Claudio Abbado – my favourite conductor, and one of my favourite musicians – has died at the age of 80. Only last June, I wrote in tribute as he entered his ninth decade, with several highly anticipated performances ahead of him. But now, shortly after hearing the news of his passing, I’m sitting in an airport lounge, struggling to find words to express the feeling of losing one of my earliest musical heroes. For me, Abbado’s art represents a rare balance of mind and heart – his conducting was informed by scrupulous scholarship, yet had the ability to change water into fire, igniting the concert experience when it really counted. His ‘sound’ was characterized by a leanness and lucidity (and sometimes a lightness) that is to my taste but admittedly not to everyone’s. Opinions of conductors are often sharply divided, especially amongst musicians. We all think we know exactly how Bach should sound, or Beethoven or Debussy should be interpreted, but the arguments seem rather futile when one considers that all great Maestri must have reached such rarified status for possessing at least something special to offer. This is my modest, personal reminiscence of Abbado’s inspiration. My views are subjective for sure, but I hope to encourage the reader, or the many young musicians I work with today, to look more closely at the recorded legacy of a truly great artist. He was also a champion of younger talent. We have much to learn from musicians and educators like Claudio Abbado.
I encountered his work from a distance, and never first-hand. Growing up in Dubai in the ’80s and ’90s, I didn’t have access to live music-making of the kind that people enjoy here in the West. To compensate, I would satisfy my voracious musical appetite by spending all of my pocket money on CDs and monthly issues of BBC Music magazine. And so it was that my first introduction to the music of Mahler was in the form of a recording: an excerpt from the Scherzo of the Resurrection Symphony. Albeit brief, it was long enough to blow me sideways, as the saying goes. I rushed out to the CD shop, eager to purchase my first full-length Mahler recording. With no recommendations at hand, I suspect I chose this particular album purely for its sun-yellow label (the Deutsche Grammophon logo) and for the intriguing photo of an introspective man, deeply engrossed in some musical manuscript:
Listening to the recording, it goes without saying that I had the typical awestruck reaction to Mahler’s 5th Symphony of any classical music aficionado….but there was something else present in my experience. Despite being a young teen, ignorant of this music, I still sensed something powerful behind Mahler’s personality, behind the sounds of the expert musicians playing his music: I felt aware of a powerfully unifying, interpretive force that was pushing and pulling the music in the most subtle, natural way. Realizing that this must be the ‘silent’ personality of the conductor, I immediately cemented my reactions to the name ‘Claudio Abbado’. The link had been made and I was a fan from that day on, without really knowing it.
I went on to study music exclusively, at the RNCM in the UK, and it was a wonderful environment in which my friends and I would talk endlessly about music. Abbado’s name came up often, and I learned a lot (first-hand) about the regard that many great European musicians had for him. I was starting a little Jazz library too, but Abbado was the most represented artist in my ever-expanding collection of classical albums.
Unusually, it was in the United States that I was to attend an Abbado performance for the first (and only) time. The circumstances were quite precious: immediately after the 9/11 attacks, visiting artists were cancelling their US dates in droves, for reasons of safety and heightened security. The Berlin Philharmonic tour of October 2001 was definitely hanging in the balance, slated to open Carnegie Hall’s 111th season. New York City was desperate for some high-octane music-making, and so the orchestra and Abbado came. In what proved to be an historic gesture, they inscribed this message in all the NY concert programs: “We have come to America at a time of great anguish and sorrow. We come as a reaffirmation of our common humanity, which is so deeply expressed in the music of these concerts. John F. Kennedy once said at a critical moment in Berlin’s history, ‘Ich bin ein Berliner.’ At this terrible moment, we are the ones who say with you, ‘We are all New Yorkers.’ ”
As you can imagine, the atmosphere at these events was electrifying. I attended rehearsals. I fell in love with the playing of the Berlin Phil. I was already an ardent Abbado fan, but until this time I only enjoyed his work through his recordings. From the student seating of Carnegie Hall, seconds away from watching and hearing him conduct in real-time, I quietly challenged him in my mind to live up to the high standard I had come to expect from his many recordings. He surpassed them absolutely – I was hooked from the first downbeat to the very last chords of a searing performance of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony that drove the audience into a wild frenzy. The conducting, to my mind at least, was the most elegant, sophisticated, balletic upper-body display of gesture I’d ever seen; the visual coefficient of an orchestral sonority of transparency and translucency. It was, after all, the Abbado sound. Don’t take my word for it, decide for yourself. Check out the DVDs of the BPO Beethoven cycle in Rome, all of which have a multi-angle feature called ‘Conductor Camera’ (a dream for conducting enthusiasts!).
Recommended listening and viewing
I will extend this post in due course, but for now here are some Abbado interpretations I could never do without:
Mozart – Piano Concertos 17 & 21 w/Pires & the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. One of my desert island discs, despite exceptional instrumental playing I am always drawn to how Mozart, my favourite composer, sounded in the hands of my favourite conductor. Gorgeous. Abbado’s Mozart changed drastically over the years leading up to this recording, however. I always respected the fact that he never rested on his laurels.
