Night After Night

Playlist.

Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphonies Nos. 5 and 7 - Berlin State Opera Orchestra/Richard Strauss (Naxos Historical)

Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphonies Nos. 3 and 8 - Berlin Philarmonic/Hans Pfitzner (Naxos Historical)

Robert Schumann - Frauenliebe und -Leben; Dichterliebe - Lotte Lehmann, Bruno Walter; Franz Schubert - Winterreise (selections) - Lotte Lehmann, Paul Ulanowsky (Naxos Historical)

Mind Over Mirrors - Check Your Swing (Hands in the Dark > Bandcamp)

Black Flag - Everything Went Black (SST)

Black Flag - Damaged (SST)

Black Flag - My War (SST)

Black Flag - The First Four Years (SST)

Circle Jerks - Group Sex (Frontier)

Ramones - It's Alive 1974–1996 (Rhino DVD)

Porcupine Tree - Octane Twisted (Kscope)

Rapoon - The Library of the Dead (Tonkunst)

Rapoon - The Bush Prophet (Tonkunst)

Rapoon - Obscure Objects of Desire (Vivo)

Stephen Molyneux - The Arbitrary State (Fadeaway Tapes)

Sundrips - Lakeside View (Fadeaway Tapes)

Dennis Johnson - November (disc one) - R. Andrew Lee (Irritable Hedgehog > Bandcamp)

Nicholas Cords - Recursions (In a Circle)

Nils Quak - Infinite Folds (Bandcamp)

Chubby Wolf - Ornitheology (Digitalis > Bandcamp)

Pianist R. Andrew Lee: new album now, New York City concert March 16

 

Pianist R. Andrew Lee, whose previous recordings for the Irritable Hedgehog label have featured illuminating performances of works by Tom Johnson, Ann Southam, William Duckworth and Jürg Frey, has just released a new album that brings to light a long-lost milestone of early minimalism: November, by California composer Dennis Johnson, winds through a set of pitches, motifs and improvisatory webbing with blissful leisure.

Reconstructed by the invaluable composer, musicologist, writer and advocate Kyle Gann, November now extends to roughly five hours in duration. Evidently it was once closer to six hours; La Monte Young, a friend and associate of Johnson's, has cited it as a crucial influence on his own solo-piano milestone, The Well-Tuned Piano. Gann's story about rebuilding November from a wobbly cassette – eventually augmented by a cryptic score and Johnson's fading memories – makes for a fascinating read.

Lee's set is available via Bandcamp as a four-CD set or as a download in a variety of formats, including lossless files. You can find out more about Lee on his website, follow him on Twitter and, if you plan to be in New York City on Saturday, March 16, hear him perform November live in its entirety at Issue Project Room.

Juilliard Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, February 9, 2013

Trombonists of the Juilliard Orchestra, by Michael Nagle/The New York Times

Juilliard Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, February 9, 2013
The New York Times, Feb. 11, 2013

Not many people know it, but we live in a golden age for contemporary concert-band music, with both well-established composers and inventive up-and-comers creating new pieces for (mostly) collegiate wind ensembles across the country. Really, it shouldn't be any surprise: what composer wouldn't want to write a new piece that will be assured weeks of rehearsal, rather than hours, and could receive literally dozens of performances within just a few years.

There's an article in this, of course, and I'm already mulling it. Meanwhile, as a music lover and as a former bandsman of many years' experience, what an amazing treat it was to encounter the 900-pound gorilla of contemporary band music, John Corigliano's Symphony No. 3 ("Circus Maximus"), in a superb live performance at Carnegie Hall. And how fortunate that Corigliano was moved to formally designate this piece a "symphony," thus asserting that posterity shouldn't brush it off to the side as a tangent to his "real work."

