Organist and Fiddler

Anton Bruckner and Carl Nielsen are composers who revolutionized orchestral music in widely different ways. But underlying both their styles of experimentation was an obsession with thoroughgoing and methodical thematic modulation.

Bruckner as a silhouette entering heaven. He is greeted from left to right by Liszt, Wagner, Schubert, Schumann, Weber, Mozart, Beethoven, Gluck, Haydn, Handel, and Bach, at the organ.

Bruckner's Seventh Symphony, the most popular of his oeuvre since its release, passes motives through every conceivable key, mode, possible dynamic, and section of the orchestra. The observation that Bruckner's orchestral effects echo the rumblings of an organ loft remains a proper cliche. All of the symphonies' finales let loose the brass like organ stops; supporting harmonic oscillation takes after pedal point. Although his idiosyncratic style broke with tradition, Bruckner's music is exceptional in its simplicity. As the final movement of the Seventh approaches its climax, for example, the composer repeats his theme over and over, with each iteration only gaining an interval and layer of sound until the ultimate blast of affirmation. Gustav Mahler, one of Bruckner's greatest admirers, described the man as "half simpleton, half God."

A standing Nielsen with the members of the Copenhagen Wind Quintet. Nielsen wrote a great quintet for the group, and concerti for the flautist and clarinetist.

Nielsen tinkers with melodies so that even his grandest symphonic edifice bears structurally compromising cracks. His most mature music is proliferated with so many flutters that the trill and turn are more substantive than the occasional outburst of melodic meat. As a result of these meanderings, Nielsen's music is extremely hard to play. Osmo Vanska, maestro of the Minnesota Orchestra, claimed before a concert with the piece on the program that Nielsen's Sixth, subtitled "Sinfonia Semplice" ("Simple Symphony"), is the hardest symphony ever composed. Amongst clarinetists, it is common knowledge that his Clarinet Concerto is the most technically ardous piece in the repertoire -- upon receiving the manuscript, dedicatee Aage Oxenvad of the Copenhagen Wind Quintet grumbled that to have written such obscure and squeaky sequences of notes, Nielsen must have known how to play the clarinet. In contrast to Brucker's late masterpieces, which conclude with the heraldically triumphant, in full praise of the Almighty (he intended to write a major key final movement for the unfinished Ninth Symphony), the Nielsen Clarinet Concerto and Fifth and Sixth Symphonies leave earthy and esoteric afterthoughts. Composer and Nielsen scholar Robert Simpson writes, "The tense Clarinet Concerto, hitting every nail ruthlessly on the head, is the finest since Mozart's masterpiece, and the problems it raises will have powerful significance while there is trouble in the world."

Top Five Summer Hits (That I Can Remember)

My car doesn't have a CD player-- it only plays audio cassettes. For the past year or so, I've pledged to get a CD/Radio adaptor, but I have yet to put together the effort to actually get one.

However, yesterday I was presented with what seemed like a perfect opportunity. At my town library's annual sale, there were loads of audio cassettes, and each was selling for just 50 cents! It seemed like a perfect scenario.

I ended up getting four tapes--some classical, jazz, and MC Hammer (the last one was the big find of the day.)

Yet I now realize that I'm not going to be playing those tapes too much, at least for now. It's the summer, and that means its time to listen to the radio.

Each summer, there are a handful of songs that define the season. Each time I enter the car during the summer, I scan the airwaves, looking for these few, special songs that are deemed Summer Hits. When I find one, I can turn up the volume, clear out my throat, and start singing along to the song I have heard twenty times before. It's beautiful.

It is with this is mind that I have decided to list the top five Summer Hits that I can remember. I'm positive that I have forgotten some , and it is up to you to comment and tell me what I've missed.

Wikipedia defines a Summer hit as "a song which gains huge popularity during the summer and then almost completely disappears when the summer is over."

My definition is simpler--a summer hit is a song that you would definitely hear if you listened to Hot 97.1 New York for an hour during the summer in which the song came out.

Here are the top five Summer Hits that I can remember:

5. Rehab, Amy Winehouse ft. Jay-Z
This is the only Summer Hit on the list from the current summer. I was tempted to list the lip gloss song, but Rehab has just a bit more substance (not to mention Jay-Z). This song meets one of the most important aspects of a great Summer Hit--I can sing to it.

4. Number One, by Pharrell ft. Kanye West
This excellent single prompted me to buy Pharrell's debut album--"In my Mind." The album sucked, but this oft forgotten song is a great one. Kayne steals the show in a big way, eh eh eh, but Pharrell holds his own throughout.