Mahler – Symphony no. 5 w/the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. Abbado and his super-band in a live performance of Mahler 5 that is superbly well-paced. The famous Adagietto is a staggering display of his skill and vocabulary of gesture:
Dinuk Wijeratne, Diomira, and Debut Atlantic invite all imaginative and innovative youth from the Maritime provinces of Canada to participate in an exciting musical composition opportunity entitled Sonic Assembly! As a participant, you will have the special opportunity to flex your creative muscles in assembling an original work for Diomira to perform live in concert during their February 2014 Debut Atlantic tour. One lucky person from each community hosting a concert will have their creation premiered by Diomira in concert.
Diomira (from left) – Joseph Petric, Dinuk Wijeratne, Nick Halley
The GOAL: to tell a dynamic story through music to a live audience, in the form of a 3-minute piece, created using your imagination and existing musical material provided by Diomira.
SUBMISSIONS: Online submissions will be open December 10th, 2013 – January 17th, 2014. To submit, please visit sonicassembly.debutatlantic.ca
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: No compositional experience is required! We are encouraging you to think about music performance as storytelling. What is music doing when it best communicates its purpose? We are not looking for original music, but we are interested in the ‘soundworld’ you have in mind. We will help you realize this in musical terms. An interior decorator, for example, may not build a chair from scratch, but in selecting and placing a particular piece of furniture in a space makes a bold and potentially transformative personal statement.
The stories which will inspire the participants’ musical storyboards have been selected by Dinuk, who turned to one of his favourite books: Invisible Cities by the legendary Italian writer Italo Calvino. Calvino’s imagined cities do not function by any of the earthly laws that govern our own cities. Incidentally, the first ‘city’ (‘Diomira’) inspired Dinuk to write Solea Di Diomira, after which the trio was named. He hopes that other Calvino stories will inspire you in turn.
RESOURCES: You will be working with the three creative, skilled, and inspiring musicians that make up Diomira. The trio includes a pianist, percussionist, and accordionist, all of whom will help you realize the original sound-world you wish to create from the instructions and storyboard you provide. It is important to keep in mind that the percussion will take on rhythmic atmosphere of your story; while the accordion and/or piano will take on the melodic and harmonic atmosphere.
To listen to Diomira:
PROCEDURE & GUIDELINES for CREATION: Guidelines should be followed closely to ensure each Sonic Assembly entry is suitable. Students interested in participating in Sonic Assembly should contact Debut Atlantic for more information.
1. Choose one story or ‘city’ from the three provided.
2. Choose between two and four motifs from Dinuk’s selection of musical motifs. These encompass a wide range of moods, but notice how they take on different meanings if they are played slower or faster, lower or higher? A melody on the accordion will sound differently when played on the piano. Exactly when and how you wish to use the motifs is entirely up to you!
3. Create a ‘musical storyboard’ in the form of a written description (1 page maximum). Be sure to mention your choice of city and motifs. Feel free to use adjectives, moods, metaphors, or any descriptive words to convey what you imagine your ‘sound-world’ to be. Feel free to create your own diagram or representation. Be sure to give Dinuk and Diomira a clear idea of the structure or narrative arc of your story.
NB: Your storyboard should be very simple for the musicians to read. It should provide them with a clear idea of how musical events unfold in time, so include instructions as to when exactly you want them to play within the 3-minute time-frame (eg, specific cues for improvisation). They will only have 15 minutes before a given performance to rehearse your creation!
4. Using improvisation guided by the storyboard you provide, Diomira will attempt to realize the story that you have imagined and assembled.
5. Please use only the instruments and resources provided by Diomira
6. Have fun!
1. ERSILIA (Trading Cities 4)
In Ersilia, to establish the relationships that sustain the city’s life, the inhabitants stretch strings from the corners of the houses, white or black or gray or black-and-white according to whether they mark a relationship of blood, of trade, authority, agency. When the strings become so numerous that you can no longer pass among them, the inhabitants leave: the houses are dismantled; only the strings and their supports remain.
From a mountainside, camping with their household goods, Ersilia’s refugees look at the labyrinth of taut strings and poles that rise in the plain. That is the city of Ersilia still, and they are nothing.
They rebuild Ersilia elsewhere. They weave a similar pattern of strings which they would like to be more complex and at the same time more regular than the other. Then they abandon it and take themselves and their houses still farther away.
Thus, when traveling in the territory of Ersilia, you come upon the ruins of abandoned cities, without the walls which do not last, without the bones of the dead which the wind rolls away: spiderwebs of intricate relationships seeking a form.
2. OLINDA (Hidden Cities 1)
In Olinda, if you go out with a magnifying glass and hunt carefully, you may find somewhere a point no bigger than the head of a pin which, if you look at it slightly enlarged, reveals within itself the roofs, the antennas, the skylights, the gardens, the pools, the streamers across the streets, the kiosks in the squares, the horse-racing track. That point does not remain there: a year later you will find it the size of half a lemon, then as large as a mushroom, then a soup plate. And then it becomes a full-size city, enclosed within the earlier city: a new city that forces its way ahead in the earlier city and presses its way toward the outside.