Admittedly I give short shrift in this review to a superb performance of Corigliano's Symphony No. 2, a regrettable result of a tight word count and much to say about the band piece. Truthfully, I must admit that I gave this symphony less than its due for several years after it earned a Pulitzer Prize, most likely because to me it was one of those Pulitzers seemingly granted as a make-up prize after worthier pieces – the Symphony No. 1 or The Ghosts of Versailles, for instance – failed to win. After all, the Symphony No. 2 is only an orchestral version of Corigliano's String Quartet, right?

Well, not so fast. Yes, the symphony is an arrangement of the quartet. But it is also an exapansion, an elaboration on what the quartet was designed to express, and an instance in which a composer wrung more depth and nuance out of an existing piece by revisiting and revising its materials. If I still feel that the earlier works I mentioned were more appropriate fodder for Pulitzer consideration – a process into which I have greater insight now, having served on the nominating committee in 2012 – I have come to recognize Corigliano's Symphony No. 2 as a strong, worthy piece in its own right… and the Juilliard performers played the heck out of it here.

Ecstatic Music Festival at Merkin Concert Hall, February 6, 2013

Soloists and the Orchestra for the Next Century, by Tina Fineberg/The New York Times

Ecstatic Music Festival at Merkin Concert Hall, February 6, 2013
The New York Times, Feb. 11, 2013

Given that Penelope, a large-scale song cycle composed by Sarah Kirkland Snider and sung by Shara Worden and recorded for the New Amsterdam record label, was my top classical [sic] recording for 2010, it should come as no surprise that I'd be interested in hearing its successor, Unremembered, an even larger song cycle featuring Worden, Padma Newsome, DM Stith and five supporting vocalists. Based on wistful poetry by Nathaniel Bellows, and augmented with projections of his art and animations, the piece was an involving and moving success on first brush - not as instantly assimilable as Penelope, but with depths that urge repeated listening.

Speaking of which, you can hear Unremembered – a work evidently still in-progress, since Snider has said she plans to add several more songs – streaming in full on the Q2 website, along with the Newsome, Stith and Worden songs that preceded it.

Finally, for those aware of the hardships that New Amsterdam endured after Superstorm Sandy blew through last October, some very welcome good news appeared on Thursday, in a blog post on the organization's website.

Time Out New York: Interview, Lauren Worsham.

Lauren Worsham, by Kristin Hoebermann

Interview with Lauren Worsham [link missing]
Time Out New York, Feb. 21–27, 2013

An excruciatingly short snippet from a lengthy, wide-ranging and brilliantly fun conversation with Lauren Worsham (full name: Lauren Worsham Jarrow), who plays Flora in New York City Opera's stylishly spooky production of Benjamin Britten's opera The Turn of the Screw.

Worsham caught my eye and ear in Brooklyn Village, a wonderfully creative multimedia concert event staged by the Brooklyn Philharmonic at Roulette (reviewed here), then shook me to the core in a Peak Performances staging of David T. Little's opera Dog Days at Montclair State University (reviewed here).

Since both of those events made my list of Top 10 events for 2012 in Time Out, talking to Worsham about her City Opera assignment was a no-brainer. We covered her Texas roots, her training at Yale University, her early jobs, her relationship with opera and her flamboyantly stagey rock band, Sky-Pony, which she leads with her husband, theater composer Kyle Jarrow.

Someday, I'd love to get around to transcribing and posting the entire interview. Don't hold your breath right now, though. Instead, look out for Worsham as Guadalena and Manuelita in City Opera's production of Offenbach's La Perichole at City Center, April 21, 23, 25 and 27. And watch this video of Sky-Pony in action at Joe's Pub, then see the band's schedule for your next chance to witness it live… as of this writing, it's March 30 at Pianos on Ludlow Street.

Playlist.

