Contemporary Notation Project: Richard Glover

These are the first three systems of Logical Harmonies (1) (2011) by Richard Glover. From the preface to the score:

“Letters represent major triads, which may be played in any inversion. RH is top line, LH is bottom line.
Aim to keep chords within a two octave range centred around middle C, although don’t let your hands cross.
Choose inversions close to each other.
Maintain a comfortable, steady pulse (no slower than 30 chords per minute) throughout the entire piece, including system changes.
Moderate dynamic, sensitive (and wholly consistent) pedalling.”

The first things that strike you – and I think are the fundamentals of the piece – are the systematic process (two series of chords that slip out of phase with one another, one step per system); the pseudo-tonal basis in triadic harmonies (using letter names, no less!) and a cycle of fifths; and the neutral, grid-like layout.

But at the heart of this piece I believe is a tension between an almost banal idea (and notation) and a surprising wealth of allusion and historical context.

The piece’s conception – systematically devised chords arranged ostensibly in regular rhythms – resembles Tom Johnson’s Chord Catalogue. However, the respective mechanisms of the two pieces are quite different, giving rise to considerable differences in voice-leading, texture, form … And those too shape the rhythmic impression of the piece, through unpredictable suspensions, repetitions and so on. In both pieces this is all possibly accidental, but emerges as definitive, an interesting by-product of our inevitably historicised listening.

(Performance by Sebastian Berweck.)

The use of a standard font (Helvetica, I think), without even the introduction of special characters for flat signs, gives the score a utilitarian, didactic feel whose roots lie in Cardew’s Schooltime Special, or some of the text pieces of the English 70s (I’m thinking of Bryars and others here). There’s a humility to it, I feel.

Michael Pisaro, in The Ashgate Research Companion to Experimental Music, has spoken of the function of the grid in experimental music (eg. Cage, Feldman, Ablinger and Pisaro himself). Of early Feldman he writes:

“The visceral impact of a good performance of these pieces (by, for example, John Tilbury) is related to the directness of the score: one can in a very direct way play the surface features of pulse and density, without the unnecessary mediation of the staff and time signature.”

The overall effect of Glover’s piece, however, belies the rigid austerity of its score. Instead of gridded formality, Logical Harmonies sounds an amorphous, pantonal slither, always threatening familiarity, but never quite delivering it. There’s that tension between an almost pedagogical notation and a depth of allusion and expression.

“The covered market of Les Halles, by universal consent, constitutes the most irreproachable construction of the past dozen years … It manifests one of those logical harmonies which satisfy the mind by the obviousness of its signification.” Victor Fournel, Paris nouveau et Paris futur, p.213, quoted in Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, p.194.

As it happens, Philip Thomas will be performing Logical Harmonies (1) at St Paul’s Hall, Huddersfield, this Thursday. Concert starts at 7.30pm, and also features works by Christopher Fox, Marc Sabat, eldritch Priest, Martin Arnold, Linda C. Smith and Bryn Harrison. A portrait disc of Glover’s music, featuring Logical Harmonies, is due to be released on another timbre in summer. Glover has spoken a little about his music, and this piece in particular, in two posts on Lauren Redhead’s blog: 1, 2.

Find previous entries in this series under the Contemporary Notation Project tag, or via the Secret Music page.

Secret Music: February

(Click for the background to the Secret Music listings.)

Monday 4 February: Kings Place, Jennifer Walshe: ALL THE MANY PEOPLS, 8pm | £9.50 online/£12.50 on the door

Award-winning Irish composer and performer Jennifer Walshe performs her own work in an evening of experimental composition and film. This evening centres around her maverick composition ALL THE MANY PEOPLS, which features text sourced from Amazon.com message boards about vampire physiology, conspiracy theorist Francis E. Dec, the Courage Wolf meme, 4Chan and Google Autocomplete. These voices are coupled with recordings of satellites, sferics and other interstellar sonic phenomena; sounds taken from mobile phone videos made by U.S. and British soldiers blowing things up on YouTube; detritus from video game voice-overs and field recordings made in Ireland and New York.

Friday 8 February: University of Huddersfield, ELISION, 7.30pm | £7.50/£5/free for students

New works by Alex Jang, Pedro Alvarez, Matthew Sergeant and Luke Paulding, plus Codex IV by Richard Barrett. More coverage of this show to come.

