...the music of Morton Feldman and Amelia Whiteheart

Sculptures in the Desert

Thursday, April 22nd, I attended a concert at Alte Schmiede in Vienna with piano music from two of the most enigmatic composers of the 20th century: Morton Feldman and Amelia Whiteheart.

Swiss pianist Iris Gerber was playing Piano Piece 1952, Nature Pieces, and Intermissions by Feldman. She combined pieces from the Fifties with one of his very last works, Palais de Mari. It is astonishing, that Feldmans style apparently did not change significantly over the course of more than thirty years. Even the earliest piece, Piano Piece 1952, features the same erratic succession of isolated tones and chords which also characterizes Palais de Mari. Nevertheless, Feldman refined his style, meaning that he dismissed certain techniques and means bit by bit. Piano Piece 1952 starts with a cluster which is not heard anymore in Palais de Mari or similar pieces from this time (like Coptic Light, or For Samuel Beckett). He also limits himself to one dynamic level: While certain tones are emphasized in his early pieces, in his late works a soft atmosphere is predominant.

Morton Feldman, 1976. Credit: Nationaal Archief Netherland, via wikimedia

This does not mean that his music is easy to hear. On the contrary, the discreet tone puts the listener at unease. There is no progression in the music by Feldman, no target, no teleology, even the ends are somewhat arbitrary. His music can be extremely long: Palais de Mari lasts 30 minutes, what is only half the length of his composition For Bunita Marcus. His music raises difficult questions and provides no answers. During the concert I had the illusion of walking through a desert while watching strange sculptures made by an unknown civilization. The have no apparent use nor seem they made for men. They are alien but with an strange fascination.

Who is Amelia Whiteheart?

I have never heard the name Amelia Whiteheart or music by her. Iris Gerber played a selection of approx. 35 pieces out of more than hundred. In contrary to Feldman, the pieces only last for ten seconds or so and are not longer than four bars. In analogy to Feldman, they feature erratic chords and tones ordered to no apparent rules.

Almost nothing is known about Whiteheart. The only source for her music appears to be a website by Russian composer Jashiin, who claims to have gotten the sheet music by Whiteheart through a now deceased friend of his (or hers). According to Jashiin, Whiteheart pieces were composed around 1900. They are the only known trace of this woman which is, as I already wrote, otherwise unheard of. An Internet search unearthed only Jashiin's website as well as the concert announcement of the Alte Schmiede, so there probably weren't other performances, at least not announced via the Internet. The complete set of 123 pieces can be downloaded form Jashiin's website. (I am not sure about the copyright situation, therefore I will not attach any snippets from the score.)

Like Feldman, Whiteheart's music is exceedingly alien, which makes me suspicious about the provenance of the music. Not that there weren't any anomalies in music history, like Italian composer Gesualdo and his strange chromaticism. As a matter of fact, there are composers who worked in perfect isolation (at least in their imagination) like Galina Ustvolskaya. 

My concerns with the music of Whiteheart is that she anticipates the style of Feldman and even more of György Kurtág by fifty to seventy years but is otherwise completely unknown. It is not so much her harmonic style but the way she questions the form of an artwork. Form is a parameter dismissed much later than harmony and certainly not before the 1940's.

Her contemporary would be Charles Ives, and even he did not write as fancyful as Whiteheart. Ruth Crawford Seeger, born in 1901, features a style remotely common to Whiteheart's but not at all that radical.

So the main question is: Is Amelia Whiteheart an unknown genius, a forerunner of modern music? Or is she a hoax? As a musicologist I feel the urge to rise this question, but as an artist I also feel the appeal of inventing a composer to test reactions of the audience.

With all due respect, it is certainly questionable to take Jashiin's website and his statement about the provenance of the Whiteheart-Pieces as the only valid source. A thorough analysis has to dig much deeper and try to discover for example the teachers of Amelia Whiteheart, where she has lived and was educated. How come that she was undiscovered until recently? What is the role of Jashiin, who appears to be an equal enigmatic person in terms of taciturnity?

There are questions even more unsettling: If Amelia Whiteheart did exist, she would be one of the most radical composer of her time and deserved a place between the finest composers of the 20th century. But if she is a hoax, would that diminish the quality of her music? If someone assumed Whiteheart's identity and composed the pieces five years ago under her name, would that make the music bad? Is quality tied to its time? There are difficult questions lying on the bottom of that well that touches our approach to the relationship between time, identity, work, and gender.

Iris Gerber's performance of the pieces by Feldman and Whiteheart was brilliant. She was heavily acclaimed by the few listeners, and rightly so.

...the George Crumb Trio

Music by Austrian and American Composers

On Wednesday, April 9th, I had the luck to attend a concert of the George Crumb Trio in the Alte Schmiede Wien (Old Smithy), together with the "Porgy & Bess" one of the most famous location in Vienna to listen to new music.

