Third Person

Jeremy Bass, myself and Matt Kline performing Third Person by Celeste Oram

Jeremy Bass, myself and Matt Kline performing Third Person by Celeste Oram

It has now been a month since the SoundSCAPE Festival 2014, but I have been mulling over this post for a while and am keen to put it up. The whole festival experience was great: I came across several really stunning pieces and performances, and had the opportunity to work with many truly wonderful artists. However, among all this one piece really stood out for me, both in the rehearsal process and final performance.

The work was Third Person by New Zealand composer Celeste Oram, and for me was one of those rare pieces that pushes one’s musical boundaries in a really substantial way. I received the work via email to find that it was not a written ‘score’ in the conventional sense but rather an 8-min long video and a page of instructions. For flute, guitar and double bass, the video was arranged as three panels on the screen, with one panel my part of the score to read. My fellow performers were guitarist Jeremy Bass and double bassist Matt Kline.

On the outset the instructions were simple: copy the physical actions depicted on the screen as closely as possible, creating sounds which then accompany the video performance. In particular, it was noted that “the performers’ priority should always be to embody the quality of the onscreen figures’ movement: never to imitate its anticipated resultant sound, or to painstakingly decipher the pitch material being played.” We were encouraged to “consider how these mirrored movements can offer interested and varied sonic results”, to “err both on the side of playing instruments unconventionally and flamboyantly – engaging the whole body – and on the side of producing sounds which seem unexpectedly at odds with the visual image.” My part differed a little from that of the guitar and double bass in that it was for the most part videos of people playing flute. There were a couple of shots of hands, either tapping or typing, but mostly I was faced with flute players doing more-or-less fluty things. The guitar/bass combo, by contrast, got to mimic saws, razors, guns and archery, not to mention more varied forms of their own instrument (think bowed electric guitars and small children playing violins like cellos).

Before arriving at SoundSCAPE, I practised the piece to some extent, trying to ‘learn’ the score a little and play with some of the sounds I could produce. However, on arriving at the festival, I realised that it was much more difficult to realise Celeste’s vision than I had originally thought. Our first rehearsal felt good at the time, but was not tight, more improvised than the intended ‘reading’ of the score. Furthermore, I always started from the flute sounds and when in doubt, erred on the side of the conventional. As flautists, we learn not to breathe loudly, and so I didn’t. We spend hours and hours learning to produce a beautiful, pure sound, so that’s what I initially tried to do. Yet Celeste’s concept for the piece was very different, and through the course of our rehearsals she pushed us to look more and more closely at the fine details of her meticulously-produced score.

Over the course of our rehearsals, the fascination became the details. Far from wanting me to breathe like a nice classically-trained flautist, Celeste had deliberately chosen videos with unusual or just downright bizarre breathing. Then she put those segments on loop! One particular snippet – of a woman breathing in with a very open mouth – was looped so that I was mimicking about fifteen quick in-breaths in rapid succession with no flute sound and no chance to breathe out. Finally, when I arrive at a gasping pant that sounded like I know not what and left me feeling rather dizzy, was I pronounced to be “on the right track”. Celeste also pushed me to look for when the performer closed their eyes, at their body posture and the angle of their flute. If anything, she wanted airy, bizarre sounds, especially if it could be a reflection of their embouchure.

This sort of piece relies so much on the collaborative energy of the composer and performers, and it is because of this that it will stick so clearly in my mind. Jeremy and Matt were always prepared to make new sounds and push the boundaries musically. Nothing was ever beneath them, and indeed there were several moments where everyone in the room could only nod in the agreement that “that was cool”. Celeste asked that we be creative and daring, and I feel that the cumulative energy of this in our rehearsals turned a cool idea into a really fascinating performance. Her music, as well as her compositional attitude, demanded nothing short of 100%, and 300% was getting near optimal. Increasingly, I left our rehearsals exhausted, and after the performance was utterly so.

(I must also at this point confess to having spat a bit into the first few, thankfully empty, rows of the auditorium due to the violence with which I ultimately attempted to imitate one of the flautists.)

