LIBBY LARSEN: DEEP SUMMER MUSIC, SOLO SYMPHONY, MARIMBA CONCERTO

Libby Larsen is an active composer of works in several genres, including orchestral and solo works. As a female composer, she strongly promotes an increased role for women in music. She has also encouraged composers to have a role outside of academia through her co-founding of the American Composers Forum. In works such as Deep Summer Music, Solo Symphony, and Marimba Concerto: After Hampton, she redefines the role of the musicians as well as that of the listener in addition to specifically exploring the meaning of “soloist.” Her use of lyrical melodies amidst a more modern freedom of tonality along with her compositional philosophy of exploration and redefinition of “solo” certainly warrant a place in the Canon.

Deep Summer Music, written more than ten years before the other pieces on this CD, contains a rather traditional use of the soloist, as the trumpet solo “recalls the presence of the individual amidst the vastness of the landscape” (Program Notes, Libby Larsen). This solo (which is encapsulated neatly in the middle of the piece, evoking a feeling of enclosure) emphasizes the limited scope of a single performer or person when considering the larger ensemble or scene. Larsen’s lyricism is most clearly evident in this piece, opening with a soaring melody in the strings accompanied by varied wind instruments that pop in just to change the color of the melody. One cannot help but imagine the colors of different crops in the landscape as the winds fade in and out. Larsen stays away from a primary tonal center for the most part, letting her melody meander through differing keys unhindered. This programmatic approach to music as well as the “individual in the wilderness” theme is quite reminiscent of the Romantic period, but her free tonal center (formed more by overlapping scalar melodies than triads) and use of scattered color shifts clearly define her work as modern.

Larsen’s exploration of the role of a soloist begins to develop in Marimba Concerto: After Hampton. While the form of the piece takes the standard fast, slow, fast pattern, the use of marimba varies greatly from movement to movement. In the first movement, the marimba and the orchestra to trade increasingly difficult rhythmic motives as they “pass the plate.” The character of the movement is certainly derived from the interaction between the soloist and the orchestra, while the second movement focuses almost entirely on the marimba as a “soloist” by all conventional definitions of the term. The orchestra’s role is consistently muted (as implied by the marking “in muted colors”), leaving the marimba to carry the melody for itself. Larsen restructures the marimba’s role again in the final movement by lessening the pervasive role of the solo marimba, bringing to mind the percussion ensembles that are prevalent in non-Western music. The marimba simply functions within the group of percussionists, playing in unison with other instruments and using tremolos simply as color rather than soloistic ornamentation. As concertos are generally meant to exhibit the talents of a solo performer, her intentions for the movements seem counterintuitive to the listener at times. However, it is this repressing of the conventional definition of “soloist” that Larsen may be after.

This redefinition of “soloist” is particularly evident in Solo Symphony. Larsen specifically points out this definition in her program notes for the premiere: “A solo is a group. The effort of many becomes the effort of one to produce a unified sound, a unified music.” The spirit of this quotation is clearly audible, beginning with the first movement, “Solo solos.” This movement begins with short solos passed among the clarinet, oboe, bassoon, horn, and trumpet. At any given point the listener can hear the soloists passing the melody, and as the density of the piece builds, it moves among larger sections playing as choirs in unison. This growth shows the extension of the definition of solo from that of the individual to that of the group. The second movement, “One dance, many dancers,” transforms a theme introduced by the trombone into several different styles, ranging from a heavy funk beat established by the low brass to a swinging clarinet solo. While this movement does not so blatantly reflect the role of the soloist, it does reflect that a singular dance may comprised of several dancers (and styles), just as a single solo is comprised of several instruments (paralleling her “group” definition).

Preceded by the brief movement “Once around,” which features the orchestra’s instrumental choirs, “The Cocktail Party Effect” (the fourth movement) requires the listener to pick out the designated “solo instrument” from the chaos of background music. The solos in this movement function not as melodies that rise to the fore, but as hidden tidbits for which one must search. This function takes the spotlight off of the soloist and gives more prominence to the orchestra as the whole being the solo group to which the audience listens. This still is not the end of Larsen’s redefining of “solo;” she sums up her program notes with the words: “In fact, the listener is the true soloist.”

