We ended up going to three concerts yesterday and not getting back until almost 3:00AM this morning! A very good day of concerts. The first concert at 4:30pm at the Witold Lutoslawski Polish Radio Concert Studio had a very interesting line up, as I was looking forward to hearing the Murail and the new version of Derive 2 by Pierre Boulez. The concert was a little problematic however as it seemed they decorated the room like a rock concert and filmed it for television (I’m assuming for television), which introduced a number of issues. The pieces performed were:

• Tristan Murail – Winter Fragments
• Anna Zawadzka-Golosz – The Suite of Space
• Pierre Boulez – Dérive 2 (2006 version)
  

Some notes I took at the concert:

Murail – very nice piece, electronics seemed a little out of balance (loud), reverb felt a little thick, TV producer talked a little too loudly especially at very last moment of piece (people chastised him afterwards), wonderful sound world, the ring-modulated piano was a nice sound (at least, it sounded like it was ring modulated)

Zawadzka-Golosz – lots of notes but not much of an identity, reminded me of improv where people do not listen to each other, frenetic, wasn’t drawn in, realized that all the backdrops they used for the TV production killed the acoustics of the hall (didn’t notice earlier as the previous piece was amplified)

Boulez – even more notes, endless, very rhythmic and angular, I very much liked when the ideas transform between instruments in a sort of timbral exchange (i.e. violin to oboe); piece felt mechanical and constructed; reminded me of the idea I’ve had that “complex actions yield simple results” and vice versa; had a sort of minimalist drive in that a lot of things going on at the eighth and sixteenth-note level but since the timing of phrases were so angular and periodicity purposefully hidden (from the program notes), the perception of time seemed to only have one layer at the very fast tempo making it very exhausting to hear

The concert had a rock show setup: the first piece had really bright blue lights that were very distracting and reminded me of the lights on the space ship in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, the second piece had more subdued red lighting but then I realized the backdrops had killed the acoustics, and the last piece had the same lights as the first but in bright red. The performers seemed a bit tight with all of the microphones and cameras around and I felt especially bad for the pianist as there was a camera on long arm that would move within inches of her hands or face or to above her head (at one point in the second piece it actually hit the piano as it moved). I’m sure it will be mastered for a broadcast and will sound great for that, but I was a little disappointed that hall sounded so dry live.

The repsonse to the Boulez seemed a little lukewarm as the audience clapping was moderate and not enough to call the conductor back out. Most of the audience left quickly to the metro to get to the next concert across town at the Teatr Wielki for the next concert…

The second concert of yesterday that took place at the Academy of Music really amazed me as it started at 10:30PM and ended up lasting until 1:00AM in the morning, all with a full house! The audience looked a bit younger though and perhaps there were a number of students from the school there. The pieces that were performed yesterday were:

• Luigi Nono – Das atmende Klarsein
• Helmut Lachenmann – TemA
• Luciano Berio – Thema(Omaggio a Joyce)
• Magdalena Dlugosz – Silent Asphodels
• John Cage – Imaginary Landscape No. 4

Some notes on the pieces:

Nono – form was C-F-C-F-C-F-C-F where C = Chorus and F = Flute (bass flute), mostly very long held quiet chords in the chorus part moving to other long held chords; flute was noise and effects, then held tones, then noise and effects, then really amplified noise and effects; electronic processing was very minimal until end; audience did not feel like they were into it; I was a little tired at this point in the evening so the long piece felt long and a little too slow though the piece did get into somewhat of a rhythm and I can imagine a different experience in a different context (not late at night and tired and already after a previous concert); chords did feel somewhat mechanical and unnatural in some way; would very much like to find a recording to listen to this piece again

Lachenmann – an absolutely exceptional performance, completely drawn in, some laughing in audience at gestures, very musical piece, fascinating yet a different sound world than mine with all of the effects and noise and quick-cut gestures, performers did an absolutely excellent job, completely convincing performance