In our early rehearsals, I thought (rather self-importantly maybe?) that the ‘third person’ of the work’s title was the flautist, who seems to be ganged-up on by the other two and eventually shot down by them. Celeste never got round to sharing that particular piece of inspiration. In retrospect, I wonder whether the ‘third person’ applied to each performer individually in their own way. There’s a first person in the self as is, and a second in the self as a performer. Finally, there is a third person, one that appears only occasionally when we take a leap of musical and artistic faith.

Watch a video of our performance here

Some thoughts on New Music

Going to a festival such as SoundSCAPE leaves me pondering the question of what exactly draws me to new music. In some ways it shouldn’t be a question, but it is. I’ve spent two weeks with a group of highly creative, incredibly engaged composers, performers and teachers. The feeling of being with such like minds is nothing short of electrifying – playing, talking and striving for something new. Yet one of the reasons it is wonderful is that so many don’t seem to get my enthusiasm for classical music, let alone the more contemporary variety. New music is like all other contemporary art in that it is constantly being created, and each work should be considered individually before possibly being written off. Yet more so than with any other art form, audiences just fail to give it a go, to even acknowledge its existence. Worse still, some performers act the same way.

Part of the reason for this, I think, is that music stands somewhat apart form other creative art forms. Firstly, it is a performance art; it must be experienced in real time to make sense, and so there is no time outside of or parallel to the experience to consider it and then return. Very few have the opportunity to hear a work and then return to it the next day, or even after interval, as one could wander round a gallery and then return to consider a particularly striking piece of art. If the music is striking or confronting, it remains so in the ears and aural memory of the listener.

I have been to only one concert where this problem was addressed directly, with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2009. Alas, I can no longer remember either the conductor or the name of the large-scale orchestral work that was performed once before and then again directly after the interval. My clearest memory of the work, in fact, is that it made striking use of a wind machine! Poor memory aside, on one level the idea works quite well. The intelligent listener might spend the interval reflecting, discussing, consulting the program for further listening clues to deepen their understanding. On another level, though, there is a saturation of the same thing, and I can see that this tactic could have serious drawbacks with a conservative audience. I’m sure that even in the relatively open-minded concert-going scene of Helsinki, some decided at interval that once was enough. While I remember the concert for its unusual programming, the piece itself has clearly not stuck in my mind particularly well.

There are other self-directed solutions in the same vein. Those that really want to engage with music in the concert hall might listen to a piece before actually attending the concert, in effect doing a bit of aural acclimatisation before the fact. But this requires access to and knowledge of resources, and with newer works might just be downright impossible. Similarly, attending pre-concert talks and reading up on a composer and their style can be a great way into the music, for those that take the time. It is these people, though, that are already on the right track.

The second problem with new music is that the reaction to it is primarily an auditory one. A perception of consonance, dissonance and musical aesthetic is socially engrained in us since childhood, meaning that reactions to highly dissonant or harsh sounds can be almost involuntary. Certain, consonant intervals have more please and comprehensible ratios of vibration than dissonant ones, hence the consonance. While Baroque, Classical and Romantic music increasingly used these dissonant intervals, it was almost always in order to heighten a confirmation of the consonance, an arrival at the point of conclusion or calm. Some new music (and note I say some), screws with this more natural trajectory. Some other new music screws with our sense of comfort about rhythm, timbre, time, or what we actually consider music to be. Some just sounds like Gregorian Chant, or pop music, or jazz. The first mistake, it seems is that new music is compartmentalised into being just one thing, rather than a reflection on and evolution of everything that has come before.

Unfortunately, when audiences (particularly those in Australia, it seems) think of ‘new’ or ‘contemporary’ music, it is of some distortion that makes them feel uncomfortable, tense, bored, or a combination of all of them. Some new music is like that, but much is not, and it is because of this variety that it becomes increasingly hard to guess the date of composition for new works. So, for the most part, audiences come with ears closed to the possibilities of new music, which is a pity. It then takes something really remarkable to open their ears, hopefully that the music speaks to them through any pre-conceived opinions or innate bias. Even a moment of aesthetic recognition might prompt them to look or listen further, to seek out more, or even to go to the concert with ears a little more open than before.

