Thoughts on Lee Hoiby

Perhaps you saw today that composer Lee Hoiby died. Knowing my musical proclivities, you might be surprised to know that I caught my breath when I saw the news. Hoiby's music, firmly in the Samuel Barber, mid-century mold, is outside my normal research and listening habits. But I've had contact with him several times over the last 15 years and always found him a gentleman and lively conversationalist.

My knowledge of Hoiby began in college and grad school when I worked on a project concerning the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition's commissioned works. Hoiby was the first composer commissioned, so I learned his work and read letters about the commission and spoke to pianists who competed that year and played the work. It was a pleasant work, but did not have the impact of later Cliburn works like Copland's or Corigliano's and did not stay with me for long.

Imagine my surprise a few years later when I discovered that Hoiby played in Partch's ensembles while studying at Wisconsin. I decided that I had to track him down, and so one day in grad school, I received a call from him in response to a letter I had sent. We talked for almost an hour about his experiences with Harry Partch and learning the instruments. I could tell that he was a bit miffed that a musicologist had tracked him down only to talk about another composer, so at the end began talking about his Van Clibrn work. A few days after the conversation, I received a package of music and CDs.

We talked one other time about Partch, and though my interest in his music never progressed from my Masater's thesis, I'll always remember the generous composer willing to talk about another composer with whom he had little in common aesthetically. I just wish that spirit carried over to his publisher who put out a statement today complete with this line:

"During the period immediately following WW II, he also performed in Harry Partch’s Dadaist ensembles, studied with Darius Milhaud at Mills College and pursued a virtuoso career as a concert pianist under the tutelage of Gunnar Johansen and Egon Petri."

Dadaist ensembles? Alas, my musicologist's work is never done Somewhere two men are turning in their graves. God speed, Mr. Hoiby.

Christmas Day

Christmas Eve

Fourth Sunday of Advent - Love

Third Sunday of Advent - Joy

First Sunday of Advent - Hope

More Thoughts on Irony and Glenn Beck

A few weeks ago, I discussed my fascination with the way music can often add ironic commentary (intentional or unintentional) to an image.  Then, by wonderful serendipity, I discovered some of the footage of Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally.  If you've not seen it, watch just the first minute or so of this clip of Beck's entrance:

Notice the music Beck chose for his entrance? It's "Hoedown" from Rodeo by Aaron Copland.  "What's so strange about 'Hoedown?' you might ask.  After all, Copland's music is as American as apple pie and overeating with that pie.  True, but in this instance, Beck's use of Copland's music lays a shiny veneer of irony over the proceedings.  In early 1953, Copland's Lincoln Portrait was slated for performance at a concert celebrating Eisenhower's inauguration.  Fred Busbey, a Congressman from Illinois, publicly questioned Copland's socialist leanings, and Eisenhower's staff responded by yanking Lincoln Portrait from the concert.  That's right, Beck used music from a composer known for socialist leanings who also happened to be a homosexual and is even the happy result of our immigration policies as both his parents were Russian immigrants.  This rally to "restore" America used music from a composer who represents the marvelous diversity of this country, not the homogeneous ideal for which many attending the rally falsely pine.

Reflections on a Father

Our pastor asked me to reflect on what I learned about love from my father for our service this morning, and after talking with my brother yesterday, I decided to share it here just as I did in church this morning:

Occasionally, but only occasionally, my brother Stephen and I would find ourselves in a situation where we were tired of doing an activity, didn’t want to start it in the first place, and certainly were loath to see it to completion. In those moments, my father could always be counted on to tell us to keep at it because it would “build character.” Perhaps you have heard this phrase in your lifetime too, and perhaps you feel about it the way Calvin did. You know Calvin – not the theologian from the 16^th century, but the theologian from the 1990s funny pages. Calvin’s father came out one night and called “It’s getting dark, Calvin. Time to come in and go to bed.” Calvin ambled up and responded, “But Hobbes and I were catching fireflies. Can’t we stay out a little longer?” Always ready at teachable moments, Calvin’s dad responded, “Ha! First you didn’t want to go out, and now you don’t want to come in. See, by not watching TV, you had more fun, and now you’ll have memories of something real you did, instead of something fake you just watched.” Later in bed, Calvin confessed to Hobbes that “nothing spoils fun like finding out it builds character.”