3. Deja Vu, Beyonce
The start of this song is so money. When I heard the bass begin to beat on the radio, I got so antsy. Summer hits are often accompanied by great music videos, and this song has one of the best videos ever.

2. Give it Up to Me, Sean Paul
Sean Paul, Keyshia Cole, Don Corleone! This song is the definition of a summer hit. Last year, you could not listen to the radio for more than 20 minutes without hearing it. If only I could understand what the heck Sean Paul was trying to say.

1. Hollaback Girl, by Gwen Stefani:
This song forever changed the way I look at the word Bananas (B-A-N-A-N-A-S). If I were driving on a hot, sweaty, summer day, this is the number one song I would want to hear.

In the comment section, please list your favorite summer hits. Maybe I forgot some, or maybe you just have bad taste.

(Note: I did not forget Promiscuous Girl. I just don't like that song.)

Music in Magyar

In rememberance of his death last June, I recently explored a selection of music by Gyorgy Ligeti. The second CD in the Ligeti Project series features the Berlin Philharmonic playing five of his orchestral pieces (Teldec, 2002). One of the compositions, Atmospheres, brought the composer widespread attention when it was featured in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Ligeti was born in a small, predominantly Jewish Transylvanian village in 1923. He and his mother were the only members of his family to survive the Holocaust. Life in Budapest under Communist rule was unbearable for the freethinking Ligeti. In one section of his Romanian Concerto, he writes an F sharp while in the key of F major. This was enough for the authorities to ban the whole piece. Following the Hungarian Revolution, Ligeti and his wife fled across the Iron Curtain into Austria.



Once free of Communist censorship, Ligeti ventured into uncharted musical waters. Virtually abandoning the thematic motive, his pieces from that era are amorphous "masses of sound." The orchestra produces colors and textures instead of melodies and rhythms; tuning is a subjective affair. Atmospheres, Apparitions, and Lontano are three representative compositions. Ligeti describes them as "micropolyphonic," a broad categorization he defines as "consisting of complex interwoven textures." If you recall the end sequence of space-time travel in 2001, the musical accompaniment comes from Atmospheres.

As well as forging a path for modernism, Ligeti built upon the majestic edifice of Hungarian national music. A direct successor of Bela Bartok, Ligeti wrote many tonal works based on traditional dance themes. The BPO includes an excellent recording of Concert romanesc in their disc. Concert romanesc provides temporal grounding for the ethereal explorations of Atmospheres. Unlike so many other modernists, Ligeti composed individualistic music capable of reaching unadventurous audiences.

One of the forefathers of the Hungarian classical tradition was Franz Liszt. In the middle of the 19th century, Liszt wrote 12 symphonic poems (a 13th followed late in his life), of which I listened to four in a recording by the BBC Philharmonic (Chandos, 2005).



Initially dismissed as a frivolous and unimaginative by his countryman Bartok, that great 20th century composer later came to discover "far greater genius" in Liszt than in Wagner or that other famous symphonic poet, Richard Strauss. Although Liszt's symphonic poems are programmatic mainstays of the classical repertoire, the majority of performances only include his most famous, Les Preludes.

Although my favorite, Mazeppa, is the least subtle of the poems I have heard, others, like Orpheus, on this disc, are more contemplative in nature. All symphonic poems use some theme, often taken from literature, to set the mood. Liszt enjoyed condensing the "morals" of his poems into brief narrative statements included at the beginning of the score.

For a foray into one of the most fertile geographic regions of classical music, try a smattering of Ligeti and the symphonic poems of Liszt. The CDs I mentioned are a nice place to start.

A Shout Out to an Old Guy

Yesterday, I went out of my way to bash Julio Franco, the oldest player in the major leagues. Today, on MetsBlog, a similar post was up. It seems that Mets fans are in agreement that Julio must go.

When I spoke to my mom on the phone today, she seemed to be taken aback by my unabashed bashing of Franco. So now I'm going to make up for it--I'm going to praise someone even older and more washed up than Julio Franco: George Benson.

Today, while working in the lab, I listened to the CD "Best of George Benson" about five times. I have to admit that it's a pretty sweet CD. By the end of the day, I was joyously singing along to Benson's guitar riffs. Benson is laid back, yet his music still has substance. His music is perfect for when you're doing work--it won't distract you, but you'll still enjoy it.

This is not to say Benson is good now. He's as over the hill as Franco. However, it's nice to know that he was at least once a very talented musician.

Klezmer Spiel

Earlier today, JT and I visited the National Yiddish Book Center at Hampshire College. The Center is home to over 1.5 million volumes written in Yiddish, of which 10% are on view and for sale in the museum area. At the vanguard of the Yiddish-studies revival that began 30 years ago and helped lead to the creation of the center was a resurgence of interest in klezmer.

