Results tagged “Alvin Curran” from PianoMorphosis

After a concert I played in Munich in May, there was a question-and-answer session. (I performed music written by Alvin Curran, Sylvano Bussotti, and Earle Brown.) One audience member asked if a performer of newish music still needs to study Chopin's etudes?

Since the pervasive use of photography by visual artists, the question arises in art schools: "Do art students need to learn how to draw?"

To the question in Munich, my immediate answer was that pianists in music schools still do study Chopin's etudes, and Liszt's, and Beethoven's sonatas. Whether this is essential to master the instrument, I doubt. It does influence (or skew) a basic sense of what music is. And, that resultant understanding of "music" is inclined to line, goal (teleology), and development.

It used to be that almost every player of the viola started out by learning the violin. For a few decades, this has been changing. Now, there are excellent violists who start their musical lives directly with the viola. Do they sound different?

What kind of music-making would ensue if the repertory pianists studied began with Stockhausen?

Before, I have spoken of "extreme" piano, related to the phenomenon of "extreme sports" -- I was talking about the masochistic marathon of Alvin Curran's Hope Street Tunnel Blues III. Now, I want to propose the notion of "molecular piano." I'm thinking of "molecular gastronomy" as practiced by Ferran Adrià and many others (focusing on ambiguities and subtle transformations -- from one state of edible matter to another). And, I am thinking too of the study of "microsound." The origins of "molecular" piano music ("granular" piano music?) surely date to the 1970s: Curtis Curtis-Smith's Rhapsodies for bowed piano, William Duckworth's Time Curve Preludes, and probably George Crumb's Makrokosmos. Sure, there's line, and harmony, but you can listen, or perform, "sonically" just as well, one microscopic moment of sound morphing to the next -- the raw to the cooked ...

The simplest things can be the most telling. A very small, simple bit of music reveals everything about a player's technique, sound -- dare I say, soul?

Consider the two-note slur: a group of two notes, frequently a descending step, connected, bound, by a legato phrasing tie (slur). A very basic building block, frequently realized very poorly, even by celebrated, professional executants.

Classical musicians often strongly desire to perform music that is physically hard to play, a virtuoso challenge. Conductors perform Mahler. Pianists are attracted to the intricacies of Ravel. It may be excellent music -- and then there's that opportunity to adroitly cue the third horn!

Haydn's piano music might be rejected by some of the young virtuosos in my school because it's too easy. In the conservatory's series of performances of Haydn's "complete" piano sonatas, I have felt that some performers regarded this material as beneath them. And it's a paradox: It's too easy for them -- and far too difficult too!

In the pop world, it may be different. Is Bob Dylan admired for his virtuoso "chops"? Among some rockers and rock critics, there's a focus on something like "truth" or communicative power that might perplex a lot of classical players. Some classical listeners, teachers, and performers still expect virtuoso pyrotechnics all the time, and feel cheated if they're not there -- in a piece, a program, a recording. "Does he have fingers?", we ask.

Some have extolled the value of physical struggle in artistic communication (Edward Said, Roland Barthes). Cornelius Cardew saw it as a matter of politics or social order. Conventional instrumental virtuosity is a bourgeois acquisition -- it takes time to develop, and expert advice to cultivate. Money and "leisure" are necessary to get these skills. And speaking of claviers -- well, pianos are expensive.

Some, like Alvin Curran, have sought to notate pieces that can be played by many, a manifesto of inclusion. Gebrauchsmusik?

Alvin Curran: Endangered Species

"Bruce Brubaker on Breaking Down Boundaries" -- extensive audio interview at PittsburghNewMusicNet.com

"Heavy on the Ivories" -- Andrea Shea's story for WBUR about Bruce Brubaker's performances and recording of "The Time Curve Preludes" by William Duckworh

"Feeding Those Young and Curious Listeners" -- Anthony Tommasini in The New York Times on the first anniversary of the Poisson Rouge

"The Post-Postmodern Pianist" -- Damian Da Costa profiles Bruce Brubaker in The New York Observer

Bruce Brubaker questioned at NewYorkPianist.net

PianoMorphosis on Twitter

"Finding the keys to the heart of Jordan Hall" -- Joan Anderman in the Boston Globe on the search for a new concert grand piano

"Hearing and Seeing" -- Philip Glass speaks with Bruce Brubaker and Jon Magnussen, Princeton, Institute for Advanced Study

Bruce Brubaker about Messiaen's bird music, NPR, "Here and Now"

"I Hear America: Gunther Schuller at 80" -- notes and programs for concert series, New England Conservatory, Harvard University, Boston Symphony Orchestra

"A Conversation That Never Occurred About the Irene Diamond Concert," Juilliard Journal

Bruce Brubaker plays music by Alvin Curran at (le) Poisson Rouge