steven yi :: music

Tonight’s concert was a world premiere of Zygmunt Krauze’s Yvonne, Princess of Burgundy, an opera in four acts based on the play by Witold Gombrowicz.  The performance was at the National Theater, adjacent to the Teatr Wielki.  Our first time to the National Theater, I was stunned by how beautiful the building is, the interior mostly marble accented with gold.  The theater itself was very intimately sized but I think incredible for that reason: the sound was fantastic and it was very easy to see everything going on on stage from our seats (granted we were in the sixth row, but looking around I don’t think there would be a bad seat in the house).  A wonderful theater.

I enjoyed the opera very much: the story was interesting and dark but also at times humorous(hard to explain but Lisa told me that it is very similar to “Pelleas et Melisande”), the performers performed wonderfully, and the music worked very well in framing the work.  The staging was simple but effective and the costumes were fun and also effective (post-modern came to mind but that’s not quite it). The music was mostly consonant but not quite tonal, moving between a number of different moods and styles.  The work was not a very long opera (finished in two hours with an intermission) but I found that a part of why I felt it was short was that it was very well paced and transitioned effortlessly.

Listening to the opera I was once again reminded of how lyrical I find the Polish language and how well I think it works in music.  Hearing it in everyday situations I find it rather musical and even more so when set very well and performed admirably by good performers.

Overall a very enjoyable and entertaining work. It would be nice to see this opera again and they are doing another performance of the opera tomorrow, but tomorrow is also the final day of the festival and the performance is being done at the same time as the final concert at the National Philharmonic Concert Hall.  It seemed like a strong enough work to me to make it into the repertoire (though I’m no opera aficionado…) so maybe we’ll have another chance to see this again in the future.

The 4:30pm concert today was at the St. Hyacinthus Church in Nowy Miasto, very close to where we live, and was a concert full of choral music by Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki. Originally they announced at the concert that they were not going to be performing Miserere, but luckily for us they did perform it at the end as an encore, which was a really nice surprise.

Some notes on the pieces I took at the concert:

Totus Tuus - got chills at the opening chords as the sound of the chorus in the church was just phenomenal, the piece seemed a little out of balance formally but I enjoyed the feeling of an extended ending slowly drifting away

Marian Songs - five pieces; the first piece really blew me away, has that sort of modal pulsing that is in the 3rd Symphony, gorgeous undulating chords; the second piece was homophonic, simple divisions of time, harmonies like coloring of single line, a singular presence, reminded me of people singing at a memorial; the next three pieces did not leave as strong an impression as the first two, the ending of the fifth slowly unraveled

Five Kurpian Songs - first piece didn’t leave much of an impression; the second piece had some really nice dark harmonic shadings to a rather sweet color, very nice ending; the third was rather warm and nicely shaped; the fourth had a very interesting strong ritardando at the end to a rather unexpected cadence; fifth had a sort of canon-like feel, interesting pacing of phrase lengths, a weary sound of workers working away, got pretty dark in color, the penultimate chord progression was fantastic but end was just alright; overall thought it was just alright

Miserere - gorgeous, opening section is just phenomenal and very much like the 3rd Symphony where a single modal line goes, then a second line joins in bringing in fantastic colors, then a third, and so-on; each layer added brought wonderful color and when the lines reached the top of their contours and the harmonies opened up it was just phenomenal; later in the piece moves away from modal character to more major mode and seemed to lose a bit of steam; the piece moved from a sort of constant pulsing in the beginning to more pausing on chords; while I enjoyed the shaping of the form earlier, later seemed to stay at thick harmonies a bit too long for my taste; very glad they performed this!

I was very excited to go this concert as I enjoy Gorecki’s music very much; it’s also an interesting thing for me historically as when I first heard the 3rd Symphony it really struck me (I was driving on Riverside Drive in Marietta, GA, it was autumn with the leaves turning colors and I had the music on very loud, driving back to school in Athens…). It was also after reading a book on Gorecki back in college that I had first had the thought that I would like to visit Poland; now it’s my third time here and I will be able to say that I lived here a not insignificant amount of time when all is said and done.

At the concert today I was thinking a lot about the choral sound and why did it work in church when there is such a long reverb and why didn’t other chamber music work for me the other night which had a similar situation of sound be masked. I think that perhaps that with the harmonies being such a strong thing to identify by ear, that pronouncing words really cuts through the sound to help identify the changes, and that the music was mostly homophonic that made the pieces really work and cut through with such a thick reverb. I also felt that the pieces were at their best when they were at their simplest, and that the ones which had more polyphonic textures did not sound so strongly as the simpler textures.

Another aspect of the sound I found myself very interested in was the ambiance of the reverb coming from high above (the church was a tall Catholic church). I don’t remember ever being in a concert at a church and having such a clear sense of the sound, the somewhat glowing quality of it. I was amazed at how very affecting the sound was and thought back to other concerts I had heard in the past few years at churches and how I never had the same sorts of impressions I had today.

