Saturday, June 14, 2014

...Tristan Perich, 1-Bit Symphony

1-Bit Symphony

With his 1-Bit Symphony, American composer Tristan Perich tries to challenge the concept of the artwork as we know it. Assembled into an CD jewel case, a microchip, a battery, volume control, an on/off-switch, and a headphone jack give life to music, consisting in its entirety and literally of 1 Bits.
In a video, Tristan Perich explains his approach to his composition.




I was was compelled by this concept at fist glance. I mean, how cool is that, if the actual music is computed in the very instant you turn it on?

I am almost sad that the analytical part of my brain had to conjure some questions to this concept, which I want to discuss.

It resides in a jewel case. Or not.

The 1-Bit symphony not only resides in the microchip in the jewel case. Since the physical copies are, sadly enough, out of stock, one can buy it as .mp3-files via the Cantaloupe Music Store. It is also possible to listen to a couple of movements via Soundcloud for free.


But what appears to be a convenient way to enjoy Perich's music seems to me as the retraction of the artistic statement Perich's. To be honest, the music itself isn't that interesting. It reminds me and some of the commentators on Soundcloud of 80's video game music, especially that of the Commodore 64 or Nintendo. And saying that of music composed at a time when most teenagers haven't seen a C64 is not necessarily a compliment.

The 1-Bit Symphony could easily be desribed as minimal music. Alex Ross comes to the same conclusion and mentions Terry Riley. That might be or not be the intention of the composer. In the end, I have to ask both Perich and minimalist composers: Why stick to the diatonic scale? Especially electronic music bears to much possibilities to overcome the restriction of the common scales, so why not use these possibilities? And if still sticking to the diatonic scale, why almost always use consonant sounds?

A small detour: In the 80's show A.L.F, Alf is playing piano, observed by Kate. He is playing the song "I just checked into the parasite hotel", in jazz style. He replies to Kate, who is surprised that he can play the piano, that it would be not so easy without the red keys. It seems strange, that a species from outer space has the same tone scale as we have, even with additional red keys. Here is a video of that scene, though in spain.




Another, even more strange scene is the so-called "Cantina Band" at "Star Wars", Episode 4. "Star Wars" happens in a galaxy "far, far away" and "long time ago." But they still have scales from good old earth, and not even the red keys.

If transplanted from the jewel  case to Soundcloud or your mp3-Player, Perich's 1-Bit Symphony becomes what it really is: 1-Bit music (in fact, another piece by Perich is called by that name.) And so it cannot be an innovative piece of music but rather a regression to the style of the 80's.

Another view

But maybe it is not fair to analyze Perich's music with the tools of a musicologist, who hones his skills usually with the so-called avant garde music. That might be a dangerous venture in this case.

Perich did not seem interested in composing avant garde music, this is obvious by listening to other music by him. So it might be rather the concept which should be the main focus of an honest analysis. Perich says in his statement in the video above that the listener should experience the process of generating music first hand. But is this true? The process is obscured anyway, either by the microchip or by a CD player - even a turntable is not "showing" where the music is produced. Where is the difference, whether the music is hard-coded or generated at run-time, if the results are the same? 

So the point of this concept might be the contradiction, that 1-Bit music and not something fancy is coming out directly from a CD jewel case. But wouldn't it be easier to wrap a music cassette-like jacket around an iPhone and plug in headphones?

The Symphony

Perich wants to show us that complex music with a 1-Bit microchip is possible. To support this intention, he calls his composition "symphony." Although the symphony had a rather strict form in the 18th and 19th century, almost everything can be named symphony these days. Accordingly, it is used for music that should be great, either in instrumentation or ambition. One good example are the late Symphonies by Galina Ustvolskaya (I wrote about it one post ago) which are small in instrumentation but huge in ambitions. By calling his work a symphony, Perich is claiming the same ambition for his work, but is failing to fulfil this on the level of the composition itself. The music has no complexitiy, since it is mostly repetitive and not inventive harmonically and rhythmically. But especially this would be possible with electronic music.

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

...the Music of Galina Ustvolskaya

Hommage to Galina Ustvolskaya

Galina Ustvolskaya is certainly no longer an insiders' tip. Almost every work by her is available on CD, and the first biography was published this year by Andreas Holzer.
Nevertheless, it is not so easy to encounter her work in concert. The instrumentation is often unusual, and the pieces short in duration, which contradicts the programming in regular concert series'. Therefor, praise is due for the Wiener Festwochen and his Chairman Markus Hinterhäuser for performing her music on four concerts on two consecutive days. 

