal centers, the piece ends on a wistful C-sharp minor chord, rather far removed from the original key. That the piece remains tonal throughout gives it a sense of structure and avoids the provocation that comes with any sudden clash and sense of disorientation. This choice preserves the fluid dreamlike character of the piece.

Although perhaps not as inventive in her choice of pitch collections, Alberga uses many unique rhythmic figures to help produce this ethereal quality. In truth, I don’t know which particular rhythms to single out for the purpose of this discussion. They line nearly every page of the score. The constant switching of time signatures denies any rhythm the time to settle into a groove in the ears of the listener.

Being explicit in its rhythmic notation, this work is a departure from many we have listened to thus for in the quarter. Perhaps a more explicit system of rhythmic notation is necessitated when writing for an orchestra, as opposed to chamber or solo music, two genres which encompass all or nearly all of the works we have discussed previously.

This week, I am giving my thoughts on Tania Leon’s “entre nos.” Like last week’s piece, this one is cast as a chamber work for a percussion keyboard instrument and woodwinds (in this case, for piano, bassoon, and clarinet). Also like in previous weeks, piece uses a range of extended techniques for all instruments involved.

Again, much of my curiosity centers around the notational choices the composer makes. I observe several similar notations that I’ve discussed in other works from previous weeks, including the manner of beaming notes to indicate a quickening tremelo. I’m beginning to believe that this technique and this notation for it are becoming standard, particularly for woodwind instruments. However, in each of the pieces I’ve reviewed in recent weeks, the composers take different approaches to indicate a freely unmetered succession of notes. Leon’s accomplishes this through two tools I haven’t seen before. One is the rejection of stems in barred groups (like successive eighth-notes or sixteenth notes). The composer indicates that such notes “are to be played unevenly, with respect to rhythm” (1). Another is the use of the “0” time-signature, which the composer indicates as meaning “senza misura.”

Because of the unmetered nature of these passages, I imagine ensemble musicians must be reading from a full score so they can always concentrate on lining up their part with the others—a feat which seems rather incredible to me. As much added effort as the composer and the performers must put in to read unmetered notations such as this, I question whether such music should really be “composed” at all, or whether this style should be reserved for improvisation, where each performer generates their ideas on the spur of the moment.

Because I am rather fascinated by this piece, I feel it is inappropriate to suggest, as I have, that perhaps it should never have been notated at all. I have therefore scoured the score searching for qualities in this piece which would be rather difficult to improvise. I have considered the macro-structure, which, being through-composed, doesn’t have any major repetitions or shifts in the tonal center. I have also considered the micro-structure, which while it occasionally embraces tonal elements like arpeggiated triads, seems more informed by pan-tonal procedures. And yet, I haven’t been able to locate a complete tone-row, which would indicate a level of organization which perhaps couldn’t be easily improvised. Likewise, the piece typically lacks clear elements in the background and foreground (i.e. accompaniment and melody). To be clear, I am not criticizing the music on account of these qualities, but I continue to struggle to understand why the composer and performers went through the pains of determining every individual note beforehand when the effect of all these compositional choices is to create the sense that the piece is freely improvised. Perhaps, though, with more experimentation, a more intuitive notational system for unmetered ensemble music will emerge—a tool which will greatly expand the styles and aesthetics available to composers.

This week I had the pleasure of listening to Arabesques for Flute and Percussion, a five-movement chamber work by Adolphus Hailstork. I find the overall musical language quite comparable to Chin’s Advice from a Caterpillar, especially the manner of notation and the kinds of woodwind extended techniques. Both works, when they present a solo woodwind sans accompaniment, are filled with un-metered flourishes which give the performer great control over the space within each note while still following a general framework given in the score. Although I didn’t think of this last week, I believe this practice harkens back to early chant melodies, which gave a loose outline of each phrase, but left the precise placement of each note in time more up to the performer.

I also noticed Hailstork’s use of the same notation which Chin had used for short notes quickening to a tremolo on page 4 of the score—a notation which apparently isn’t only used by woodwinds, but is also used for tom-toms in the fourth- and third-to-last bars of this movement. I’m curious why I haven’t seen this used for strings in any of the literature I’ve studied thus far. It actually seems that this technique would be rather idiomatic on string instruments, which are famous for the easy of quick tremolo.

When I listened to this piece without the score, it seemed every movement belonged together in the arc of the story which this piece tells, I was surprised to see just how different the notational language appeared in each movement when I saw the score. The first movement, for example has no barlines—another reason I believe a comparison to the early systems of Western chant notation is appropriate. Without barlines, the natural hierarchy players associate with strong and weak beats is dismissed, and the player—and listener—must find fresh ways to navigate each phrase and every musical impulse. At the same time, this movement is clearly not one that could be easily sung, like a chant melody; it is entirely idiosyncratic with the instrument for which it was composed and of which the composer may have had an especially intimate understanding.