Kenneth Hesketh - Dei Destini Incrociati; Aphorisms; Fra Duri Scogli; Three Pieces in the Shape of a Shoe; Theatre of Attractions - Psappha/Nicholas Kok (Psappha)

Thomas Adès - Powder Her Face - Jill Gomez, Valdine Anderson, Niall Morris, Roger Bryson, Almeida Ensemble/Thomas Adès (EMI Classics)

Jonas Kaufmann - Wagner - Orchester der Deutsche Oper Berlin/Donald Runnicles (Decca)

Celer - Dwell in Possibility (Blackest Rainbow > Bandcamp)

Royallen - Allen Classic I (Permanent Nostalgia)

New Future Wanderer - Plaza for Media Conference 92 (Hooker Vision)

Jake Blanchard - Archaic Practices (Feathered Coyote)

Opponents - Thought Control (Baked Tapes)

Long Distance Poison - Rare Human (Baked Tapes)

Headboggle - Backed Tape (Baked Tapes)

Andrew Scott Young - Warm White Light (Baked Tapes)

Dads Against Vietnam - Courage (Baked Tapes)

Grateful Dead - Dave's Picks, Vol. 5: Pauley Pavilion, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 11/17/73 (Grateful Dead/Rhino)

Celer - Without Retrospect, the Morning (Glacial Moments > Bandcamp)

Richard Wagner - Parsifal - Jess Thomas, George London, Hans Hotter, Martti Talvela, Gustav Neidlinger, Irene Dalis, Bayreuth Festival Chorus and Orchestra/Hans Knappertsbusch (Philips > MOG)

Caroline Park - OTO (Bandcamp)

Ottorino Respighi - Fontane di Roma; Pini di Roma; Feste Romane - Oregon Symphony/James DePreist (Delos > MOG)

Giya Kancheli - Symphonies Nos. 1, 4 & 5 - Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra/James DePreist (Ondine)

Paul Hindemith - The Four Temperaments; Noblissima Visione - Carol Rosenberger, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/James DePreist (Delos)

Dmitri Shostakovich - Festive Overture; Symphony No. 10 - Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra/James DePreist (Delos)

Richard Wagner - Parsifal, Act Three - Karl Hartmann, Elsa Larcén, Hans Wocke, Hans Reinmar, Ludwig Weber, Chorus and Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin/Hans Knappertsbusch (Preiser > Spotify)

Richard Wagner - Parsifal - Plácido Domingo, Jessye Norman, Kurl Moll, James Morris, Ekkehard Wlaschiha, Jan-Hendrik Rootering, Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra/James Levine (Deutsche Grammophon > MOG)

Alex Cline - For People in Sorrow (Cryptogramophone; due March 19)

King Crimson - Rainbow Theatre, London, England, Dec. 13, 1972 (DGM)

Richard Wagner - Parsifal - Plácido Domingo, Waltraud Meier, Falk Struckmann, Franz-Josef Selig, Wolfgang Bankl, Ain Anger, Vienna State Opera Chorus and Orchestra/Christian Thielemann (Deutsche Grammophon > MOG)

Leonard Bernstein - On the Waterfront - Symphonic Suite; On the Town - Three Dance Episodes; Fanfare for JFK; Divertimento for Orchestra; Candide Suite; Candide Overture - University of South Carolina Wind Ensemble/Scott Weiss (Naxos)

Kimberly K. Archer - Symphony No. 2; John Mackey - Kingfishers Catch Fire; David Maslanka - Give Us This Day; David R. Gillingham - Symphony No. 2 "Genesis" - Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Wind Symphony/John Raymond Bell (Mark)

Howard Hanson - Dies Natalis; Warren Benson - The Leaves Are Falling; Henry Brant - Angels and Devils - Bonita Boyd, Eastman Wind Ensemble/Donald Hunsberger (Centaur)

Ralph Vaughan Williams - Toccata Marziale; Variations for Wind Band; Paul Hindemith - Konzertmusik for Wind Orchestra; Aaron Copland - Quiet City; Karel Husa - Music for Prague 1968 - Wynton Marsalis, Phillip Koch, Eastman Wind Ensemble/Donald Hunsberger (CBS Masterworks)

