Igor Stravinsky sagely observed that “too many pieces finish too long after they end.” In other words, the quality of the musical material and its development by a composer often don’t justify the time it takes to play it. Unfortunately, this was the case in five of the nine numbers performed at the Other Minds festival Friday and Saturday at the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco. Thankfully, works by Gloria Coates, Lötta Wennäkoski (pronounced “VENN-aa-koszhki”), and John Kennedy, plus percussion improvisations by Tyshawn Sorey, maintained interest.
If Coates’ name survives the test of time, it will be for the prevalence of glissandos in her works. Glissandos are created by a set of instrument-dependent techniques by which the performer blurs the boundaries between individual tones by sliding from one to the next. On the violin, viola, and cello of the string quartet, sliding a finger along a string while pinching it against the fingerboard or creating harmonics with a lighter touch produces all the intermediate sounds between notes of the scale.
Coates has remarked in interviews how as a child she loved to hold the sustaining pedal down on her piano so she could hear the resonance of previous notes played against each other (despite her teacher’s disapproval). And she loved the glissando played by the clarinet that opens Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Her first string quartet of 1962 was composed entirely of glissandos, as is the bulk of her 1988 Fifth quartet, stalwartly performed by the Del Sol Quartet to begin Friday’s concert.
Despite the constant use of glissandos, each of the three movements of the Fifth is quite different in character. The first movement features two of the four instruments tuned a quarter tone above the others, resulting in extreme dissonances without the need for flats or sharps on the score. The second movement has more glissandos than the first, which also obscure a hidden tune. The third and last movement is all glissandos, up and down at different ranges and rates for each instrument.
Pain, Then Pleasure
The best way to describe the work’s affect is to imagine yourself sunbathing on a hot Pacific beach. In the first movement, you have found a hangnail in your big toe. For 10 minutes you move it around in various directions like a anti-joystick, trying to keep it at the most painful position. Finally, you black out and miss much of the 10-minute second movement and its unheard tune. In the third movement, however, you wake up and discover you are immersed in the lapping waves of the tide that rose while you were unconscious. The intersections of the waves of glissandos somehow create a relatively less undulating übermelody that eventually soothes the pain of the previous movements and makes you feel you’ve been on a journey, however unpleasant at times, and perhaps have accomplished something.
Coates’ work was followed by It’s Only a Daydream, 20 minutes of mild improvisations by pianist/composer Harold Budd, with Keith Lowe on a electronically enhanced bass viol. In contrast to the occasionally interesting sounds emanating from Lowe’s instrument, Budd’s noodlings were of scant appeal. Overall, the meanderings went nowhere, though they might have made nice background music to a cocktail party.
The “I’ve-heard-them-all-before” computer sounds became tedious after three minutes.
But worse was to follow after intermission: Ikue Mori’s computer-synthesized improvisations accompanied by Ken Ueno’s vocalizations and Tyshawn Sorey’s percussion work. The “I’ve-heard-them-all-before” computer sounds became tedious after three minutes, but 38 more minutes were yet to come. Ueno had a larger variety of sounds in his arsenal, however unpleasant (his throat singing relied on undertones rather than the more-beautiful overtones), but only Sorey’s immense talent kept his portion of the music interesting. Nevertheless, people began to leave long before the ordeal was over.
Festival Highlight From Finland Fascinates
Saturday’s concert followed a similar curve, from interesting to unendurable. Wennäkoski’s 2007 Nosztalgiaim (My nostalgias) began the evening, performed by the 12-piece orchestra Magik*Magik conducted by Kennedy. Alone among the nine works reviewed, this one left me wanting more. Ideas were many, tantalizing, and not beaten to death as in many of the other pieces. In preconcert remarks, the Finnish composer described her music as reflecting her mixed feelings after moving to Hungary to study its folk music, beginning at age 19.
An urban, almost cartoon-crazy environment is conjured up in the opening minute, but much of the rest of the 13-minute piece is quiet, changeable, with ghostly references to two Hungarian tunes, one of which begins, according to the composer, “My dear Mother. …” Fragments of motives are passed from instrument to instrument in fascinating variety, making for the most interesting piece of the festival. It should have been placed at the end of the evening.
His music was characterized, more than were any of the other works, by the use of memorable melody as a structural element.
Next came two works by Kennedy. First Deconstruction (in Plastic) (2005) is for two percussionists beating on plastic paint tubs, scraping corrugated clear-plastic food-to-go boxes, and shaking plastic water bottles filled with plastic beads. The composition presents a strong case for recycling before such containers are ever used as inadequate instruments. The plastic tubs in particular do not produce precisely immediate sounds on attack; thus, any simultaneous strikes by the two players on them often sounded out of sync, and Kennedy should have avoided them. Only the shakers were worth listening to, making fine maracas. Even eight minutes was too long for this gimmicky number.
Kennedy redeemed himself next with his premiere of Island in Time (2012), for bass clarinet, flute, cello, and percussion. Other than the needlessly ugly tutti that begins the work, his music was characterized, more than were any of the other works, by the use of memorable melody as a structural element. He was inspired by some notions of John Cage’s on how musical time can be conveyed, which resulted in some interesting pauses. Still, you can’t hum a pause: Kennedy should give his catchy, short tunes more credit for making his piece keep its welcome and be just the right length.
Sorey returned for solo improvisations next. On drums he was incredible, with a cornucopia of extended techniques, powerful attacks, and a fine sense of building climaxes. His 20-minute excursion seemed timeless and exhilarating. Sorey is also learning piano, which he treats like the percussion instrument it is, with a variety of intriguing attacks. But the piano has notes, as well: Sorey’s failure to exploit their melodic potential was a huge drawback in his 11-minute, atonal stint at the ivories. (He should have taken a hint from the 12-tone composer Anton Webern, who knew when to quit.)
Finally, Ueno returned as composer in the premiere of Peradam, for the Del Sol String Quartet, accompanied by a live video by Johnny Dekam. The title refers to a fictitious mineral that’s harder than diamond and can be seen only by those on spiritual quests. Ueno’s music, scrapy, unrelievedly unpleasant, with quarter tones and throat singing contributed by the performers, was likewise very hard — to endure. The abstract videos were more interesting, moving from black and white to tints to primary colors over time, but after 10 minutes they too became repetitive. After 24 minutes of suffering, I made a spiritual and physical quest for the exit.