Friday 15 February: Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Alexander Gibson Opera Studio, Richard Craig solo recital, 5.30pm | £6

Works for solo flute by Brice Pauset, John Croft, Brian Ferneyhough and
Salvatore Sciarrino, plus new works by student composers.

Tuesday 19 February: The Forge, Camden, Philip Thomas solo piano, 7pm | £11/£9 online, £12/£10 on the door

A programme of newly commissioned works by British composers Christopher Fox and Bryn Harrison, and Canadian composers Martin Arnold and Cassandra Miller.

Saturday 23rd February: Selfridges [sic], John Cage Orchestra, 1pm, 3pm, 5pm | free

As part of their ‘no noise’ theme (‘In an initiative that goes beyond retail, we invite you to celebrate the power of quiet, see the beauty in function and find calm among the crowds’) Selfridges are hosting three performances of Cage’s 4’33″ in the atrium on level 3. Other events include Sunday afternoon talks from the Idler magazine through January and February. I’m taken by ‘Low effort parenting’ on 24 February.

Monday 25 February: University of East Anglia, Strode Concert Room: Richard Craig and Jonathan Impett play works for bass and contra-bass flutes, metatrumpet, percussion and electronics, evening (time tbc – check for details) | £7/£5.50/£4

Includes works by John Croft, Diana Salazar, Alvin Lucier, Luigi Nono and new works for metatrumpet.

Wednesday 27 February: Glasgow City Halls, Edit Point and Glynn Forrest, 7.30pm | £6

Works for percussion and electronics by Javier Álvarez, Dave Maric, Felipe Otondo, Francesca de Lohe and Matthew Whiteside.

Also Wednesday 27 February: Phipps Hall, University of Huddersfield, Kate Ledger, 8pm | Free

First performance of the full 60-ish minute version of Ben Isaacs‘ solo piano piece too expanding. This has been performed in a highly truncated version before, but this is the first outing of the full version.

Thursday 28 February: Cafe Oto, Phill Niblock at 80, 8pm | £10 adv, £12 on the door

In 2013 minimalist composer Phill Niblock celebrates his 80th year with a massive retrospective at the Lausanne Contemporary Art Centre and a few select dates across Europe with saxophonist and electronic musician Thomas Ankersmit. They include this concert at Cafe OTO, where the pair will present a selection of new works.

Beyond Asia

Last week I rather took Daniel Asia to task for his Huffington Post article on John Cage. I’m returning to the subject today because I’m interested in moving this debate beyond just Asia, or even Cage.

As Lauren Redhead noted at the time, Asia’s article is merely symptomatic of how much writing on contemporary music is lazy. (Although, admittedly, snarky line-by-line put-downs like mine are hardly the epitome of industrious journalism.)

Much of the feedback to my post so far has been positive, for which I am very grateful. Where there were disagreements, however, I was sad to see that they often quickly distilled into a perception of “this camp” vs “that camp” – that Asia belonged to the Cage-haters, and that those, like me, who disagreed with him, belonged to the equally blinkered Cage lovers.

Well, yes, I do love Cage. (You may have noticed.) But a difference of taste isn’t my argument with Asia, or with the many other examples of lazy writing and thinking that his post represents in this context. Listen to what you like: I don’t care. My problem is with a sloppy, hand-me-down ideology of what 20th-century and contemporary music was/is, and its deployment in discourses such as this. These discourses are not harmless, and they play a role in musicians’ access to a dwindling number of available funding streams (and therefore their livings). That sort of thing needs to be treated responsibly.

If there is enough unchallenged drip-drip-drip of a certain discourse’s values, audiences will begin to accept as fact that some composers – Cage, Stockhausen, Carter – were simply wrong-headed. Foolish. Unmusical. That the effort required to listen to challenging music like theirs simply isn’t worth it. Lots of smart people have told me it’s a waste of time. Why even try?

And that’s when you lose an audience. (It’s just a hunch, but I wonder if the average audience member isn’t actually less inclined towards the postwar musical avant garde than those who were hearing it for the first time 60 years ago. Something like a “Washington consensus” is crystallising around our narrative of postwar art music, and like its neo-liberal cousin in economics, it points to what Joshua Clover, after Fukiyama, calls an “end of historical thought … [an abandonment of] a conception of ongoing historical processes, of alternative arrangements of daily life”.)

