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CONTEMPORARY MUSIC REVIEW
September 27, 2005
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By Jonathan Russell
Rousing applause and an immediate standing ovation greeted the conclusion of Frederic Rzewski's North American Ballads last Tuesday night, closing out the season's first Composers Inc. concert at the Green Room of the War Memorial Building in San Francisco. The piece had vitality, emotional power, and a connection to the world around it, and was given a brilliant performance. Unfortunately, much of the rest of the program was pale by comparison.
Composed in 1979, North American Ballads is an epic piano piece in four movements, each based on a different American folk ballad, all with some sort of social or political content. The piece uses these simple ballad melodies as taking-off points for wide-ranging and far-reaching musical excursions, from simple folksy harmonizations to raucous modernist dissonances. Despite this wide range, the piece never feels like a pastiche and there is a deep congruence and unity to it all. It also never feels like a pedantic compositional exercise, even though Rzewski employs many compositional devices, from frequent transpositions of melody to putting it in the bass, to doubling or halving its rhythmic values, inverting it, or re-harmonizing it.
That it does not become pedantic owes much to Rzewski's deep sympathy for and understanding of the ballads he uses as his starting point. It is as if he is reaching inside these melodies and uncovering the depth of emotion and experience behind their apparently simple exterior. In the program notes, Rzewski compares his technique to Bach's use of simple Lutheran hymns as the basis of his chorale preludes for organ — an apt analogy. Both composers are taking simple melodies from the world around them and building them into something rich and complex, not only creating a rewarding new work but also revealing the original melodies' inner power and depth.
Rzewski effectively bridges the gap between “high” and “low” art — in fact, he doesn't even acknowledge the existence of such a gap. And why should he? The folk songwriter and the classically-trained composer are both after (or ought to be after) the same thing: to communicate something of importance to the rest of the world. Why shouldn't they interact with and build off one another? Pianist Lino Rivera's performance was simply sensational. Performing from memory, with impressive technique — and, most importantly, passion, intensity, and understanding — Rivera was captivating from start to finish, inspiring one of the most immediate and universal standing ovations I have ever witnessed. One could scarcely imagine a more compelling performance of this piece. Though the rest of the concert included some good music, the Rzewski made most of it seem tepid and even trivial. Mario Lavista's Cuaderno de Viaje (Travel Notebook) for solo viola was the exception. A last-minute replacement for James Willey's Sonata for Trumpet and Piano, this 1989 work was entrancingly simple and beautiful. The piece was entirely in natural harmonics, excepting two strategically-placed pizzicatos. The harmonics made the piece airy and ethereal, with the resulting overtone-based, rather than equal-tempered, intervals creating a pure and pristine sound. Though equal temperament has countless benefits, pieces like this, with pure natural intervals, remind us that something exquisite has also been given up. One might think that harmonics for so long would grow tiresome, but Lavista kept the piece fresh and captivating. Violist Nancy Ellis played with subtlety and grace and made the technical feat of playing only harmonics for ten minutes seem perfectly natural, as if the instrument were meant to be played that way all the time.
The opener, Lesley Sommer's 2000 work Five Pieces on Poems of Robert Frost for solo piano, also performed by Lino Rivera, was an evocative, well-crafted piece, alternating between contemplative and rhythmic movements, loosely based on three Frost poems. Sommer shows a real command of contemporary harmonic practices, and Rivera made the most of the lush harmony, infusing it with color and texture. It was nice music, polished and professional, but ultimately just another contemporary piano piece, practically interchangeable with many others, with no sense of interaction with the world beyond contemporary music. Second came the winner of Composers Inc.'s annual composition competition, the Lee Ettelson Composer's Award: Nathan Davis' Sea Songs to texts of Walt Whitman, with Allen Shearer, baritone, and Sarah Rathke on oboe, showed some skill and effective moments, but was mostly meandering and non-descript. The melodic lines of both parts lacked definition and clarity; there was nothing that would stick with you. Ultimately it was a safe piece that fit squarely into the standard aesthetic for new music — not too tonal, but not too far out; intricate and complex, but not too much so. Why has Composers Inc. chosen a piece like this as its winner? There must be young composers writing music that is more alive. New music need not all say something new or different or revolutionary — the Rzewski doesn't have anything particularly new — nor need it be overtly political like the Rzewski. But it should have vitality and relate to our world — be something more than an academic exercise. Contemporary music is changing rapidly and much of it is livelier, more varied, more interesting and relevant than ever; and established new-music groups would do well to recognize this. Hopefully, the clear audience response to the Rzewski will encourage Composers Inc to do just that.
(Jonathan Russell is a professor of musicianship at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and an editor with PBA Music Publishing. He is active in the Bay Area as a clarinetist, bass clarinetist, and composer.)
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Frederic Rzewski