Arturo Márquez - Danzón No. 2; Andrew Boysen Jr. - Scherzo; Guy Woolfenden - Bohemian Dances; Ralph Hultgren - Of Questions and Answers; Roger Cichy - Bugs; Nigel Clarke - Gagarin - University of St. Thomas Symphonic Wind Ensemble/Matthew George (Innova > MOG)

Kenneth Hesketh - Infernal Run; Rolf Rudin - Out of Nowhere; Martin Ellerby - Mass of St. Thomas Aquinas; Philip Sparke - Deserts; Loris Chobanian - Armenian Rhapsody - University of St. Thomas Symphonic Wind Ensemble/Matthew George (Innova)

Ralph Hultgren - Whirr, Whirr, Whirr!!!; Luis Nani - Lost Forest; Kit Turnbull - Scenes from Childhood; Chen Qian - Ambush! From All Sides - University of St. Thomas Symphonic Wind Ensemble/Matthew George (Innova)

Carter Pann - Serenade for Winds; Concerto Logic; Daniel Kellogg - A Tent for the Sun; Pyramus and Thisbe - University of Colorado Wind Symphony/Allan McMurray (Klavier)

Bright Sheng - Shanghai Overture; Joel Puckett - The Shadow of Sirius; Michael Daugherty - Lost Vegas; Kristin Kuster - Two Jades; William Bolcom - Graceful Ghost Rag; Concerto Grosso for Saxophone Quartet and Band - Amy Porter, Xiang Gao, Donald Sinta Saxophone Quartet, University of Michigan Symphony Band/Michael Haithcock (Equilibrium)

Frank Ticheli - Wild Nights!; David Dzubay - Shadow Dance; Steven Bryant - Dusk; Roshanne Etezady - Anahita; John Mackey - Concerto for Soprano Saxophone and Wind Ensemble - Vince Gnojek, University of Kansas Wind Ensemble/Scott Weiss (Naxos)

Vincent Persichetti - Pageant; Hale Smith - Expansions; Henry Brant - Verticals Ascending; Robert Russell Bennett - Symphonic Songs for Band; Ross Lee Finney - Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Band - Frederick Hemke, Northwestern University Symphonic Wind Ensemble/John P. Paynter (New World > MOG)

David Maslanka - Concerto for Trombone and Wind Ensemble; Symphony No. 8 - Stephen Parsons, Adriana La Rosa Ransom, Illinois State University Wind Symphony/Stephen K. Steele (Albany > MOG)

Karel Husa - Smetana Fanfare; Al Fresco; Concertino for Piano and Wind Ensemble; Music for Prague 1968 - Momoko Gresham, Illinois State University Wind Symphony/Stephen K. Steele (Albany > MOG)

Coyote Image Medicinals - untitled CD-R (Kimberly Dawn > Bandcamp)

Courtly Illusion Limited - untitled cassette (Space Slave > Bandcamp)

Grant Evans - False Flag Loops (Hooker Vision > Bandcamp)

Quiet Evenings - Various (Bandcamp)

Reedbeds - Basement Grotto (SicSic Tapes > Bandcamp)

Kyle Landstra - Sage (Cosmic Winnetou > Bandcamp)

Vincent Persichetti - Divertimento; Psalm; O God Unseen; Pageant; Masquerade; O Cool Is the Valley; Parable IX - Winds of the London Symphony Orchestra/David Amos (Naxos)

Vittorio Giannini - Dedication Overture; Fantasia; Praeludium and Allegro; Symphony No. 3; Variations and Fugue - University of Houston Wind Ensemble/Tom Bennett (Naxos)

H. Owen Reed - Overture-1940; Karel Husa - Smetana Fanfare; Václav Nelhýbel - Fanfares from the Opera Libuše; H. Owen Reed - Fanfare for Remembrance; Karel Husa - Music for Prague 1968 - Rutgers Wind Ensemble/William Berz (Naxos)