Olinda is certainly not the only city that grows in concentric circles, like tree trunks which each year add one more ring. But in other cities there remains, in the center, the old narrow girdle of the walls from which the withered spires rise, the towers, the tiled roofs, the domes, while the new quarters sprawl around them like a loosened belt. Not Olinda: the old walls expand bearing the old quarters with them, enlarged but maintaining their proportions an a broader horizon at the edges of the city; they surround the slightly newer quarters, which also grew up on the margins and became thinner to make room for still more recent ones pressing from inside; and so, on and on, to the heart of the city, a totally new Olinda which, in its reduced dimensions retains the features and the flow of lymph of the first Olinda and of all the Olindas that have blossomed one from the other; and within this innermost circle there are always blossoming – though it is hard to discern them – the next Olinda and those that will grow after it.
3. THEKLA (Cities & The Sky 3)
Those who arrive at Thekla can see little of the city, beyond the plank fences, the sackcloth screens, the scaffoldings, the metal armatures, the wooden catwlks hanging from ropes or supported by sawhorses, the ladders, the trestles. If you ask “Why is Thekla’s construction taking such a long time?” the inhabitants continue hoisting sacks, lowering leaded strings, moving long bruses up and down, as they answer “So that it’s destruction cannot begin.” And if asked whether they fear that, once the scaffoldings are removed, the city may begin to crumble and fall to pieces, they add hastily, in a whisper, “Not only the city.”
If, dissatisfied with the answers, someone puts his eye to a crack in a fence, he sees cranes pulling up other cranes, scaffoldings that embrace other scaffoldings, beams that prop up other beams. “What meaning does your construction have?” he asks. “What is the aim of a city under construction unless it is a city? Where is the plan you are following, the blueprint?”
“We will show it to you as soon as the working day is over; we cannot interrupt our work now,” they answer.
Work stops at sunset. Darkness falls over the building site. The sky is filled with stars. “There is the blueprint,” they say.
“Then came the voice of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Part Buddha, part demon, part mad angel….his voice is velvet fire, simply incomparable. His every enunciation went straight into me. I knew not one word of Urdu, and somehow it still hooked me into the story that he weaved with his wordless voice. Nusrat’s upper register painting a melody that made my heart long to fly. I felt a rush of adrenaline in my chest, like I was on the edge of a cliff, wondering when I would jump and how well the ocean would catch me: two questions that would never be answered until I experienced the first leap. – Jeff Buckley1
In a powerful scene from Martin Scorsese’s (controversial) 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ, we see Jesus carrying his cross for the first time. He is surrounded by people but we know that he is alone in both his suffering and his devotion – two qualities film composer Peter Gabriel sought to capture in a voice that he could place in the music underscoring the scene. Over an almost-static sonic landscape in the form of a drone and some synthesizer harmonies, we hear a lone male voice that begins in its low register and gradually thrusts itself upwards, not entirely effortlessly, but nevertheless with a quiet confidence. Soon, it is soaring. The musical metaphor is right there: something that was once desolate in an unforgiving environment has flown away to a more peaceful place.
Gabriel considered many singers world-wide who would somehow express ‘the spiritual agony of Christ in a scream’2, yet still do so in a formalistic way, in the best sense of the word. He passed on many singers before deciding on Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, whose improvisatory approach was rooted deeply in a classical tradition. Over Gabriel’s backing track, Nusrat ad-libs within the context of the Indian Classical raga Darbari.
It is ironic but perhaps a wonderful testament to the universality of art that Christ’s agony and passion are represented here by an Islamic voice. But we simply hear the quality of the voice itself (no doubt what communicates beyond language and culture): its huskiness, its nuanced and volatile expression soaked in life experience, always betraying the herculean effort it takes to get somewhere worth getting to. If you are not familiar with Nusrat’s unique combination of technique, musicality and personality, scroll to 36’30” on the following clip, just one example of many:
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (1948-97) was born into a Pakistani family whose distinguished vocal lineage stretched back no less than six centuries. They were Qawwals, professional musicians and exponents of Qawwali, a recognized South-Asian musical genre which serves as an essential vehicle for followers of the region’s Sufi Islam to express their religious and spiritual devotion. Through Qawwali music, Sufis seek to connect with God; to attain and sustain a state of religious ecstasy (ḥāl)3. Nusrat (or Khan-Sahib, to use the respectful suffix) is remembered as the most famous Qawwal to have lived. He was also the most recognizable of Qawwals, his immortalized in 125 albums, the largest recorded output by a Qawwali artist according to the Guiness book of World Records 20014. But Khan-sahib’s legacy extends beyond the domain of Qawwali.
ON FUSION, TRADITION & INNOVATION
I am continually fascinated by the complex interplay of tradition and innovation. The great pioneers who take art forward do so nevertheless while standing on the shoulders of their heroes, and their heroes before them. While I discovered Nusrat as a late teen through recordings, it wasn’t until I became a professional musician myself that I started ruminating seriously on how he and my other artistic heroes straddle the tradition-innovation line.