And the thing is, there are plenty of intelligent ways to critique Cage’s music and ideas, even if one is sceptical about its basic premises. His exploitation of Zen, and the kind of orientalist mysticism he fostered around his music, is problematic, for example. So is his relationship to authorship and ownership. The same extends to any discussion of the post-war avant garde: the conversation gets much more interesting (and more inviting) if it takes place at the level of the music itself, and not at that of loggerheaded ideologies.

Stuff like this should be the responsibility of those who are placed in the role of expert commentator, like Asia was in this instance. As Richard Kessler remarked in a comment to the original HuffPost article:

one might expect a composer to be a bit more open minded, and to have spent a bit of time explaining why Cage’s music is different and the role boredom plays within the framework Cage had invented.

Indeed, that’s exactly what any reader might reasonably expect from such a byline. (Any student too, one should add.) The absence of such engagement from an article like this doesn’t only reflect a paucity of intelligent debate within contemporary music, it enacts it for others outside to see.

It’s 2013. Let’s try to be a bit better at this.

Photo by winkyintheuk.

In which I take Daniel Asia’s bait

I probably shouldn’t have, but I’ve allowed myself to get a bit cross about Daniel Asia’s frankly embarrassing article on John Cage in the Huffington Post.

Yes, as one commentor points out, Asia, and anyone else, is free to dislike whatever they want, and to do so as stupidly as they like. However, when that person is writing for (and being paid by?) a very prominent news source, they are responsible to the facts. The editors of that news source should also pay a little more attention.

First up: John Cage was born in 1912; the Rite of Spring was premiered on 29 May 1913. So even allowing that this article was written and published around the cusp of the New Year, we can only be celebrating one centenary or the other. Not both.

That’s just the first sentence. So much of the remainder is unsupported assertion, even accounting for differences in taste.

Stravinsky and Schoenberg are certainly the two most important composers of the 20th century

Says who? By what criteria?

Music appeals to the mind, emotions, and body.

Perhaps. But does all of it do all three, all of the time? Is it necessary for it to do so to qualify as music? Define “appealing to the mind/emotions/body”.

The greatest music thus in some way taps into the listener’s life experience, which is of course a journey over time, from birth to death. It is no surprise that music, and the tonal enterprise broadly interpreted, manifests a similar arc.

NB: Listener’s life experiences differ. The “tonal enterprise” is neither historically, geographically or socially universal. Actually, it’s a blip.

Quite simply, harmony, and thus counter-point, has been central to Western music for over a thousand years, and it is one of the glories of Western Civilization, and is a creation of that culture.

Woah, woah, and thrice woah. This is such a mess I can’t even begin …

It has allowed for some of the greatest artistic achievements of mankind.

Mankind has, however, achieved many, many other wonderful things without it. Even in music. Some of those things even happened beyond the paternal reach of Western Civilization. Golly!

His philosophical understanding that guided his first works was that music is to sooth the soul and calm the mind.

Cage was an imperfect disciple of Zen, but that’s a pretty offensive summation of Zen philosophy. (I assume you’re not talking about the serial pieces of the mid-1930s, like Composition for Three Voices, Metamorphosis, and so on, that were his actual “first works”.)

In Cage’s latter and final chance period, by the way, matters only got much, much worse in regards to all of the above.

That’s quite a generalisation of 50 years of hugely varied creative output. (Also: “final chance period”?)

“If you think something is boring, try doing it for two minutes. If you still think it’s boring, try it for four. If you still think it’s boring, try it for eight, then sixteen, then thirty-two, and so on and so forth. Soon enough you’ll find that it’s really not boring at all.” I think not, as boredom simply wears you down.

You’re right! Why even try?

And alas, life is too short to waste in boring activities.

No, it’s not. We all do boring things every day (brushing our teeth, feeding our kids, cleaning the house), and we’re OK with that. We do them because we judge the end result (good teeth, a happy family, a clean home) worth the time spent on the boring activity itself. We have an idea of sacrifice and reward, of satisfaction, gratification, achievement. We’re not 18 months old any more.

the Western tradition … its supposed patriarchal and masterwork approach

I think that supposition is fair – cf “Western Civilization,” “greatest achievements of mankind,” above.

In a few years time, Cage will be a small footnote to all of this, remembered if at all, for his self-advertising, whimsy and smile, and love of mushrooms. But for his music, not a chance.