Larsen’s identifying the listener as a soloist depicts a trend in the arts to involve and engage the audience to a greater degree. She writes melodies that retain enough lyricism, even in their lack of tonal center, to be aesthetically pleasing to the average audience. Larsen’s willingness to question standard definitions and conventions in music is similar to that of many modern composers. In stretching the definitions of “musician” and “listener” along with writing lyrical melodies, she produces many appealing works. It is her specific explorations of “soloist” in the pieces on this CD that set her apart from some of the others as she places her solo instruments in varying situations. Larsen executes these explorations excellently in her music, which makes her very deserving of a place in the Canon.

HARRY PARTCH: THE BEWITCHED, A DANCE SATIRE

Harry Partch was an American composer perhaps best known for developing and using a temperament other than equal. He even designed new instruments and notational systems in order to use this temperament to invoke passionate emotion in the audience, just as music from ancient societies might have done. The Bewitched, A Dance Satire (1957) exemplifies his idea of “corporeality,” which asserts that the music should be joined with physicality and that separating the two would take away an important aspect of the art. In addition, Partch emphasized that the corporeal nature of his works was related to ancient forms that have since been “mutilated.”[1] In this work, the musicians are freed from the musical pit and released on a stage full of risers where they move and act as well as play Partch’s instruments. Here, the instruments themselves take on physicality as they form the set. This expansion of the role of the performer in addition to Partch’s unique instrumentation makes The Bewitched an intriguing philosophical study. It is quite rhythmically driven, and the vocalizations are all nonsense syllables. While the piece is not an easy listen, perhaps in part because the music in CD form has been ripped from its corporeal aspects, Partch’s innovative ideas regarding music demand study.

The Bewitched opens and closes with a focus on the musicians as they act under the presence of the Witch. An eighteen minute prologue titled ‘The Lost Musicians Mix Magic” accompanies their discovery of the freedom of the stage. Partch himself related in his notes: “If this evening accomplishes nothing else, it will relieve the beautiful (and) rhythmic movements of the musicians from the inhibitory incubus of tight coats and tight shoes.” In putting the musicians in such a prominent position, he was perhaps “cocking a snook”[2] at the specialization of the fine arts. Rather than limiting the musicians to the role of music-makers, he showed that musicians also have bodies that can perform visually. Additionally, by putting them onstage as part of the drama, Partch supports his idea that music is inseparable from the body and cannot be expressed without the physical, which also emphasizes corporeality and ties music and drama to each other quite tightly. As the musicians exit the stage during the Epilogue (after the exit of the Witch), they are seen on a “stairway to infinity” created from their risers as they continue to push boundaries, perhaps even to infinity (Partch).

Partch’s own synopsis of the work describes the action vividly; his text clearly paints the progression of the state of minds of characters from the beginning to end of each scene. The influence of the Witch as well as the “unwitching” of the characters play a huge role in his written synopsis, but much of his vivid language would probably not be done justice on the stage. The fifth scene, ‘Visions Fill the Eyes of a Defeated Basketball Team in the Shower Room,’ certainly has an audible change in character from the beginning “groove” in percussion and voice to frenetic piccolo and clarinet accompanied by the Witch. However, without Partch’s words that “the basketball team—now unwitched—has fallen completely under the charming belief that reality contains a compound of both experience and imagination,” it would be impossible for the audience to ascertain that they feel “experience and imagination.” Perhaps this synopsis is therefore another part of the de-specialization of the form and intertwining of its roles, as the text is inseparable from the music and action. Even if the text is satirical,[3] as the title of the work implies, the interaction between the words and music remains undividable.

