Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning review of AFMM 1999 Microthon

I was proud to be a part of this year's AFMM, in an
unprecedented 'Microthon' on Sunday, May 23, which was 11 hours
long and featured the music of 40 different microtonal composers.

I'm going to give the most honest review I can give here,
and I hope it doesn't offend or alienate any of the composers
or performers, many of whom have become friends of mine
over the years.

There were two breaks, one for lunch from 1:00 to 2:00, and
one for dinner from 6:00 to 7:00, and audience members
were stamped and could come and go as they pleased, which
was different from any serious-music concert I've ever
attended.

Unfortunately at the start of the concert, 10:00 AM,
the audience was quite small. There was almost a full
house at 2:00, and a decent crowd at 7:00.

Wim Hoogewerf, a Dutch guitarist from Paris who performed
three different times during this concert alone, as well
as on the two other concerts of this year's festival,
opened the Microthon with three Spanish pieces from the
Renaissance. I particularly liked the third one,
_Fantasia que contrabaze le harpa en la menera de Ludovico_
[whoever he is], from 1546. This piece had some surprisingly
modern elements in it.

All three were played in JI.

I am a fan of Wim's playing, especially when his guitar
is tuned in JI, altho in this appearance and his second, he
'fluffed' a few notes. He performs on a guitar with grooves
under each string and moveable frets for each string.

David Beardsley performed his _Sonic Bloom_ next. This piece
has sounds from a Korg synthesizer controlled by MIDI input from
his electric guitar. It's an ambient piece of long sustained
tones, in a JI 'subharmonic' tuning. His amplifier settings were
slightly off, emphasizing the bass a bit too much, but as he
performed solo, he couldn't fix them once he started without
stopping the performance, he decided not to do that, and the piece
came off very well despite that anyway.

Next Mary Hurlbut sang along with Andrew Bolotowsky's flute
in the world premiere (one of 12 listed on the program) of
Franz Kamin's _People's Song_. Altho I personally wasn't
particularly moved by the style used in setting the poem
(reminding me a bit of the detached style used by Boulez and
the other French 1950s serialists, which I *do* like in Boulez's
setting of surrealist poetry), the microtonal interplay between
soprano and flute was very interesting.

Eric Nauman on electric guitar and Douglas Cohen on computer
electronics performed a piece that had a Cageian element
in it with Eric's turning over cards which indicated the long
sustained chords he strummed on the guitar. This was a minimal
piece, and Doug's electronics were very nice. I found the piece
a bit monotonous but overall quite interesting.

Something that was tried as an experiment was the playing
of tracks from CD recordings of microtonal music, in between
selections, while musicians were setting up. David Beardsley
had the arduous job of staying on top of this thru-out the long
day.

The first such piece given was Rick Sanford's _Nightwalking, A
Fantasie_, which was a rhythmic minimalist piece that sounded to
me like it was in JI, and was quite nice.

Unfortunately, after this one, members of the audience talked
thru all the other CD tracks, so that the pieces functioned more
as incidental background music and did not really get the attention
they deserved as selections in the concert. I agree with the
suggestion from Lydia Ayers that if this format is used in the
future, it would be better to announce the CD tracks as pieces
and present them without the distraction of stage movement, to
indicate a more attentive approach to the audience during the
playing of the CDs, and then have no music at all during the
equipment set-up, since most of the audience members are regular
attendees to this festival who live geographically far apart and
welcome the opportunity to meet and talk to each other anyway.

In fact, it may be good to encourage the audience to get up and
mingle during set-up periods, especially in a concert as long as
this one.

Next came Mayumi Reinhard on synthesizer giving the world
premiere of _Harapba (Natural Open Field)_. This was in a
JI tuning with a steady and very rhythmic background.

Andrew Bolotowsky reappeared solo to perform Virgil Thomson's
1943 piece _Sonata for Flute Alone_, ostensibly in 12-eq,
which Johnny says is also microtonal (!). It was played on
a conical Boehm flute, which, Johnny argued afterwards, gave it
an imperfection of intonation that qualified it as microtonal
(isn't he sly!).

Wim Hoogewerf returned to play the American premiere of Alois
Haba's _Suite_, op. 63, for quartertone guitar. This was one
of my favorite performances of the concert.

Next, Michiyo Suzuki performed a solo clarinet piece
by Jiji Yuasa called _Solitude_, and did a magnificent job.
Her playing was masterfully controlled (and I know that of
which I speak: my first and main instrument was clarinet), even
during the difficult double-phonics which occurred thru-out the
piece, and she played some high notes that I think most clarinet
teachers will tell you don't exist.

