Composer of the Day! - Pulitzer Prize Edition

In honor of the recent announcement of her Pulitzer Prize for Music, today's Composer of the Day is Jennifer Higdon (b. December 31, 1962).

Higdon is a highly visible American composer whose music seems to have shown up in every major orchestra's programming in the past few years. Actually, according to the League of American Resources (a fun resource if you hadn't visited their site before), Jennifer's Higdon's blue cathedral (easily her most famous work) was the most performed contemporary work in America. She also had more scheduled performances than John Williams, who wrote the music for popular films like Always and SpaceCamp! The only living composers with more total performances were John Adams and John Corigliano.

Her music is largely tonal, and is fairly representative of a neoromantic style. Her propensity for highly charged dynamics and textures, supported by a wonderful variety of orchestral colors are also likely responsible for her success with audiences.

As already mentioned, her most famous work is blue cathedral (1999), which was composed as a monument to her younger brother who had recently died of cancer. Listen to it here:




The Pulitzer Prize was awarded for her Violin Concerto, commissioned for superstar violinist Hilary Hahn and premiered in February 2009 by the Indianapolis Symphony. The Pulitzer announcement (which is already cited on Wikipedia) lauded the work as "a deeply engaging piece that combines flowing lyricism with dazzling virtuosity." David Patrick Stearns, of the Philadelphia Inquirer (Higdon's hometown paper), had this highly positive, yet cryptic remark that the soloist's high violin sounds were "colored lights flashing out of darkness with playful, peekaboo randomness."

You can listen to Hilary Hahn and Jennifer Higdon talk about the composition of the piece here:


Higdon is known primarily for her orchestral works and has a number of often performed works, which include her Concerto for Orchestra, City Scape, Concerto 4-3, and Percussion Concerto (which, proving this must truly be the Year of Higdon, won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Classical Composition a couple of months ago). All of these have been recorded and are worth a listen.

figure cd: Very nice recording of Higdon's music.

And you can listen to clips of most of her compositions at her website. Good stuff, to say the least.

----------------------------

And, while I happen to personally enjoy her music and am enthusiastically recommending her in this post, I do want to leave you with this rather amusing criticism she received from Rowena Smith, of The Guardian, referring to blue cathedral:

"In terms of content, it is pure new-age fluff; undemanding, unadventurous tonality dressed up as a quasi-mystical experience by the addition of bells and chimes."

Although I disagree...that's still very funny.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Review

I have nothing but angry, rage-filled, contemptuous, derogatory words for this pile of ignorance and self-righteousness, this loathsome, pea-brained, and (yes) uneducated attempt to...

...Whoa there!! Calm down, Empiricus.

(deep breath) You’re right. I was about to lose it. Thanks.

Don’t mention it.

-

Let’s start over. But this time, try to say something nice every time David Hurwitz makes you mad.

Sure, I’ll try to say something nice every time David Hurwitz pisses me off to the point where I very nearly jump up, run out to the shed and fire up the chainsaw so I can...

...Cool it, you!

(deep breath) Thanks again, Empiricus.

Let’s give this a try, shall we?

-

Schoenberg's 12-tone music...

Good work, so far, David!

Oh, now you’re just being silly. Just try to be nice. Okay?

Okay.

Schoenberg's 12-tone music has the undeserved reputation of being unusually difficult, at least to the extent that his tonal music is, if anything, just as knotty and uncompromising.

(pauses, thinks) Such things have been said before. (takes deep breath) Whether or not they're true...well. Good start, anyway.

Not bad, Empiricus. Keep going.

Even so...

That is synonymous with, “despite that fact.”

See, Empiricus? I haven’t said anything bad.

Good work.

I know. I'm cool like that.

Even so, the Violin Concerto is notorious for standing among the ugliest pieces of music ever conceived by the human mind...

(stares in disbelief) David has...(deep breath)...a right to...say things. (looks for stress ball)

Very good, Empiricus. Go on.

...but below the surface there's a lot of brilliant and (yes) expressive invention going on.

I might say that they’re also on the surface. Either way, that’s a kind of compliment, David.

How’d I do, Empiricus?

You’re doing well. Let’s see if you can keep it up!

I’ll try.

The only question is how hard you, the listener, feel like working, and how much the performance rewards your time and effort.

(Deep breath. Deep breath. Deep Breath)

Stay focused, Empiricus.

(Deep breath)

Let’s just move on. Shall we?

(Deep breath)

The first recording that "did it" for me was the Craft/Schulte version on Koch; but this one is even finer...

I’m glad you...liked the recording...?

...and not just because it knocks about four minutes off the overall timing of the piece.

Fff...!!

Hold it right there partner! Let’s take a breather. Go have a smoke.

Yeah. I need a smoke.

-

(5 minutes later)

If you're just taking the plunge, start with the finale.

Oh, come on you can’t seriously...

(sternly) Empiricus!

(sarcastically) I hope David tells us why we should start in the middle of the piece. I-am-all-ears.

That’s more like it, buster!

It contains several memorable tunes and motives that recur with relative frequency, in a clear march rhythm.

From what I have read of your stuff before, David (deep breath), these are things that make for good pieces. Thanks for clearing that up. I’ll (gulp) go straight to the final movement.

I’m impressed, Empiricus!

I’m still trying, anyway.