By contrast, other movements are neurotically rhythmic. Consider the fourth movement, the rhythmic notation of which is so specific as to request that first note in the first several measures of 4/4 time be placed one sixteenth-note after the downbeat—an effect which displaces the perceived downbeat by the same amount. The fifth movement has a similar rhythmic character with a quite unconventional time signature, 6/8 + 2/4.

Perhaps the largest difference in the language of this piece and that of Advice from a Caterpillar is that this one makes no use of extra-musical cues, like verbal language and stage directions. In fact, the recording I listened to was audio-only, and I therefore didn’t get to see the performers as they interpreted this work. I’m very curious, though, whether the performer would have added similarly theatrical elements to the performance of this piece as well. Such a choice would seem fitting for a story-telling piece like this.

Over the last couple weeks, my classmates and I each wrote a solo composition for our primary instruments (or voices), and last Tuesday, we presented a small concert in which everyone shared their piece. With many different areas of expertise, this was a truly eclectic concert—with a Chopinesque walz for solo piano, a Bach-inspired work for solo violin, a ragtime-like piece for keyboard, and many other wonderfully original works.

For my piece, I chose to write a rather fast caprice for my primary instrument—the violin. In general, I am quite pleased with the piece. I feel it has many strengths. For example, while maintaining the same tempo and time signature throughout, the piece manages to achieve considerable variety in texture and mood. Some passages are more melodic and smoothly integrate other voices in a polyphonic texture, while other passages are more angular and driving. The piece also transitions in and out of several keys with relatively smooth modulation—most prominently the keys of g minor, F major, and d minor.

That said, I certainly encountered many challenges in the process of composing the piece and preparing it for performance. While I wanted to maintain a polyphonic texture throughout the piece, this exacerbated the technical challenges of the piece—so much so that I couldn’t play all the notes in the performance. I actually believe, for this reason, that my instrumentation choice was ill-suited to the nature of piece. After some experimentation with MIDI sounds, I’ve concluded that this same piece sounds more appropriate on electric guitar, or even, on piano. This is because, although titled “Caprice in g minor” and meant to imitate the caprices of Paganini or Dont, I believe this piece has a more modern feel to it and could perhaps be convincingly re-imagined as ragtime, or even heavy metal. Other challenges were the overall monotony of the piece—almost all parts seem high energy, and the work as a whole doesn’t really reach an expressive apex. In that sense, it’s rather a moment than a story.

If I were to do this project again, I would first make sure that my overall idea is suitable to the instrument for which I’m writing and also realistic to learn and perform in a timely manner. I would also take the planning phase of the composition more seriously, rather than roving between disparate keys and musical ideas as I please. With a stronger sense of overall structure from the start, I believe the piece could have more direction and stronger “story-telling” qualities.

This week, I listened to (and watched) a video recording of a performance of “Advice from a Caterpillar” by Unsuk Chin. The piece is scored for solo clarinet and appears in an interlude in the opera “Alice in Wonderland.”

I found the piece very much unlike the music I have reviewed in previous weeks. Just a glance at the score reveals it uses a very different language from the music of Alvin Singleton or Errollyn Wallen. Even though Singleton’s and Wallen’s styles are quite different, both are more indebted to the Western system of notation. That is, they are clearly metrically organized in patterns that are idiosyncratic with our system of notation. Chin’s music, by contrast, rebels against the beat and the barline. Perhaps, this is an effect more beautiful on the clarinet (which can change the color of a note from within) than on the piano. Nevertheless, the choice produces a very different experience for listeners.

Set in the context of a drama, the notation gives explicit directions for how the performer should interact with the other happenings on stage. This is in stark contrast to Singleton’s notational style, who, as I observed last week, leaves much up to the performer’s discretion. Such indications include the subtlest hairpins and rubatos, and even a direction to “take away the instrument from the mouth and stare at Alice” (2). The effect of these meticulous labors forces the performer to forgo the performance idiom most classical clarinetists are accustomed to, and in so doing, throws the performer and the audience into a mysterious world, far removed from our own.

Perhaps the part that most struck me occurred after I had watched the video and was looking through the score. The chords at the bottom of page 3 and the top of page 4 didn’t sound so much like chords at first, but just a nasty sound which I assumed was produced by forcing an inordinately high volume of air through the reed. I was shocked to see that these were actually distinct pitches, and moreover that the instrument was capable of playing such clashing harmonies (or any harmony at all!).

