New Music Feature, Part 2- James Young

It's been a while since I've posted (I'd actually forgotten the log-in, so what does that tell you?), but I thought it was worth commemorating our 15th follower! We've finally expanded to the point where I don't even know each of our followers personally, which is a new level of celebrity for me. I'd like to continue with part 2 of our new music series, featuring three piano pieces by James Young. For those of you unfamiliar with this feature, I encourage you to check out the first part, where I review a piece by Nat Evans. (I could also refer you to the two or three posts wherein I ranted about getting this feature started, but we're here, so why quibble?) 

In the interest of full disclosure, some background. James and I went to U of L together, where I was continually in awe of his intelligence, sensitivity, and musical intuition. We spent many a night ranting over the confining nature of the modern concert space, and I consider him a close friend and one of the best musical minds I've had the pleasure of working with. He's now at the super fancy Peabody Conservatory, and has just finished his first year of DMA work. I'm writing today about three piano pieces he gave me the first summer I taught in college; I thought it'd be interesting to have my students talk to a real live composer (and Boulez has like a three year waiting list). James shared his time and ideas with my students, who liked these pieces (more or less).*

The first piece, "Game," is structured on three groups of staves. Like Stockhausen's Kalvierstücke 11, the pianist can select from which grouping s/he choses to play from. In James's piece, the pianist begins with one pitch, and then selects the next fragment from the top grouping. Once the pianist plays the groups a set number of times, they move onto the second group, and so on. The fragments get progressively more complicated, but if one listens carefully, one can hear the initial pitch return like an aural anchor throughout the work. The beauty of its work lies in its nature as fragments; despite the fact that my students would inexorably label the music as "random," each gesture is written so that it seems a logical reaction to what came before, and to what follows. In fact, each fragment would probably be worth exploring and developing, so compelling is each idea. I wish that I had multiple interpretations to compare, in order to better realize the potential of the piece's changing nature.

I find myself compelled to criticize the second piece, the evocatively titled "Large Black Window." The voice leading could at times be smoother (for example, in the beginning measures, an E and D changes places, with one becoming the melody note and the other the inner voice, in subsequent measures. To be fair, it looks more awkward than it sounds). There could be greater differentiation between harmonic and melodic elements (or the melodic could come to the fore more prominently sooner), and the syncopated chords at the end don't seem to grow from the earlier music (if that is indeed even relevant aesthetically). This is all by way of hedging, and I fear, like the Queen in Hamlet, that I doth protest too much. I really like this piece. The harmonies are colorful yet accessible and the overall structure of the piece supports its drama, realizing the upward expanding ideas latent in the first bars of the piece. In a purely sonic sense, I find it truly beautiful. If postmodernism is nothing more than accessible modernism, then this piece is postmodernism at its finest. If the same is a blending of elements of a modernist language divorced from the modernist loathing of the moving, then this piece is still postmodernism at its finest. 

The final work, "Motion Machine," features the best aspects of a repetitively based, motoric rhythmic energy, with none of its downfalls (which, at this stage in music history, include lapsing into parody or failing to commit enough to achieve escape velocity for fear of repeating oneself). The main ostinato is perfectly proportioned; it isn't too long or repeated too often without a change in accents to bore. Again, this mix of modernist ideas and postmodern accessibility is at the heart of what makes these works good music. Couple this fact with the music's viscerality, its palpable sense of how fun it is to realize these works at the piano, and you have a maturity in writing for piano that belies James's young age.** I eagerly await his other works for the instrument, and fervently hope that he explores using a larger canvas.

Overall, I was struck with the use of space throughout all three works, both in the sense of utilizing the physical keyboard and between the various musical aspects. No doubt a sensitive performance helps immensely, but the breathing room between gestures in "Game" was just enough to let you absorb each idea without becoming ponderous. The same applies to "Large Black Window." After each arpeggiated chord, performer and composer left a moment to hear the entire sonority, and reveal in the play of overtones that makes the work so colorful. Conversely, the filling of the musical space so completely in "Motion Machine" makes that work a perfect end to the set.

At the risk of generalizing, these piano pieces seem more accessible than some of James's music, and can serve as an excellent introduction only to his music. They should also serve to bolster the supporters of new music, knowing that many talented composers and responsive performers have yet to be discovered. If this convinced you to seek out this music, I couldn't ask for anything more (and if James leaves a comment with his contact info, you can find out where to hear his stuff). And for all of those who I've promised I'd write about, I still intend to follow through. All the names are saved on a sticky note, which constitutes a written contract and will serve as a guarantee.*** Have a happy 4th of July!

* As a disclaimer, it's been that long since I've seen the scores, so if details are wrong, I beg forgiveness, and hope James will rectify them with a comment.

** Hand to God, I didn't originally intend this pun, but it's well worth keeping.

***This does not actually constitute a written contract.

In Offense of Christmas Music

At the risk of being labeled the world's biggest Scrooge, I will come right out and say that I don't like Christmas music.* Sure, Trans-Siberian Orchestra is good, and anything Frank Sinatra ever touched turned to gold, but that's about as far as I'll take it. It's not the repetition or mass appeal of Christmas music that bothers me. It annoys me, but I fancy myself enough a populist to not make a value judgement about the music in that way.


My problem with the music is the way that I typically consume it- unwillingly. Starting at Thanksgiving (and earlier every year, it seems), the airwaves and shopping centers play Christmas music constantly. I know that when I go "home for the holidays" (which was on the N*SYNC Christmas album, I believe), it will be a ubiquitous fixture of the house, almost as much as the trees or lights. My objection finally got a voice yesterday, when we were discussing the music and ideas of Canadian environmental composer R. Murray Schafer. His philosophy is that music can be any sound, but that sound/music become "noise" when they are unwanted, like the sound of someone opening a candy at a "classical" concert, or the sound of an airplane in the woods. To me, who genuinely does not want to listen to Christmas music, the genre becomes noise. While I agree with Brian that serious study can occur about the subject (and while I am equally surprised that it hasn't, perhaps because of its pervasive nature in our culture today?), it won't be undertaken by me.