Cage’s critics have been saying this for decades now. When does it stop being true? Please tell me.

Secret Music: January

Bored of the big branded new music institutions? Got a sense that there’s a lot of exciting music out there that doesn’t get through the official gatekeepers? Resolved to listen to more under-the-radar music in 2013?

Me too. That’s why I’m going to start posting short listings each month of out-of-the way new music that catches my eye.

This won’t be anything like a comprehensive list; it will be more like a clearing house for anything interesting looking, featuring new talent, rarely heard works, innovative programming or just stuff I think might be cool. Unlike the now-retired New Music on Shoestring listings there won’t be a price cap on inclusion for any events; although by their nature a lot of them will be terrific bargains. As usual, everything here will be UK-centric, but international contributions will be considered. Feel free to send me details of what you or your ensemble is up to, but inclusion is strictly at my discretion, and I can’t promise to reply to all emails.

Update: In the comments below, .fseventsd adds a couple more items of interest taking place in the US this month. For which I say thank you very much – people are always welcome to add stuff of their own in this way below Secret Music posts (I may start moderating things if threads get too spammy or out of control).

Monday 7 January: Cafe Oto: Hyperion Ensemble and Mats LindStröm play works by Iancu Dumitrescu, Ana-Maria Avram, 8pm | £8 in adv/£10 on the door.

Third event in an ongoing series co-curated by SUNN O)))’s Stephen O’Malley, featuring maverick electro-acoustic composer Mats Lindström and new works by Romanian spectralist composers Iancu Dumitrescu and Ana-Maria Avram performed by the Hyperion Ensemble, featuring the composers alongside Tim Hodgkinson, Chris Cutler and Stephen O’Malley.

Tuesday 8 January: Birmingham Conservatoire: Thumb: Black Bile, 7.30pm | £5.50/£3.

Works by Seán Clancy, Benjamin Graves and Andy Ingamels, plus WP of Black Bile by new composer-in-association Marc Yeats.

Wednesday 9 January: Kings Place: Birtwistles in Residence, 8pm | £14.50/£17.50/£21.50/£26.50/Online Savers £9.50

On the day painter Adam Birtwistle’s debut show opens at Kings Place Gallery, Hall One hosts a special concert featuring the music of his father, Sir Harrison Birtwistle.

The programme is based around two main works – the Orpheus Elegies for voice, oboe and harp to a text by Rilke which was first performed complete at the Lucerne Festival in 2004, and The Axe Manual for piano and percussion, described in Gramophone as ‘an exuberant, and, in its central stages, delicate essay in ‘extending’ piano sound by means of metal and wood percussion’.

Monday 14 January: Anthony Burgess Foundation: Lunchtime concert: Cassandra’s Dream Song, 1pm | Free, no need to book.

Flautist Anna Mari presents a performance of Cassandra’s Dream Song (1974) by Brian Ferneyhough, arranged and directed as a small stage performance.

Monday 14 January: Cafe Oto: The Music of Making Strange: Works by Alex Hills, 8pm | £7/£5.

Recent chamber music by composer Alex Hills, much of which is an exploration of Viktor Shklovsky’s concept of ‘Ostranenie’, or art as ‘making strange’. Performers include Lucy Railton, Aisha Orazbayeva and Serge Vuile, the French cellist Severine Ballon, pianist Roderick Chadwick and soprano Natalie Raybould.

Sunday 20 January: Cafe Oto: Outsider Music Collective, 8pm | £8 in adv/£10 on the door.

Following a critically acclaimed night at Bold Tendencies, Peckham, in summer 2012, the Outsider Music Collective come to Cafe OTO to present another programme of outsider classics from Britain and America. To include works by Conlon Nancarrow, James Tenney, Cornelius Cardew, Howard Skempton,  Michael Parsons, Moondog and new work by the collective.

Saturday 26 January: The Red Hedgehog: The Magic Bass Flute, 6.30pm | £10/£5 students from The Red Hedgehog Box Office (020 8348 5050)

Riot Ensemble perform music for bass, alto and c-flutes by Mario Garuti, Amy Beth Kirsten, Julian Anderson, Ric Graebner, George Benjamin and Terence Allbright.