The Alte Schmiede has a strange atmosphere - located several stairs under the ground floor it seems to be part of the old Vienna, besieged by the Turks, haunted by the Pest, and reigned by one of the Emperors of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (though not necessary at the same time). The ceilings are low, and the lighting is rather dim, so the over-all character of this venue is either creepy or intimate.

For the concert of the George Crumb Trio I am going to write about, the latter applies. The Trio, founded in 1992, consists of Norbert Girlinger, flute, Andreas Pözlberger, cello, and Sven Birch, piano. They play their instruments as masterful as the composers write for them, all three are teachers at Bruckneruni in Linz.  On this occasion, they played music by the Austrian Composers Rudolf Jungwirth (*1955) and Michael Amann (* 1964), and paired them with two compositions by the Americans Ned Rorem (* 1923) and the name-giving George Crumb (*1929).

Rudolf Jungwirth: "Mandorla"

All four compositions had in common, that their composer were masters of instrumentation. Especially George Crumb is capable of conjuring sounds out of certain instruments that are almost impossible to trace back to its source. Rudolf Jungwirth, as well teaching at Bruckneruni, called his piece "Mandorla" and doubled the flute with a rare-heard (and seen) bass flute. According to the composer, this piece is inspired by poet Paul Celan, although this influence was not (and was maybe not intended to be) perceptible. The multi-movement work (approx. 20 minutes) featured a highly delicate sound quality, reminding me both harmonically and rhythmically of Olivier Messiaen and his chamber pieces, especially his "Quartet for the end of time", and his solo piano work "Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jesus." The use of added values by Jungwirth, and the highest and lowest register of piano played at the same time might be responsible for this impression.

Flautist Norbert Gerlinger with Bass Flute, Sven Birch, piano

Michael Amann: "Sonett 116"

In contrast to that, Michael Amanns "Sonett 116" (premiere), inspired by the Sonett 116 by Shakespeare, though without the lyrics, was sparse, discreet, and even more intimate. Amann almost never reached for the sonority or the kind of sound Jungwirth achieved, instead he managed to combine a collection of small figures that established a high-tension network of sound. Amann's and Jungwirth's compositions were not consecutive but devided by Ned Rorem's "Trio for Flute, Violoncello, and Piano" from 1960.

Michael Amann, Composer

Ned Rorem: "Trio"

Rorem's Trio in four movements (Largo misterioso - Allegro, Largo, Andante, Allegro molto) was the perfect intermission for the quaffable "Mandorla" and the fragile "Sonett 116." Playful and virtuosic, it nevertheless immersed in the spirit of the sixties. The music of this Trio is in stark contrast to his fellow composers like Elliott Carter, Morton Feldman, or La Monte Young. Rorem does not seem interested in algorithmic conceptions or minimalistic patterns but rather writes melodies and climaxes. In this sense, Rorem's music alludes to a Third Stream, though not in the way proclaimed by Gunther Schuller.

George Crumb: "Vox Balaenae"

The approach to avant-garde of Rorem is, in my opinion, similar to that of George Crumb. In his composition "Vox Balaena" (1971) he freely mixes tonal and atonal content to generate a multi-stylistic and even multi-dimensional work. Crumb depicts a submarine landscape, in which he sets the different ages of the earth into music. Starting with a "Vocalise (...for the beginning of time)", followed by a Sea Theme with five variations (five ages) it ends with "Sea-Nocturne (...for the end of time)" and reaches overt tonality. Crumb employs almost every playing technique imaginable, from "singing into the flute", prepared piano to plucking strings inside the piano. He even breaks up the limitations of the trio by using Crotales, played by the Cellist.

Cellist Andreas Pözlberger, with Crotales (left)

Crumb also calls for electric amplification and blue stage light, what was dismally omitted this time due to the limitations of the venue, and asks the players to wear masks. The masks were also omitted, but with the consent of the composer, as flautist Girlinger told me, since they were to seventy-ish. 

Crumb goes a step farther than Rorem. He not only allows tonality, he actually seeks the allusion to tonal music, like through the citation of Strauss' "Also sprach Zarathustra" in the beginning. It also occurred to me, that this music might be better watched on larger space with more distance to the musicians which are also, in part, actors. The multitude of playing techniques requires much more movements than a Quartet by Schubert, which have to be staged. The George Crumb Trio earns the credit to be not only fully aware of that but also able to perform this movements. Thus they transport this piece from the early seventies into the 21. Century, which sees completely different listening (and watching) habits. Remember, that "Vox Balaenae" is from the same time as works by other composers, who also call for "acting", e. g. Hans Werner Henze and Maurizio Kagel. To perform this piece without the dust of the seventies and dissolving the awkwardness of playing and acting at the same time seems to me the major challenge of "Vox Balaenae."

Andreas Pözlberger, Sven Birch, Norbert Girlinger (from left to right)

The Alte Schmiede and the George Crumb Trio deserves the respect for providing the audience with such a (free of charge) venue and superb performed music.

Note: All images are take by the author. They are removed immediately by request of the depicted individuals or by Alte Schmiede.