I also thought a lot about Gorecki’s music and what I like so much about it. There’s something very serious and contemplative about it but also at times it had a real sense of joy, and I think that is one of the hardest things to accomplish. For a while now I’ve been contemplating ideas on serious music that can be positive as well as ideas on serious music which can be warm in color. I remember something Rothko wrote discussing how fear is something that is easy to identify with in art as it is a common human experience but that other experiences can be much more difficult to create. I think that might very well be one of the most interesting aspects to Gorecki’s music for me.

It’s been amazing to hear so many different types of musics here at the festival, many pieces very serious but in their own way. I think the Gorecki offered a really different approach than most of the other pieces we’ve heard and it leaves its own distinct impression. Leaving the concert, it felt as if there was a sense of energy in the air and the crowd seemed very excited by the music. A very memorable experience…

Tonight’s concert was the last one at the Witold Lutoslawski Polish Radio Concert Studio for this year’s festival.  The concert tonight was one of chamber ensemble music by the Polish-German Youth Ensemble.  The pieces tonight were:

• Vykintas Baltakas - Ouroboros
• Alexander Shchetynsky - Chamber Symphony
• Bernd Alois Zimmermann - Omnia tempus habent
• Joanna Woźny - Return
• Enno Poppe - Öl

Some notes I took on the pieces:

Baltakas - most of piece had a very Scelsi-esque focus on single note and deviations away from it, interesting arrangement (ensemble in middle; flute, clarinet, soprano sax, and oboe soloists as a semi-circle ring outside), nice timbral transformations of ideas between solo instruments, quiet writing not so strong with overuse of silence breaking momentum (worked somewhat at end though I thought the penultimate gesture could have ended the piece nicely), bigger writing was quite nice, Lutoslawski-esque in sense of time and similarities in material; absolutely wonderful use of accordion, especially for pianissimo held tones (first time I’ve ever heard accordion work); ensemble was not big enough to support the biggest moments though; a wonderful moment with a really nice use and framing of sustained trills in the second half of piece

Shchetynsky - either too densely written for material or not orchestrated well for ideas to come out; meandered a bit under its own weight; some ideas seemed that they may have work with a larger dynamic range and felt the ideas would have worked more effectively with an orchestra size section of  strings, not just for volume but also the group sound of strings versus solo string sound; some nice writing and material but overall form didn’t feel focused

Zimmerman - performer has a nice voice but did not perform very convincingly(perhaps nervous?); instrumental writing was very good, expressionistic and dramatic; did not like the text very much and vocal writing had some nice elements but didn’t seem framed very well; some vocal lines and gestures seemed over-used and thus lost efficacy; hard to get into as the vocal part was a prime focus of the piece and I wasn’t into it

Wozny - pretty strong piece; opening section filled with short gestures and frenetic sonorist texture seemed a bit much to start with; after opening section really started to establish a very cohesive sound world; very elegantly written, sax soloist performed very well; most of the extended effects were extremely well used but did feel some were out of context or extraneous(though only a few cases of that, much more on the side of being well used); would like to listen to this again

Poppe - generally lacked focus and scale of things felt out of proportion; had issues with orchestration (ideas masked by weight of other ideas); thick parts felt too densely written; high frequency ideas were nice ideas on their own but felt overly saturated and overused to be effective

Overall, I felt that there was a lot of really nice things going on in a few of the pieces tonight. The last piece really brought up a lot of issues on orchestration though and I started getting a lot of thoughts in my head about concerns that I generally think about in terms of electronic music.  The complex writing with many similar instruments in the same range didn’t allow for the ideas to speak very much and in the end the spectrum felt saturated with everyone masking the sound of everyone else (reminded me of thing that happen in electronic pieces with way too much reverb).  This isn’t particular to just the last piece but also a lot of pieces with very complex material.

This also reminded me of an old thought I had long ago regarding temporally complex material as well as thick harmony and the relationship of that to harmonic and inharmonic sounds and how with a gong or other inharmonic source what I found most natural was to let it ring for quite some time until the sound really “speaks”.  I think with complex material it often doesn’t ever “speak” in that it isn’t used long enough or set at the right scale of time so that the different parts that form the complexity are discernible.

Many other thoughts came to mind in tonight’s concert though I think I will begin to collect them up for a different series of writings later.

The last concert last night was at the Koneser Vodka Distillers building, a very neat large warehouse in Praga that has been being used for performances.  It was our first time there and really enjoyed the the space. Once again, I was amazed at the audience: the concert started at 10:30PM and was again a full house, with people bringing children and even much older people in attendance.  It made me think a lot about the history of this festival and how generations of people have grown up with this. (It’s amazing to me to think that composers here have such an event happen every year…).  I’ve noticed too that most of the audience is Polish (I hear English spoken here and there but only a handful of people) and would have hoped that more people abroad would be here to attend this as I think it’s a really special and wonderful event and I have not seen anything like it elsewhere.