Secret Music in 2013

Got a new diary from Santa? Then you might also fancy a look at this list of new music things going on over the next few month. It’s unapologetically UK biased, unapologetically in no order whatsoever and unapologetically full of gaps, but it is a start. I plan to be a bit more organised about music listings in the coming year, so if you have something going on in 2013 that you think I might be interested in, drop me a line.

The Southbank’s The Rest is Noise festival will inevitably dominate new music scheduling, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be plenty going on beneath the heavily promoted surface. Here’s a taste of some secret music.

Now in its fourth year, the Riot Ensemble, directed by Guildhall composer Aaron Holloway-Nahum, has six concerts lined up in 2013 showcasing a variety of new music by young composers and older classics.

ELISION will be playing at Huddersfield University on 8 February, in a concert of works featuring brass by Xenakis, Lim, Barrett and Cassidy, as well as an improvisation and three new student pieces. (The Rambler will be there to cover events.)

Edit Point will be performing with percussionist Glynn Forrest at Glasgow City Halls on 27 February in a programme of works for percussion and electronics.

EXAUDI‘s 2013 is taking shape, including Ferneyhough in Portugal, an IRCAM residency in June and a return to the Wigmore Hall in far-off November.

Plus-Minus perform works by composers close to the group on 18 March at Kings Place.

Loads of stuff going on at Cafe Oto, as always; among the composed music highlights are the return of the Outsider Music Collective and Phill Niblock at 80.

Distractfold Ensemble, founded by composers Mauricio Pauly and Sam Salem, have two shows coming up in the next few months: on 31 January they appear on a double bill with New York’s MIVOS quartet at the Anthony Burgess Foundation in Manchester. On 24 March they will be playing at Sonic Fusion, Salford. Keep an eye on their website for more details of both.

NewDots is an organisation that connects emerging composers and performers; their next concert features Richard Uttley (piano) and the Atéa Wind Quintet, performing new works by five young composers. It takes place on 21 May at the Forge, Camden, London.

Among the major UK ensembles, the following two shows stand out straight away:

London Sinfonietta, Repeating Patterns: the Start of US Minimalism

26 and 27 February, Purcell Room, then 28 February at Turner Sims, Southampton

I’m surprised a cult programme of early Glass, Reich, Riley and Young has been plonked in the Southbank’s smallest hall, even if it is getting two shows there – this one will surely sell out fast. Also available in Southampton on 28 February.

London Sinfonietta, Mauricio Kagel: The Pieces of the Compass Rose

1 June, Queen Elizabeth Hall

Kagel’s 8-part ‘musical travelogue’ for salon orchestra, and an important reflection/critique on musical post-colonialism.

Outside the UK, EnsembleStudio6 is a new group recently formed in Belgrade. Their 2013 looks exciting, with works by Richard Barrett, Peter Ablinger, Kaija Saariaho, Balkan composers, etc.

Complete MITTWOCH on YouTube

2012 was, for small, cherubic, mewling reasons, not a year in which I saw very much live music at all. A top ten list would be a bit of a joke, since it would have to include the odd school concert just to make up the numbers.

However, I was fortunate that among the few productions of live music for which I did manage to scrub the baby porridge off myself and get out of the house was a genuine game changer: the first complete production of Stockhausen’s MITTWOCH.

Since I wrote my rather effusive review back in August, I have discovered that audio of the entire opera (four scenes, plus a greeting and a farewell) is available on YouTube. Some of that audio even comes with video: scene 4, Michaelion, can be watched complete in its premier performance (1998) by the Sudfunk Chor, Stuttgart. A 20-minute clip of the same scene – the one that bothered most critics (including me) – from the Birmingham Opera production can also be found.

Here, then, are all six parts in order, interspersed with a few of those video extracts recorded by members of the audience in Birmingham, included for comparison and/or context.

(With thanks to Alex Ross, who first drew my attention to the video of Andrew Connington’s aquatic tromboning.)

More of Mode’s Cage Edition reaches Spotify

Mode Records continue to add recordings from their Complete John Cage Edition to Spotify. The always-vigilant Ulyssestone alerted me over the weekend to the latest additions. All are now included in my Complete John Cage Edition playlist. They are:

• Vol.8 Europera 5 (mode 36)
• Vol.11 Orchestral Works 1 (mode 41)
• Vol.13 The Piano Works 1 (mode 47)
• Vol.15 The Lost Works (mode 55)
• Vol.17 The Piano Works 3 (mode 63)
• Vol.38 The Number Pieces 4 (mode 186)
• Vol.39 The Number Pieces 5 (mode 193) [NB: Mistagged on Spotify as Vol.38]

The total playlist now numbers 33 albums (out of 45), and 426 tracks.

