Author: Matthew Schreibeis

Last night I enjoyed one of the best performances of my music to date here at the SoundSCAPE Festival in Maccagno, Italy.  Tony Arnold sang my Sandburg Songs with Eastman BroadBand, conducted by Tim Weiss, in a performance that offered everything a composer could want in a performance.  The BroadBand under Tim’s direction plays with a kind of telekinetic sense of ensemble, which allowed them to easily shift tempi in “Lost” while also giving the most streamlined dovetailing of scurrying lines and micro-dynamics in the doomed train ride of “Limited.”  From her first entrance, intoning the word “De-so-late”, Tony Arnold didn’t just sing, she told a story and led the audience on an emotional journey.  The journey led us from points of despair in the first movement (“in tears and trouble”), to torment (“shall pass to ashes”) and humor (“Omaha”) in the second.  There was an electric intensity to the performance, particularly in the fast second movement, and I could sense a palpable interest and focus from the audience.  It sometimes gets lost in all our technical discussion of notes and chords and theories that the first duty of a composer is to give an audience clear and meaningful emotional experiences, and that is what Tony Arnold, the performers of Eastman BroadBand, and conductor Tim Weiss gave us last night.  It was a real privilege.

On my way to the SoundSCAPE Festival in Italy, where I’m excited to hear the premiere of my new Sandburg Songs for Tony Arnold and Eastman BroadBand, I’ve made a detour to Berlin, a city that has a special place in my heart as the destination of my first flight (at age 21) and my home for three summers in the International Summer University at the Freie Universität Berlin.  It was in Berlin, more than anyplace else, that I experienced the thrills of public transit, understood the true meaning of nightlife, and learned how being in a different place makes us different people.  Berlin is also where I studied German, New German Cinema, and later Composition with Samuel Adler.  This is Sam’s eleventh and final year teaching students from around the world, and I was happy to meet with him and see that he is as energetic, opinionated, supportive, and wise as ever.

It’s been nine years since I was last here, and the city has changed a lot.  The Ostkreuz of my memory—its dark, rusting, haunting presence—is now a modern train station with a huge McDonald’s on one end.  The big brand names all have their own stores here now, too, so if I have an emergency and need to buy some Timberlands I can do it in Berlin as well!  Everywhere you walk, you hear English being spoken, and there are Mexican, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean restaurants that I never saw before.

One thing that remains the same, however, (in addition to my favorite Eisstand) is the abundance of music being performed, including at the city’s three opera houses.  I was pleased to attend a performance of Morton Feldman’s opera, Neither, at the Staatsoper during my visit.  I first became familiar with Feldman’s music through my participation in the June in Buffalo festival at SUNY Buffalo in 2009 and 2012, and he is a composer whose music interests me more the more I hear it.  I am interested in the ways in which Feldman seems to suspend time through repetition, slight variations, and silence.

Neither, is a kind of anti-opera, lasting only 50 minutes—short by operatic and especially short by Feldman standards, and with only one vocal soloist and a large orchestra.  The soprano sings a short text by Samuel Beckett, which is presented with frequent pauses and always in the very highest register.  Because of this the vocal part emerges as a kind of additional instrument, a special coloristic veil over the changing textures of the orchestra.

The music develops by moving from one texture or gesture type to another with timespans that often lull the listener into a kind of trance.  The trance is only one aspect of the experience, however, for there is also the choice of sequence—of how to move from one element or emphasis to another.  Sometimes the change is a slight shift; in other cases, there is a sudden break to something completely new.  These successions, like a very slow-motion Stravinsky score, create the real drama in Feldman’s music.

In the Staatsoper production, Neither was preceded by Samuel Beckett’s short play, “Footfalls.”  This work, in which a woman paces back-and-forth in a series of nine steps, while having an inner conversation with her mother and with herself, provided a nice compliment to Feldman’s opera.  One of the most striking moments of the evening was when Beckett’s play ended and Feldman’s opera began without pause.  The back curtain rose with Neither’s opening chord to reveal an increasingly deep stage, in which a single woman pacing with one door on either side eventually became nine women pacing and twelve open doors casting light and shadow across the stage.  The choreography of these anonymous women walking in varied patterns across the stage was especially effective in helping to delineate different sections in Feldman’s score.  Like an additional layer to his broken treatment of the text, this physical movement offered a visual metaphor for Beckett’s opening words: “to and fro in shadow from inner to outer shadow….”

 

I am happy to report the completion of two new Sandburg Songs for soprano and ensemble.  These songs were commissioned by the SoundSCAPE Festival in Maccagno, Italy and are dedicated to Tony Arnold, who will give the premiere this July with Eastman BroadBand and conductor Tim Weiss.  It is an honor to write for such compelling and fearless artists, and I am eager to hear the premiere in Italy next month.

In choosing texts I was drawn again to Carl Sandburg’s fantastic and evocative Chicago Poems (1916).  I hope that these two songs will be part of a larger cycle.  For now I selected two poems that offered me the opportunity to pursue great narrative and musical contrast.