* As much as I would like to make a distinction between Christmas carols, popular Christmas songs, and newly composed songs with Christmas themes, I don't often see such a distinction being made by those who play or sell or program Christmas music.

China and Facebook and Criticism, oh my!

Despite my growing disenchantment with NPR's music website, it's still a great way to kill time. I just read a story that was interesting, but reveals why my disenchantment has grown. The article is about the growing punk scene in China, and there are some nice quotes (including one that reveals a bit of how Chinese popular musicians consume American popular music, from Bob Dylan and Woody Gutherie (!) to the Ramones), but the article does not consider what seems to me the obvious ramification of the article: China has a growing punk scene?!? Does the author understand the political and social ramifications of this? The Chinese government clearly does not, else they would have nipped this in the bud. The article also does a terrible job of contextualizing the scene, saying China has "the fastest growing" everything else, making it seem that punk music is the predominant style and that those darn Chinese beat us to the punch yet again. However, by their own admission, the musicians realize they are 20-30 years out of date. Can you really have "the fastest growing" scene of a trend that stopped dominating 20-30 years ago?

I also wanted to talk a bit about facebook. I've joined the dreaded menace, as that's how the Music and the Written Word Conference is organizing travel and lodging arrangments, which makes a good deal of sense. I want to comment on two things. The first is what facebook is doing to the concept of friendship. I have about 25 facebook friends, which is roughly the number I would consider to be my friends in the "real world." Yet, I see these people who have 400 or 700 or 1000+ "friends," and know by their own admission they don't even KNOW some of those people, much less have a "friendship" in the traditional sense of the word with them. Maybe its symptomatic of our growing isolationism (ironically* because of a technology designed to keep us closer together), an issue others smarter than I have touched on and that I won't rehash. But, those who use facebook would do well to consider its effects on their perceptions and labels of "friends."

Labels are my second point of criticism. I spent a lot of time procrastinating reading peoples' "info" yesterday. It was telling, as with facebook, we can label ourselves, in effect construct our identities, as we WANT to be seen and percieved. Granted, that tells one almost as much as the actual "info" itself, and is a suprisingly revelatory feature. However, I think this too is symptomatic of our technological age, as we spend time carefully constructing these somewhat virtual identities for ourselves, yet sparse time realizing them in a non-virtual world. Just some things to think about.






* This is not *actually* ironic.

NPR and Criticism

Not long ago, I read an article criticizing NPR's "Top Songs of the Year (So Far) list for being too "white." The author contends that "it's not that NPR doesn't like black music. It merely maintains a strict preference for black music that few actual living African-Americans listen to." Maybe so, maybe not. In my opinion, anyone who genuinely wants to keep a pulse on "black" music (more or less defined by the article in terms of what it's not: white, indie, guitar-driven, college educated, alive, young, local, and hip/fresh/non-retro) doesn't use NPR. Listening to NPR for current trends in rap/ hip-hop makes less sense than buying The New Yorker strictly for the cartoons. And I can see some merits in the author's point that "In matters of musical taste, everyone has a God-given right to provincialism and conservatism, even those NPR listeners who consider themselves cosmopolitan and liberal," although I think forcing yourself to consume music you do not like simply to be "cosmopolitan and liberal" is asinine. 


And I was doing well even through the comparison of the NPR "Best Music..." list with the fact that "...in 2009, the No. 1 song on the Billboard charts has been by a black or female artist—or by groups featuring both blacks and whites or men and women—a total of 41 out of 42 weeks." What got my dander up was the article's snippy "Who are the progressives again—the public radio crowd or the Top 40 great unwashed?" So, "progressive" equals "listening to music that prominently features black or female artists?" And the "great unwashed," because of their support of this music (isn't that what the chart statistics are proving, support?), are more progressive? Breaking "progressive" into such simplistic (and borderline racist) terms does no one any good. More over, it trivializes the complexities of production and consumption of race in music into antagonistic binaries. I'm not going to defend NPR and what they chose to conceive of "black" music, but in their exposure of non- mainstream "black" artists, they inform their listeners about the entire spectrum of "black" music, a spectrum that takes far more into account that Top 40 hits.


However, I will criticize NPR for its endorsement of Bernstein's recording of Shostakovich's 5th Symphony. And, for its sales pitch: "In the remarkable finale, Shostakovich achieves one of the greatest coups of his symphonic career: a "victorious" closer that drives home the expected message and at the same time makes an entirely different point — the real one." This whole trope of Shostakovich study was begun with the fraudulent memoir "Testimony," and was continued through a slew of noxious, pseudo-musicological "interpretations" that I won't even mention by name on my blog. This trope persists, in program and liner notes and pre-concert lectures (last weekend I saw a legitimate conductor spew some of this same nonsense before Shostakovich's 10th Symphony), and most frustratingly, in legitimate scholarly publications by scholars who did not critically analyze their sources. It's a serious historiographic problem, and one that I will return to soon.




"..An entirely different point- the real one." Please. Aside of being elitist and overly dramatic, and ignoring for sake of time the hermeneutic implications of such statements, sticking to such an interpretation with Bernstein's recording, BERNSTEIN'S!, the fastest one I have ever heard **, is mindless. The tempo at the end is so fast, so stereotypically reliant on traditional symphonic gestures of closure that the possibility for other interpretations doesn't even exist... and that does a huge disservice to Shostakovich and intelligent consumers of art music.



** Compare Bernstein's (8:53) with Rostropovich's (12:04)