Nusrat was certainly steeped in Qawwali tradition – one might even say ‘well before he was even born’ – if you consider his family’s musical history. But there is more to him that made him unique. Nusrat’s artistry had breadth too, in that he had also achieved a complete mastery of the Hindustani (North Indian) classical ragas, as well as ‘light classical’ South Asian vocal forms such as thumri, khayal, ghazal, and geet2. The raga tradition, unlike the similarly rigourous performance tradition of Western Classical music, has never relegated improvisation as a key element. According to Peter Gabriel, who coincidentally went on to play a significant role in Nusrat’s career in the capacity of founder of Real World Records and the WOMAD festival: “….there was amazing improvising, to me of the standard of Hendrix. He [Nusrat] could take a theme and just it explode it outwards….make it much more than it was originally.”4
One such Real World release was MUSTT MUSTT, the ‘seminal 1990 fusion’ album (the Austin Chronicle, 2001). While Nusrat’s first release on the Real World label was the purely traditional 1988 album SHAHEN-SHAH (literally ‘king of kings’), in 1990 he took a surprising turn. MUSTT MUSTT, produced by Canadian Michael Brook, is indeed a true ‘fusion’ album, featuring musicians and instruments from different continents. Below is the title track, one of the album’s catchiest. Surely the last thing fans of Nusrat’s traditional output must have expected, after the brief reggae-ish intro, were age-old Qawwali lyrics set to Nusrat’s music:
Dum mustt Qallandar mustt mustt (Each breath is bliss for the one who is in love), Mera vird hai dum dum Ali Ali (My whole being is infused with the love of Ali)5
The ‘hook’ is the opening refrain, a chant that is memorable at the outset. With what sounds like a verse and chorus established (from a Western perspective), we hear a few phrases of alaap at 1’06”. The chant has now receded into the background, serving almost as a rhythmic drone in the absence of a traditional drone. Beginning at 1’40”, and for the middle portion of this song, we hear a virtuosic display of Nusrat’s improv in sargam (vocal syllables as text), punctuated occasionally by the ‘mustt mustt’ refrain. Leaving lyrics aside in this manner, it is essentially the same as an instrumental solo, with a tight arc and well-placed climaxes, lyrical phrases juxtaposed mercurially with flashes of complex sax-like lines. The solo certainly bears scrutiny for student improvisors who might wish to transcribe it. My favourite moments are at 2’00”, when he briefly hints at a triple meter with an elaborate sequential passage (executed with some real bravura!), and at 3’03” when the climax of his rhythmically intricate build-up is simply a descending phrase that, at long last, ‘locks in’ with the groove of the band. It is one of those spontaneous moments that seems so inevitable in hindsight.
MUSTT MUSTT went on to be remixed by Massive Attack, the British experimental dance music group, who were seminal in the trip-hop movement. The remix was a major seller in Pakistan and India, becoming a UK club hit and the first Urdu song to reach the charts in the UK6. It even proved so popular that it was transformed into a Coca-Cola commercial for Indian audiences with Nusrat’s blessing. According to Nitin Sawhney: “It’s astonishing how a Qawwali singer from Faisalabad, whose music has been around for centuries, can work so well with a modern band from Bristol. It truly epitomizes the universality of music.”4
And so it was that after decades of performing traditional Qawwali for traditional audiences, Nusrat’s work was now reaching new audiences both in the West and back at home. More opportunities for collaboration arose, and so did his exposure in a variety of arenas: MAGIC TOUCH (1991, w/British-Indian producer Bally Sagoo); DEAD MAN WALKING (1995, two songs in collaboration with Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder for the Hollywood film directed by Tim Robbins); BANDIT QUEEN (soundtrack for 1996 film directed by Shekhar Kapur); NIGHT SONG (1996, w/Michael Brook); to name a few. At the time of Khan-sahib’s untimely death at the age of 49, he was involved in a project that would reveal the significance and scope of his influence on a whole host of well-known younger-generation contemporary British-Asian artists: for STAR RISE (1997), again produced by Brook, Real World commissioned the leading lights of the UK’s so-called ‘Asian Underground’ movement to remix and reshape Nusrat’s back catalogue: Nitin Sawhney, Aki Nawaz, Black Star Liner, Asian Dub Foundation, the Dhol Foundation, Talvin Singh, among others.
As Rehan Hyder observes in ‘Brimful of Asia‘: “many of the young Asian performers who have emerged during the 1990s have cited the singer as a source of inspiration. Through their interpretation of Nusrat’s work, [they] highlight the importance of both continuity and change in the expression of diasporic identity. Each band included written tributes to the great Qawwali maestro, praising his role in inspiring their own contemporary musical styles which have, in turn, been used to radically interpret a selection of [Nusrat’s] work on the album.”
