Monday night I heard an extraordinary concert by the British pianist Jonathan Powell. The Joseph Marx Society sponsored the event, and several delightful short pieces of Marx were featured, plus poetic and fiery works by some of his students. For years, I've been enjoying Powell's recordings of one of my favorite composers, Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji. Many of you have probably never heard of him, so I will provide a brief introduction.
Sorabji (1892-1988) was a composer, pianist, and music critic who spent most of his life in a small town in England. Half-Indian and half-English, he readily drew inspiration from Asian and European culture - poetry, painting, rug-weaving, literature, religion, cuisine, and music. And yet his music exists in its own world, so distant from all stylistic trends of the 20th century. He is notorious for writing fantastically difficult piano solos that last four hours or more, thereby making tremendous demands on performers and listeners alike. But the mammoth Opus Clavicembalisticum has been performed in full about a dozen times, by five different performers, while many of his other multi-hour works have been heard in recent years.
You can hear for yourself here. I would recommend scrolling down and clicking on "II. Preludio Corale" to start. (On the screen that pops up, click the "Free" button, wait a minute, then enter the code shown and click the "Download via..." button.)
Apart from the longer pieces, Sorabji wrote a great number of shorter piano works (ranging from 10 seconds to 30 minutes in duration), plus some quite approachable chamber music and songs. (I have performed his Pastiche on the Hindu Merchant's Song, an exquisitely beautiful short piece.) With the slew of world-premiere performances, recordings, and published editions in the last two decades, Sorabji's music is undergoing quite a resurgence.
And most importantly - the music itself is so powerful. The languorous nocturnes will intoxicate you with their sweet perfume, while the tumultuous variations and toccatas will tear your insides out. Like with Messiaen, the longer pieces have the effect of suspending time, of taking us away from the busy pace of our lives and into a realm where art and spirituality, the intensity of the moment and the timelessness of memory, can freely combine.
At the concert this week, Jonathan Powell played Sorabji's transcription of the final scene from Richard Strauss's opera Salome. This is quite a dense piece - the pianist basically plays the vocal lines, all of the orchestral parts, plus several extra layers of Sorabji's own pianistic arpeggios and cascading chords, simultaneously. Powell handled it with great finesse, managing to bring the requisite clarity for the vocal lines to shine through all the madness, and delivering enormous power to the climaxes. In a word - devastating. This was the first Sorabji I've heard live, and it was truly an unforgettable experience.
I introduced myself to Mr. Powell afterwards and he invited me to join him and a few of his friends for a drink. So we went out and had a marvelous time, sharing stories about our favorite musicians, discussing what composition lessons are like, and developing ideas for future concerts. And of course - drinking fine Austrian beer. Sorabji would have been quite pleased. (A connoisseur in so many regards, he once wrote an essay about the qualities of good ale.)
30 January 2008
17 January 2008
Wilkommen nach 2008
Happy new year! I've had a wonderful holiday for the past month, spending lots of good time with family and friends. A few highlights:
• Playing the piano with a 1.5-year-old and a 0.5-year-old - banging on the piano is the first step towards making music! (A certain "Fourth Piano Sonata" by Salvatore Sciarrino recaptures this mindset very successfully. Go here and click "Listen to samples" and then "Sonata IV" to hear an excerpt.)
• Talking with my uncle about the surprising similarities between building a boat and writing a piece of music - both are carefully imagined, drafted/written down, and then realized in time/space. All sorts of creation occurs this way, and to me the most mysterious phase is that initial imagining.
• Playing with a 3-year-old who gave me an imaginary shave, shampooed my hair, put together jigsaw puzzles consisting of six enormous pieces, and helped me when I was packing my suitcases (by unpacking them and hiding my stuff.)
• Visiting the church where I used to play in Denver and joining the organist for a spirited organ/percussion rendition of the Beatles' "Within You Without You".
• Listening to some of my grandmother's favorite records, such as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" by Fred Waring and "My Son, The Nut" by Allan Sherman.
• Playing Lemmings and Marble Madness again for the first time in fifteen years.
• Visiting the gamelan I used to play with and the women's chorus I used to accompany in Denver. I'm looking forward to writing pieces for both groups in the near future.
• Meetings with a guitarist, a cellist, and three percussionists to explore all sorts of sonic possibilities from their instruments. I learned how to get a crescendo from an acoustic guitar note, what the highest notes really are on the cello, why a Chinese gong resonates with a change in pitch, twenty different ways to hit a splash cymbal, and how to make an excellent cellist sound like a second-year student (ask him to play without pressing down the string hard enough).
I'm currently in the throes of a new piece for percussionist on five instruments: vibraphone, marimba, 5 temple blocks, 2 triangles, and splash cymbal. It's quite a departure from my previous music for percussion, being much more meditative and exploring the full range of sounds - all sorts of mallets/sticks, hitting all parts of the instruments, etc. The piece was commissioned by a percussionist in Colorado, and I have several more people interested in playing it when it's finished. (On a related note, I recently had an Australian premiere! A grad student in Perth played my vibraphone solo The Labyrinth in his recital last month.)
One more story for you all:
THOSE CRAZY AMERICANS!