Fathers can always be counted on to help us build character, which is why Joy regularly rolls her eyes and restrains herself when I parent by telling Sam or Noah to pick themselves up, shake off their tears, and have another go. A father’s tough love is a cultural cliché – walk down the Hallmark aisle in May, and you’ll be assaulted by pink and white frilliness that proclaims a mother’s tenderness while the next month, the same aisle is festooned in blue and brown straight lines that let us know that dad, by contrast, doesn’t appreciate that nonsense. But that tough guy formulation masks some of the greatest truths about love that we learn from our fathers.

Looking back, one important fatherly truth stands out to me from my own upbringing – love is never embarrassed. Perhaps all fathers have this propensity, but mine was uniquely gifted at embarrassment. Riding through my small Southern hometown in my dad’s blue Chevy Luv truck was an adventure, primarily because he was always on the lookout for treasure. Driving by a household pile of garbage, he’d slow down, his eyes would rifle through the pile, and he’d tell me or my brother to jump out and grab something. We would make sure no one was looking, dash out as quickly as possible, grab the object and toss it in the back, and slink back to our seats with our heads down. Can you imagine how a 13-year-old boy felt performing this ritual, just knowing that someone would see, tell their friends, who would tell your friends. Embarrassment knows no greater field to flourish than a 13-year-old boy’s heart.

I’ll also never forget how my father appeared at my wedding rehearsal and dinner decked out in the brightest yellow shirt you can possibly imagine. Small suns have less luminescence than he did that night. His reasoning was true to his life and training as an historian – Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn (and even tiny Elizabeth) wore bright yellow as evidence of their extreme happiness when news of Catherine of Aragon’s death reached them. My father’s happiness certainly exceeded theirs and for better reason. I should have been mortified, but I wasn’t. A strange thing had happened in the ten years between those occurrences. The lesson my father had been nurturing had sunk in. Turn to the person next to you – your spouse, child, or dear friend. Think of all the things they have done over the years that made you cringe and shake your head. But you’re still here. You still love them. You see, love is never embarrassed because love is accepting. Love sees the other as they truly are, as a unique child of God whose life enriches your own beyond all understanding. Picking up trash, wearing yellow, proclaiming to the world that he is who he is was the greatest act of love my father performed toward me. He gave me permission to be myself, to love others for themselves, and to see a penetrating glimpse of God’s love in the process. And it is that treasure, more than any we picked up through those many Arkansas days, which encapsulates what is unique about a father’s love. It is a gift of love that truly builds lasting character.

Thoughts on Composing and Computers

This past month I've spent more than my fair share of time staring at a computer. My tenure and promotion portfolio has consumed my life as I've pdf'ed every document I needed and created a massive electronic compendium of the past five years (and yes, I know "pdf'ed"is not a word, but it has as great ring I needed in that sentence). During that time, two links came my way that got me thinking about the use of computers and composition. First, this article in Slate by Chris Wilson profiles a computer program that is composing based on analysis of other words in the classical canon. Then, this video of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring performed by the Vienna Symphonic Library (in other words, but sampled sounds rather than live performers:

I've some thoughts on these developments, but was curious as to your initial reactions.

Listening, Not Talking

This afternoon, I had the opportunity to go on a soundwalk with Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer. Schafer is a fascinating composer, perhaps best known for coining the term "soundscape" and drawing attention to the way the world around us sounds. He began putting together a World Soundscape Project in the late 1960s that made attempts to record the soundscapes of various cities and regions and then began asking questions about how rapid industrialization was impacting what we hear and therefore how we live. He went so far in his 1977 book Tuning the World to propose that we always ask what impact new sounds would have on the soundscape before releasing them into the world.