Although Partch created his own instruments in order to capture a tonal system that would better resonate with listeners, he still included piccolo, clarinet, and bass clarinet in the orchestration. Their scales serve as a remarkable juxtaposition to the scales of Partch’s instruments, such as the cloud chamber bowls and kithara. While these “standard” instruments often work in harmony with Partch’s own instruments, in other cases, they are violently attacked because of the harmonies that they traditionally play. Scene 2, titled “Exercises in Harmony and Counterpoint Are Tried in a Court of Ancient Ritual,” serves as a battle between 18^th century harmony and Partch’s more emotionally powerful music. This movement begins with the cello and clarinet playing a melody that sounds harmonically stable (according to old rules of harmony) interrupted by plucked instruments playing in Partch’s tonal system. Later in the scene, the cello and clarinet begin to play a canon only to be interrupted by a new, powerful melody belted out by the Witch. Soon, the 18^th century-influenced cello and clarinet are squashed completely and replaced with Partch’s new sound (which, of course, was influenced by his concept of ancient sound).

Partch’s looking back to the past is evident in several movements. Scenes 8 and 10 as well as the prologue contain a contrapuntal melody derived from the Cahuilla Indians (Synopsis, Partch), which is very fitting for Partch since he so respected the ancient traditions of other cultures. He also mentioned in his synopsis that Scene 1 is a parallel to Greek drama: “The bewitched enter, and the analogy with lyric tragedy is complete: the Chorus, the Perceptive Voice, the Actors.” Partch’s revisiting of the musical traditions of cultures that used music and drama to provoke emotion demonstrate his own desire to move people with his work. Indeed, much of his rhythmically driven work is reminiscent of some type of tribal or ritual music, which certainly was meant to invoke strong passions in people listening and participating. However, although Partch freed the musicians from the pit, the audience was not freed from their seating and was left only to watch the drama without taking part.

This work has probably been omitted from the Canon because it is not easily accessible to members of an average audience; it is not a work that people would likely listen to for fun. In fact, the average person probably would not even watch the production for fun. The vocalizations along with the broken melodies (when melodies even exist) create a jarring effect. While this effect certainly fits the title of The Bewitched, it is not a feeling that many people want to experience. Although the catchy beat and vocalization of “Visions Fill the Eyes of a Defeated Basketball Team in the Shower Room” seems to have been getting stuck in my head lately, the work as a whole quickly becomes too unsettling for comfort. I was much more interested in Partch’s philosophies than I was in the musical fulfillment of these philosophies, and while his tuning system and revisions to the modern staged work may warrant a place in the Canon, that place is probably not best held by The Bewitched.

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[1] “We are reduced to specialties—a theater of dialogue without music, for example—and a concert of music without drama. Basic mutilations of ancient concept! My music is visual—it is corporeal, aural, and visual” (emphasis added, Harry Partch, Liner Notes for The Bewitched 2005:536).

[2]“Cocking a snook” is an old –fashioned British phrase meaning “to show that you do not respect something or someone by doing something that insults them” (Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms).

[3]The text and situations are certainly meant to be satirical. However, many of Partch’s themes (such as the one found in “Visions Fill the Eyes of a Defeated Basketball Team in the Shower Room) may give difficulty to audiences trying to clearly recognize the satirical elements, especially amidst the rapid changes in each scene due to the “unwitching.” Likewise, rapid changes in musical dynamics, texture, and tempo further obscure what exactly Parch is satirizing.

ALEXANDER ZEMLINSKY: LYRIC SYMPHONY

While Alexander Zemlinsky was strongly linked to the Second Viennese School as a teacher of Berg and strong supporter of modern music, his own compositions’ style seems to neatly combine Romantic compositional styles with a spattering of modern tendencies. Despite Zemlinsky’s strong support of modern music, it seems that he had a fondness for composing his own pieces with mainly techniques that had been popular in the late Romantic. Zemlinsky wrote his Lyric Symphony during his time in Prague, and it is considered one of his “finest works” (Grove Music Online s.v. “Zemlinsky”). The symphony is composed of seven sections with operatic lyrics for two soloists based on the poems of Rabindranath Tagore, an Indian author. Characteristics of Romantic compositions, such as exoticism, large ensemble, and use of literature as a basis for music may be clearly traced in this symphony. However, Zemlinsky also uses more modern techniques, such as lack of strong pulse along with altered scales that contribute to a vague tonal center. In addition, his expression of intense and sometimes frightening human emotion through music reflects a modern trend to show humanity as it truly functions. This piece depicts the transition between Romantic and modern, as Zemlinsky himself was transitioning.[1] It is an enjoyable piece for both listening and analyzing, and there is no reason for its exclusion from the Canon other than it was looking back to the Romantic. Most of the modern works in the Canon are there because they exemplify a particular technique developed in the period, and this piece simply is a beautiful continuation of techniques that were been used before.