After the Bloomington airport fiasco (see previous post), I was determined to get my next trip right. I got a good deal on a round trip ticket from Denver to London, assuming that it'd be easy enough to get a cheap flight from London to Vienna. Right? Sure. There's only one little catch…you see, London has multiple airports. "Haha," you say with a smirk, "Heathrow and Gatwick! Didn't you realize this, Chappell?" I did, thank you, but there are three more besides. "No way - you're kidding me! What would one city be doing with FIVE airports?" Clearly people either need to get to it, or get away from it, in a hurry. Now, Vienna is a major European city, right? And you would think that a few of those airports would have flights to Vienna every day, right? Well, they do, but it sure helps to buy a ticket in advance.
By the time I started searching, the only affordable option left was to fly out of London Luton Airport. I consulted a few experts; half had never heard of the place, while the other half said it was a long ways out of London. Of course, I was flying in to Gatwick at 6:50am, and I would need to board the plane at Luton just over three hours later. So how do you get from Gatwick to Luton? There are several trains a day, it takes 95 minutes to get there - super. How do you buy a train ticket? With your credit card. But wait - only if your credit card has a billing address in the UK! And if not? Well, you wait until you're there in person, and then hope that there are still tickets available at the time you need - since there's only one plane from Luton to Vienna each day.
I decided to take the risk and go ahead with this plan, knowing that if anything took longer than anticipated, I would miss a train or a plane and look for somewhere to stay overnight in London. There are much worse places to be, after all! As it turned out, getting through passport control in London took ages, and the machine at the railway station rejected my credit card, but I had enough cash and I got down to the train track five minutes before it left. I made the plane just fine, and slept through the flight from takeoff to landing. Emerging at the Vienna airport was such a welcome relief, as it's become a familiar place. I was even glad to read signs in German again. Wilkommen nach Wien…
• Playing the piano with a 1.5-year-old and a 0.5-year-old - banging on the piano is the first step towards making music! (A certain "Fourth Piano Sonata" by Salvatore Sciarrino recaptures this mindset very successfully. Go here and click "Listen to samples" and then "Sonata IV" to hear an excerpt.)
• Talking with my uncle about the surprising similarities between building a boat and writing a piece of music - both are carefully imagined, drafted/written down, and then realized in time/space. All sorts of creation occurs this way, and to me the most mysterious phase is that initial imagining.
• Playing with a 3-year-old who gave me an imaginary shave, shampooed my hair, put together jigsaw puzzles consisting of six enormous pieces, and helped me when I was packing my suitcases (by unpacking them and hiding my stuff.)
• Visiting the church where I used to play in Denver and joining the organist for a spirited organ/percussion rendition of the Beatles' "Within You Without You".
• Listening to some of my grandmother's favorite records, such as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" by Fred Waring and "My Son, The Nut" by Allan Sherman.
• Playing Lemmings and Marble Madness again for the first time in fifteen years.
• Visiting the gamelan I used to play with and the women's chorus I used to accompany in Denver. I'm looking forward to writing pieces for both groups in the near future.
• Meetings with a guitarist, a cellist, and three percussionists to explore all sorts of sonic possibilities from their instruments. I learned how to get a crescendo from an acoustic guitar note, what the highest notes really are on the cello, why a Chinese gong resonates with a change in pitch, twenty different ways to hit a splash cymbal, and how to make an excellent cellist sound like a second-year student (ask him to play without pressing down the string hard enough).
I'm currently in the throes of a new piece for percussionist on five instruments: vibraphone, marimba, 5 temple blocks, 2 triangles, and splash cymbal. It's quite a departure from my previous music for percussion, being much more meditative and exploring the full range of sounds - all sorts of mallets/sticks, hitting all parts of the instruments, etc. The piece was commissioned by a percussionist in Colorado, and I have several more people interested in playing it when it's finished. (On a related note, I recently had an Australian premiere! A grad student in Perth played my vibraphone solo The Labyrinth in his recital last month.)
One more story for you all:
THOSE CRAZY AMERICANS!
After the Bloomington airport fiasco (see previous post), I was determined to get my next trip right. I got a good deal on a round trip ticket from Denver to London, assuming that it'd be easy enough to get a cheap flight from London to Vienna. Right? Sure. There's only one little catch…you see, London has multiple airports. "Haha," you say with a smirk, "Heathrow and Gatwick! Didn't you realize this, Chappell?" I did, thank you, but there are three more besides. "No way - you're kidding me! What would one city be doing with FIVE airports?" Clearly people either need to get to it, or get away from it, in a hurry. Now, Vienna is a major European city, right? And you would think that a few of those airports would have flights to Vienna every day, right? Well, they do, but it sure helps to buy a ticket in advance.
By the time I started searching, the only affordable option left was to fly out of London Luton Airport. I consulted a few experts; half had never heard of the place, while the other half said it was a long ways out of London. Of course, I was flying in to Gatwick at 6:50am, and I would need to board the plane at Luton just over three hours later. So how do you get from Gatwick to Luton? There are several trains a day, it takes 95 minutes to get there - super. How do you buy a train ticket? With your credit card. But wait - only if your credit card has a billing address in the UK! And if not? Well, you wait until you're there in person, and then hope that there are still tickets available at the time you need - since there's only one plane from Luton to Vienna each day.
I decided to take the risk and go ahead with this plan, knowing that if anything took longer than anticipated, I would miss a train or a plane and look for somewhere to stay overnight in London. There are much worse places to be, after all! As it turned out, getting through passport control in London took ages, and the machine at the railway station rejected my credit card, but I had enough cash and I got down to the train track five minutes before it left. I made the plane just fine, and slept through the flight from takeoff to landing. Emerging at the Vienna airport was such a welcome relief, as it's become a familiar place. I was even glad to read signs in German again. Wilkommen nach Wien…
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