Greetings All,
My last blogs have been, of course, about my Fulbright to Tajikistan, culminating in the photos that I posted recently here.
So, it’s time for something a little different. I want to tell you about my current projects. Now these projects are interesting (to me, anyways) purely because they are related by the fact that in one way or another, they are an exploration of my mid-20’s…also interesting (again, to me, anyways) because this was not planned…in fact, this relationship just hit me…
I’m not very sentimental…I don’t know why, or how, this nexus of mid-20’s-ness reared its head at this time…perhaps I began re-conceiving some ideas or processes that got their start at this time in my life. Granted, this was a rather vibrant and tumultuous period for me in many, many ways. My views on life, adulthood, religion, philosophy, being an artist…all changed drastically at this time. Perhaps the focus of these projects being from this time period is purely coincidental…none of it was planned other than as re-exploring concepts and methods with an older, and perhaps wiser, eye. Perhaps it is because throughout my artistic life I circle back to rework ideas–be they scores, etudes, practice regimes, influential books, even visual art–and it just so happened that all of these ideas came back around at the same time. Perhaps it’s also because–unconsciously–I am 20 years removed from this period and thinking back some…
…but that would be sentimental…
Regardless, let us begin:
As you know, I decided to create an off-and-on project of updating older compositions–bringing them into the 21st
century, or something…I had spent the entire spring rewriting my Children’s Songs for piano (originally from 1994…I was 25…it was also the last piece I wrote under the tutelage of Chinary Ung and the work where my personal soundscape really emerged and I became, for lack of a better word, an ‘individual’) and then adapting this piece for Pierrot ensemble. My next step will be to rewrite this for chamber orchestra. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, there is this incredible balancing act that I have to do, trying to keep the raw emotion and energy of the original (when I didn’t have the skill to make it ‘clean,’ only raw emotion and ideas) balanced with my now many years of sharpened craftsmanship…this is tricky…modernizing and ‘improving’ without losing the honesty of those early emotions and power. I will tackle the chamber orchestra version later this summer.
I had decided earlier this year that this summer would be the beginning of my re-immersion in the Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns by Nicolas Slonimsky. This phone book sized tome is basically the Bible of modern jazz and mid-century contemporary composition. Having worked on ideas here and there from it during my student days, I eventually decided to systematically work my way through the entire book in my mid-20’s, both as practice material and to gather ideas for composition. I began this systematic approach again a couple of days after returning from Tajikistan. It has been fun, and actually much easier this time around for I think 2 reasons: I hear things a lot better now with years of experience, and I have used either these exact patterns/relationships or variations of these patterns for years in different situations. It’s actually great fun to re-explore this book.
Here is a page to give you an idea what it looks like. Basically, I take each pattern, play it ‘mostly full range’ (which on saxophone means I have been taking everything up to altissimo C, sometimes higher) on EVERY pitch level (up by half-steps–notice I did not say key…), and then work out technical/conceptual ideas on each, like varied articulation or timbrel manipulation. I have been working on one pattern–basically 1 or 2 lines of music–per practice session. At the end of the week, in one session I run through all of the pattern possibilities that I learned that week. Crazy-intense.
I had also decided that it was time to reread Hermann Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game. This book was recommended to me by my close friend and composer compatriot Sean Heim while we were both studying with Chinary Ung, in 1994 (the same year as the Children’s Songs). This book had amazing impact on me, and reading it became one of my most important life ‘awakening’ events; so much so, that I have been reticent to read it again until now. The book was the culmination of a philosophical journey that took me from the Greco-Christian Aristotelianism of my upbringing through Buddhist and other Eastern philosophical study eventually to Existentialism. In many ways, I found Hesse’s characters throughout his works having journeys similar to my own. I have read his other books, such as Steppenwolf and Siddhartha, many times but hadn’t felt ready to reread The Glass Bead Game until now. As of this blog, I am about a third through it. What I can tell you that is different this time around is, although still very powerful, I understand the irony that was lost on me 20 years ago. This makes the book even more brilliant to me, now that I can understand on a whole new level beyond the psycho-spiritual.
Finally, there is Stockhausen…I mean, what can one say about Stockhausen that hasn’t already been said? My mid-to-late 20’s were spent playing a lot of very contemporary music, but especially two composers: Milton Babbitt and Stockhausen. However, I played them for different reasons. Babbitt I played to establish myself as a serious interpreter of new music, basically playing his pieces which had not at that time had many performances, such as Images for saxophone and electronics and Whirled Series for saxophone and piano (note: I pulled out the latter this spring to show my colleague the score…I probably won’t be revisiting this one any time soon). Stockhausen I played for different reasons, more conceptual or spiritual perhaps–I enjoyed them, truly. This year, I started to think about giving performances of some his solo/solo with short wave receiver works. Stockhausen it seems, has been the only composer in recent memory whose number of performances have actually gone UP since his death (in 2007…assuming you want to call it ‘death’ as opposed to going home to Star Sirius…). The many performances of his music this year alone in NYC had made me start to revisit his works.
I have always approached Stockhausen with a certain reverence, albeit a sardonic one. I knew he was a genius, I had no problem with that; I had some problem with the growing cult of personality that fed his megalomaniacal statements and productions (which usually begged the sardonic response: “really, Karlheinz…really?”). But I would be unkind or ungrateful not to fully admit that Stockhausen has had a tremendous influence on me and my work.
That being said, the other night at the Lincoln Center Festival, I had the opportunity to see probably one of the most powerful live staged performances I have ever experienced, if not THE most powerful. This was the American premiere of Michaels Reise um die Erde (Michael’s Journey Around the Earth), the second act of Donnerstag aus Licht (1978-80) from the 7 day Licht cycle. I can not even to begin to describe this production…phenomenal is a beginning…the components of the opera; music, musical performance, staging, video projection…all perfectly coordinated so taht the whole even transcended the parts, which by themselves were amazing. A composer friend who accompanied me stated that he had never experienced an audience so rapt and attentive…I agree…after the final chord, the audience sat for a good half a minute before anyone moved…I had never experienced that…usually some bozo yells “bravo!’ and kills the effect for everyone…not here…
Here is the NY Times review of the piece: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/arts/music/a-karlheinz-stockhausen-work-has-its-north-american-premiere.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Needless to say, I will be spending a great deal of time exploring the Licht opera cycle…all 29 hours of it…I have to now…
So there it is…four somewhat disparate elements that had powerful influence on my mid-20’s: Chinary Ung’s teaching; Slonimsky’s Thesaurus; Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game; and Stockhausen, have come back–or shall we say ‘cycled back into’ my life–almost 20 years later. Perhaps it is just time to revisit these important conceptual and artistic ideas now with the knowledge and experience gained these past two decades…maybe I will do it again at 65…
…all I can say is that I am amazed of what I have learned thus far…or is it RE-learned?
Until soon,
Demetrius