Book review: Arvo Pärt in Conversation

Arvo Pärt in Conversation (Dalkey Archive Press) began as a book by Enzo Restagno that was published in 2004. Its publication coincided with the Torino-Milano music festival Settembre musica, of which Restagno was artistic director, and which in 2004 had a special focus on Pärt. In 2010 much of this book was translated into German, some new material was added, and it was published by Universal Edition. The book under review is the English edition of this text (translated by Robert Crow), and it should be noted that the title is now misleading: the first half of the English edition indeed features a long interview between Pärt and Restagno, but this has been supplemented with three two scholarly essays. Also included are two short speeches by Pärt himself.

It has to be said that content for serious readers is patchy. In the second of the essays Saale Kareda discusses the spiritual aspects of Pärt’s work. Many spiritual and religious themes are invoked, in the service of too little penetrative insight.

Kaire Maimets-Volt takes a potentially more interesting line, analysing Pärt reception through filmmakers’ use of his music. Tackling Pärt’s music through film, rather than the more obviously sanctioned paths of religious text and the tintinnabulation style could be an interesting line of approach. As a reception history of Pärt’s music in film it is well researched, and the appendix of films in which the composer’s work has been used (including films from Georgia, France, Brazil, the USA and South Korea) will surely prove invaluable to future researchers. However, I again felt that the essay fell just short of presenting a genuinely new understanding of Pärt’s music. [edit: This review was based on an advance copy of the book; it appears that the essay by Maimets-Volt did not make the final publication.]

The essay by Leopold Brauneiss is the longest and most substantial. Essentially it is a study of the evolution of Pärt’s tintinnabuli technique over 30 years, from Für Alina (1976) to Adam’s Lament (2010). This is more valuable work, and the breadth of his analysis is impressive. By narrating the increasing complexity of Pärt’s music, from the single note to chords, polyphony and finally chromaticism, he provides considerable insight into the technical range of the tintinnabuli technique.

The two acceptance speeches delivered by Pärt, on receiving the International Brücke Prize of Görlitz (2007) and the Léonie-Sonning Music Prize (2008) are short, but may contain points of interest for scholars.

The book’s most valuable contribution is the publication of a long interview between Pärt, his wife Nora and Restagno, conducted in 2003. The interview takes a more or less chronological approach, beginning with Pärt’s childhood and progressing through to Kanon Pokajanen of 1997. Restagno is prone to digressions as an interviewer, but he elicits plenty of material from the composer and this section of the book (which makes up half its length) is the most interesting to generalist reader and specialist alike. The passages regarding Estonian musical life in the 1960s, Pärt’s relationship to colleagues such as Nono and Schnittke, and the reception of Credo in 1968 are fascinating. Nevertheless, the most revealing section is undoubtedly that dealing with Pärt’s “silent years,” the period in the 1970s, shortly after Credo, when he withdrew from public composition and developed the tinntinabuli style for which he would become internationally recognised. This period was essential to Pärt’s development as a composer, but is often glossed by biographers. Here Pärt reveals in some detail what he was doing during this time, the precise nature of his exercises in monody, and the studies he was undertaking into plainsong and medieval polyphony. A valuable emotional counterpoint is provided by Nora:

You can’t imagine how important this period was, with all its pages of exercises and psalms. He didn’t know if he had found anything at all, and if he had, what it was. … I was very worried about him, and saw how much he was suffering. I knew that he would not have been able to go on living without that music, which was the real content of his life. I saw that he was about to implode, and didn’t know if he would manage to bring these labour pains to a happy conclusion.

Like many books of its type, Arvo Pärt in Conversation suffers from being too close to its subject and too credulous of their own words on their music. This is particularly true of the analytical essays, which could have afforded a more critical perspective. Other composers – Gubaidulina and Stravinsky, as well as Schnittke and Nono – are discussed in the interview with Restagno. Our understanding of Pärt’s music would surely benefit from greater examination of its interconnectedness with other currents in Western music. With its inspiration in bell tones and the prolongation of scales and tonal triads, spectral music – broadly defined – would seem like one starting point. That possibility is occasionally hinted at in the book, although only via secondary sources that refer to Pythagorean harmony (in Kareda), or the harmonic properties of bells.

