Re: Columbus Day Orchestra Concert

> [Dan Stearns, TD 363.20]
>
> Did anyone post a (or is there an online) review of the
> AFMM Columbus Day Concert?

AFAIK, no one has posted one yet. I was intending to write
one for David Beardsley's _Juxtaposition_ ezine, but I've
been busy and haven't done it yet. Here's a quickie:

(of course both the efforts in and the results of the
concert merit far more attention than I'm giving here...)

My favorite piece on the whole concert was the second piece,
Luc Marcel's _Mod'ele 312_, and a close second was the
closing number, Charles Ives's _Unanswered Question_
performed in an extended Pythagorean tuning.

The concert opened with _Hologram_ for Orchestra, by
Alyssa Ryvers, who is from Toronto and Nova Scotia.
The program notes betray a stong mystical streak in
her work. Niether the piece nor the performance
impressed me strongly enough for me to retain a memory
of it to write about at this late date, which is certainly
also partly my fault, but in fairness to the composer and
performers, I should also say that perhaps I need more hearings
of this piece to appreciate it.

Next was Marcel's piece. Marcel is a young composer from
Montreal. The orchestra's playing was at its most polished
on this piece, and it dazzled in a way that *did* impress
itself on my memory. Lots of antiphonal dove-tailing of parts
from, for example, penny-whistle in the percussion section
at the left rear to flutes at the right front. The
compositional gestures were all clearly delineated and
the performance had some drama to it. Very nice.

Closing the first half was Mordecai Sandberg's _Psalm 51 #2_
for Soprano and Orchestra. Dorien Verheijden was the
soloist, and she gave an expressive performance, which
unfortunately was sometimes swamped a little by the volume
of the orchestra. The orchestra performed ably, in the
face of Sandberg's horrendously difficult polymicrotonal
tunings. I'd like to say more about this piece, but so
far neither of the Sandberg pieces I've heard (the other
was a violin sonata at the 1997 AFMM) have really moved me,
so I'll just withhold further comment for now.

The second half of the concert opened with Jon Catler's
_Evolution_ for Electric Guitar and Orchestra. I've been
a big fan of Jon's work for a few years now, and what I
liked most in this piece was the moments when the body of
strings in unison/'octaves' followed his extended guitar riffs,
doing quite well at hitting those difficult 13-limit intervals
right on the money. Another thing that I enjoyed in this
performance was something that also happened for Marcel's
piece: a sense of excitement in some places.

The second piece on part two was Johnny Reinhard's
_Middle-earth_ Symphony. IMO, the most successful movement
was the first, which portrayed 'Hobbits': the clowning
musical antics, especially in the bassoon parts, really
brought Tolkien's loveable characters to my mind.
The other three movments portrayed 'Khaza'd' (dwarves),
'Mordor' (trolls and orcs), and 'Eldarin' (high elves).
The last movement was especially pretty. Something I'm
hearing more and more in Johnny's music is a great
facility in capturing the dramatic essence of a musical
motive or characterization with a particular tuning,
his polymicrotonal compositions displaying a kaleidescopic
pool of tunings all delineating particular programmatic
ideas.

And closing the concert was Charles Ives's _Unanswered
Question_ (1908 alternate version) performed in extended
Pythagorian tuning. As explained in the program, this
alternate version has 'the english horn, played here
by Derek Floyd, rather than the familiar trumpet. Likewise,
the woodwidn choir is more diverse.' The strings, which
I've always heard from offstage, as indicated in the score,
were here played on-stage with the other instruments.
Floyd was terrific in the lead role, and the soft velvety
sound of the English horn was a nice change from the trumpet.
But the strings were the real stand-out in this piece,
their quiet eerie calm never budging despite all the
bizarre intrusions from the winds. It was beautiful,
and to my ears, it never sounded this good before, without
the careful attention to tuning that the AFMM ensemble
displayed.

The conductor was Paolo Bellomia, who now lives in Ottawa.
Patrick Grant was in charge of sound (he also played one
of the keyboard parts in the Sandberg).

Another highlight of the evening for me personally was that
I finally got to meet La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela,
who were in the audience. About 20 of us had a nice dinner
after the show.

Oh well, I guess that turned out long enough for _Juxtaposition_
after all... you can use this, Dave.

-monz

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

___________________________________________________________________
Get the Internet just the way you want it.
Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month!
Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj.

