Annotated Listening Presentation
For the past several months, I have been curious about contemporary classical music. The following presentation outlines the connections I've discovered and experiences I've had regarding this genre.
CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL MUSIC
What is it?
In the broadest sense, contemporary music is any music being written in the present day. In the context of classical music the term has been applied to music written in the last quarter century, particularly works post-1975.
Michael Gordon on being a contemporary classical composer:
I used to like to say that I write “strange” or “weird” music, but now, for the sake of simplicity in social situations, I simply tell people when they ask that I’m a “classical” composer. Nine of ten people don’t know how to respond to this, and there’s usually an awkward moment in which they process this information trying to find something to say.
I have always felt uncomfortable with the word “classical.” It sends an instant message to most people that you are involved in something other. And, vainly, I am very aware that classical music has the squarest image on the planet. A bigger problem is that my music is not what most people think of as classical music. It doesn’t sound like Mozart, it is not genteel, will not serve as pleasant background music at a dinner party, and it can not be used to sell a Mercedes. (A passport control officer at Kennedy Airport once told Julia Wolfe that he thought all classical composers were dead.)
If you are an aficionado of contemporary classical music you probably have had similar experiences explaining to your friends and co-workers what kind of music you listen to. For those who are confused, the question that might come to mind is, “Why would you want write weird music?” Or more simply put, “Why would you want to write music that most of the world doesn’t listen to?”
MINIMAL MUSIC
genre of experimental music named in the 1960s which displays some or all of the following features:
•emphasis on consonant harmony, functional tonality
•reiteration of musical phrases and/or infrequent variation over long periods of time, possibly limited to simple repetition
•stasis, often in the form of drones, pulses, and/or long tones.
Tom Johnson describes minimalism in music:
"The idea of minimalism is much larger than most people realize. It includes, by definition, any music that works with limited or minimal materials: pieces that use only a few notes, pieces that use only a few words of text, or pieces written for very limited instruments, such as antique cymbals, bicycle wheels, or whisky glasses. It includes pieces that sustain one basic electronic rumble for a long time. It includes pieces made exclusively from recordings of rivers and streams. It includes pieces that move in endless circles. It includes pieces that set up an unmoving wall of saxophone sound. It includes pieces that take a very long time to move gradually from one kind of music to another kind. It includes pieces that permit all possible pitches, as long as they fall between C and D. It includes pieces that slow the tempo down to two or three notes per minute."
Prominent minimalist composers include John Adams, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich.
LISTENING TO MINIMAL MUSIC
Listen slow...
daydream
sleep
meditate
drift
Listening in context: my soundtrack in Germany
Arvo Pärt
-born 11 September 1935 in Paide
-an Estonian composer, often identified with the school of minimalism and more specifically, that of "mystic minimalism" or "sacred minimalism".
-has said that his music is similar to light going through a prism: the music may have a slightly different meaning for each listener, thus creating a spectrum of musical experience, similar to the rainbow of light.
Berliner Messe - Agnus dei
Henryk Mikołaj Górecki
-born December 6, 1933 in Czernica, Silesia
-Polish composer of classical music. Though his earlier work in the late 1950s and 1960s was characterized by a dissonant modernism, in the mid 1970s he moved towards a 'pure' sacred minimalist sound with Symphony No.3.
-music covers a variety of styles, but tends towards relative harmonic and rhythmical simplicity.
Symphony No. 3 - II. Lento E Largo - Tranquillissimo
David Lang
-born January 8, 1957 in Los Angeles, California
-informed by modernism, minimalism, and rock
-music best described as post-minimalist, a search for greater harmonic and rhythmic complexity
-founding member of Bang on a Can
Sweet Air
Alva Noto
-stage name of German sound artist Carsten Nicolai,
-leading artist amongst current electronic sound and visual designers using art and music as hybrid tools to create microscopic views of creative processes.
-plays with the rules of physicality. Sound is changed and evolved into time and space and transformed by looping oscillators and tone generators. Through these processes the essence of pure electricity is made audible. -mathematically edits his work to give his compositions precise rhythmic structures.
-uses sounds of electronic information transmission such as fax tones, modem sounds and telephone pops and clicks which are sampled and organized into loops
Logic Moon (with Ryuichi Sakamoto)
Train.mov