About the Composer

Composer John Corigliano has just launched a strikingly beautiful new web site. Check it out of course for it’s complete information on performances and recordings, etc., but stick around for the pictures from his amazing art collection.

I’m thrilled to have just stumbled across this picture montage and interview excerpt of my former S.F. Conservatory composition teacher Conrad Susa discussing his beautiful orchestral work The Blue Hour. It was prepared by music journalist and long-time Conservatory faculty member Scott Foglesong for this article about a concert of music by Conrad and another beloved former teacher Elinor Armer that took place last year.

I’m particulary fond of this passage in Scott’s article:

Conrad Susa’s music is of a fashion some writers may call accessible, a reprehensible term deserving a lifetime Sour Grapes Award on behalf of twitchy academic composers everywhere. Forget the term, and forget everything some well-intentioned sap has told you about contemporary music.

One is not required to understand the music, or appreciate it. It’s perfectly OK simply to enjoy it, let it be what it is and refrain from labels, -isms, -ibles, cubbyholes and pigeonholes. Susa offers the notion of “a transfiguration of an ordinary moment. And it puts a halo around a time of day and makes it blessed, something is conferred on it, or it confers something.”

American Standard was premiered in Shrewsbury, England in 1993, but the U.S. premiere was given the following year as part of the New Music Delaware Festival at the University of Delaware.

Last week pianist Julie Nishimura, who participated in that 1994 performance, gave me the honor of including the piece in a concert celebrating her 20 years as faculty accompanist at the university.  This time she was joined by the wonderful clarinetist Marianne Gythfeldt, also of the U. Delaware music faculty.

Here’s a high-definition video of the performance.

American Standard is included on the British label Clarinet Classics’ CD Time Pieces – 60 Years of American Music for Clarinet and Piano

I’ve posted the recording of last week’s premiere of my new string quartet piece City Walks.  Please visit this page to hear excerpts or the entire piece.

The following is a program note for my new string quartet work City Walks, which receives its premiere this weekend in Berkeley, California.

I began composing City Walks at the end of 2008 after finding a few pages of music for string quartet deep in the caverns of my computer’s file system.  I had absolutely no recollection of composing this, and if it weren’t for the date stamp on the computer file, I would have no idea when it was from.  (It was 2004.)  I was also so surprised by how well written it was that I doubted at first that it was my own work!  So using this music, which ultimately became the second theme, marked “Andante Affabile” in the score, I set out to come up with a set of ideas that would contrast and complement this.

At a certain point in the composing process, it began to occur to me that, although this is a one-movement piece, it keeps moving and picking up new material as if it were in several movements, yet it still carries elements of what’s been heard earlier as it progresses.  A contemplative, almost cantorial cello solo at the beginning gives way to a lyrical, sauntering theme.  A tender little melody crosses the threshold into melodrama.  A macabre dance unfolds into a facetious extended coda.

The title “City Walks” came about because the form of the piece started to remind me of a linear walk through some city, where the environment changes as you move through various neighborhoods, yet you somehow know you’re still in the same place. The street signs are all brown, say, and there’s a lovely Craftsman typeface on all the public buildings, yet each neighborhood has its own distinct feel.

My new piece, City Walks for string quartet, will be premiered by the Eidolon Quartet next month in Berkeley, California.  If you’re in the Bay Area, please come and check it out!  The concert also features new works by my very talented colleagues Alexis Alrich, Clark Suprynowicz and Clare Twohy.

The concert is on Saturday, May 9th at 8:00pm in the Dalby Room at the Crowden Music Center, 1475 Rose Street, Berkeley, Ca.

More details are posted on San Francisco Classical Voice.

Against my better judgment, I’m jumping into the fray regarding methods used in the teaching of sight singing. Normally I try to stay away from such conflicts, but I can only take so much disparagement of my beloved Movable Do system.  The last straw is the discovery of this web site, which contains misleading information designed to promote the sale of a book.

(Warning: This post is intended for musicianship and theory nerds. If you are not in that category, your eyes will glaze over shortly.)

What are we arguing about?

The age-old argument is this: Do we teach students to sight sing using an absolute system (Fixed Do) or a relative one (Movable Do)?

Using the Fixed Do system, the syllable do corresponds directly to the note name “C”, such that Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti(Si)-Do is a C major scale. Re is D, So is G, etc. Teachers who use this system value pitch memory as a way of learning how to read.  Over time the student should learn from this what each note feels like and sounds like.

The Movable Do system emphasizes each note’s function in the given key. Do is always scale degree 1. So is always scale degree 5, etc., no matter what the key. Here what’s important is knowing what each note’s role is in whatever key you’re in. People with perfect pitch have a hard time with this.

I won’t be coy about my own preference. In a classroom musicianship setting, the movable Movable Do system has the most pedagogical value. We have an excellent fixed system in the English language for expressing absolute pitches. It’s called “letter names”. The Fixed Do system is nothing other than what’s used in certain European countries as an equivalent to our letter names. Over time, using it may teach students by rote how to sing the notes, but it will not teach them intervals. It will not teach them anything about harmony or functionality, to say nothing of voice leading. There are times where musicianship and theory students need to be able to sing and identify specific notes, and in those cases our English-language letter names are at their disposal.