For the soundwalk, Schafer seemed to have two goals: 1. make us begin using our ears, and 2. to tune us in to Ottawa's soundscape. We started the walk with a few ear cleaning exercises: we closed our eyes and he and an assistant walked around the room constantly talking and we had to follow them with our hands; he passed around a sheet of newspaper and we each had to make a new sound with it; we had to fill in the blank as to what sound an object would make before we heard it. Then, we stepped out into the busy Ottawa downtown.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but focusing on the sounds around me rather than the running dialogue constantly in my head was an amazing experience. Schafer stopped us every once and a while and asked pointed questions about what we were hearing - the sound furthest from us, the lowest sound we heard, what definite pitches we discovered. Then, when we arrived in a large park, half of us were blindfolded and led to a space we had never been. He ran around making sounds (shouting, crinkling, banging, scuffling) and then asked us to describe where we were. I was fortunate enough to be one of the blindfolded participants, and I can't remember when I've ever used by senses as deeply. There were certainly aspects I missed, but the simple act of listening opened up new worlds.

I'm now extremely curious to listen on the soundscape of my every day life. Schafer is right that just as we destroy old buildings without a thought, we destroy sounds than can never be recaptured. He's proposing something of an eco-music where we actively work to conserve sounds before they disappear, but its a hard sell in a world where even musicians like myself rarely truely listen.

On Easy Nostalgia

Every once and a while, you get one of those opportunities like I've had this weekend, to remember former times in a physical, not just mental, manner. It is too easy to romanticize the past, especially when the present is as difficult as it always is, and forget the true lessons of life in favor of easy nostalgia.

This lesson was brought home yesterday while I was having tea with a former grad school colleague. We're both finished with the degree, officially with Dr. before our names, and so spent time catching up on shared friends and experiences. Stories, as they often do, turned to those who didn't make it through school for one reason or another and our own times preparing for comprehensive exams.

I bring this up because I'm drowning in comprehensive exams from the other side at work. We're gearing up for the comps in history and theory that all DMA students take, I'm writing my own comps for student committees I'm on, and I'm also part of a committee re-examining our comps process and making changes. In all the discussion about current and future comps, it is too easy to romanticize my own experience, to talk about all I learned and mastered and conquered without remembering the struggle and long sleepness nights and attempts to connect the process to my ultimate goals. Meeting with my friend was a good reminder that when dealing with students and milestones in their career, easy nostalgia is no substitute for honest appraisal.

Christmas Day

Fourth Sunday in Advent - Love

Third Sunday in Advent - Joy

Second Sunday in Advent - Peace

First Sunday of Advent - Hope

50 Most Important Albums

Have you seen this yet? This week, NPR's music gurus got together and decided on the 50 most important albums of the 21st century's first decade. They weren't interested in the best, but the ones that were game changers in some ways. Most of their picks you would have guessed, and many are right on. I'm glad they singled out Osvaldo Golijov as his music has definitely made people sit up and take notice, but I would have picked Ayre as the game changer (who expected anyone to get Dawn Upshaw to growl?). But besides picking Britney Spears, I couldn't believe that they thought John Adams's On the Transmigration of Souls was a huge shift in perception or composition. Come on, he's been composing and releasing albums in that style for 20 years now. What about David Lang's Little Match Girl Passion? I know just from my students that the composition and album have changed the way they hear compositions from the branches of minimalism.

The Futurists Return

I've long been fascinated by a little known early 20th century composer named Luigi Russolo. Russolo rejected everything about music of his time, especially the fact that it was created by traditional instruments and instead urged composers to write for the sounds that serenade us everyday without our conscious awareness. As he wrote, orchestras and pianos were inferior to “the crashing down of metal shop blinds, slamming doors, the hubbub and shuffling of crowds, the variety of din from stations, railways, iron foundries, spinning mills, printing works, electric power stations, and underground railways.” In other words, Russolo had a vision in which “every factory will be transformed into an intoxicating orchestra of noises.”

Those lines come from his 1913 Futurist manifesto "The Art of Noises." Not content to just write about this new sound world, Russolo began creating it. He began inventing instruments based on the hurdy gurdy principle where the sound-producing object is in a box and the turn of a crank operates it. He called these instruments called “intonarumori” (noise intoners) and first performed with them in early 1914.Fascinating ideas that influenced countless composers in the 20th century from Stravinsky to Cage and on down the line. The only problem is that all his intonarumori were destroyed along with most of his compositions so we've had, at best, ear witnesses to tell us about the works.