Sometimes, this prompt comes from something external to the music, a well-written programme note, a well-phrased introductory remark, a familiar face on stage, a marrying of the aural with some visual or other sensory experience. As a performer of new music, one of the most wonderful compliments I receive is that I have somehow managed to draw a listener into the music through my commitment to a performance. Much more frequently, I am blown away by performers that are utterly engaged on every level with the music they make whether I know they absolutely love it or not. It’s no longer about them, but about their ability to be a conduit for the music they’re making.

But see in this last paragraph how the focus has shifted. Stunning performances are utterly wonderful, and as performers this is always what we strive for. The fact remains, however, that for so many in modern audiences, the onus is not on the performer to merely heighten the musical experience, but to convince a listener of its worth in the first place. If audiences come with ears closed, and fail to have them blown open by an exceptional performance coupled with good programme notes, and insightful pre-concert talk and complementary visuals, is it the performer’s error for not trying hard enough, or the audience’s for not trying at all?

In writing this, I don’t know of a clear solution, though promoting open-minded thinking through early education is certainly a good start! In the meantime, maybe a step towards the personal musical experience might clarify my point a little more.

So far, I have not mentioned the part of composers in this equation, nor done more than touch on my own experience as a performer of new music. To set the record straight, I play new music, and I love it. Solo, chamber (particularly chamber), orchestral, give me excess of it for there isn’t time in one life to sample it all. This is not, I hasten to add, at the expense of other music at all. Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Verdi, Fauré, Shostakovich… the list goes on and on. Give me all of it and I am happy, happy and musically fulfilled. Yet two things draw me to new music that I feel, are of particular importance to me and the way I operate as a musician.

The first, and most wonderful, is the joy of working with composers alongside my fellow performers. There is an incredible buzz to playing something that is totally new, to working with it and its creator to realise their artistic vision. I love talking about musical and aesthetic ideas, and trying to carry those ideas through into my playing. I crave the burst of energy that comes with feeling that I’ve got some or all of that idea, and I love the smiles of my fellow artists that tells me they thought we did too. Sometimes audience feedback is also important for me in this situation, but often it is not. More often, it is intrinsically linked – if the composer and performers feel like something went well, chances are the audience got a lot out of it too.

The second is the notion of a challenge, of being asked to confront the difficult, the abstract and the unusual in order to create something really stunning and unique. This challenge is to some degree present in all music, and is one of the reasons I keep choosing to pursue it. However, I feel it most keenly when there is little or no tradition between me and the score. When approaching Mozart or Bach, I can go and read up on how to perform a work, on how to execute the articulation, the dynamics, the rhythm, the style. Often there are multiple different options. I’m not denying that such resources are stimulating and useful, pushing me to play good music and question my own interpretations. Yet when they’re not there, when I’m confronted with a score alone, it gives me a real tingling of discovery and excitement. These are the pieces on which I need to meditate, letting them gestate and breathe. I need to live, eat and sleep them, mulling over and over in order to work out both what they mean to me and why I need to give them to an audience.

When I say I’m into new music, I have often received responses along the lines of: “All new music? But such and such is really awful,” or “Well I can’t stand anything minimalist!” So again let me clarify: I don’t automatically like every piece of new music, just as I don’t automatically like every piece of Baroque, Classical or Romantic music that comes my way. Rather, I enjoy engaging with new music both as a listener and a performer – giving every piece and every composer a go so that I can find the gems among them. After all, the reason we have such a wonderful canon of classical music today is that composers in past years were given the benefit of the doubt and found to be wonderful.

Our task today is the same: to listen and make up our own minds. Some of it will be crap, and some more will be ok but nothing stunning. This isn’t just part of modern listening, it was always there – it’s just that that music and those composers have fallen by the wayside. As performers and listeners, we need to me prepared for the reality that not every piece will be wonderful or a revelation, and to be honest if that is the case. But still we must learn to come to this music in the first place with ears and minds open, expecting something wonderful (wonderfully beautiful, wonderfully striking or wonderfully unusual as the case may be) so that the truly worthy work of composers today is recognised and celebrated.

At SoundSCAPE, I heard maybe four works (works mind you, there were many more performances) that utterly blew me away. They made me want to jump up and down in my seat, or cry, or simply sit, replaying the music in my head for the next hour. For a two-week festival, I recon four mind-blowing works is pretty good. Too many more, I think, and I’d wonder whether I was searching too hard. So much of what I heard and played at the festival will stay with me for a long time, and these works in particular. Most importantly, it invigorates me to seek out still more wonderful musical experiences, always searching for the sublime.