A few people complained about what was apparently a lack
of oxygen in the hall, and admitted to dozing off,
as I did, during the longest individual performance in
the concert, Joshua Pierce's excellent rendition of
John Cage's _Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano_.

Aside from that complaint, the only real *musical* criticism
was that the piano itself, while not bad, was not able to do full
justice to the quality of Pierce's performance - but this is
a physics lecture hall and not a musical performance space.
(Of course, we are all grateful to _________ for giving
Johnny Reinhard access to this space.)

As David Beardsley remarked to me, this piece hints very much
at the sound of a gamelan, but what struck me in this hearing
was how closely some parts of it sounded like bits from
Partch's later more percussive pieces, certain figures very
strongly resembling, say, the diamond marimba and harmonic canon
in pieces from _And On The Seventh Day Petals Fell in Petaluma_.
I noticed this about midway thru, around Sonata # 8.

An intermission for Lunch followed from 1:00 to 2:00.

The piece opening the second part of the concert was Thomas
Rutishauser on solo cello, performing Violetta Dinescu's
_Intarsien_. This was an intense piece, done very well by
Rutishauser. I listened in vain for familiar material to
return - apparently this is a thru-composed or athematic piece,
but it was done very well and was quite effective.
Its intensity reminded me of Bartok at his best.

The Flux String Quartet performed two world premieres on the
concert. Incorrectly listed as 'Fluxus Quartet' on the program,
leader Tom Chiu, before their second performance, gave the
correction: 'we appreciate Johnny's reference to our roots,
i.e., the Fluxus Movement, but our name is 'Flux Quartet'.

Their first premiere was in the one-movement _Fear_ by
Al Giusto, which I thought was an excellent piece and an
excellent performance, very well conjuring up different aspects
of its title emotion.

This quartet gives very good performances of JI music.
My only complaint, which I stated in a review after hearing
them last year [see _Review of 'When Mozart was a 9-year-old'_
in Juxtaposition], is that Cornelius Duffalo, the 2nd violinist,
performs with an intonation that is not quite as precise as the
other members. Unfortunately, it shows up more noticeably
than it might otherwise, particularly when only the violins
are playing, because Tom Chiu on 1st violin has such excellent
intonation. But at the same time, Cornelius's intonation has
improved in the past year, and overall (this minor intonational
quibble aside) I think both of the quartet's performances were
first-rate.

Sasha Bogdanowitsch's piece _An Ocean Walks Beside a Lake_
was also a world premiere. The piece and performance were
excellent. I felt that it was a little long, but perhaps that
was just because of the context of the 11-hour concert in itself.
I was told later that, in the form presented today, it was just
a subset of the entire piece. But given the length of the concert
in its totality, there was a section in Sasha's piece
where there was a clear break and I felt the performance
could have concluded.

That said, let me emphasize the positive aspects of this
wonderful work. Sasha's piece was for his own live voice
(with invented-language syllables and dance movements) plus
electronic recording of two or three other voice parts (sung
by him).

He obviously puts a lot of work into the performance of his
pieces, and this one came off very well, as did the one he
performed at last year's AFMM. Since this one was completely
_a cappella_, it showed off his JI tuning in its most beautiful
and fluid aspect. His costume and movement added a nice
mystique to the performance.

The Flux Quartet returned for Adam Silverman's _Durham_, another
world premiere, and a piece in several movements which was quite
impressive. My only complaint was that most of it (for its
expansive length, too much) was moderate- to slow-paced, with
only one even moderately quick movement. Altho I thought it was
a very good piece, and an excellent performance, it would have
benefited from at least one really fast movement for contrast.

Kraig Grady's beautiful _Farewell Ring_ was played on CD during
the set-up of the next piece, but, as I've said, the audience
talked thru it and didn't allow its beauty to stand unimpeded.

Skip La Plante and the Homemade Instrument Ensemble gave
two performances. The first one was a piece with an obvious
pun in the title, called _The Hoary Perch_. It was OK, sounding
to me very much like the music composed by its 'namesake',
but not as much fun as their second performance.

Next was a bassoon duet featuring Johnny Reinhard and Yung-Ling
Chang in the world premiere of Johnny's outrageous _Zanzibar_.

Any composer who learns in music-school that the bassoon is a
double-reed instrument needs to see this piece. It's sort of a
'canon', but Johnny has the bassoons being treated as not just
double-reed instruments, but also percussion, 'brass', and
didjeridu, thru some playing techniques which are quite different
from those you'll usually see in the concert hall.