What about scale degree numbers?

Good question. Yes, scale degree numbers accomplish the teaching of intervals and functionality very well. Thumbs up on numbers. Up to a point. What happens when you’re working in a minor key? What happens when it goes chromatic?  Sing me a German augmented 6th chord, please, using numbers.  You can sing “6-1-2-4″, but that comes nowhere near expressing what’s happening in this chord.  At best you can sing “lowered 6 - 1 - raised 2 - raised 4″, but that is unreasonably clumsy.

What’s so great about Movable Do?

The value of the Movable Do system over Fixed Do and scale degree numbers is consistency. In Movable, the interval between do and mi is always a major third no matter what. The student can count on those syllables to mean only one thing. In Fixed, if we’re in C minor, then the interval between do and mi is a minor third.  The aural connection between those syllables and their interval is broken.  Again, the syllables here serve no purpose beyond that of our usual letter names. In Numbers we have the same problem. Depending whether you’re in a minor key or a major key, the meaning of “1-3″ can vary, so they run out of steam pretty early on in the training process.

It becomes clearer when you start talking about minor keys and chromatics.  There are diverging approaches regarding Movable Do and minor, but my particular flavor is the one that uses the syllable “la” as the first scale degree in minor keys.  So, that’s la-ti-do-re-mi-fa-so-la (natural minor).  I’m aware that some advocate sticking with do as the first scale degree in minor, but that just defeats all of the benefits described above.  Now, if la is the tonic, then we still have that consistency: do-mi is still a major third, although now it functions somewhat differently.

In Movable Do there’s a convention for dealing with chromatics.  Let’s get back to that German augmented 6th chord, where there’s a lowered 6,  a raised 4 and a raised 2.  We can sing the 6 as “lo” instead of “la“.  We can sing the raised 4 as “fi” instead of “fa“, and we can sing the raised 2 as “ri” instead of “re“.  Chromatic chords like this are born of moving voices.  This chord is by nature part of a process of “going somewhere” within a chord progression by altering some of the scale degrees.  Altering the syllables accordingly helps students absorb that.  It engenders a sense of voice leading, which makes it easier to hear and sing the odd intervals, such as the augmented 6th from the “lo” up to the “fi“, that come about as a result.

What could anyone possibly have against Movable Do?

That’s always been a mystery to me.  This post began as a response to the site referred to above, run by a  choral conductor who wants his chorus to learn their music more easily, (and who wants to promote the sale of his book), where I read some incoherent assertions regarding the disadvantages of Movable Do, to wit:

1. Does not develop a sense of relative pitch. “Do” is always changing as the key signature changes.
2. Accidentals (sharp, flats or naturals) must still be accommodated by “change.”
3. Modulations to new keys are not easily performed.
4. Harmonic and melodic minor scales as well as modes must also be accommodated by a “change.”

Regarding #1, well, yes “Do” is always changing, sometimes even when the key signature does not; that’s the point.  But a sense of relative pitch is exactly what it does develop.  Students learn to negotiate a descending tritone in context. Fa-ti.  Always a tritone.  They learn that the descending 4th, la-mi in context sounds and feels completely different than the descending 4th that is is do-so.  Or that tricky augmented 6th described in the German augmented 6th example above, lo-fi.

#2 and #4 don’t make any sense to me at all, so I’ll leave them un-rebutted.  They seem redundant to each other and to #1.

I think the key complaint is most clearly expressed in #3.  So, in other words: It’s harder.  The mistake being made here is to think that this would ever be a quick or easy process.  It is in fact a very slow-moving process whose purpose is to bring about deep understanding of the musical processes that drive the music we’re learning to sight read.  It is not meant to be a quick way to get your chorus to learn their material.  In fact, if the process of teaching this way takes any less than three years, you’re not doing it right.

Yes, you have to decide where the do change occurs, and there isn’t always one right answer, but with practice you become adept at analyzing music on the fly and you always know where you are within the big picture.

What about my perfect pitch?

It will help you when you’re singing letter names and hinder you when singing movable do.  I ask my students who have perfect pitch to please leave it at the door when they come in.  I’m sure it comes in handy at parties, but it certainly does not mean you don’t need ear training.  If anything it is an obstacle you need to learn how to deal with so you can learn how to focus on the tonal context of the notes you’re singing.

What about atonal music?

Fair question.  See above: “letter names”.  Actually I have no problem with Fixed do here, other than that it would be unnecessarily confusing for students who have had three years of Movable.  Once tonal sight singing is mastered, students need to learn to negotiate music one interval at a time without the tonal context, and letter names are fine for this.  I don’t buy the argument often made about “singability” of solfège syllables versus letter names.  It’s not a liederabend.  It’s musicianship class.

What have others written about this?