Evocative of rustic folk dancing and cantorial wailing, klezmer is simultaneously sacrosanct and profane. Derived from the Hebrew words "kli," or instrument, and "zemer," song, klezmer arose in the shtetls of mid-19th century Eastern Europe. When Jewish musicians were drafted into the tzar's military bands, many learned the clarinet, which quickly came to dominate the melodic aspect of klezmer. The famous clarinet glissando at the beginning of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue is a commonly heard snippet of klezmer.

One of the earliest klezmorim was Josef Gusikov, a Belorussian who toured Western Europe playing a xylophone-like instrument he invented out of straw and wood. Felix Mendelssohn and Franz Liszt both saw the virtuoso perform. Mendelssohn marvelled at Gusikov, but Liszt wished his genius had been directed toward "inventing an agricultural instrument" instead of producing "nothing but musical inanities." The exotic performer of the neo-marimba was so popular in Paris that a coiffure was invented in imitation of Gusikov's payot, the sidelocks worn by Orthodox Jews.

Along with mass European emigration to the United States at the turn of the century came klezmer. Dave Tarras and Naftule Brandwein were the premier bandleaders of the interwar golden age of klezmer. They were perfect counterparts, both on the clarinet and temperamentally. Tarras had a sweet and fluid sound; Brandwein knocked the air out of an audience's lungs. Although both knew how to play a variety of instruments, Brandwein never learned how to read music, so that in their early years, Tarras took his job in a band. Famously reliable and hardworking, Tarras played well into 1980s, living into his 90s. Brandwein on the other hand was a notorious drunk. During one performance he wrapped himself in Christmas lights and was nearly electrocuted. Another time, he was almost run down while wandering down an Adirondack road in an inebriated state. To paraphrase a biographical essay of Tarras I once read, if Tarras was a fictional character, Brandwein would have been his foil.

After World War II and the Holocaust, both klezmer and Yiddish quickly fell into obscurity. Not until the late 1970s were the music and language rediscovered. In the early 1980s, Aaron Lansky, a graduate of Hampshire College, began saving every Yiddish-language book he could get his hands on, a collection that transformed into the National Yiddish Book Center. Meanwhile, a small number of Jewish musicians reestablished contact with the few living klezmorim. Andy Statman, one of the new-age pioneers, reestablished contact with Dave Tarras and became his disciple on the clarinet.

Statman is featured in an article in this month's issue of the world music magazine Dirty Linen. Now an Orthodox Jew, Statman has explored a variety of musical genres in his long career. Constantly branching out, Statman is proficient on the mandolin and well-versed in bluegrass. On the CD Avodas ha-Levi, a collection of archival material from the 1990s, the listener can clearly discern jazz in Statman's putative klezmer. Most of the disc evokes a late night cafe free jazz session. Which is disappointing. Statman butchers the classic Brandwein song, Naftule Shpilt far dem Rebb'n, turning it into piano chord laden, soft cymbal brushing, revisionist blues. There is no upbeat freilachs or old country doina. But neither seems to exist in modern klezmer, anyways. Most klezmer bands are diluted with augmented brass sections, ear-blasting percussion, and a variety of saxophones. Their songs mimic the standards of Tarras and Brandwein but are neither melodically pleasing nor authentic. A good example is Statman's mockery of Tarras's "Sha, Sha, di Shviger Kumt" ("Quiet, quiet, the mother-in-law is coming"), which is turned into a rhythmically insecure jazz number titled "Charles and West 4th."

For an excellent compilation of klezmer, turn to Rounder Records's CD, "Naftule Brandwein: King of the Klezmer Clarinet," not the modern parodies akin to Weird Al Yankovic.

The Top Five Pump-Up Songs of All Time

You're running a 5k road race. You're currently in 2nd place, about 10 seconds back from the leader. There's one kilometer to go before the finish. Suddenly, a car pulls up beside you, with massive speakers and a sub-woofer bouncing in back. What song do you want that car to be playing?

You're lifting in the gym, every one's watching--the football coach, the scouts, the cheerleaders. You have five more bench presses to go, but the lactic acid is already starting to build up and your muscles ache. Suddenly, a surround-sound, Dolby-digital speaker system appears beside you. What song do you want to hear?

You're taking a chemistry test. There are 50 multiple choice questions to go, and you only have 10 minutes left. You snuck an I-Pod into the exam room. What song do you want to hear at full blast?

This is one of the more important questions I will tackle on this blog, and one of the more difficult. There are so many songs. There's the rap pump-up songs, the jock jam pump-up songs, the heavy metal pump-up songs.