The first movement begins with a slow but intense instrumental introduction featuring the full ensemble with timpani playing sustained, forte chords in dotted rhythms. This introduction sounds much like Mahler, who expanded the size of the orchestra in the Romantic and wrote intense, brooding themes such as these. The movement calms beginning with a second section that sounds more like a chamber group, during which the baritone begins to sing. His stanzas are interrupted by large orchestral sections, but despite the interjecting nature of the orchestral parts, the instruments often reflect the lyrics. The baritone’s words, “Oh the keen call of thy flute,” are accompanied by a flute struggling to be heard over the heavy brass texture. This flute theme reappears in the second movement as a plaintive flute melody enters the orchestration as the soprano realizes that her love will leave her, so she sings that “only the vanishing strain of the flute will come sobbing to me from afar.” This mirroring of the text also calls the listener to remember techniques of text painting from works of earlier periods.

Color plays a central role in this symphony, as the texts of Tagore are reflected in the music. The lyrics are full of references to red and blue linked to exotic themes like chariots, face veils, and rubies. Movements that contain reds (II., III., V.) tend to be louder and full of rhythmic themes in the brasses or full string sections. In the second movement, exoticism is emphasized through the use of a harmonic minor melody in the brass counter to the soprano as she sings of a ruby she tosses to the ground. Tagore’s lyrics in conjunction with the melodic content of this section clearly bring to mind the Indian ethnicity. The “blue” movement (IV.) has a sparser orchestral part, often featuring winds or solo strings on a flowing melody. The violin executes a particularly haunting solo in this section. Movements I. and VII. deal mainly with light, but since daylight is closely associated with a blue sky (which is actually mentioned in I.), these may also be grouped as blue movements, thus closing the piece with a serene aesthetic. The first movement begins with a prelude that seems musically more “red” than “blue” because of the strong brass sections. However, the lyrical melodies that take over the rhythmic introduction firmly establish the symphony in this milder “blue” style. These two movements thus frame a passionate symphony of reds with quieter moments for reflection.

Movement VI. deserves its own discussion in reference to color since it has no colorful mention in its lyrics. Color’s conspicuous absence along with scant instrumentation again reflects the feelings and words of the soloist: “My eager hands press emptiness to my heart and it bruises my breast.” The soprano’s lyrics are framed by a solo clarinet, erupting from the still orchestra in an upward run in the beginning and falling back down in a more lyrical phrase to set up the final movement. This contrast between limited orchestration and bursts of intense yearning perfectly emulates the emptiness the soprano is trying to possess and the intensity of feeling that bruises her. While no color is specifically mentioned, this juxtaposition seems to combine aspects of the other movements, perhaps making the section about “emptiness” the fullest moment of the piece.

Thus far, it seems that Zemlinsky was simply living in the past, neglecting more modern techniques. However, this is not the case. It is through the discussion of dreams[2] that his modernity begins to become evident. The baritone soloist first mentions the topic of dreams in the third movement: “You are my own, my own, Dweller in my deathless dreams” (emphasis added). This line, tenderly wrapped within the orchestral texture, leads to the fourth movement, in which a dream-like aesthetic is evoked through the free rhythm of the violin soloist. The steady pulse that had pervaded the symphony suddenly disappears into a Debussian atmosphere. The colorless sixth movement again mentions dreams which “can never be made captive.” All of these dream statements culminate in the final movement, in which the baritone asserts, “Let it not be death, but completeness.”[3] Here the instrumentation is again limited with a distant horn call sounding before the symphony concludes with a whole-tone melody. This use of the whole-tone scale is used to represent the dream state of the soloists, as they have no beginning or end, just like the deathless dream. While these may be stretched to fit the definition of modern, it is really the passion of the “red” movements that reflects the psychological trends of modern composers; raw human emotion is shown bluntly within love scenes without fear of showing the darker side of human nature.