> From: "D.Stearns" <stearns@capecod.net>
> Did anyone post a (or is there an online) review of the AFMM Columbus
> Day Concert?

Twist my arm... OK, I was there, I'll review it:

Review of American Festival of Microtonal Music Columbus Day 1999 Orchestra
Concert.

Over all, a very enjoyable show. The building was beautiful, acoustics
excellent, pews uncomfortable. I love hearing premiere performances where
the composer is present.

Hologram for Orchestra (premiere) by Alyssa Ryvers

This piece opened with a minute of solo flute. She was then joined by
another flautist playing a microtonal variation on the melody. The rest of
the orchestra joined in canonically and the piece rapidly went from simple
pure melody to an intricate microtonal dissonance. I am sure this squirming
mass of microtones had something to do with permutations of the original
melody, but I couldn't tell you what.

Modele 312 (premiere) by Luc Marcel

This piece combined dissonant microtonal orchestral squirming with
Varese-like percussion. The two seemed to battle for supremacy, but the
percussion, being louder, won. I would have liked to hear the strings
better because they sure were working hard.

In one of these first two pieces (I can't remember which) There was a really
nice point where the female percussionist played a slide whistle duet with
the flute. Also, they had this great big rectangular section of industrial
air duct for her to beat on. It rattled and buzzed and boomed all at the
same time!

Psalm 51 #2 for Soprano and Orchestra (1944) Mordecai Sandberg

This piece came with pages of explanation, and more pages of lyrics. There
were parts for two microtonal keyboards who played all the microtones in the
work. The keyboards had DX7 type piano patches loaded and were practically
inaudible. Musically it sounded like a study on a single texture.

Intermission. I got to meet Joe Monzo, Leigh Smith. I already knew David
Beardsley, but I saw him again too. Back to my seat up front for the second
half:

Evolution for Electric Guitar and Orchestra (premiere) Jon Catler

I confess, hearing the guitar I fretted was the main thing that drew me to
the event. I was not disappointed. Catler's piece began with a series of
beautiful microtonal consonances - something often overlooked in microtonal
works. The piece consisted of multiple texture changes: One minute, the
strings playing a consonant chord, the next the electric guitar tearing
through with a rough dissonance. Then the guitar would move to a consonance
and a voice would take the lead ushering in a calmer texture. Then a tutti
for a fast mid-eastern sounding microtonal melody. I could have listened to
an hour long version, but it only lasted about 15 minutes. I should note
that the string section had mixed reactions to playing with an electric
guitar. One of the violinists sitting about 12 feet from the amplifier wore
earplugs. Other players beamed when the distorted guitar threatened to
drown them out. Catler's guitar was the only fixed pitch microtonal
instrument I saw all evening. It sure looked nice though. (If I do say so
myself!)

Middle-earth for Orchestra (premiere) Johnny Reinhard

There was some very nice percussion writing which evoked thoughts of dwarves
smelting iron. The curled horn of some slain beast briefly rose above a sea
of microtonal dissonance in one movement. What a tone! I wished the
performer had stood up to play it. There was also a brief moment of very
inspired bassoon writing that could have held my interest for a good 30
minutes. I did think about Tolkein during the pieces, but the elf piece
reminded me more of dwarves.

Unanswered Question (1908 alternate version) Charles Ives

This piece sounded a bit unanswered, disjointed maybe, but beautiful. The
flutes made a scandalous break with tradition, and conducted themselves
while the conductor led the rest of the orchestra. I didn't hear much in
the way of microtones, except that the string section's unison at the
beginning and end sounded slightly out of tune. Ives had the best sense of
the piece as a whole of all the pieces played that night. He wrote great
parts, but excelled at controlling the overall textures and directions of
the piece. Obviously a great piece with more to it than a single listening
could discover.

I want to say thank you to Johnny Reinhard for putting this on. It's no
small task to organize an event of this size. I want to encourage everyone
involved to keep writing and/or keep playing. And I want to thank those who
wrote and played. I really hope this festival continues - and grows! The
world needs more of this kind of thing!

All in all, worth the 9 hours of driving and night on a friend's floor. I
plan to go next year. It inspired me to try to write or perform something
in the future. Nothing beats new works by living composers - especially
microtonal ones!

---
Glen Peterson
Peterson Stringed Instruments
30 Elm Street North Andover, MA 01845
(978) 975-1527
http://www.organicdesign.org/peterson