On the other side of the Atlantic, indie rock idol Jeff Buckley referred to Nusrat as ‘my Elvis, I listen to him every day’. And consequently, and perhaps ironically, Nusrat’s collaborations were raising awareness for traditional Qawwali back home in Pakistan. In allowing his renditions of Qawwali material to be placed in such unfamiliar contexts, there were those who, according to Michael Brook, saw MUSTT MUSTT as ‘defiling a sacred and traditional music’.6I often wondered what the purists thought of his other (more questionable) collaborations. More importantly, I wondered what Khan-sahib himself thought. It wasn’t until I began my research for this particular blog post that I came across comments that are very revealing about his views (personally instructive for me I might add) on the progressive-conservative divide:
“Our young generation which was brought up abroad is totally ignorant of our culture. They listen to Western music, adopt Western fashions. With my ‘awaaz’ (voice) I wanted to appeal to them – in our own language in their form…” – Frontline
“I cherish the tradition of classical music more than my life. I consider its protection and preservation as my spiritual duty. As an experiment, I do not mind the use of Western musical instruments. But it will [be a] great injustice to introduce any change in the Classical music. I use Western musical instruments because I believe that you can dress-up a pretty child in any clothes [and] it will still [be] pretty. But the more important thing is that the child should not get injured while putting on those clothes.” – in an interview to Italian journalist Enzo Gentile2
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Claudio Abbado, “the most widely respected living conductor” [The New York Times], is 80 years old today. I can’t believe time has flown so fast! While his impeccable posture on the podium may have given way to a slight stoop of old age in recent years, Abbado still leads with the same authority, creating the same magic. He has, without question, been my favourite conductor – and by extension one of my favourite musicians – ever since I discovered his recordings as a mid-teen. I’d like to make a wish today that he will live forever, and keep inspiring us with unforgettable performances :)
A great conductor is a conduit – a vessel through which the music, in all its essence, passes….all the while infused with his/her unique human personality. Here is a clip of Abbado back in 2005, conducting his own crème de la crème Lucerne Festival Orchestra in Mahler’s most complex of symphonies: no.7, a work that he truly made his own unlike no other. Using a face and body that reflect both strength and frailty where necessary; a rhythmically precise right hand in perfect harmony with an immaculately phrasing left; I marvel at how he is able to maintain a grip on multiple musical lines, driving an orchestra into a frenzy that teeters dangerously on the edge without ever spiralling into vulgarity. As is always the case with conductors of greatness, one may observe their alchemy but for it be granted no explanation whatsoever!
It was a great privilege, earlier this year, to be invited to interview for PASSAGES TO CANADA, an initiative of the Historica-Dominion Institute – the largest independent organization dedicated to history and citizenship in Canada. Its mandate is to build active and informed citizens through a greater knowledge and appreciation of the history, heritage, and stories of Canada. The background music of the video, by the way, is my own ‘Return Ticket Overture’:
At the time of writing, I am not a Canadian citizen. But Nova Scotia – and Canada by extension – is where I presently, and very gratefully, consider to be ‘home’. I find that travelling, as much as I do, only sharpens my perspective.
People continue to ask each other the question: “Where is home?” No doubt, the various possible answers are so highly personal and ambiguous that they can only attempt to approach anything resembling a singular definition. Maybe you have a unique one? Care to share it below? Of late, I keep coming back to the words of a dear friend and esteemed, well-travelled, musical colleague: “Home….is the place to which you feel you want to contribute most”. Touché.
*and that’s saying something, lest we forget the line from an episode of Frasier: “Gore Vidal?! He hates everything!”
JUNE 10, 2013
Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities has long been one of my favourite books. It is a literary work like no other, singular in vision and execution. I have chosen to use a small handful of its ‘cities’ as inspiration for movements of a large scale musical composition. The final movement is inspired by OLINDA:
“In Olinda, if you go out with a magnifying glass and hunt carefully, you may find somewhere a point no bigger than the head of a pin which, if you look at it slightly enlarged, reveals within itself the roofs, the antennas, the skylights, the gardens, the pools, the streamers across the streets, the kiosks in the squares, the horse-racing track. That point does not remain there: a year later you will find it the size of half a lemon, then as large as a mushroom, then a soup plate. And then it becomes a full-size city, enclosed within the earlier city: a new city that forces its way ahead in the earlier city and presses its way toward the outside. Olinda is certainly not the only city that grows in concentric circles, like tree trunks which each year add one more ring. But in other cities there remains, in the center, the old narrow girdle of the walls from which the withered spires rise, the towers, the tiled roofs, the domes, while the new quarters sprawl around them like a loosened belt. Not Olinda: the old walls expand bearing the old quarters with them, enlarged but maintaining their proportions an a broader horizon at the edges of the city; they surround the slightly newer quarters, which also grew up on the margins and became thinner to make room for still more recent ones pressing from inside; and so, on and on, to the heart of the city, a totally new Olinda which, in its reduced dimensions retains the features and the flow of lymph of the first Olinda and of all the Olindas that have blossomed one from the other; and within this innermost circle there are always blossoming – though it is hard to discern them – the next Olinda and those that will grow after it.” – Hidden Cities 1
As soon as I read this, it occurred to me that the growth of OLINDA, as he describes it, is fractal in nature. Henceforth, I’ve spent many days researching fractals and related issues with geeky fascination. A good excuse to watch some TED talks, a couple of which are about fractals.
