Italian Perfection: Portland Art Museum and Third Angle New Music bring 20th century Italy to life

THANK YOU, THANK YOU THIRD ANGLE! The “Made in Italy” concert, in conjunction with the Portland Art Museum is one of my top 3 favorite shows you have ever done. For the record, the other two were Rothko Chapel (also with PAM), and China Music Now (with the Portland Chinese Garden). This time, though, I learned a lot as well as listening to what I already love.

The evening began with one of several pieces I’ve never heard, Dallapiccola’s 1951 piece for violin and piano called “Tartiniana II,”  , The piece is a tribute to Baroque composer Giuseppe Tartini. It was programmed first as a sort of bridge between the 20th century and the long history of Italian art music. Personally, this was the piece I found least interesting but I’m not sure i could have selected a better piece to bridge the centuries and I totally get why Ron chose it.

For me, the evening just got more and more interesting as the show continued.

I was most excited to hear the 3rd piece, Berio’s lovely tribute to Martin Luther King, “O King”. It seems to me that Berio is terribly under-performed since his passing in 2003. I’m biased about this piece for 2 reasons. First, it is a chamber setting of music that also serves as the second movement of Berio’s “Synphonia” which I think is one of most beautiful things to ever come out of the late 20th century. Second, Berio is one of the few 20th century composers who I deeply admire but who I was never able to meet. I came close once, when my uncle Mel and aunt Joey took me to see the LA Philharmonic perform several of his works, including my favorite Berio piece “Linea”, conducted by Berio himself. So, basically, I went into the evening expecting to grin for 5 minutes while “O King” was performed; and grin I did.

Backing up a step, I’ll also mention a really amazing piece that I’ve not heard since my college days in the B304 electronic music studio: Luigi Nono’s “La Fabbrica Illuminata,” This is a piece for tape and voice that comes out the electro-acoustic and musicque concrete movements of the 50’s and 60’s. It was realized in 1964 as a protest against Italian factory working conditions. Nono is one of the guys we got to study, moment by moment in Barry Schrader’s electronic music classes because Nono was one of the first composers to create electronic music. Before there was such a thing as 5.1 and 7.2 multichannel audio systems, we used to create music for 4 track tape. Nono’s tape was made from the sounds of factory worked workers that were electronically processed. The recorded material was played back through a very solid 4-channel sound system that reminded me exactly of the old Quad recordings that we used to make. If enough time has now passed that one can call electro-acoustic music “authentic” then this performance surely was.

Even though I was excited to again hear Berio and Nono performed live, it was the 3 final pieces that really made this an extra special evening for me. This is because I found something to adore in each of 3 works whose composers I knew noting at all about. The 3 pieces were “Ganimede”, a 1986 solo viola piece by Fausto Romitelli; Salvatore Sciarrino’s “Ultime Rose”, for voice, cello, and piano, from 1981; and a 2010 piece called “Gr…” for solo bass flute by Oscar Bianchi. Each of these compositions demonstrated the extraordinary innovation that only Third Angle has to guts to include in it’s programming. Romitelli gave Charles Noble a chance to use almost every extended string technique in existence. Bianchi did much the same for the bass flute. And, Sciarrino, surprised me with an extremely beautiful use of cello, some really well timed vocal cues from the piano, and a third reason to respect any vocalist with the guts to tackle contemporary music.

I especially want to send our some kudos with respect to my last statement. In the cases of the Nono piece, the Berio piece, and the Sciarrino piece, I was tremendously impressed by Soprano Catherine Olson. Although a soprano, not a mezzo like the genius I’m about to mention, Ms. Olson’s body language, and to some extent her vocal technique, reminded me of the great interpreter of Berio and Maderna, the wonderful Cathy Berberian. This might be my imagination since Berberian died when I was just out of college, but I could see Ms. Olson singing Berio’s “Circles” and I’d go to hear her do so in a nanosecond!