The concert(s) were debated in a poor review in Die Presse. I guess that the reviewer only attended the concert with the piano sonatas, risked a quick glance at the liner notes and scribbled down his review. The review in the "Tiroler Tageszeitung" is more concise, but far from thorough. Ljubisa Tosic wrote by far the most accurate review for "Der Standard."

The Works

On Saturday, May 31st, and Sunday, June 1st, almost every piece by Ustvolskaya could be heard in the Wiener Konzerthaus, played by some of the world's finest musicians. The first concert started with the Sonata for Violin and Piano, followed by the Duet for Violin and Piano, played by Markus Hinterhäuser and Patricia Kopachinskaya. Both of the them applied an almost romanticist approach to Ustvolskaya's music, which is otherwise often accused of being harsh and violent. Hinterhäuser and Kopachinskaya proved the opposite, and showed that her music is more than a succession of fffff-clusters and allegedly unrelated quarter-notes. On the other hand, their performance of this two pieces already showed the immense emotional potential of this music, which was heart-gripping and overwhelming at the same time. Even Patricia Kopachinskaya seemed to be moved, if not stunned, by it and was able to show a faint smile only after the fourth curtain call. The audience was applauding deeply grateful, and rightly so. 

Markus Hinterhäuser performed also the six piano sonatas on the next day. Once more, his romanticist approach which lots of pedal appeared to be an interesting way of dealing with the ragged and seemingly incoherent structure. This incoherence is a wildly discussed trait of Ustvolskaya's music, but Hinterhäuser showed that this is no necessity. Admittedly, her music is often violent and loud, but Hinterhäuser refrained from showing too much of this performative stance. This was obvious in the notorious sixth piano sonata, which consists almost only of ffff-clusters. He did not "jump" into the piano, like Marino Formenti did in the Symphonies, but played them as carefully as he played mellow passages, which revealed a completely different approach to Ustvolskaya's music. His interpretation has nothing to do with the so-called "Lady with the Hammer." Hinterhäuser showed us the beauty that lies below this mountains of clusters by taking Ustvolskaya's direction "espressivissimo" literally.

World were between Marino Formenti's interpretation of the 12 Préludes later that evening and Hinterhäuser's style. Formenti appeared as a master of the tender and the delicate, in opposition to his almost beserk account in the Symphonies No. 2 and 3. He maybe lost track in the fourth Prélude, but was nevertheless acclaimed frenetically by the audience for a remarkable performance of this early work by Ustvolskaya that showed unknow qualities of her music.

The five Symphonies can be divided in three groups. The first, which was not performed on this occasion, the second and third, the fourth and fifth. The second and third symphony are scored mostly for brass and woodwinds, percussion, and piano. They all have spiritual (religious) names, like "True, eternal bliss" (2nd), "Jesus, Messiah, save us" (3rd), "Prayer" (4th), and "Amen" (5th). They were performed by the phenomenal "Klangforum Wien", directed by Peter Rundel. 
These symphonies are certainly not for the faint-hearted. Ustvolskaya explicitly connects them to a certain, though unnamed, belief, by virtue of the title, and a vocal soloist. The same can be said about the three Compositions, which also bear religious titles like "Dona nobis pacem" (1st), "Dies irae" (2nd), and "Benedictus qui venit" (3rd), but abstain from the use of a singer. The music of the Symphonies and the Compositions is not only perceptible with the ear, but also with the whole body. This is, in part, also true for the sonatas, but because of the different instruments, it is much more effective in the Symphonies as well as in the Compositions. Another difference is that the latter are performed by a ensemble, that is to say, a community. To stay in Ustvolskaya's world of religious faith, the ensemble might be a community of believers who talk to each other, whereas the pianist is a single prayer.

The Occasion

More than twenty Composition were performed in not much more than twenty-four hours. It is a major accomplishment to organize such an event, and even more with such fine performers.
Nevertheless, I have strong doubts that it makes sense to program almost the complete ouevre of a composer in four concerts on two evenings, even more, if it's Ustvolskaya. I was pretty exhausted after the first two concerts on the first evening. The liner notes said, that each concert would last for 70 minutes, which was a ridiculous underestimation, given that the first concert lasted almost two hours and the second 90 minutes. Obviously, the breaks to rearrange chairs and stands were not calculated. The concert could have ended after the first two works for violin and piano, and I would not have been disappointed. In my opinion, the music is too strong for listening to more than one or two works by Ustvolskaya in a row. Even the piano sonatas, though her shortest works in duration, are strenuous, for both the performer and the audience.
 It is highly questionable, if the organizer of the Wiener Festwochen did the performers, the audience, and the composer a favour by this abundance. On the other hand - one can't but admire the audacity (in the best sense) of this very organizer to advocate for this radical, unconventional, and, at least for me, mysterious music.