A fractal is a curve or geometric figure, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole. I find myself ruminating on how I could musically depict the self-similarity of OLINDA, as each new city blossoms from its ancestors over time. I think of the earth crackling in Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, and those fantastic effects in John Adams’ Shaker Loops (‘Loops & Verses’) which sound to me like trees growing at high speed, your mind’s ear acting as a sort of time-lapse camera (skip to 4’40”):
I’m hearing OLINDA’s ‘expansion of walls’ in sound as, for example, streams of repeating chords. They increase in pace, perhaps also in pitch and in density, and can therefore be visually represented in sketch form wedge-like shapes. Since these are essentially triangles, one can think of the famous Sierpinski triangle:
To make wedges of the equilateral triangles, I rotated and squished (technical term) the Sierpinski triangle, superimposing it on manuscript paper. The x-axis represents the flow of time. I’ve added a few thoughts such as dynamics, and some sample pitches. The ‘expansion’ begins from everyone’s favourite note, middle C:
The shape is too geometric for my purpose; I need something a little disorganized, so I thought about each little wedge (representing growth or ‘wall expansion’) breaking loose yet remaining within the overall framework:
I hope that, in this way, some self-similarity is preserved while infusing the structure with a more organic, shall we say more chaotic, quality. They abound in nature of course:
All of this has at least given me something to go on. Next, I try to figure out how to make some music out of it!
JUNE 11
I’m having fun coming up with some fractal musical FX! With a little dressing up, they make for very interesting textures, but it’s painstaking and time-consuming work as always (days like today remind me that if I’d gone into web design instead, I’d be charging by the hour and making much more money).
What I’ve done below is take a simple tone row (D# E B G# E D# A A) and set it at different tempi (from slowest to fastest: the glock moves in quarter notes; the piano in dotted 8ths; the vibes in 8ths; the flute in 16ths but then ‘mutates’, aha). And can we take a moment to say how much we ADORE Balinese pentatonics?! They make me swoon.
Listen below for the computer MIDI rendition. I’ve used some stopped horns and a timp gliss to add ‘glue’ to the texture:
I like to think that the whole effect conjures up an image of, say, that tree branch….or maybe the lightning bolt if there was more density and some good ol’ fortissimo aggressivo.
The shape of the row, incidentally, is that of the Danish composer Per Nørgård’s so-called infinity series, a self-similar melodic line. For the last few days, I must have googled this a million times; I find it utterly fascinating and will do my best to blog about it at a later date. Below is the chromatic version, whereas my version above will demonstrate that you can have fun using any pitch set that jingles your bell :)
JUNE 12
Re the ‘wedge’ shapes I spoke of above: I’m hearing them as phrases that rhythmically ‘compress’. That is, the pulses that make up a phrase get closer and closer together:
This is essentially a calculated accelerando effect, which you hear all over the place in Carnatic (South Indian classical) music. It’s not the kind of acceleration in sound you get when you hear ball bounce and come to a state of rest. Rather, it’s more mathematical since the durations of the pulses decrease in a more ‘man-made’ way, as above (half notes, dotted quarter notes, quarter notes, etc.)
In Carnatic music, there are some crazy complex phrases that rhythmically compress, which they call ‘reductions’. I’m not writing for Carnatic musicians so, to keep my material relatively simple, each pulse will sound four times before decreasing in duration. If you start with whole notes, you get a long ‘compressing’ phrase that is 52 quarter notes long (click to enlarge):
Out of this can be derived shorter and shorter phrases, by starting further and further along, as indicated by the slurs. This now gives me lots of options. For instance, If I want a ‘compression’ that is only 10 beats long, I start from the first quarter note. I made one more chart to give me some more options; but this time each pulse is heard only twice:
Methinks the charts themselves are starting to look a bit fractal(!) I started to have fun when I used static chords for the pulses. Here is a loud, climatic compression that is 24 quarter notes long:
Hmmm, at this point I’m mildly panicing, thinking that I have unsuspectingly plagiarized Harmonielehre by John Adams. Oh well, can’t be helped. Here are two compressions played back to back – one from each of the charts above – 8 quarter notes long and 6 quarter notes long:
JULY 1
While it’s been some time since I last updated this page, I certainly haven’t been idle. Today I have a meeting with Richard Burrows, of TorQ Percussion, to show him what material I have thus far composed of this concerto. Richard and I also need to make a stage plot, which is crucial for making sure that all the musicians (possibly 60) can share the same stage. Not forgetting that the massive amounts of percussion will take up a lot of space. (At this point I usually ask myself why I keep taking on these epic projects. After this concerto is done, it’s time for little fanfare for solo piccolo).