Not any longer.

I just discovered this video that comes as advertisement for a concert this week featuring the intonarumori:

(and yes, that is Mike Patton of Faith No More) Isn't that amazing? A piece of history restored that still seems ahead of its time.

Composer Theft

Have any of you been following this story? Turns out that Peter Maxwell Davies, a wonderful English composer, has been swindled out of over $850,000 by his agent and manager of over 30 years, Michael Arnold, in order to sustain his gambling addiction. The story broke late last year, but in the past few weeks Arnold has admitted to the theft and received an 18 month jail sentence.

Who does this? Doesn't everyone know that contemporary composers are, by and large, not a rich group by any stretch of the imagination. The revelation comes on the heels of Terry Riley's website getting hacked. Who is attacking all the cool composers?

The one thing that gives me great joy in the entire episode is my learning that Max Davies is currently the Master of the Queen's Music. Why do I take such great joy in Davies having this position? Because he is perhaps best known for his Eight Songs for a Mad King in which King George III progressively descends into insanity, ultimately destroying a violin on stage. Perhaps that's why when he was appointed, they changed the position's tenure from life to ten years.

Film Trailers and Music

Last Friday, Spike Jonze's adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are hit theaters, carrying in its wake the expected critical reaction. My local reviewer found the film profoundly boring, a claim I can't counter as I haven't seen the movie, but one line in his review did provoke me to a response:

"A word about the creatures. Constructed by the Jim Henson workshop with their faces digitally augmented in post production, these towering, shaggy, overstuffed monsters perfectly capture the look of Sendak’s timeless illustrations. That’s why this film has one of the coolest trailers around." [emphasis added]

Have you seen the trailer? If not, or if it has been a few months, take a gander before continuing on:

Reading that line, I was amazed that he actually believed that creatures themselves made the trailer. They were certainly a part of the equation, and I'll admit to a thrill of recognition this summer when I first saw the preview before Harry Potter. The creatures are Sendak's drawings come to life. But the reviewer seems to forget that trailers are primarily visuals and music. The trailer for Where the Wild Things works because the trailer was cut to a song that perfectly matched the film's intent.

Most trailers are cut to portions of the temp track, a rough outline of previously composed music the director gives to the composer as a guide for the type of music he'd like to hear in the final mix. And most directors know little instrumental music other than film music, which is why James Horner's Aliens or Wojciech Kilar's Bram Stoker's Dracula keep getting used over and over. But occasionally the people who create trailers take the time to find a perfect marriage of sound and image, resulting in a powerful trailer.

Think back to earlier this year with the Watchmen trailer. The trailer opens with two cues from Philip Glass's Koyaanisqatsi, "Prophecies" and then "Pruit Igoe." This is movie music, sure, but it moves at the same pace as the images on screen. Then, in a stroke of beauty, the music segues into Muse's "Take a Bow," a song that Matthew Bellamy claims is based on his listening to Glass's soundtracks. But beyond the musical coordination, the song's lyrics include the lines:

"And our freedom's consuming itself,
What we've become is contrary to what we want
Take a bow.

Death, you bring death and destruction to all that you touch."

These lines summarize much of Watchmen in a few short words. In other words, the trailer is a perfect match to the movie and works profoundly on multiple levels

Returning to Where the Wild Things Are, the trailer opens with footsteps, birds, and hints of the wild things themselves, allowing the impact of seeing those creatures to fully register. But then, the song "Wake Up" by Arcade Fire enters halfway through the song with these lyrics:

"If the children don't grow up,
our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up.
We're just a million little gods causin' rain storms turnin' every good thing to
rust."

Here is a song about growing up and closing off your heart to wonder and love and emotion accompanying a trailer for an adaptation of a book that celebrated how the imagination of children allows them to deal with complex emotions. And when the wild rumpusing begins, the trailer circles back to the beginning of the song, a wordless vocal jam that moves in tempo with the images. Sure the creatures startle and amaze us, but the music grabs our heartstrings and plays them perfectly so we respond intellectually and emotionally to the trailer. That's why some trailers last and why some draw us into the theaters to watch films.