He played a solo version of this for me last year when I visited
him, and I've been calling him the 'Hendrix of the Bassoon' ever
since.

Well, what can one say about Johnny Reinhard's bassoon technique?
He's amazing, or maybe even beyond that, for which I can't
find a suitably descriptive word. In this piece, he actually
plays *triads by himself on the bassoon*! And as for Yung-Ling,
she had a velvety tone that I thought even surpassed Johnny's,
and she caught the spirit of the piece right along with him.

(I know he had tonsillitis recently, and he had some trouble
keeping the air from escaping thru his lips in one part of the
piece - but he's still amazing).

Another mostly-disregarded CD track followed, Ivor Darreg's
_43/Octave_, a piece in 43-ET which I thought made a nice segue
into the following piece.

From the Toronto group 'Critical Band', John Gzowski on Partch
replica electric guitar and Garnet Willis on chromelodeon (built
of 2 accordions with bellows), and New York's Skip LaPlante
on Kithara and Johnny Reinhard on vocals, performed the
second (and seldom heard - I had never heard it before) version
of Harry Partch's landmark _Barstow_. Johnny announced, before
they played, that, because of US Customs, Critical Band did not
arrive in time to rehearse, so the piece was done completely
'on the fly'.

IMO, Johnny provided the best vocal performance of the piece
I've ever seen/heard, surpassing even Partch's own recordings
in its theatrical effectiveness. The group overall did a
remarkable job considering the lack of rehearsal, only
faltering a tiny bit in the last section ('number 8').

I also felt that John Gzowski could have added a bit more
life to his (- other than the numerical announcements of the
sections - ) single commentary 'no description found,
so he evidently got his ride', but Johnny's performance
*more* than made up for it. I felt bad for Johnny that
Partch's voice, and therefore the vocal part, was lower than
his, which made him struggle thru a few really low sections.
But his 'attitude' made this a masterful Partch performance,
something that doesn't come across on recordings alone, which
was part of Partch's whole point. IMO, absolutely excellent
and, becuase of Johnny's stellar performance, the best item on
the whole Microthon.

Another CD track followed, Warren Burt's _The White Witch of
the Moon_.

Jon Gzowski's piece _Some Small Steps_ (NYC premiere) was for his
unusually-designed 19-eq guitar and violin. The piece is sort of
Baroque in style, but certainly taking advantage of the
unusual harmonies available in this tuning. The most striking
aspect of his performance was the frequent wobbling of the guitar
to bend the pitch of the entire chords he played thru-out the piece.

Rebecca van der Post had a gorgeous style on the violin.
In fact while I was in one of the hallways drawing the
posters for my piece during the lunch break I heard her warming
up in one of the other rooms (I recognized her tone when she
performed later) and just playing regular old scales, she got my
attention and it sounded like she was making that fiddle sing.
Absolutely beautiful technique.

Wim Hoogewerf returned for the third time, again with his
guitar tuned to 24-eq, to perform the NYC premiere of Dick
Vissier's _Quintierens_. Wim did a fine job.

The Homemade Instrument Ensemble returned to play Skip LaPlante's
_Theme and Variations in 13-Tone Equal Temperament_. The
performance was obviously under-rehearsed, but in the context of
the whole aesthetic of the Homemade ensemble, that may not have
been too bad.

As one person near me remarked, it sort of let the audience
in on the whole compositional process. One variation was
stopped and started over again, then stopped again, and Skip
said 'it's harder than it looks', and just told the group to
move on to the next one.

At any rate, whatever its down side, it was fun and (even better)
funny. My favorite was the variation where each performer played
as fast as possible and stopped at the first mistake (it lasted
about 20 seconds).

Meredith Borden (singer with Jon Catler's group 'Birdhouse')
gave a solo performance in the world premiere of her piece
_Icarus Dreams_. As did Sasha Bogdanowitsch's performance,
Meredith's had a beautiful costume, dance movement, and gorgeous
vocals.

_Icarus Dreams_ had musical accompaniment, played
by Meredith on a JI autoharp. She showed off her great
sopranino vocal chops and mixed them naturally and beautifully
with a soulful blues feel and motifs, and had remarkably
illustrative silent dance sections interspersed between
each 'verse' of the vocals. One of the most satisfying
performances on the whole show.

The CD track of Jacques Dudon's _Musique d'Eau_ ended the
second part of 'Microthon', and the dinner break followed
from 6:00 to 7:00.

