On April 19, having rushed to Roulette leaving behind the last minutes of an international Sound and Affect conference in order to experience Anthony Braxton’s Trillium J (The Non-Unconfessionables), at first I could not stop thinking: how does this performance affect me and why? And – “whose are these emotions?” – as Deniz Peters questioned earlier that day.

I fail to describe my feelings having never experienced anything like this before. Perhaps one could compare Trillium J to Richard Foreman’s plays in the way it captures the absurd, the unexpectedness and ambiguity of contemporary world. Weave these into the voices of 12 vocalists and the sounds of 12 instrumental soloists with full orchestra, excellent acting, pseudo-philosophical digressions, visual projections, young skipping-rope Jazzy Jumpers and two of New York’s best contemporary dance improvisers Rachel Bernsen and Melanie Maar, and you get the mix.

At any specific moment I could not  recognize what exactly (music, words, acting, etc.) made me smile in a very strange way – the smile that sometimes comes from experiencing the misfortunes of Daniil Harms’s characters. This is perhaps the genius of a gesamtkunstwerk artist (Braxton wrote both the music and the libretto) – to blend all the media so naturally that a spectator cannot recognize the source of their feelings.

How does the absurd feel?

As an interlude before the Second Scene of Act IV, Jazzy Jumpers entered with their skipping-ropes and the choir started improvising “random” sounds to their movements. I sensed tears in my eyes, obviously neither out of sadness or joy. What catalyzed the sublime was (perhaps?) the excitement that something so contemporary and so musically apt was composed –the genre of opera has a future; at least it definitely has a present.

But the climax was still to come. The interlude could either feel like just another meaningful nonsense – the ridiculousness that was so fittingly at the wrong place, – or depict a stratum of society to be juxtaposed with the final scene – the trial of Sally Wanton. Despite the obvious references to social injustices of American society, Ms Walton reminded me of Russian President Vladimir Putin in her ability to pour complete nonsense and reject obvious evidence of crime with complete confidence (as well as accept it and immediately render crucial statements trifle). This is where, perhaps, “the concept of affinity,” the opera’s major theme, lies. Everyone walked out with a radiant face – those who thought of multiple possibilities of political connotations, or those who just took “the poetic transiency” and “undefinition that seeks its own level” as a flow of beautiful nonsense.

George Crumb once said that he was “frightened of a possibility to write an opera, nothing comes close to Wozzeck.” Whether you agreed with that or not in the past, you would definitely have to consider replacing Wozzeck with The Non-Unconfessionables.  Should 21st century opera, and music for that matter, only be political? It is not always this or that, it is often the other.

Erlena Dlu

©2014 by Extended Techniques. All Rights Reserved.

Today’s program of FOCUS festival Alfred Schnittke’s World features a piece by Sofia Gubaidulina (b. 1931), In Croce (1979). Gubaidulina’s music is  symbolic and imaginative, employing unusual instrumental combinations and extended techniques. The symbolism behind the sounds often carries spiritual connotation; in 1998 the composer stated that all her works were religious, which in her understanding is not related to the church. This is one of the reasons why some of her music was unwelcome in the USSR and some works were not performed until its fall.

Gubaidulina is one of the most spiritually inspired composers of our time. The belief in the religious purpose of art has deep roots back to her childhood and was strengthened during her youth when she encountered the writings of a philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev and met a brilliant pianist Maria Yudina, who maintained her strong religious commitment despite political repressions. Gubaidulina’s first engagement with music-making in 1937 coincided with a spiritual experience of significant impact: at the age of six, when she began to play the piano, she came across an Orthodox Christian icon. As Michael Kurtz quotes her in his monograph: “Music naturally blended with religion, and sound, straight away, became sacred for me.”

The connection between Christian commitment and artistic creativity was further strengthened during Gubaidulina’s philosophical quest when she learned about Berdyaev’s idea of linking the inner and spiritual realm to the perception of time: “Creativity… is the flight into the infinite… [an activity] which transcends the finite towards the infinite. The creative act signifies an ek-stasis, a breaking-through to eternity.” The sacredness of art is a completely natural phenomenon for Gubaidulina, and her aesthetic statement is not that of a style, but of art’s relationship with religion through the re-linking of everyday life with vertical inner nature of human perception:

What is religion at all? For me this concept is literal, re-ligio – a ligature that connects horizontal line of our life and vertical line of our divine presence. Anyone who creates, for example a poem, enters this vertical realm. Such a person is capable of perceiving, at least a little bit, what exists in this dimension. (Interview with Aleksey Munipov, 2012)

Gubaidulina believes that daily routine may lead a person to lose the connection with the inner world, and therefore people need creative activity as an inspiration to get outside of everyday life: “Life interrupts this connection: it leads me away, into different troubles, and God leaves me at these times… This is unbearable pain; by creating, through our art, we strive to restore [the link between us and God] (interview to Vera Lukomsky, 1998). In the same vein, art transforms the horizontal time of everyday life into a vertical time of inner, spiritual existence: “A person may not be conscious of it, and creativity can be … of any sort, but the shape of the outcome turns out as a staircase, vertical.” (Interview with Munipov)

In Croce was originally composed for cello and organ, later arranged for cello and bayan, but tonight will be performed in its original version. The piece belongs to the period when Gubaidulina began to consciously construct her compositions on the basis of philosophical or spiritual symbols that shaped the form and the sound of the piece frequently requiring unconventional performance or extended instrumental techniques. In her biography by Michael Kurtz she explains the symbolism behind her choice of instrumentation and the form in In Croce:

In that particular combination I imagined the organ as a mighty spirit that sometimes descends to earth to vent its wrath. The cello, on the other hand, with its sensitively responsive strings, is a completely human spirit. The contrast between these two opposite natures is resolved spontaneously in the symbol of the cross. I accomplished this by criss-crossing the registers (the organ takes the line downward, the cello upward); secondly, by juxtaposing the bright major sonorities of natural harmonics, played glissando, and expressive chromatic inflections.