The triad does indeed form the starting point of each work, and its pervasive presence yields a distinctive mixture of overtone and undertones which is highly suggestive of the sound of bells. (Philip Borg-Wheeler, disc notes to Arvo Pärt: Beatus, Virgin Classics, 1997; cited by Maimets-Volt)

Readers looking for a generalist’s introduction to Pärt’s music will still want to turn first to Paul Hillier’s well-known introduction of 1997. And for a more in-depth and scholarly approach I expect (although I have not read it) the Cambridge Companion to Arvo Pärt, edited by Andrew Shenton will be preferred. Nevertheless, Arvo Pärt in Conversation contains enough supplementary detail, and some useful original research, to be of value to scholars not only of Pärt’s music, but also of music in the former USSR and in the later 20th century in general.

Southbank Centre launches The Rest is Noise festival

It has been a long time in the build-up, but today the Southbank Centre officially launched its year-long festival of 20th-century music, The Rest Is Noise, conceived in partnership with Alex Ross and the book of the same name. The festival will run throughout 2013 and, according to the organisers, it will

bring the book alive, with nearly 100 concerts, performances, films, talks and debates. We take you on a chronological journey through the most important music of the 20th century and dramatise the century’s massive political and social upheavals. The London Philharmonic Orchestra, with over 30 concerts, is the backbone of this festival, which reveals the stories behind the rich, exhilarating and sometimes controversial compositions that have changed the way we listen forever.

First, the positives. The headline has to be the complete package ticket, which gives you a weekend pass for all 12 weekend events of the festival, plus all of those 100 concerts and talks throughout the year. For £500. Just five hundred pounds. Get one now if you are at all interested in what is surely the deal of the century. (Update: intermezzo has done some digging around, and a little maths, and disputes the true value of this offer.)

Secondly, I’m quite excited by the conceit of the whole thing: a year in London devoted to exploring the music of the 20th century. If nothing else, 2013 looks to be a very good year to be a music undergraduate. And the decision to arrange it into broad thematic blocks (an idea lifted from the book) is nicely done too, although one can still discern an over-arching historical narrative to most of the themes: ‘Here Comes the 20th Century’, ‘The Rise of Nationalism’, ‘Paris’, ‘Berlin’, ‘America’, ‘Post World War’, ’1960s’, ‘Superpower’, ‘New World Order’. Trust me, it is possible to collapse the last hundred years or so along much more diagonal paths than that.

However. The first six months of the programme are online now, and my heart hasn’t yet skipped a beat. The later century is presumably being covered after July (and I wonder what effect that will have on audience numbers/demographic for each half-year), but browsing through it looked, well, quite warhorsey. There was an awful lot of music in there that I would expect to be done in London at some point in any given two or three years anyway. Lots of Shostakovich, Britten and Janáček, at least to my eyes. I detect a whiff of Cultural Olympiadism – quite a few concerts simply look like rebranded versions of the norm. But then, maybe that’s just how the early century now looks from here. I’m pleased to see Satie’s Socrate makes an appearance (London Sinfonietta, 10 February), and there’s quite a bit of Weill too. The only Orff I see is Carmina burana (London Phil et al., 6 April), which looks like an opportunity missed.

My real worry stems from the fact that Ross’s book was weakest in its treatment of the later 20th century, particularly the 70s, 80s and 90s. Without access to the second half of next year’s programme, it’s impossible to say to what extent this might be addressed in the The Rest is Noise‘s programming. A line on the website – “from Richard Strauss to John Adams” – doesn’t suggest radical diversity, but who’s to say. Let’s hope some necks get stuck out.

Elsewhere, Radio 3′s series of Fifty Modern Classics quietly finished up over the weekend. Fifty works of contemporary music (from Varèse to Bernhard Lang) championed in 10-minute slots by figures (some surprising) from music, film, theatre and more. Marcus de Sautoy on Nomos Alpha, John Tilbury on The Great Learning, Steven Schick on Bone Alphabet, Frances-Marie Uitti on Ygghur. Great stuff. If the second half of The Rest is Noise looks anything like that, I’ll take it.

Full details of The Rest is Noise may be found here.

All fifty episodes of Modern Classics can be downloaded for free here.