Concerto structure & form
I am working off an 'architectural' plan for the whole concerto that is tabulated below. The fourthmovement, based on Calvino's 'Invisible City' of ERSILIA, is practically done. I wrote this movement first because my commissioners very astutely and pragmatically requested that one of the movements be for the four TorQ percussion soloists only. Consequently, it may be removed from its large-scale concerto context and performed as a chamber piece in their quartet recitals. Deciding that a soloists-only movement could adequately serve as a cadenza, I came up with the following 'architectural' plan for the whole concerto. The Calvino cities I have chosen are listed in capitals:
For the third movement (of a five movement concerto) I have chosen the city of CHLOE. When you first read it from the book, you notice that it is broken subtly into four parts. I have spread these out more obviously below:
In Chloe, a great city, the people who move through the streets are all strangers. At each encounter, they imagine a thousand things about one another; meetings which could take place between them, conversations, surprises, caresses, bites. But no one greets anyone; eyes lock for a second, then dart away, seeking other eyes, never stopping.
A girl comes along, twirling a parasol on ther shoulder, and twirling slightly also her rounded hips. A woman in black comes along, showing her full age, her eyes restless beneath her veil, her lips trembling. A tattooed giant comes along; a young man with white hair; a female dwarf; two girls, twins, dressed in coral. Something runs among them, an exchange of glances like lines that connect one figure with another and draw arrows, stars, triangles, until all combinations are used up in a moment, and other characters come on to the scene: a blind man with a cheetah on a leash, a courtesan with an ostrich-plume fan, an ephebe, a Fat Woman.
And thus, when some people happen to find themselves together, taking shelter from the rain under an arcade, or crowding beneath an awning of the bazaar, or stopping to listen to the band in the square, meetings, seductions, copulations, orgies are consummated among them without a word exchanged, without a finger touching anything, almost without an eye raised.
A voluptuous vibration constantly stirs Chloe, the most chaste of cities. If men and women began to live their ephemeral dreams, every phantom would become a person with whom to begin a story of pursuits, pretenses, misunderstandings, clashes, oppressions, and the carousel of fantasies would stop.
It certainly contains some kind of narrative. Below, I have continued to break apart its structure, adding and naming sections which will serve to outline my (personal) interpretation of the text. I have also coloured any words that inspire me musically:
NARRATIVE I –In Chloe, a great city, the people who move through the streets are all strangers. At each encounter, they imagine a thousand things about one another; meetings which could take place between them, conversations, surprises, caresses, bites. But no one greets anyone; eyes lock for a second, then dart away, seeking other eyes, never stopping.
CHARACTER SKETCHES I – A girl comes along, twirling a parasol on ther shoulder, and twirling slightly also her rounded hips. A woman in black comes along, showing her full age, her eyes restless beneath her veil, her lips trembling. A tattooed giant comes along; a young man with white hair; a female dwarf; two girls, twins, dressed in coral.
NARRATIVE II – Something runs among them, an exchange of glances like lines that connect one figure with another and draw arrows, stars, triangles, until all combinations are used up in a moment, and other characters come on to the scene:
CHARACTER SKETCHES II – a blind man with a cheetah on a leash, a courtesan with an ostrich-plume fan, an ephebe, a Fat Woman.
NARRATIVE III – And thus, when some people happen to find themselves together, taking shelter from the rain under an arcade, or crowding beneath an awning of the bazaar, or stopping to listen to the band in the square, meetings, seductions, copulations, orgies are consummated among them without a word exchanged, without a finger touching anything, almost without an eye raised.
EPILOGUE/CODA – A voluptuous vibration constantly stirs Chloe, the most chaste of cities. If men and women began to live their ephemeral dreams, every phantom would become a person with whom to begin a story of pursuits, pretenses, misunderstandings, clashes, oppressions, and the carousel of fantasies would stop.
Removing Calvino’s text and adding some more musical detail of my own:
PROLOGUE/INTRO. – X NARRATIVE I – A1 (‘street scene’ theme?) CHARACTER SKETCHES I – B1 NARRATIVE II – A2 CHARACTER SKETCHES II – B2 NARRATIVE III – A3 EPILOGUE/CODA – X1?
When you add a prologue, or perhaps just a short introduction to mirror the epilogue, the whole structure takes on some sort of palindromic, palindrome-ish quality. I think there is some scope for adventure here.
JULY 2
Typing up my notes from a great meeting in with TorQ percussionists Richard Burrows and Jamie Drake. I’m a little closer to finalizing the list of percussion instruments I will need. In no logical order whatsoever:
4 snare drums, bass drum(s?), tom toms, roto toms, 16 (2-octave diatonic) tuned pipes, vibes, glock, toy glock (maybe), crotales, 20″ Chinese cymbal, bender gong, sizzle gong w/chains, mbao gongs (maybe), triangles, shakers, cajon, djembe, darabuka, ewe drum, cabaca, anklung (maybe, but yes please).