Opening the third part was Elodie Lauten on synthesizer
and vocals and Andrew Bolotowsky (for the third time) in
Elodie's _XX_. This was a very atmospheric piece, with most
of the vocals consisting of heavy breathing sounds. I thought
it was quite strange, relatively static, except for one isolated
scream in the middle, which seemed out of place. But overall,
a little monotonous, very moody, and mostly pretty cool.
Perhaps a little longer than it needed to be.

Next, the CD track _Strange Over_ by David First.

After this came the Patrick Grant Group playing Patrick's
piece _Everything Distinct: Everything the Same_. David
Beardsley informed me afterwards that Patrick's electronic
music is influenced by gamelan. This is a kind of music
that I don't particularly follow, so perhaps I'm missing
something, but I thought that it was rather static harmonically
(more than I care for) and felt it would have been better to
have more timbral variety instead of using piano sounds for
all three of the main instruments, but David liked it a lot.

The CD track of David Rosenboom's _In the Beginning_ had
an asterisk next to it on the program, indicating a world
premiere, which doesn't make sense to me since it's already
been recorded. In any case, this was marred by its being a
transfer from an LP that had a lot of surface dust and therefore
a lot of 'rice krispies' (snap, crackle, and pop). But no-one
really paid attention anyway.

The following piece was the world premiere of Carl Lumma's
_Retrofit_, played by the Regal Brass Quartet. This is a
JI piece which modulates all the way around a big cycle,
with lots of complex rhythmic counterpoint. I thought it
was done quite well, but Carl told me after the concert that
it was played about twice as fast as it should have been and
the fugue was not as distinct as it needed to be.

The next CD track was Bill Sethares's _Morphine and Cymbals_
from the Tuning Forum CD.

Paul Erlich performed with Ara Sarkissian on 22-eq electric
guitar and synthesizer. Paul played the first piece, _TIBIA_,
solo on the synthesizer. I had heard a recording of this
before, and like the piece very much. It's quite simple,
just a melody in the left-hand bass and pulse chords in the
right-hand, but it is very pretty and shows off very well
the pop-style harmonic capabilities of 22-eq.

Paul seemed quite nervous thru most of his performance, and
in addition, the volume settings of both instruments were too
low, which was too bad, because all their performances would
have come off better with more volume and a little more confidence. I
enjoyed the old recording of _TIBIA_ more than his performance
here because of this.

After this piece, Paul took up his 22-eq guitar and Ara played
synthesizer, the next piece being _Rock Thing_, part of which
Paul had played for me when I visited him a few months ago.
I liked it very much then, and again, at the Microthon, altho
the piece was more substantial than what I had heard before,
the performance suffered a bit from a lack of sureness, and,
especially in this piece, a lack of volume. Ara performed
ably on all three of the pieces that included him.

The next piece, _Improvisation_, fared a little better, but
seemed mostly to just meander around a few interesting
chord changes.

Paul's last piece, _Decatonic Waltz_, was better than the
others, as he seemed to have loosened up a bit by then.

The world premier of _Seasons_ followed, played by a quartet
consisting of Eric Ross and David Simons on theremins,
Vito Ricco on wrench guitar, and Johnny Reinhard on
electric bassoon. Johnny announced the piece saying, 'it
worked for Vivaldi...'. Each member of the quartet was
assigned a season, and it came off pretty well, although
IMO there was too much everyone-playing-at-the-same-time.
_Winter_, featuring the wrench guitar, was my favorite section.

As for my own piece, _A Noiseless Patient Spider_, which
was the final selection on the concert and which was given
with the instrumental tracks on CD and live vocal by myself,
I obviously can't give an objective opinion or criticism.

I can say that I am very pleased with it as a piece, was happy
with the performance, and it was received well and I received
many compliments for it after the show. David Beardsley told
me that the instrumental tracks could have been a little louder.

I'd like to mention before signing off that Patrick Grant
worked the sound equipment, and I thank him for his assistance
on my soundcheck. Also, I'd like to thank David Beardsley
for the hours he spent working with me to produce a CD of my
computer files.

The only other comment I can give is that this was the longest
and most exhausting gig I ever did, but it was certainly an
enjoyable day of microtonal music, and I look forward to
the conclusion of the festival this coming Thursday.

Joseph L. Monzo monz@juno.com
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
|"...I had broken thru the lattice barrier..."|
| - Erv Wilson |
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review of AFMM 1999 Microthon

🔗monz@xxxx.xxx

🔗Darren Burgess <dburgess@xxxxxxxxxxxx.xxxx>

🔗David Beardsley <xouoxno@xxxxxxxxx.xxxx>