Archives for June 2013

Nicolas Horvath, the French pianist who commissioned my homage-to-Philip-Glass piano piece Going to Bed, is finally giving the piece its long-delayed European premiere. It’s part of an all-night program, June 27-28, titled First French Night of Minimal Piano Music, way at the very end, at the Protestant Temple in Collioure in southern France. Looks heavenly. France is not a country I would have expected to pick up on my music, but I’ve had several performances there in recent years – perhaps significantly, none in Paris.

My piece is based on the chord sequence from the “Bed” scene from Einstein on the Beach. I probably should have given more thought to the title. I sent a copy of the piece to a woman pianist of my acquaintance. A couple of months later I ran into her, and she reeled off, as I waxed in silent impatience, a list of new pieces she was about to play on an upcoming concert, none of them written by myself. At last she paused, and, after a decent moment, I blurted out, “So, how about Going to Bed?” I studied the dubious look on her face for a full five seconds before it dawned on me what I’d said. We were not in a private situation.

Call it a Freudian slip, but I think most male composers over a certain age (say, 40 at most) will vouch for me that, given a choice between getting laid and a highly visible premiere, at this point we’ll take the premiere.

Many of you were invigorated by my colleague John Halle’s provocative article “Occupy Wall Street, Composers and the Plutocracy”, which I posted in this space last year. He’s now written a kind of historical prequel, tracing the changing relationship between music and leftist politics through the 20th century: “‘Nothing is Too Good for the Working Class’: Classical Music, the High Arts and Workers’ Culture.” I find particularly intriguing a mid-century view articulated by Hanns Eisler that “simple music does and can reflect only simple political thinking,” and that “it is easier for people who appreciate complex music to move on to an appreciation of complex political problems, than for those who limit themselves to folk (pop, rock, gospel, blues, etc.)” This will certainly not go unchallenged (and John is not asserting it as his own view), but I’m fascinated that, before the 1960s fusion of rock and progressive politics, classical music was seen by some as having a potentially more crucial role. The depth of John’s historical knowledge in this area, and – even more – his ability to maintain all these cultural contradictions in their complexity, is phenomenal. We’re actually discussing writing a book together, though I’m not sure what, beyond my 600-word-an-hour writing speed, I have to contribute.

I am perhaps a little overly susceptible to end-of-the-world scenarios, despite having lived through a few that came to nothing. But I’m a little freaked out about this, and hope that someone knows more than I do.

My laptop went dysfunctional from a rare condition two weeks ago – the screen simply went blank and would no longer transmit light, though happily the hard drive, logic board, and desktop remain operational. When I considered the possibility of buying a new laptop (the ill one is less than two years old), I was warned that I would have to get a Mac with OS 10.7 or 10.8, namely (if not respectively) Lion or Mountain Lion. Two computer repairmen, one of whom I’ve been going to for many years, told me that many people (including even accountants) buy a Lion or Mountain Lion Mac, and then find that virtually none of their software works on it. Apparently much of the professional software used by specialists in various disciplines is not updatable, or not being updated, for these operating systems, which, following the lowest common denominator, are being designed only for the most generic programs. I know this particularly affects my microtonal software such as Li’l Miss Scale Oven, which forms the basis of much of my career. My trusty computer guy told me, “I’m afraid we may be coming to the end of the personal computer as we know it, and that what we’re going to have instead is an appliance.” Boy, did he say that word with a sneer. The other guy told me that if anyone suggests 10.7 or 10.8, “Look them in the eye and respond: ‘Over. My. Dead. Body.'”

Is anyone on this? It became apparent that, no matter what my laptop repairs cost, I have to keep that machine alive for as many years as possible. Buying a new computer may no longer be an option. Both computer guys tell me they spend a lot of time reinstalling Snow Leopard for people who tried the higher OS’s and lost everything. Is this mainly a Mac problem? Is there a counter movement in place anywhere? Are we all doomed, doomed, I tell you?

 

The kindly editors of Ashgate Press are scurrying to cross all the final t’s and dot the i’s of The Ashgate Research Companion to Minimalist and Postminimalist Music, with the expeditious assistance of the book’s three editors, Keith Potter, Pwyll Ap Sion, and myself. The goal is to have it published and available by October, to sell at a special price to the attendees of the Fourth International Conference on Minimalist Music in Long Beach. (The regular price, I understand, will be around $150; it’s one of Ashgate’s hefty, library-aimed tomes, with articles by twenty authors.) We had a devil of a time coming up with cover art because we didn’t want to privilege any of the Super Four – Young, Riley, Reich, Glass – over the other three, but Pwyll came up with some wonderful graphic charts of early minimalist pieces by Jon Gibson, who had worked with all four of them, and they’re attractive and set the perfect tone. And now I have just learned that, thanks to another of Pwyll’s inspirations, the volume will be dedicated to William Duckworth, in memoriam.

Every once in awhile the universe falls into alignment, and a bit of perfect justice is done on earth.

 

What an unexpected pleasure to see New Music Box absolutely dominated this weekend by my long-time comrade-in-arms Robert Carl – unexpected because, though we’ve been trading e-mails lately, he never mentioned it was coming up. Two Chicago grad students who managed to get East Coast teaching jobs within a couple of hours of each other, Robert and I have been talking regularly for more than thirty years. I used to think we were from different sides of the tracks, but actually Robert skips all over the tracks. I believe I once described him as half Uptown and half Downtown with no touch of Midtown. His rock-solid sense of composer priorities and politics has always served as a reality check for me, so if you think I’m off-the-wall, you can thank Robert that I’m not even more completely unhinged. He’s been a moderating influence, and an inspiration.