Kevin Puts - Millennium Canons; Jonathan Newman - My Hands Are a City; Kristin Kuster - Lost Gulch Lookout; John Mackey - Kingfishers Catch Fire; Gustav Holst - Hammersmith: Prelude and Scherzo; Adam Gorb - Awayday - University of Georgia Wind Ensemble/John P. Lynch (Naxos)

Michael Pisaro - A wave and waves - Greg Stuart (Cathnor > Bandcamp)

Celer + Hakobune - Vain Shapes and Intricate Parapets (Chemical Tapes > Bandcamp)

Jean Sibelius - Symphony No. 1 - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Robert Kajanus; Pohjola's Daughter; Tapiola - London Symphony Orchestra/Robert Kajanus (Naxos Historical)

Marc Copland - Some More Love Songs (Pirouet)

Kacey Musgraves - Same Trailer Different Park (Mercury)

Jean Sibelius - Belshazzar's Feast - London Symphony Orchestra/Robert Kajanus; Karelia Suite - excerpts; Symphony No. 2 - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Robert Kajanus (Naxos Historical)

Jean Sibelius - Symphony No. 3; Symphony No. 5 - London Symphony Orchestra/Robert Kajanus; Finnish Jäger March - Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra/Robert Kajanus (Naxos Historical)

Richard Wagner - Parsifal - Peter Hofmann, Dunja Vejzović, José van Dam, Victor von Halem, Kurt Moll, Siegmund Nimsgern, Chorus of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Berlin Philharmonic/Herbert von Karajan (Deutsche Grammophon > MOG)

Kenneth Hesketh - A Rhyme for the Season; Graven Image; At God speeded summer's end - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Christoph-Mathias Mueller; Ein Lichtspiel (after Moholy-Nagy); Wunderkammer(konzert) - Ensemble 10/10/Clark Rundell (NMC)

Dai Fujikura - Secret Forest - Art Respirant/Ken Takaseki; Rubi(co)n - Kate Romano; Phantom Pulse - Lucerne Percussion Group/Michel Cerutti; Eternal Escape - Adrian Bradbury; Okeanos - Okeanos (NMC)

RIP James DePreist (Nov. 21, 1936–Feb. 8, 2013)

Musical America reports that the great American conductor James DePreist passed away this morning in Scottsdale, AZ, at 76, due to complications from an earlier heart attack. Born in Philadelphia in 1936, and the nephew of Marion Anderson, Mr. DePreist was a prominent, gifted musician who won the Dimitri Mitropoulos International Music Competition for Conductors in 1964, and spent more than two decades as the music director of the Oregon Symphony. He leaves behind numerous distinguished recordings.

In this 2009 video, Mr. DePreist tells Seattle journalist and composer Melinda Bargreen about his early career path. The video quality is nothing special, but the conversation certainly is. I'm glad to have had a few chances to see him conduct in person, notably a memorable Mahler Fifth Symphony with the Juilliard Orchestra, about which we exchanged pleasant emails after my New York Times review appeared.

RIP, Mr. DePreist.

Time Out New York: Live preview, Choi Joonyong and Hong Chulki.

Choi Joonyong (Photograph courtesy Issue Project Room

Preview: Choi Joonyong and Hong Chulki at 155 Freeman
Time Out New York, Feb. 7–13, 2013

It’s not as if music didn’t exist in South Korea before 2012. Prefab acts from Seoul had been conquering the world, one market at a time, for years; Super Junior, 2NE1 and Girls’ Generation are bigger than you think. But long before K-pop became a lingua franca—and definitely prior to a certain galloping rapper turning everyone’s attention toward his homeland—South Korean performers were reaching out and touching their global colleagues on the rock, jazz and traditional-music circuits.

And just as any thriving culture creates its own subsects, so has South Korean music spawned a native lunatic fringe of free-improvisers and noise musicians to rival any other in the world. This week, two leading lights of Seoul’s experimental underground make their local debut: Choi Joonyong and Hong Chulki, who cofounded the pioneering improv group Astronoise in 1997, and who have jointly operated the influential label Balloon & Needle since 2003.