Mentioning Berio’s great muse, Cathy Berberian, brings me to one last thought. You have perhaps noticed that I have said nothing but positive things about this concert. There is really nothing bad to say. So, I’ll leave you with my one issue. Noticeably absent from this program was the music of Bruno Maderna. I always feel like Maderna is noticeably absent whenever Berio stands alone as Italy’s preeminent contemporary composer. So, if I could add anything to a nearly perfect concert, it would be one extra piece representing the work of Maderna. But, there is only so much one can handle of cool contemporary chamber music. So…. I’m letting it slide and just going to say….

Bravissimo 3A!

On Composing, Shedding Tears, and The Emotion of Music – Contributed by Peter Grenader

The words below are not mine. They come from a friend that I’ve known for over 35 years. A man who made possible my first ever public performance of electronic music, who shared in the friendship of my most influential high school teacher, John Waddell, and who has remained a friend for all these three and a half decades. It is a very beautiful post, originating on Facebook, by my old Encino neighbor, mentor, and friend Peter Grenader. Here it is, verbatim. Thanks Peter…. We can dedicate this one to the “Great Harmonic Set”.

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To all of my friends you successfully and sometimes painfully survive the process of composing music of any ilk:

If, when in the throws of writing, we cannot experience moments when other composers contributions to our art moves us to tears, then it’s time to pack it up and move on.

I’ve asked myself a thousand times why I do this. When I do – often I begin the process by listening to the second movement of Beethoven’s 5th, the Andante. The intention being a benchmark of what should be, yet it often only reminds me of that which I am incapable of creating… so why do it? Why make another film after Cinima Paradiso, or sculpt another portrait after the The Virgin and Child with St. Anne? It seems the answer comes from the very emotion stirred by the works which effect us, that once one stops trying to impress their audience by a flexing of creative muscles and instead relies on that fundamental emotion as the transmitter – then and only then can we consider what we’ve created art. At that point it has the same right to be as any other and fit to be seen, or heard or most importantly – felt by others.

When this milestone occurs is often times evasive. For me personally it was when I realized that listening to works by other composers could predictably move me to tears. That’s when I knew I got it. The free reception of their emotion afforded me the conduit in which to transmit my own. I’m not talking perfect fifths here, or the ‘love chord’. I’m talking about representation of many emotions – love, anger, pride even sexual angst through an equally varied pallet of sonic possibilities: pitch, amplitude timbre or rhythm. Many parts of Le Sacre du Printemps and almost none of Subotnick’s Until Spring could be called pretty – but they are both highly emotional works. Masterpieces in that regard.

Something to think about as we struggle….

In Memoriam Ed Emshwiller

On this day, 21 years ago, my friend Ed Emshwiller passed away. I consider myself to have been incalculably blessed to have been a student at CalArts when Ed was dean of the film school. I remember the first time I ever saw his work, a film called “Sunstone”, and how I was utterly blown away. Like many of the people who were around CalArts in those days, Ed was a creative genius. He may not have known every single technical aspect of film like some of the professors did; or every single thing about  the video signal like, say, Michael Scroggins. But he was among the 20th century’s most amazing creative voices and perhaps even an experimental animation megastar.

I remember once when I was using the old CMX editor down in the film school. Ed stopped in and we talked about my work. He then asked me to show him how we in the music school edited. We picked a time to get together and I brought him into the old Buchla electronic music studio, still affectionately called B304. There I proceeded to show the great video master our splicing block and our razor blades. Even with all the time that Ed had spent with Mort Subotnick, I don’t think he had ever really seen just how arcane we were compared to our video counterparts in the film school. He honestly was taken aback to see that we really did still use razor blades.

From that day on, I always thought of Ed Emshwiller, not only as a professor or a dean or a great artist, but as a friend. It is thanks to Ed that I met, and was privileged to study with, 2 of the people who most influenced my philosophy of art and my sense of beauty – Gene Youngblood and Bill Viola. For that, as much as for his own creative spirit, friendship, and brilliance, I will always be thankful to have known him.

Today, 21 years after he died and nearly 30 years after I left CalArts, I still miss Ed Emshwiller – I consider my life much better for having known him.

Here’s to you my friend! Thank you for being with us for all those amazing years!