SoundSCAPE Concert 3: Sudbury Guitar Trio

9pm, Sunday July 7th, Church of San Materno, Maccagno, Italy

Though almost flawless on both a technical and ensemble level, this concert of works for guitar trio failed for the most part to excite me. I’m not sure whether it’s because of the available contemporary repertoire for this ensemble, or rather because of the group’s personal musical preferences, but all the works in the first half sounded rather similar! At no clear point was there any texture other than three guitars playing together, which created a wash of colour where I was keen for a little more definition. Very few of the instrument’s extended techniques were properly explored, and though the musical language was undoubtedly contemporary, there seemed to be nothing about any one work or movement that made it stand out from the others.

Thank goodness, then, for the three SoundSCAPE commissions which concluded the concert! Each of the three composers had contemplated the capabilities of the ensemble, coming to a range of conclusions as to how to make it sparkle. It was here, I felt, that the ensemble was used to its greatest effect, with challenging use of extended techniques in Mutations by Devon Yasamune Toyotomi. However, the stand-out work of the concert was lace/leaf by Lydia Brindamour, using delicate, spacious gestures to great effect. After the deluge of notes and textural wash present in so many of the other works, this care for time and the minute came as a welcome, meditative repose.

SoundSCAPE Concert 2: Resound Duo

New music, soprano and percussion seem made to go together, and the Resound Duo of Jennifer and Tyson Voigt certainly didn’t disappoint. Then again, they are married!

The relatively short program featured two duos: selections from Alan Smith’s Songs of Wandering and Matthew Shaver’s Songs of Liberation, as well as a performance of the Berio Sequenza III (soprano) and Le Corps a Corps (percussion) by Georges Aperghis. It was a stunning selection, opened with Jennifer Voigt’s captivating rendition of the Sequenza. Bubbling and murmuring, Jennifer’s mark was made by her expressive eyes and thorough commitment to the musical line.

Le Corps a Corps, placed third on the program, was at once intriguing and utterly captivating. The piece calls for a combination of zarb (a small hand-held African drum) and voice to produce highly syntactical percussive lines that finally break into speech (in French) at the work’s climax. As with both the duo works, it was performed from memory, and Tyson Voigt’s engagement with the music and his audience was absolute.

The wonderful thing about this duo was their sense of dramatic persona. Complete musical understanding as much as their performance from memory let nothing get in the way of their communication of ideas to the audience. Both the Smith and the Shaver were executed with complete focus and admirable musical intent. Without the constraints of a score, Jennifer was free to walk around the stage, using this to great dramatic advantage in the narrative arc of Songs of Liberation in particular. Thought the concert was long enough to showcase the duo’s diverse colour palette and incredible energy, I could easily have listened to more!

SoundSCAPE Concert 1: A Liturgy of Hours

9pm, Friday July 5th, Church of San Materno, Maccagno, Italy

An intriguing start to the SoundSCAPE festival concert series, flautist Lisa Cella presented a single, hour-long solo work, A Liturgy of Hours by American composer Stuart Saunders Smith. It was both curious to hear this work and dubious that it could hold my attention for an entire hour, and found myself surprised. Not only was my attention firmly held, the piece is stunning both on form and content, reducing the hour of performance into what felt like twenty minutes at the most.

Though the transparent opening is not the most promising moment, the piece unfolds into a meditative arc, juxtaposing occasional flurries with generally spacious writing. Towards the half-hour mark, the flautist begins also to sing, an effect that carried beautifully in the resonant church space. Cella’s mastery of this was absolute, allowing the audience to relax into the wash of sound created.

The work concludes with a short recitation:

My life, a mere breath
The first, is breath.
The last is breath.
In between we continue, breath in our moments, in this our moment
While darkness is my companion, I woke the earth of the heart.

This final utterance asked more questions than it answered, forcing us to examine the interplay of simplicity and complexity in the work, as well as our own understanding of exactly what it was all supposed to mean. A stunning piece, and a genuinely sparkling performance!