April 13, 2010
NEW YORK -- The American Composers Orchestra side-stepped its premise at Friday's concert in Zankel Hall, by including music by a Dutch composer and a Canadian. Louis Andriessen, who has made rebellion a cottage industry, is Carnegie Hall's resident composer this year [and Musical America’s Composer of the Year], and this performance, the first of eight in the next month, celebrated the varied styles of Andriessen at 70. In all of Carnegie's halls, he is being showcased as the big guy in the middle, standing between his mentors (Stravinsky is represented, but Andriessen studied with Berio) or models (bebop, jazz) and his students.
"Louis & the Young Americans," a lively mixed-bag of premieres, opened the ten-day survey, showing the composer as teacher and mentor. Rather than the routine order of students' work first, summed up by the leader's, the clever lineup featured an early work by Andriessen (in its New York premiere) followed by the current--and equally mature--compositions of former students John Korsrud (the Canadian) and Michael Fiday, plus a re-orchestrated piece by Missy Mazzoli, all ACO commissions.
Andriessen's 1978 Symphony for Open Strings is a long --too long--movement for 12 players who bow specially tuned strings, using the fingerboard hand only for support or plucking. At its core are soft tone clusters that pull apart in range, then contract, with short motifs threading through, punctuating or following along. Andriessen is famous for filtering influences of non-classical American genres: at one point, a group pizzicato accompanied bowed tones in something resembling "Blue Moon"; elsewhere, a protracted plodding passage for the two basses evoked a locomotive gathering speed.
This "symphony" is less a revolt or bad-boy caper than a rappel off the tradition that makes the composer uneasy--in this case, string orchestra masterworks by Tchaikovsky and Vaughan Williams. Estimated in the program at "approximately 25 minutes," it either ran for 40 minutes or just felt that way.
Guest conductor Jeffrey Milarsky was a strong advocate for all the repertoire, even if his big beat with no stick caused a few imperfect entrances.
Korsrud played the solo trumpet part in his "Come to the Dark Side," dedicated to Andriessen and named for what Andriessen encouraged him to do, according to his note in the program. Moving in flavor from "Quiet City" to "Flight of the Bumblebee," the piece has a languid start until it kicks into rock mode with snare drums, rattles, electric bass and pushy motifs against calypso rhythms. Reflecting several influences from the teacher's style, it kept the audience's attention for about ten of its 15 minutes.
Mazzoli's new orchestration of "These Worlds in Us," introduced in 2006 by the Yale Philharmonia and the Minnesota Orchestra, was preceded by a short film of her working with Victoire, an all-woman quintet devoted solely to her music. The talented 30-year-old Mazzoli, executive director of New York's MATA contemporary festival, has an impressive list of grants and performances. She speaks and writes passionately about her time in the Netherlands with Andriessen, but the rich chords, eye-opening modulations and pulsing rhythms of “These Worlds…” are redolent of Philip Glass. The full ensemble, conventionally orchestrated with added melodica, weaves in simple rising scale fragments. Its appeal enticed this listener to seek out more of Mazzoli’s work.
Fiday's new "Gonzo Variations: Hunter S. Thompson in Memoriam" shows diverse influences -- including Andriessen. In his note, Fiday referred to Thompson's notorious "endless pranks, hard drinking and pharmacological excess." A set of double variations, the piece begins with a solo violin phrase from "My Old Kentucky Home," which is soon left behind. Quiet clusters like Andriessen's balance rock's hard-driving over-stimulation. "Kentucky Home" tried a comeback but was steamrolled by something sounding like Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit."
Near the end comes a voiceover of Thompson reading his essay "Electricity," which ends with how it wants to go home, and will kill anything that gets in its way. The accompaniment buzzes.
Fiday knows what he's doing and puts it across with contrast and vigor, making successful use of Andriessen's cross-pollinating techniques. Smart to finish with that.
NEW YORK -- The American Composers Orchestra side-stepped its premise at Friday's concert in Zankel Hall, by including music by a Dutch composer and a Canadian. Louis Andriessen, who has made rebellion a cottage industry, is Carnegie Hall's resident composer this year [and Musical America’s Composer of the Year], and this performance, the first of eight in the next month, celebrated the varied styles of Andriessen at 70. In all of Carnegie's halls, he is being showcased as the big guy in the middle, standing between his mentors (Stravinsky is represented, but Andriessen studied with Berio) or models (bebop, jazz) and his students.
"Louis & the Young Americans," a lively mixed-bag of premieres, opened the ten-day survey, showing the composer as teacher and mentor. Rather than the routine order of students' work first, summed up by the leader's, the clever lineup featured an early work by Andriessen (in its New York premiere) followed by the current--and equally mature--compositions of former students John Korsrud (the Canadian) and Michael Fiday, plus a re-orchestrated piece by Missy Mazzoli, all ACO commissions.
Andriessen's 1978 Symphony for Open Strings is a long --too long--movement for 12 players who bow specially tuned strings, using the fingerboard hand only for support or plucking. At its core are soft tone clusters that pull apart in range, then contract, with short motifs threading through, punctuating or following along. Andriessen is famous for filtering influences of non-classical American genres: at one point, a group pizzicato accompanied bowed tones in something resembling "Blue Moon"; elsewhere, a protracted plodding passage for the two basses evoked a locomotive gathering speed.
This "symphony" is less a revolt or bad-boy caper than a rappel off the tradition that makes the composer uneasy--in this case, string orchestra masterworks by Tchaikovsky and Vaughan Williams. Estimated in the program at "approximately 25 minutes," it either ran for 40 minutes or just felt that way.
Guest conductor Jeffrey Milarsky was a strong advocate for all the repertoire, even if his big beat with no stick caused a few imperfect entrances.
Korsrud played the solo trumpet part in his "Come to the Dark Side," dedicated to Andriessen and named for what Andriessen encouraged him to do, according to his note in the program. Moving in flavor from "Quiet City" to "Flight of the Bumblebee," the piece has a languid start until it kicks into rock mode with snare drums, rattles, electric bass and pushy motifs against calypso rhythms. Reflecting several influences from the teacher's style, it kept the audience's attention for about ten of its 15 minutes.
Mazzoli's new orchestration of "These Worlds in Us," introduced in 2006 by the Yale Philharmonia and the Minnesota Orchestra, was preceded by a short film of her working with Victoire, an all-woman quintet devoted solely to her music. The talented 30-year-old Mazzoli, executive director of New York's MATA contemporary festival, has an impressive list of grants and performances. She speaks and writes passionately about her time in the Netherlands with Andriessen, but the rich chords, eye-opening modulations and pulsing rhythms of “These Worlds…” are redolent of Philip Glass. The full ensemble, conventionally orchestrated with added melodica, weaves in simple rising scale fragments. Its appeal enticed this listener to seek out more of Mazzoli’s work.
Fiday's new "Gonzo Variations: Hunter S. Thompson in Memoriam" shows diverse influences -- including Andriessen. In his note, Fiday referred to Thompson's notorious "endless pranks, hard drinking and pharmacological excess." A set of double variations, the piece begins with a solo violin phrase from "My Old Kentucky Home," which is soon left behind. Quiet clusters like Andriessen's balance rock's hard-driving over-stimulation. "Kentucky Home" tried a comeback but was steamrolled by something sounding like Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit."
Near the end comes a voiceover of Thompson reading his essay "Electricity," which ends with how it wants to go home, and will kill anything that gets in its way. The accompaniment buzzes.
Fiday knows what he's doing and puts it across with contrast and vigor, making successful use of Andriessen's cross-pollinating techniques. Smart to finish with that.