It's not just that Hahn has mastered the work technically, but she also uses her command of the notes to create feeling.

"She created feeling” sounds like...(rolls eyes)...a good assessment.

Calm. Remember to stay calm.

Mmm-hmm.

Thus, Schoenberg marks the opening of the slow movement "grazioso"...

Wait a goddamned minute! "Thus!" Thus! How on Earth does Schoenberg’s marking follow Hilary Hahn’s playing!

Time out, mister! Go have another smoke.

(pouts, mutters to self)

-

(5 minutes later)

Ready to try this again?

(pouting) Yes.

Thus, Schoenberg marks the opening of the slow movement "grazioso", and at first you think he must be kidding...

(long pause) Grazioso means “gracefully.”

...but Hahn and Salonen [the conductor] deliver the expressive goods.

(rolls eyes) I am glad they expressed feelings. (deep breath) That's a sign of a quality recording.

Very good, Empiricus. You’re making me proud.

I’m doing my very best.

I hesitated before giving this disc a top recommendation, if only because no matter how fine the performances are...

What the f...

Calm!

(deep breath) David, I’m sure you had a good reason to ignore your mandate. I can’t wait to hear it.

That’s not entirely nice, Empiricus.

It’s not entirely mean, either, Empiricus. Just calling it like I see it.

I hesitated before giving this disc a top recommendation, if only because no matter how fine the performances are, I don't want to give the misleading impression that on hearing the Schoenberg those resistant to the idiom will suddenly have some sort of 12-tone epiphany.

That’s fucking stupid ass-backw!!!

No! No! No! Stop! We’re done here. Go to your room.

Nothing more to see, folks. Good night! Go read this, instead. You'll enjoy yourself more.
-

Why the Detritus?

I enjoy Anne Midgette’s articles. She’s thoughtful. She’s articulate. She’s eloquent even—a nice fit with the venerable Washington Post. But today...

Somebody forgot to tell the violinist Hilary Hahn that Schoenberg is ugly.

This is, by far, the most disappointing thing I’ve ever read from a respectable, industrious, (how about) progressive critic. More importantly—because after all that was only my opinion—she crossed the boundary between impartiality and partiality. “Schoenberg is ugly” is declarative in the worst, most biased sense. This is something we expect from others, but not our Anne!

And now for something completely different:

The music of Arnold Schoenberg, of course, isn't ugly at all;

How can this be? She just said, “Schoenberg IS ugly.” I don’t get it. What kind of twisted negative rhetorical device is this?

(loud, pissed-off sigh)

Sorry. Well, I’m not sorry. No one gets to have it both ways. Either Schoenberg is or he isn’t. So, Anne, choose the form of the destructor.

in fact, he's one of the last of the romantics.

Let me understand this correctly. Schoenberg isn’t ugly, BECAUSE he’s a romantic composer; if he were a modernist, he’d be ugly. Is that really the direction you want to take this, Anne?

...

Fine.

Her new recording of the Schoenberg Violin Concerto on Deutsche Grammophon, released last month, shows no traces of the spiky, unpleasant angularity that represents Schoenberg in the popular consciousness.

You, Anne, and all critics are the everyday opinion-molders of the popular consciousness. Thus, Schoenberg’s reputation is your doing. You are the one(s) responsible for his unpleasantness. They are your descriptors.

I mean, listen, really listen, to what this says:

Both musicians [Esa-Pekka Salonen and Hahn] are smart enough not to get tied in knots by Schoenberg's score, and to see through it to the composer's inner romantic.

It says that the conductor and violinist smartly mined romanticism out of Schoenberg’s otherwise ugly, difficult, spiky, unpleasantly angular, dense, clotted, ferocious piece (all adjectives found previously within the article).

Do you now see how Schoenberg and modernism get their reputations? Reviews like this, which say, “Despite Schoenberg, the music is beautiful, because of the performers.” What kind of dismissive, backhanded logic forgets that the composer put those sounds, those romantic, angular notes, onto paper and not the performers? Apparently articles like these:

To sweeten the pill for non-initiates, Hahn pairs Schoenberg with Sibelius [...]

I am truly disgusted and disappointed, today. But, then again, this is why we are here: to defend good writing and trash the bad.

(By the way, I didn’t say “fuck” once, but I wanted to. Congrats Empiricus! Thank you.)
-

A Little Night Probing with a Knotty Schoenberg

In Sator Arepo’s recent post, Bernard Holland suggests that George Pearle’s music is like something from outer space. I’m not so sure that Bernard isn’t on to something.

We all know that Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto

usually comes off as an icy monolith of modernism.



Right?

Who then could possibly untangle Schoenberg’s spaceman-like naughty knots?

Who could bring out his latent, other-worldly romanticism?

Who could beam 30 fiendishly difficult, atonal minutes down into 12-tone ribbons of lyrical melody?

I think it’s clear. Thank you Mr. Holland.

The answer?

...

Shhhh. They might be listening, waiting to take over the world, or subliminally supplying us with bad writing about Schoenberg.

I know who can do this. But you have to keep it to yourself, in case you get probed. Just be quiet.

....

It’s.

...

Aliens, who look like us. (artist's rendering)

...

Here’s one of them.

...

And another. They can look like music critics from the Detroit Free-Press, too.

Now that you know, here's Schoenberg.
-