As to what their work sounds like, ignore PSY and think Paik—meaning Nam June Paik, the seminal Korean multimedia artist and Fluxus figure. Hong, whose arsenal includes turntables with and without cartridges, paid direct homage to Paik on Amplified WC, a crackling, juddering 2009 mini-CD on the Ghost & Son imprint. And Choi, whose Burn Yoido Burn on the same label offers livid, Merzbow-esque power electronics, derives his style from error, malfunction and happenstance. As a duo and with other collaborators, the two approach sound with an inquisitive intensity that makes every recording a fresh experience—a condition that should be even more pronounced live.—Steve Smith

A Contemporary Evening for Ralph at Merkin Concert Hall, February 4, 2013

International Contemporary Ensemble, by Karsten Moran/The New York Times

A Contemporary Evening for Ralph at Merkin Concert Hall, February 4, 2013
The New York Times, Feb. 6, 2013

This one's short on anaylsis and long on scene-setting, which seemed appropriate for an event that was more a memorial and celebration than a conventional concert. While I didn't see any need to point it out in The New York Times, it was cool to spot Kaminsky's stepson, Mike D. of the Beastie Boys, in the audience for this special occasion.

For more information about who Ralph Kaminsky was and what he did, see this beautiful essay by Bruce Hodges, which I cited and linked in my review as well. My brief Time Out New York preview is here. And be sure to stay tuned for more news about the Kaminsky Fund, a newly established initiative meant to continue the support Kaminsky provided to the new-music community at home and around the world.

Music of Now Marathon at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia, February 2, 2013

Shayna Dunkelman, Nuiko Wadden and Angélica Negrón, by Tina Fineberg/The New York Times

Music of Now Marathon at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia, February 2, 2013
The New York Times, Feb. 6, 2013

I almost never take issue with the way that my reviews are edited at The New York Times – after all, this is work made for hire, and subject to approval. But while I won't bemoan the excision of a few references to the program running well behind schedule, which I noted in my review of last year's marathon, I would like to clarify a point that doesn't feel quite so strong in the published essay as it did in my head.

Specifically, I didn't intend to suggest that the lovely set by Angélica Negrón, whose work I greatly admire, was the single most striking point of the marathon. Rather, what I was trying to say was that the vast leap in a single bound from Negrón's set to Ursula Oppens's performance of Memo 5 by Bernard Rands – a bustling, rigorous piece that could in some ways be viewed as the polar opposite of Negrón's airy songs – was the afternoon's most exhilarating stretch: a perfect representation of the stylistic expanse that defines contemporary music, and an illustration of the efficacy and appeal that two very different approaches can have.

Negrón's songs were winsome and sweet, demonstrating the potency of present-day tendencies toward inclusiveness and permeability. Rands's piano work was a personal negotiation of historical lineage and inheritance, yet in Ursula Oppens's hands it had a frisky vitality that suggested spontaneity.

My position, should it be unclear, is that both approaches can be equally valid. Eclecticism does not refute tradition. Improvisatory looseness and rigorous workmanship might be opposing techniques, but in practice they can produce strikingly similar effects. Both paths can lead to expressive, engaging works, so long as inspiration is present.

And here, I'll give a nod to this marathon's practice of engaging pretty much every participating composer in a preliminary interview. True, it's probably the reason that Music of Now has run late both times I've attended. But hearing Negrón talk about willfully shutting out the omnipresent Latin American vernacular sounds that surrounded her in Puerto Rico in order to find her own style, and listening to Rands recount a wooly tale about Stravinsky composing until a bottle of scotch ran dry, added a relatable dimension to each composer. In both instances, the personal introduction helped to provide a context, however slender, for the music that followed.

The citywide Composers Now festival, for which this marathon was the opening event, runs through February 28, and the full schedule is here.