I. LOST

DESOLATE and lone
All night long on the lake
Where fog trails and mist creeps,
The whistle of a boat
Calls and cries unendingly,
Like some lost child
In tears and trouble
Hunting the harbor’s breast
And the harbor’s eyes.

II. LIMITED

I AM riding on a limited express, one of the crack trains
of the nation.
Hurtling across the prairie into blue haze and dark air
go fifteen all-­‐‑steel coaches holding a thousand people.
(All the coaches shall be scrap and rust and all the men
and women laughing in the diners and sleepers shall
pass to ashes.)
I ask a man in the smoker where he is going and he
answers: “Omaha.”

Both these poems have been set previously, including a dark and haunting setting of “Lost” by Mario Davidovsky.  What strikes me most about Sandburg is his distinct cadence and searing, vivid imagery.  There is an immediacy to his words that brings the stories and souls of the past to our present day.  It has been wonderful to spend time inside these compact, giant worlds of words.

On a somewhat different note, here are some photographs of Sandburg and Marilyn Monroe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiJWByhwU-Q

 

Under the category of “Only in Pittsburgh” I’ve received word that Frederic Rzewski will be playing his epic The People United Will Never Be Defeated! at Wholey’s, the famous fish market in the Strip.  The performance will take place at 2pm this Saturday, April 18, in the upstairs dining room.  The performance is free.  What this means is that you can get enjoy the best fish sandwich anywhere while listening to one of the finest composer-pianists out there.  Mind the model railroad running above your head as you make your way up the stairs!

I’ve written previously about Rzewski’s performance at the Pittsburgh Festival of New Music here.  I expect Saturday’s Wholey’s performance will have added layers of meaning given the location.

Sneak preview the event from this live performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_mQiL19XmI

As a conclusion to their time at Camargo, film maker Jorge Leon, actress Isabelle Dumont, and violinist and composer George van Dam spoke about their current film project on Wednesday evening.  George, who performs with the Brussels-based contemporary music ensemble, Ictus, is a champion of new music, and he offered an exciting performance of Berio to start the evening.

The Sequenzas remain a singular and fascinating contribution to modern music, simultaneously extending compositional process and instrumental technique in a series of works that captivate the listener with an immediacy of expression.  I’ve always been interested in how Berio recast his material in multiple compositions, for example the relationships between his Sequenza VI for solo viola (on which I wrote my Ph.D. essay) and the Chemins series of works.  Therefore, it was interesting to hear George perform not the Sequenza VII for solo violin but the solo violin part of Corale, the ensemble work derived from the violin sequenza.  George reveled in the shifting tension and timbres of the opening double stops and was especially effective in the moto perpetuo ending section.  I was reminded again of the skill with which Berio maintains the listener’s attention through the subtlest reordering of pitches, as well as the ease with which he spins out multiple musical trajectories at once.  It was a lovely way to start the evening.

Hearing this intimate performance brought back fond memories for me of the Berio Festival at Eastman in 2003, my final year as an undergraduate composer and violinist.  Over a span of weeks, the halls, stairwells, and, indeed, elevators of the school were filled with his intricate textures and luxurious harmonies.  I believe all the Sequenzas were performed, and all by students.  I personally had the thrill of playing in the ensemble for Corale and in the orchestra for the complete Sinfonia.  Both performances were led by Brad Lubman, one of the most dynamic contemporary music conductors I know.  How many violinists, let alone undergraduates, can say they played Sinfonia?  I treasure these experiences even more in hindsight.  If you want to know something about a composer’s work, there is certainly no replacement for studying it and performing it in concert.

https://soundcloud.com/whyy-public-media/bill-t-jones-storytime-the-life-of-an-idea

I really enjoyed listening to this interview with renowned choreographer Bill T. Jones on his book STORY/TIME: The Life of an Idea. Rarely have I heard so many brilliant statements in such a short time frame. Here’s just one:

“Art making is participation in the world of ideas.”

For a look at some of his compelling art, take a look at this:

This Wednesday at 5pm I’ll be presenting a talk on my music at the Camargo Foundation. Unlike the artist colonies I’ve had the privilege of attending (Yaddo, VCCA, Kimmel Harding Nelson), Camargo Fellows come from both the arts and the humanities. Despite–or perhaps because of–our seemingly disparate research and creative pursuits, the presentations by my fellow fellows have been among the highlights of this fellowship so far. Fascinating questions and discussions by very informed and deeply thoughtful colleagues make this time together very special.

A fellow composer once told me that at their first meeting Milton Babbitt said, “Tell me everything about yourself–from the moment you were born. Musically speaking.”

That is rather what I intend to do this week, starting from my first musical experiences and working my way forward to my current project for the JACK Quartet. Here are some of the questions and topics I plan to discuss:

Big Questions
1. Why do I write music?

2. What does music do?

3. What is the experience of composing like?

Recent Works
1. In Search of Planet X: the stories behind music, my need for syncopation, expecting the unexpected

2. Noticing: the influence of traditional Asian music on my works, doing a lot with a little, going in and out of focus

3. Clarinet Sonata: different musics coming together, atmosphere and texture, our endless need for beauty

Current Camargo Fellowship Project
Witness, a new string quartet for the JACK Quartet