While it is clear that Zemlinsky drew perhaps more heavily from composers of the past than from techniques of his own time, this influence does not diminish the beauty of his Lyric Symphony. His lyricism paired with powerful climaxes yields a beautiful piece of music that is perhaps best described as a transition between Romanticism and Modernism (though much more influence is to be found on the Romantic side). In addition, the interweaving of Tagore’s text and Zemlinsky’s music is breathtaking. This work has certainly been overlooked and deserves some Canonic attention despite its strong attachment to ideas of Romanticism during the Modern era. Its forthright passion is enough to link it to modern psychology, and Zemlinsky’s understanding of Romantic forms and techniques combined with this created an outstanding symphony.

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[1]Zemlinsky’s early works, such as Trio for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano, op. 3 are heavily reminiscent of Brahms, using few, if any, “Modern” techniques.

[2]Sigmund Freud published many fascinating papers concerning dreams in the years prior to the composition of this piece. The essay “Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming” (1908) is strikingly similar to the use of dreams in this work.

[3]This statement seems to reflect Strauss and Wagner’s theme of death and transfiguration.

WILLIAM WALTON: FAÇADE

William Walton was a well-known English composer in the 19^th century. In his early career, he gained many of his musical contacts through the patronage and support of the Sitwell family, and it was a collaboration with Edith Sitwell that created Façade. Walton was only nineteen when he wrote this piece, a chamber work to accompany the poetry of Sitwell. However, the work has undergone several decades of revision to reach the form in which it is currently recorded, and perhaps it is this evolving time that has kept it from being noticed in the Canon. While the music is intriguing, it is really the amalgamation of several art forms in the creation of Façade that makes it a captivating study.

Façade was first performed in the Sitwell home in order to enhance the poetry that was rhythmically entwined in the piece. Sitwell’s short poems are know for word-rhythms and onomatopoeia and are sometimes defined as “nonsense verse.” Most times it seems that Sitwell cared more for the sound and rhythm of the words that she strang together than for the meaning of the poems. Perhaps this placement of priorities reflects the musical trend for using harmonies as color rather than in traditionally functional ways. Regardless, her poems are quite modern in this respect, making it fitting that they were performed along with modern music and artwork. She convinced Walton to write the accompaniment and is said to have spent hours reading them to him so that he could understand the exact rhythm and nuance she intended. Each poem is no longer than three minutes in length, the songs’ used as well as their order varied from performance to performance. When Façade premiered in Sitwell’s home, she hid the musicians and herself behind an enormous curtain on which a grotesque head was painted (the original by Gino Severini). In addition to all this, in place of the mouth, a Sengerphone[1] (through which she recited her poems) was affixed to the curtain. The result of this was a satirical chamber piece featuring the nonsense poetry of a disembodied voice behind a Cubist painting.

Reception of Façade has been mixed since its premiere. At the actual premiere in Sitwell’s parlor, Michael Kennedy, author of Portrait of Walton, found that the audience was “naturally enthusiastic in their reception of Façade, for it was essentially an entertainment for artists and people of imagination” (28). Despite this enthusiasm, Walton would later point out that the audience talked through the entire performance and thought that he and Edith were crazy. The short pieces that make up Façade would seem very characteristic of the period, including lively and individualistic parts for the instrumentalists and several catchy tunes amidst increasing chromaticism along with some ambiguity of meter and tonal center. However, the intoned recitation of the speaker (in addition to the spectacle of the curtain and Sengerphone) pushed the limits of many audiences of the time. This poetry was not the beautiful verse of the German Romantics that composers had set to music in the past; it was “drivel they paid to hear” (headline of newspapers after the Aeolian Hall performance in 1923). Façade certainly is not a piece that most people would listen to for its catchy tunes—it can be most appreciated for its innovation in integrating poetic and musical rhythm.