*Intermission*

Berio – an absolute classic, I had not listened to the piece in a long time and was amazed at how many moments of the piece I knew, it’s so well composed; listening to this I felt that the Lachenmann had many similarities in gestures and composition of his piece, interesting to think of tape techniques of Berio in acoustic-instrument realm of Lachenmann

Dlugosz – very nice first minute with flute and electronics, afterwards for next 20 minutes electronics became very heavy, everything lost in in a fog of sound, deep bass throughout, phasey metallic sound reminiscent of metasynth or extremely time stretched sounds, sitting too close to right side a few rows from speakers, flute and cello were playing constantly and weren’t discernible in the sound

Cage – very nicely done, great listening experience, played again as an encore; bits of laughter as to be expected (a good thing I didn’t understand any of the Polish that was spoken on the radio), not sure how many people were really listening or were just looking for comedy, wonder if Cage is taken seriously anymore as a listening experience or if people consider just comedic; thinking of Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” which is humorous but really so incredibly serious…

I think that the late night concerts at the Festival are generally a bit more on the experimental side and it certainly seemed so after going to yesterday’s concert (we hadn’t been able to attend any of the other late night concerts so far at the festival). I very much enjoyed this concert, though ending with the Cage, I felt somewhat disturbed by the audience reaction. Over the years I’ve oscillated in my enjoyment on Cage’s music, though yesterday I found myself very much drawn into the sound world (thinking of it, very similar to Berio and Lachenmann in many ways). The impression I got was that the audience experienced the piece as some sort of entertainment and not a profound audible experience, listening not so much to experience the sound but rather to find humor in what these people were doing on stage. The boisterous applause afterwards somehow felt cheap, in some way a validation of entertainment over art, but perhaps it was just a wrong impression and the audience did in fact find the piece both humorous and profound. I did wonder though how Cage is perceived today, as a person of words, or really as a person of sound…

The first concert tonight was one of orchestral music at the Witold Lutoslawski Polish Radio Concert Studio. The pieces performed were:

• Steve Reich – Three Movements
• Agata Zubel – Symphony No. 2
• Zbigniew Bujarski – Peirene
• John Adams – Slonimsky’s Earbox

Notes on the pieces:

Reich – not a tight performance at all, takes a great deal of focus and listening to play this well, pianos were not setup with mallet keyboard in center but rather off to the side which perhaps explains a little of the the timing issues,

Zubel – orchestra surrounded audience, wasn’t convinced by piece or performance, trumpet was maybe 3 meters away on left, loud sections made for foggy sound in spatialized setting, nice sounds and ideas but seemed a little too active for me, quiet sections could not hear performers on other side of hall (perhaps performance issues?)

Bujarski – Cinematic, three movements attaca but ending gestures so big in sections it would have been nice to have space afterwards, near beginning some of the gestures reminded me of Bartok, later the piece was very reminiscent of Debussy’s “La Mer”, open-spaced harmonies throughout, epic quality in tone, not much small ensemble writing (reduced strings, one on a part, solo instruments) or cross-family writing (i.e. trumpet and flute, oboe and trombone)

Adams – timing issues made it difficult for everything to be heard and rhythmic drive to form, reminded me somewhat of Torke, light fare, unfocused sound

As time is one of the biggest concerns of mine in music I find that I’m particularly sensitive to timing in music and so had a difficult time with the performances by the orchestra tonight (Symphonic Orchestra of the Acadmey of Music in Krakow); perhaps they are just a bit young or were nervous, but I think the minimalist pieces tonight require a great deal of focus and confidence to pull them off and it just didn’t quite happen for me.