The theme of the concert was “Polish Songs” and touched on ideas of the relationship of old folk songs to today.  Each of the pieces/performances last night tapped into the idea in some way.  The performances were:

• Polish Songs
• Jacek Kochan - Alsamples
• Jaroslaw Siwinski - Polish Songs
• Jerzy Kornowicz - Scenes from Boundless Realms

Some notes I took at the performance:

Polish Songs - wonderfully performed old polish songs by the Ensemble of International School of Traditional Music in Lublin, performed in the dark, wonderful rhythms and changing phrase lengths, many different types of songs (themes)

*Intermission*

Kochan - reorganized with performers in center, long and felt even longer, somewhat composed free jazz with electronic amplification/processing and glitchy sounds, very loud and seemed to have balance issues in the mix, trumpet reminded me at times of “Bitches Brew” but with an experimental trumpeter at the wheel, never felt very cohesive like in the free jazz improvisations I’ve enjoyed in the past, singers came in near end but wasn’t really integrated into the piece, didn’t feel there was much listening as an ensemble and didn’t feel driven by intuition

Siwinski - tape piece, beginning was long a pulsating bass tone with some tones and some colored noise, tasteful, droney, very minimal, nice breath like noise gesture; near end got really loud and noisy as a section loops, ended with a vocal sample clip(perhaps other material derived from it?); was a bit tired at end of piece (12:50AM) and quick entry of loud part was a bit harsh; opening reminded me of Eliane Radigue but haven’t heard her stuff in a while

Kornowicz- a structured improvisation by group called Mud Cavaliers comprised of many well known Polish composers, different sections clearly demarcated, there were sections where the singers performed (were still in the dark); improvisation was very tastefully done, each performer played on their own but seemed also to be very aware of the group, some of the sections really rocked out (one had a sort of hardcore jungle beat that looped), very fun and also very musical

It was really nice to be out at this venue for the concert.  I wasn’t sure I was going to make it to the end as concert lasted until 2:00AM in the morning and I had gotten sick yesterday (still am a bit today), but I was very glad to have heard the Mud Cavaliers perform (reminded me of good times doing improvisation at BACSUG meetings with Jim and Matt). It was neat too that the singers were in the dark the whole night until the very end when the lights shown and they were somewhat revealed: performers of all ages and in normal clothes.  The idea of how folk music is still alive and is a part of the culture seemed really accented with that gesture.

After the concert we weren’t quite sure how to get back to our side of the river so we ended up walking a bit until we found a bus stop with a night bus.  Being a little chilly, we took the first bus to arrive and then got off sort of out of the way near the river.  Walking through the old town and through the city so late at night, it was amazing how quiet and still everything felt, and it reminded me of all the times I had stayed up so late into the nights when I was younger and worked away during that quiet and peaceful time…

The second concert yesterday was entitled “Kommander Kobayashi - Opera Saga, Series 2″ and took place at the Teatr Wielki(Grand Theater, where the Opera performs).  Being my first time inside there I found it an amazingly large building, more amazing that the performance was on the third floor where they have an extra opera room for smaller opera, a somewhat recital hall size audience but with a still very large stage!

I arrived a little early and was reading the program: it as the second part in a three-part opera project where different composers each created a small opera episode for the same characters.  The general story was a science=fiction one where a crew of people were drifting in space aboard a ship though the story did have off-ship storylines.  The program notes included the backstory from the first part though I didn’t get to read it too deeply before watching the performance. I was expecting that the opera would be pretty fun and light and while quite fun I think the two composers did manage to bring a bit of depth to the characters and the music.

The episodes performed tonight were:

• Siergiej Newski - The Destruction of Moskow Is Not a Solution
• Aleksandra Gryka - SCREAM YOU

Some notes I took at the performance:

Newski - music very nicely done, story intro a little clumsy but appreciated to get the backstory, staging a little problematic due to where I was sitting (hard to see things sometimes), very nice use of subtle electronic sounds, music writing very nice, club scene a little strange to switch to recorded electronic pop music but sure what else one would do in that situation, very controlled delicate writing

Gryka - very fun, sort of music on the edge of disintegration, well sung and performed, a little looser in feel than the Newski and had some elements of free-jazz in feel, had a more circus feel to the story than the Newski

I really enjoyed these performances and the operas as a whole very much.  It was a lot of fun and the music was done very well by each composer in their own ways. I have to say that I find that the composers really did have a good command over the extended techniques and noise sources to make them really work (are these techniques really so “extended” anymore?) and had a lot of side thoughts about how composers in Europe must have a lot to draw upon within the realm of experience with instrumental techniques and timbres that the older generations have explored. I also noted to myself that most of the music I’ve heard this festival works with a mechanism of drama, sometimes a bit much but more often done simply quite well.  It’s something I enjoy (Crumb’s music does hold a very big place in my heart) and I find drawn to at times but at the same time it is perhaps not what I myself am after.  I did note to perhaps experiment once again in that area (Explorer II is shaping up to be something of this).

I also found that one aspect of the use of instruments I was really impressed with–not having thought about it so much in a long while–is how easy it is to write and have such a wide palette of sounds and articulations in terms of notating these ideas and how intuitive it is to imagine the sounds.  I myself have been exploring a very limited set of parameters and am committed to continuing that exploration, but the idea of analyzing the qualities of music notation (one gesture can create pitch and duration, articulation are separate and modify qualities of the notes, etc.) and seeing what has been done in the computer music world (i.e. lilypond) and see about either finding or creating  a system from what comes from my analysis.

An very enjoyable performance, good music, and much to think about…