By the time Façade evolved to its current published form, the instrumentation was for flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass clarinet, alto saxophone, trumpet, percussion (side drum, cymbal, triangle, Chinese block castanets, tambourine, jingles), and cello (two cellos if the part for single cello was “too arduous”). This evolution, while fascinating to study, makes it difficult for the listener to realize what the original melodic intent of the pieces was. As Walton revised and added more pieces to Façade, they became increasingly satirical and were based on dances, while his original works more closely resembled “atonal” works. In fact, only six of the original eighteen works in Façade made it to the current publication. By listening to the works in Façade 2 (which were re-added to the work as part of 75^th birthday celebration for Walton), one notices that the parts were more frugal and do not have nearly so defined a rhythm as pieces like “Old Sir Faulk” (a fox trot), “Scotch Rhapsody” (a Highland reel), and more obviously, “Valse,” “Tango,” and “Polka.” This makes one think that perhaps Walton had originally been going for a more atonal aesthetic to accompany the poetry and later conformed more to what the listening public wanted to hear—music with catchy pulses.

A large number of Walton’s songs from Façade include traditional forms that he contorts to fulfill his own purposes. For example, his “Valse” clearly was influenced by the waltz form dating back to the 18^th century. Walton certainly takes the waltz in a new direction. One would expect the first beat of each measure to be accented, but instead, the movement begins with a rest followed a trumpet playing a syncopated rhythm with grace notes followed by falls in the cello. The waltz thus begins with an uncertain meter but settles definitively into triple meter by the time the reciter enters. Walton also used a traditional compositional form, ABA, though he used a jazz accompaniment along with the standard waltz, including broken figures in the bass and misplaced accents. As if these references to both the old and the new were not enough, he added in the leaping octaves and trills of Strauss (though now heavily articulated for his own purposes).

Perhaps the most “catchy” of the songs in Façade is one aptly named “Popular Song.” An educated listener can pick up references to Sousa march form again with a heavy jazz influence (diminished intervals on strong beats, side drum and cymbals filling gaps, diminished thirds abounding, etc.). Walton still manages to contort the standard four bar phrases, adding “hiccups” on occasion.” In addition, this is one of the many songs in which he uses an odd tempo marking (quarter=138).[2] Nevertheless, it actually became “popular” like the forms it is satirizing and was actually used as the theme song for the British television show Face the Music.[3]

Façade is certainly an extremely creative project about which dozens of people have found worth studying and writing books.[4] Walton composed for a long period of time in several genres, and his impact on music has been well-chronicled. However, I do not think that I can give a strong endorsement for the inclusion of Façade in the Canon simply for its musical merit. It cannot be separated for the poetry and artwork of which it was comprised. This considered, Façade cannot be truly appreciated through CD—its value as a composition seems very reliant on its public performance aspects. It was created to be performed in a parlor, among friends, and this aesthetic cannot be recreated well in the concert halls (as evidenced by its poor reception in the concert hall) or through a simple sound recording. It is because the music does not stand alone (with the possible exception of “Popular Song”) that I believe it has not made the Canon. When listening to the pieces as a cycle, the novelty of the compositional ideas wears off quickly, leaving one bored by the time one reaches the half-way mark on the CD. That said, Façade is certainly worth a listen to consider the integration of the arts as well as the progression of poems set to music from the Romantic Goethe to the modern Sitwell.

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[1]The Sengerphone was invented to magnify the voice of Fafner the dragon in Richard Wagner’s Siegfried.

[2]Perhaps the oddest of Walton’s tempo markings is the quarter=63 for “A Man from a Far Contree”

[3] Face the Music was a popular quiz show, running from 1966 to 1979, about classical music. Oddly enough, it did not award points for correct answers and had no winner. Walton appeared on the show as a guest twice (Humphrey Burton, William Walton: The Romantic Loner, 162).

[4]These are startlingly similar books at that, most of them referencing each other to a great extent.