Regarding the Zubel, it was actually the piece I was most interested to hear tonight. Last year I had picked up a CD with a piece of hers which I really enjoyed (can’t remember which CD, but it is a part of a series with Agnieszka Duczmal conducting). I was a little disappointed though in the piece tonight but am not sure where it didn’t work, whether it was something inherent in the piece or somehting in the performance. The stage had a small subset of the strings and four percussionists and the rest of the orchestra were in a single line that completely surrounded the audience. Unfortunately as we were sitting near the left-side and very close to a loud trumpet player, I spent a great deal of time just covering my left ear and worry about hearing damage. The piece has some echo-like spatial effects carrying musical ideas around the circle which seemed to take too long and wouldn’t have been repeated so much if it didn’t need to get around such a big circle. Also, I think that in a setting like that where there is a nice but not insignficant length of reverb, having sounds coming from all around and not performed in time lead to a rather foggy sound where it all sort of masked each other and was hard to discern much.

However, I’d like to believe my response to the Zubel was a matter of where we sat and the performers tonight, and that if we had sit more centrally and if the performers were a little more professional that I would have a different response to the piece, as I really do like the other piece I heard of hers very much. I’ll be looking forward to having a chance to listen to this piece again whenever that may be.

Today was the second and final day of the “Music on Internet” conference. The presentations today started off with artist’s perspective (composer, sound artist, performer), followed by different Polish music people (a representative of POLMIC, one of the founders of merlin.pl, the head of onet-plejer, and one of the founders of DUX records), then the last session was one of people discussing the Internet as a means to reach people (a general presentation on the state of music business and how the Internet is playing a role now, a presentation on podcasting, and one on a music site to sell/promote music).

There was a lot of concern over digital sales, and by the end of the conference I think the discussion really came to point out the generational differences on the perception of music and how it is consumed (something to buy and physically own versus something to listen to and have access to). I felt that a some of the presenters really weren’t aware of all the things going on the Internet except by what they heard (didn’t use themselves), though I was very much impressed with Scott Cohen’s presentation on “The Orchard” where he is a VP at in London (I think a VP, but regardless, a high up player there). He seemed to me the guy who most “got it” and was really discussing the developing issues on music promotion and the change of business and how marketing and sales of music is fundamentally changing, as well as how we discover new music today.

How we discover music today became a really interesting topic in my mind as I was constantly thinking about how does art music separate itself from all the other music out there (and it’s really all out there) and that while those involved with art music may seem to think that it is a cultural given that it is of value that I think it really is not a given. The social aspect of sharing recommendations with friends as well as viewing listening trends to find other music one would like became very fascinating to me, as things like getting published on a label or even being mentioned in a journal become less factors in bringing attention to one’s music.

In the end, one of the things I took away from all this was that I am not really interested in making a financial profit for my music as I write it for the purpose of art and not money. However, I am interested in my music reaching others and that perhaps one of the things to help others give my music a chance if they have never heard any art music is to explain some of my intentions on what it is I am interested in and how music plays a part in that and in my life.

The conference was a really neat collection of viewpoints on music on the Internet and was really glad to have been able to attend, as I felt it would have been appreciated by just about anyone involved with music. There was a lot of really great practical information and I hope that in the coming weeks I can take some of the ideas that were brought up and work with them in my ways of working with music on the Internet.

I was running late to the concert last night, as in the tram I took took longer than I had thought it would, I got out a stop too early and realized it after the tram closed its doors, and then proceeded to run as fast I could to the concert.  I got to the seat in time and sat there exhausted and winded and coughing, so out of breath.  As the piece started and I was still winded, I could hardly focus on the piece as I was doing everything I could simply to control my breath and try not to cough.  It was unfortunate as I think this was an incredibly nice piece:

• Salvatore Sciarrino – Quaderno di strada

Some notes on the piece:

lots of extended techniques, the effects were not simply effects but really a part of the sound fabric of the piece, on the brink of silence, fragile, beautiful writing, really understands the flavors(sounds) well, reminded me alot of Crumb but different material, complex sounds and noises were given space to actually speak and be heard,  the baritone (Otto Katzameier) and the ensemble (Algoritmo Ensemble, Musica Centrum Orchestra) performed excellently

A really gorgeous piece, I only wish I was in a better state to listen to it when I was there.  I have not heard anything by Sciarrino before, but am definitely interested to listen to more of his work and to learn more about the composer.  Very beautiful sense of time…