This seems like a kind of piece that would be much more enjoyable if heard in context and in a live performance of the opera (which regrettably won’t likely happen amid the Covid pandemic). The composer goes to such lengths to connect the music to what happens on stage that I think we lose a lot of that context when watching a small excerpt of the opera in a video format. Still, I’m very grateful I’ve had this exposure to the music, and I hope to be able to see this opera performed live at some point.

This week, I listened to the contemporary solo piano work “In My Own Skin” by Alvin Singleton, as it was performed by Blair McMillen in a recent virtual performance by the Locrian Chamber Players. The Locrian Chamber Players are a group of musicians who perform only contemporary “classical” music, abiding strictly to the rule that no repertoire may be performed that is older than 10 years. As such they explore a range of repertoire unfamiliar to many audiences of classical music, including myself.

As an infrequent listener to this style of music, I really wasn’t sure how to best enjoy to it. I wasn’t sure how to follow its organization. This was especially challenging before I looked at the score. My ear struggled to find thematic material that connected the music across the approximately ten minute performance. On looking at the score, I decided that the piece was organized mostly in two sections, which alternate frequently–one is the use of lyrical sustained notes in both hands and the other is the more angular and perturbed clusters of sixteenth notes, which seem to cascade across the keys without regards to meter or key signature.

Although the composition is indebted to notational practices which emphasize meter and key signature, I don’t believe these are the best lenses through which to understand and appreciate the music. That is, I don’t believe conventional Western tonality and form are the underlying organizing principles of this work. The organization is looser, which brief energetic bursts amid long sonorous lulls. In concert with the title of the piece, it produces an image of blood coursing through one’s veins–surges of momentum betwixt long static pauses. With few specific instructions for dynamics and acceleration, the piece seems to call on the performer to make decisions which most sincerely reflect the experience of being in his or her “Own Skin.”

Because I was particularly compelled by the first page, I decided to analyze more carefully the musical language in this section. I was surprised to discover that the chords are mostly triads; it might be the particular succession or harmonies the composer uses or else the rhythmic displacement that gives this passage its otherworldly aesthetic. I also chose to do the same for the following page of the score, which gives the first “energetic burst” of sixteenth notes. Equally, I was surprised by the economy of Singleton’s harmonic language. With few exceptions, the notes in the right hand are simply doubled in the left hand. Evocative as this moment was, I expected to find more complex counterpoint here.

While I’m still not entirely sure how to best enjoy Singleton’s music, I can certainly appreciate it. Like Wallen, whose music I reviewed last week, Singleton manages to achieve wonderful and emotive effects through relatively simple means. The craft is in placing these devices under just the right musical contexts to produce these effects.

This week, I enjoyed the opportunity to hear an album of works by contemporary composer Errollyn Wallen. With the exception of “I Wouldn’t Normally Say,” the works are each short pieces scored for voice and piano accompaniment. While it is easy to sense that the same voice could have conceived of each of these pieces, they still represent an eclectic range of styles and aesthetics.

Although the verbal and harmonic language feel modern and colloquial, parts of these works seem to draw from much older traditions. Daedalus, for example, seems inspired by the Greek mythological figure of the same name—a figure who was forced to escape a labyrinth and who lamented the loss of his son who flew into the sun. The text, and the wondering, unmetered qualities of the piece help establish this story. Other pieces I likened to some of the Medieval music I’m listening presently studying in my Music History class—especially the idea of rhythmic modes. I noticed these especially when following the score to “North,” as the text setting is mostly syllabic and follows regular repeating rhythms.

The composer was also artful in her use of humor, especially in the titles she chose for her pieces. For example, the piece titled “Beehive” ends with the singer’s falsetto, imitating the course buzzing sound of bees. And, while most pieces in the album employ both a voice and a piano accompaniment, but the piece titled “I Wouldn’t Normally Say” does not. Similarly, the piece “Off the Map” becomes increasingly disoriented, as though the speaker really is loosing a sense of direction, and ends rather abruptly. I especially enjoyed hearing at the tail end of this recording the vocalist giving a light chuckle, perhaps overwhelmed by this clever joke.

For me, the most powerful image from this album was that of the opening bars of “Hudson, Mississippi, and Thames.” The piano creates a shimmering effect in the arpeggiation of a major triad, and a voice soon enters in a leisurely lilting theme, as if gliding down one of the rivers in the title. This sequence reminded me of the opening minutes of Wagner’s Das Rheingold, which also creates a shimmering effect in the arpeggiation of a major chord, and builds gradually until the entrance of the first voice with a similarly lilting melodic figure. Both works also center around rivers as their principle subject matter. Additionally, such lyrics as “taught the wind to sing,” personify certain aspects of the natural world, much like the mythological traditions in which Wagner developed his narratives.

Never overly pretentious or abstruse, this music finds novel ways to present all of these old ideas through a musical and verbal language that speaks to modern audiences. Although I’ve never heard Wallen’s works before, I’m so glad I’ve had this opportunity to encounter her music, and I hope to hear much more of it in the future.