Reams and reams, I’m sure.  In addition to the site mentioned above there are a handful of other interesting discussions of this topic on the web.  I single out Jody Nagel’s article on this for being the most thorough (and neutral) explanation of all the methods and their advantages and disadvantages, plus his fascinating explanation of why this problem is unique to the English-speaking world.

Scott Spiegelberg’s blog Musical Perceptions has an interesting item on this topic.  An anonymous commenter offers what might be the only convincing argument for Fixed Do having to do with how a string player processes music while reading.  It is food for thought, but doesn’t quite apply to the classroom musicianship setting.

Do you disagree?

Please feel free to comment below, but please let’s all be nice.

San Francisco Opera has announced plans to commission a new work by Mark Adamo for a scheduled premiere in 2013. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, in Mark’s words, “draws on the Gnostic gospels, the canonical gospels and fifty years of new Biblical scholarship to reimagine the loves and conflicts of the New Testament through the eyes of its leading female character.”

Mark’s previous works, Little Women and Lysistrata, are both adaptations of existing works. I’m looking forward to seeing what he comes up with in this work, where it appears he’ll be creating something out of whole cloth, to say nothing of the ambitious and potentially controversial subject matter.

I’m already in danger of this becoming a Mark Adamo fan site, but I must congratulate my friend, and share this major announcement here. More information is buried in this press release (pdf) from San Francisco Opera, and in time, you’ll surely see more about this on Mark’s own site.

The press release also contains welcome news of commissions for Jennifer Higdon and Christopher Theofanidis, both of whom I admire greatly.

OK, this may not be on par with finding the score of an unknown Beethoven symphony sewn into the lining of an 18th-Century Tyrolian overcoat, but I think this is kind of cool.

I have on my shelf what seems to be an original copy of the first full score of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, published in 1921 by Édition Russe de Musique.  (Prior to that, only the four-hand piano version had been published.)  I found it around 1990 in a Budapest antikvárium, a used book store.

The title page of this score bears the handwritten name “Ferencsik” and the year 1929, leading me to the conclusion that in 1929 it was a possession of the great Hungarian conductor János Ferencsik, who led the Hungarian National Philharmonic from the Fifties into the Eighties.

Click the thumbnail below to see where Ferencsik wrote his name on the cover page.

Not only that, there’s an indication that markings in red were supplied by Stravinsky himself.  In the image below, you can see where Ferencsik (presumably) wrote “Piros: Straw.”, indicating that the red markings were from Stravinsky. (”Piros” = “Red” in Hungarian)

I’m no expert on the various revisions of The Rite of Spring, nor do I have handy a copy of a more recent printing, so I have no idea if there’s any great significance to these markings. I’m assuming not, but here are a few examples:

Dynamics in the strings at rehearsal 32

Apparently rethinking the time signature notation at rehearsal 39

Rebeaming the trombones accordingly, also at rehearsal 39

My first (and only) composition teacher at the University of the Arts, where I received my bachelor’s degree in the ’80s, was Joseph Castaldo, whose music is shockingly unknown today.   If you do a Google search on “Joseph Castaldo composer“, you’ll find an inexplicable number of resulting pages having to do with his birthday (today!), but very little about his music other than a couple of obscure recordings and references by former students such as myself.

Castaldo was an important figure in Philadelphia musical life in the ’60s and ’70s, having served as the head of the Philadelphia Musical Academy and guided that institution’s evolution into what is now the University of the Arts.  I am one of countless composers and musicians who studied with him over the years, most notably Stephen Albert, however his own music is not remembered or recognized as I think it ought to be.

As his student I had the opportunity to get to know several of his works.  At that time he was deeply preoccupied with octatonic scales (simply alternating whole steps and half steps), and had found many inventive ways of using them, ranging from aggressive, chaotic sounds to achingly lyrical melodies.  In lyrical passages, melodies seem to be through-composed and have an almost cantorial or improvised quality with impeccable timing.  Aggressive passages are often built on little three-note ostinati suggested by the octatonic scale.

My favorite work of his is String Quartet 1978, and I’m lucky to still have a recording of it.  At the risk of being accused of gimmickry, this score calls for the string players to double their parts with their own voices, at times screaming and shouting as well, resulting in a haunting and sometimes unsettling experience.  The final moments consist of an exciting extended coda that makes full used of the instruments’ capabilities.

Here are a few excerpts.  Unfortunately I have no idea what quartet is playing here, or when or where this concert took place.

String Quartet 1978
Joseph Castaldo

1. This is the opening of the piece, where the players shout, imitating the percussive parts they’re playing
   
2. A beautiful lyrical section
   
3. Castaldo’s chaotic side.
   
4. Another lyrical section that further explores the idea of the players singing their parts.  Haunting stuff.
   
5. This long excerpt is the coda described above.  It is thoroughly worth the three minutes or so!
   

Joseph Castaldo passed away in 2000.   On what would be his 81st birthday, I hope that the work of this extraordinary 20th-Century composer will be discovered and revived soon.