Erlena Dlu

 ©2014 Extended Techniques. All Rights Reserved.

This year Russian-German-Jewish composer Alfred Schnittke would have turned 80. To celebrate his birthday, Julliard’s 30th annual mid-winter festival FOCUS! 2014 presents six concerts of works by Schnittke and his circle of composers, Sofia Gubaidulina, Giya Kancheli, Arvo Pärt, and Valentin Silvestrov.

Alfred Schnittke’s World begins today and will continue until January 31. Extended techniques will give a glimpse at his world and how it is related to his compositional techniques.

In his essay About Concerto Grosso No. 1 (1977), Schnittke disclosed the major goal of his creative path: “the aim of my life is to overcome the gap between “E” and “U” (Ernst – serious music and Unterhaltung – entertainment music), even if I have to break my neck. Schnittke wanted to find a “unified style where the fragments of “E” and “U” represent elements of diverse music space, instead of being merely facetious supplements.

The goal in itself was not unique, since many other composers in the 20^th century combined several styles in their works; it was, however, less common to state the goal so explicitly. One of the reasons why Schnittke wanted to bridge the gap between serious and entertaining music, was his obligation (over the 20 years of his career) to compose what he called “applied music” and “pure music” simultaneously, since, living in the Soviet Union, he had to “divide his time between writing utilitarian film scores for livelihood and unperformable masterworks “for the drawer” (Richard Taruskin, Defining Russia Musically). In fact, the grounds for creation of a unified style go beyond the composer’s lifestyle, and it is worth looking at the origin of the means (his style and devices) and their pertinence for reaching the goal.

Timelessness (Polystilistics – all times at once)

One of the most enigmatic and intriguing views which Schnittke shared with the world, was his perception of time. He sensed that all the time periods may coexist simultaneously at any point of time, and that it was natural to travel between times:

… there is no absolute point in time. Any point in time is merely a logical abstraction.  In fact, it is, roughly speaking, a chord of points (moments) that embodies hours and days rather than a second… The way to capture this at once exists beyond the physical world. One can imagine a second that embraces everything – past and future. The whole world rolls up into one point. And then these countless times and places depart, diverge, and unroll. (Aleskandr Ivashkin, Conversations with Alfred Schnittke)

At first this idea may seem somewhat arcane; however, Schnittke found the way to simultaneously embrace many time periods beyond the physical world – in music, which for him was a “one-time chord.” Schnittke describes his vision of the universe beyond the “real (physical) world” in the following way:  in the “real world” time is a line consisting of points, i.e. it is only one-dimensional; in the “true world” time is a multi-dimensional space (of spanning lines); while in the “real world” only selected points from this space that form a line exist.

… I sense the existence of infinite forest of times, where every timeline is unique and each tree grows in its own way. Everything that emerged in the past, emerged on different trees, but was (and is) related to the trees that grow at present. Today, in reality, we forgot about them. … but they continue to live, these trees. This is why I don’t treat (things from the) past as museum exhibits. I sense that I go back to this ideal forest… and deem it possible to go back to anything from the past. (Ivashkin, Conversations with Alfred Schnittke)

It may take several readings of this passage to imagine this forest, and one can only hope that the vision reflects the image that Schnittke had in mind. It may, however, take just one listening to Concerto Grosso No. 2 (or Symphony No. 3) to discern the concept. In order to create the feeling of “all times at once” Schnittke used polysitlistics – a combination of several contrasting stylistic features in one composition, that involves musical borrowing (often from the past) of different degrees. Although Schnittke was definitely not the first to use the polystilistic method in his composition, his name is the most closely associated with the use of the term since he was one of the first to define it as such.

Polystilystic approach is also employed in Schnittke’s Symphony No 4 (1983) that will be performed tonight.

The Fourth Symphony also represents Schnittke’s lifelong search for a spiritual belief and his attitude towards political system.  The work draws musically on three main strands of Christianity – Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant, while underneath there is a three-note semitone interval motif symbolizing synagogue chant. In the Symphony tenor and countertenor soloists are employed at three key structural moments and a choral setting of the Ave Maria towards the end synthesizes all previous motives in a single diatonic mode. The text of the Ave Maria originally had to be suppressed because its religious nature would have disallowed its performance in the Soviet Union.  The composer believed that in order to preserve authenticity an artist should not react against the system, but rather act as though the system does not exist.

More about Schnittke’s colleagues during the upcoming week.

©2014 by Extended Techniques. All Rights Reserved.