Please let me know if I left any song out--I am willing to revise this list, as I probably cannot remember every great pump-up song.

5. Lose Yourself, by Eminem
The crescendo is key. It starts off so gently and then slowly but surely explodes. The lyrics also play a very important role in making this such a great pump-up song. They allow you to put such a singular focus on the task at hand.

4. Remember the Name, by Fort Minor
Remember the beat--it is freaking awesome.

3. Get By--the Remix, by Talib Kwali featuring Kanye, Busta Rhymes, Mos-Def, and Jay-Z
This song is the total package. Great lyrics which you can understand. A chorus you can sing to (a very important feature of any great pump-up song). A fantastic beat. This song originally turned me on to rap, and it has turned me on time and again before a long run.

2. War, from the Rocky Soundtrack
Eye of the Tiger gets most of the attention, but this is the best pump-up song from Rocky. The greatest fifteen seconds in all of music begins at the 4 minute mark of this orchestral, synthesizer-filled medley.

1. Come With Me, by Puff Daddy (from the Godzilla soundtrack)
I really struggled with the rest of the list, but there is no question that this is the number one pump up song of all time. After listening to this, you could run through a wall. In case you haven't heard of the song, a YouTube clip of it is at the bottom of this post.

Honorable Mention: Eye of the Tiger, Encore--with Linkin Park and Jay-Z, Final Countdown, Highway to Hell, One Mic, Get that Dirt Off Your Shoulder, Meet the Mets

Others Worth Mentioning: Heat, Shake Your Tailfeather, The NBA Live 1998 Theme Song, Enter Sandman

Tower of Power!

(Photo by Michel Vonlanthen at www.jazzphone.ch).

I just returned from Freihofer's Jazz Festival at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. Currently, day two of the event is ongoing, but my parents and I decided to only go to the first day. The reason for this was simple--Tower of Power! performed yesterday only.

I've been wanting to see Tower of Power! since the seventh grade, when my middle school jazz band played "What is Hip?" Yesterday, finally, I was able to feel the power.

However, given the poor behavior of the audience, I feel like an apology is in order to the group. Here it goes:

Dear Tower of Power!,

I was at your concert last night. It was awesome. Hip. Powerful. When you played "Diggin' On James Brown" I honestly felt a tear coming down my cheek. It could have been due to the wind (I have really sensitive eyes), but I actually think it was from hearing you guys for the first time, after over six years of waiting.

Your dancing was fantastic. Funky Doctor (the baritone saxist) was hilarious. Your lead singer was so good he even impressed my mom.

Yet, for some reason, the amphitheater was half empty when you played. People were trickling out in the middle of songs. The atmosphere was pretty much dead as you played.

I want to apologize for this. You deserve much better.

You came onto the stage after a very long day of jazz, some which was incredibly inspiring, some which was not. David Sanborn on the saxaphone was fantastic. Jean-Luc Ponty on the jazz violin was surprisingly good. Yet, the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey was dull and melodyless--they clearly thought they were too cool for school. The Ray Haynes Quartet, while good, was simply too small and calm to fill such a large amphitheater.

And then there was George Benson. He came on right before you. He was once good (so my mom tells me). He was once a pop-star. Now he's old and not very good at all.

When Benson was playing, the crowd was dancing all around, singing the words to his old hits. They were living vicariously through the aging Benson, remembering the days when they were younger and listened to his hits on record or radio.

At around 9:30, you guys came on, and the crowd was emotionless and half-empty. Apparently, many people came to simply see Benson and then left.

You deserve much better. Your performance was one of the greatest live performances I have ever seen. The music, the dancing, the personality--you guys are the real deal.

This coming fall, when I have to vote for a Spring Concert performer here at Amherst, you're definitely going to be my write-in candidate.

Now, finally, I know what hip is. You group is the definition of hip.

Thanks,

JT

For anyone unfamiliar with Tower of Power!, here is a clip of them playing their hit "What is Hip?" at the 2006 Montreal Jazz Festival with Carlos Santana. Their performance last night was very similar, minus Santana and the full crowd.

The Not So Random You-Tube Video of the Week

Once Miller returns to this blog, assuming he does, you'll probably learn from him that he is a big fan of classical music. Also, he is not a big fan of rap.

Thus, before he gets home from his paleontology dig, I thought it would be appropriate to post a Youtube of Kanye West's new single "Stronger" (there is no music video).

This song has special significant to this blog. Every night, for at least the past week, I have listened to this song before beginning my blog posts. I prance around me room, waving my hands, and pretending to know the words. It is a lot of fun and gets my focused for the important task ahead of me.