This week, I listened to Plastic Anniversary, a 2019 album my Matmos.

The album is quite different from anything I’ve listened to previously. No natural sounds seem to inhabit the sound spaces which the composer creates. Instead, the composer specifically focuses on using entirely contrived materials. This is true of the sounds which the composer gathers, which seem mostly, if not exclusively, to derive from the sounds of plastic, as the title of the album seems to imply. This is also true of the structures used to organize the sounds, which include the use of repeated rhythms in an metrical idiom well established in Western music, as well as the use of tonality to create a sense of melody. Further, the means of composing the music, with electronic software, completes the sense that this music is entirely contrived.

Of the album’s tracks, I especially enjoyed number 6, “Plastic Anniversary.” The track is, like the album as a whole, intensely rhythmic and furthers the association with classical music through the use of plastic sounds mimicking parts of the orchestra. Constantly, we hear a rhythm section that suggests drums beating in the back of the orchestra. Midways through the recording, we hear brass sounds, also intensely rhythmic, and even lighter, more airy, but still tonal sounds which seem to suggest the presence of a string section. As someone who loves orchestral music, I enjoyed the variety of colors and dynamics achieved in this track just as I do in the orchestral music I enjoy listening to.

Equally important to note is the social context around what plastic means in our everyday lives. Not only does it have great practical utility, but as this work demonstrates, it has even developed a voice of its own—a “Singing Tube,” for example, as the title of track #9 suggests. However, if we limit our perception of what those voices are telling us to language we are comfortable and familiar with, as this album does, we may miss a more consequential message which our consumption of plastic is telling us—that we value convenience over the long-term health and sustainability of our home—a message which isn’t especially beautiful or aesthetically pleasing, but which we must come to terms with nevertheless if we want our species to continue to inhabit this space and not just the sounds of plastic which exclusively make up the sound spaces in this album.

Hello all! Today, I have a short video update which includes the etudes I arranged with the sounds I presented in my post last week. I hope you enjoy.

To view the video, follow the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YkQDUDmrDQFUd1tXPkio9_r2kX8_A7jQ/view?usp=sharing

I plan to post again this Thursday with another listening response.

This week, I enjoyed the opportunity to listen to Helena Gough’s album Mikroklimata, and to dive more deeply into my own composition project. Later in this post, I will share some sounds I have gathered which I intend to use in my piece.

When listening to Mikroklimata, one of the most striking overall features that stood out to me from the beginning is how far removed the soundscape feels from anything relating to my everyday sonic experience. The almost total absence of natural sounds in the first movement gave the impression of a futuristic, space-age soundscape–one that even lacks the sounds of people, with no talking, breathing, walking, etc.

It is also for this reason that the second movement offered an important contrast–featuring the sounds of distant winds, most notably at around the 9 minute mark, but also earlier at about the 2 minute mark. Other sounds gave the impression of the faint buzzing of insects or trickling water sounds, and even distant sirens sound at about 11:30. Yet despite sonic relics, such as this siren, of civilization, no distinctly human sounds are heard. Like the first movement, we again miss the most basic sounds which have always characterized our everyday experience. The beginning of the third movement again features the recognizable sounds of water, but thereafter, the acoustic environment doesn’t seem to return to Earth or to something recognizable from my everyday experience.

Another technique which Gough uses and which I was pleasantly surprised to learn wasn’t the result of my own Internet connection issues, was the sudden use of long stretches of silence. The last movement of the work includes an especially noticeable and effective instance of this.

One question I have which a quick Google search was unfortunately not able to answer was the meaning of the title of the album Mikroklimata and of each of the movements. Perhaps this would help me understand better the overall architecture and aesthetic cohesion of the piece. At present, I still struggle to understand the relationship between the difference sonic environments Gough uses and how they contribute meaning to the piece as a whole.

With regards to my own composition project, I’m excited to share some sounds which I have gathered from around my home and which I intend to use to create the “voices” of computers, water, and air, in the manner described in earlier blog post.

Computer (Keyboard) Sounds: https://drive.google.com/file/d/192YJ7w1jb-joNrKIJflVFVwNOhIXlsnQ/view?usp=sharing

Water (Faucet) Sounds: https://drive.google.com/file/d/198SqiZA0xORlYF8hwd1geI845GSohY3H/view?usp=sharing

Air (Fan) Sounds: https://drive.google.com/file/d/197YfI-q8N8hDGV_X_ZA9NeIOjRhJipvm/view?usp=sharing

I was pleased to get a mixture of round, vowel-like aspects and short, consonant-like aspects in each of these recordings, which I plan to use to most accurately simulate the human voice.