Khayyam XXXII (2005) – 8 minutes for voice, piano, string quartet, double bass, clarinet, & tablas OR for accordion, piano, & percussion
Powerplay (2004) – 30 minutes
dancepiece, scored for mixed ensemble Western and Indian instruments flute, clarinet, violin, sarangi, tabla, pakhawaj, double bass, piano, female voice (north indian classical); commissioned by the NY Kathak Ensemble
[Out of the] Karmic Blue (2004) – 9 minutes for voice, piano, string quartet, double bass, tablas, & 2 percussion
Chamber Concerto ‘About Sankhara’ (2003) – 13 minutes
for chamber ensemble: 1111/1110/T+1/pno/str commissioned by Joel Sachs & the New Juilliard Ensemble
Vesak Octet (2001) – 10 minutes
saxophone quartet and percussion quartet commissioned by the Apollo Saxophone Quartet & 4-Mality Percussion Quartet, UK
Visaya (2000) – 8 minutes
for saxophone quartet
Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra (2000) – 30 minutes for solo percussion (vibraphone, marimba, drums) & chamber orchestra
orchestration: picc, clar, bsn, 4 tpts, piano, strings
Commissioned for Adrian Spillett, Timothy Reynish & the RNCM Chamber Orchestra
If you think that incredible food cannot inspire creativity, think again. Whenever I am in Colombo, Sri Lanka, I lunch (at least twice per trip) at the Paradise Road’s Gallery Cafe. Their superb menu includes justly talked-about desserts, of which my favourite for years has been the infamous Chocolate Nemesis (below). It is all kinds of chocolate fabulousness over a biscuit base, topped with a dollop of freshness. And that drizzle of sunshine is in fact a passionfruit coulis. Oh yes. The whole ensemble is drool-worthy and I yearn to be able to compose a little piece just as good:
In a very recent BBC Hardtalk interview (March 25th, 2013), the brilliant and polymathic theatre director Jonathan Miller remarked, when asked about critics:
“There’s a wonderful scene in the, er, well where the girl goes out to the mysterious place where the ‘Wizard of Oz’ is. A voice BOOMS at them, critically. Then the little dog runs across and pulls aside the curtain, suddenly revealing that the person who has got this booming voice is….a negligible figure.”
Roger Ebert, however, was no negligible figure. No, there was no doubting his influence. I would cringe to be that film-maker whose creation had received the caustic end of Ebert’s pen, along with the royal ‘thumbs-down’. Worse, a negative review from Ebert could potentially turn away cinema-goers who might otherwise actually enjoy the movie. But what about those movies he raved about?
w/director Martin Scorsese (right)
I find there to be a curious contrast between the average classical concert-goer and the average movie-goer: the former are stuck in the past (they don’t consider that the Western canon could include any music written post-1950, or even anything too dissonant), while the latter are stuck in the present (they have watched almost no films from the generation that preceded them). I find this phenomenon to be problematic….and tragic, when you consider that either person is unaware of unseen treasure.
I am no authority on cinema as an artform. I just adore it. In turn, it hugely influences my work as a musician. When I was just getting my feet wet, I would peruse the contents page of Roger Ebert’s The Great Movies, pick a movie, watch it, then rush back to the book to devour his essay on that movie. It was as if his recommendations and revelations would take me by the hand and lead me to sources of great inspiration which I would not have discovered otherwise: Carol Reed’s The Third Man, Hitchcock’s Notorious, Robert Altman’s Nashville, to name a few. I still go through ‘The Great Movies’ whenever I have time. And seeing as there are two more volumes, I am glad that my Ebert-inspired journey of discovery will occupy me for years to come. I am just broken-hearted that he is not around anymore to add to his collection.
I am surprised to hear myself say this but, on occasion, I have even found Ebert’s written digest to be as enjoyable as the film itself. After all, isn’t there something we say about mere words not being able to do justice to, say, great music? But perhaps someone with the combination of insight, passion and eloquence of a Roger Ebert could use words to provoke us just as much? I remember when, many years ago, I watched Citizen Kane. I simply wanted to find out why it was called ‘the greatest film of all time’. I ended up loving it, and immediately afterwards, Ebert’s DVD commentary made me love it even more. You can find this on the collector’s edition here. It is a commentary so natural and effortless that one assumes Ebert is speaking purely off-the-cuff on a topic he clearly knows inside-out.
I would also recommend Ebert’s Altman Home Companion, which I reread whenever I want to reflect on the work of my favourite director. I loved the fact that Ebert, who hugely raised awareness and appreciation for well-made independent films of all languages, would use the same yardstick for the commercial movies of the Hollywood studio system, drawing attention to artistry wherever he could find it. He just loved a good movie.
He also hated a bad movie, evidence of which is plain to see in such titles as:
Gotta love the cover. As we bid farewell to the great and indefatigable Roger Ebert, I leave you with an extract from his review of a film whose title I won’t mention. In it, he reminds us of the aesthetic values he carried until the very end:
“There is a lazy editing style in action movies these days that assumes nothing need make any sense visually. In a good movie, we understand where the heroes are, and where their opponents are, and why, and when they fire on each other, we understand the geometry. In a mess like this, the frame is filled with flashes and explosions and shots so brief that nothing makes sense.
To conclude the same review, with a trademark flash of wit and wisdom, he offers the present generation some forthright advice:
Young men: If you attend this crap with friends who admire it, tactfully inform them they are idiots. Young women: If your date likes this movie, tell him you’ve been thinking it over, and you think you should consider spending some time apart.”
WijeratneWorks 