Music Criticism and Writing
From 2014 to 2017 I wrote reviews, previews and interviews for Ludwig Van. Here are a few highlights from that body of work.
The Art of the Score Reading (2015)
Professor Bad Trip: A Dive Into Psychedelia and Spectralism (2015)
David Lang: Whispering Secrets of the Internet Age (2015)
Orchestral Obsessions: In Conversation With Matthias Pintscher (2016)
The Fixed Explosion That Was Pierre Boulez (2016)
U of T Faculty of Music Brings Salvatore Sciarrino to Toronto (2017)
The Music Gallery Gears Up For The Viking of 6th Avenue (2016)
The Art of the Score Reading (2015)
Professor Bad Trip: A Dive Into Psychedelia and Spectralism (2015)
David Lang: Whispering Secrets of the Internet Age (2015)
Orchestral Obsessions: In Conversation With Matthias Pintscher (2016)
The Fixed Explosion That Was Pierre Boulez (2016)
U of T Faculty of Music Brings Salvatore Sciarrino to Toronto (2017)
The Music Gallery Gears Up For The Viking of 6th Avenue (2016)
APHORISMS I.
I was listening to a score/audio Youtube video of Henryk Górecki’s String Quartet #1, which opens with this quiet polytonal canonic inversion, retrograde, retrograde-inversion thing. A Youtube commenter says,
“i don’t take a stand on the melody and it’s harmonization itself, but retrograding, inverting or twisting the melody in any theoretical way, doesn’t really add any musical value to it. Theoretical compositional techniques, especially the “mathematical” ones (that inversions, retrogrades, mirrors etc. are), are only helping hands and basic tools to help organize and control the pitch structure in composition. It should not be in any way an intrinsic value of music. If a melody or harmony of a piece is empty or dull, it still is, whether its theoretically intelligent or not.“
And of course, my brain just says “BACH” but I question that chemical reaction. As an old mentor said, “nobody cares about technique anymore”. Is this true? My centralized, academic personality says that these so-called occulted details are what make art “last”, so to say. It is trained musicians, scholars, publishers etc., that make a piece famous, not so much the public who often are forced to judge the quality of a piece based on a surface-listen.
Maybe I am wrong here.
After all, a good composer doesn’t often contemplate these questions, they write intentionally and often without contemplating the historical context of what they do. In my opinion, a composer who contemplates too heavily on their place in history will eventually be eaten alive by those prospects. But with Beethoven we hear the rage and see the motivic development in the scores. We have both. That's why Beethoven lasts.
[VI 2017]
I was listening to a score/audio Youtube video of Henryk Górecki’s String Quartet #1, which opens with this quiet polytonal canonic inversion, retrograde, retrograde-inversion thing. A Youtube commenter says,
“i don’t take a stand on the melody and it’s harmonization itself, but retrograding, inverting or twisting the melody in any theoretical way, doesn’t really add any musical value to it. Theoretical compositional techniques, especially the “mathematical” ones (that inversions, retrogrades, mirrors etc. are), are only helping hands and basic tools to help organize and control the pitch structure in composition. It should not be in any way an intrinsic value of music. If a melody or harmony of a piece is empty or dull, it still is, whether its theoretically intelligent or not.“
And of course, my brain just says “BACH” but I question that chemical reaction. As an old mentor said, “nobody cares about technique anymore”. Is this true? My centralized, academic personality says that these so-called occulted details are what make art “last”, so to say. It is trained musicians, scholars, publishers etc., that make a piece famous, not so much the public who often are forced to judge the quality of a piece based on a surface-listen.
Maybe I am wrong here.
After all, a good composer doesn’t often contemplate these questions, they write intentionally and often without contemplating the historical context of what they do. In my opinion, a composer who contemplates too heavily on their place in history will eventually be eaten alive by those prospects. But with Beethoven we hear the rage and see the motivic development in the scores. We have both. That's why Beethoven lasts.
[VI 2017]
II.
By far the greatest sin of musical modernism is that it pushed too hard, and now we must deal with the flabby, insipid art of its reactionaries and enemies.
[V 2017]
By far the greatest sin of musical modernism is that it pushed too hard, and now we must deal with the flabby, insipid art of its reactionaries and enemies.
[V 2017]
III.
FROM DIAMONDS GROW NOTHING, FROM SHIT GROWS FLOWERS
[V 2017]
FROM DIAMONDS GROW NOTHING, FROM SHIT GROWS FLOWERS
[V 2017]
IV. MUSIC IS NOT ABOUT SOUND
I begin this note with a quote by a colleague of mine, who, after repeated listening to Berio’s Ritorni degli Snovidenia, retired to this conclusion:
“I wanted to understand what the thirty-minute continuum sought to achieve, where it was going, what it was communicating, what it was saying, but I could see only colors –very beautiful colors, certainly – but only colors that have nothing to say other than what they are, nothing else but themselves despite obvious intersubjective networks.”
Art music of the last 100 years has been heavily preoccupied with the manipulation of tone colour, the orchestration of sound, so heavily and to such depth that for some composers it inundates the entire cognitive process of composition. Tone-artists such as Haas, Radelescu and Scelsi, once considered side-liners, are now viewed as important composers for opposing the mainstreams in 20th century art music. In the case of Scelsi, Haas and the Romanian spectralists, the manipulation of tone colour becomes an almost mystical, intuitive procedure, though this method is often filtered through quasi-scientific processes of spectral and wave-form analysis.
None of this is very surprising when taken into account the massive expansion in the 20th century of what constitutes musical tone. In fact, the separation between tone and noise begins to dissolve as composers plumb and extend the extreme parameters of pitch, volume and technique. Man goes to space, composers expand forward and outward. In the same way that the Sexual Revolution of the 60's greatly expanded the permissibilities, methods and varieties of sexual intercourse, so too did the increasing obsession with pushing the parameters of tone and tone production.
My criticism of spectralism in some way mirrors my criticism of the Sexual Revolution. In the same way that the Sexual Revolution increased the permissibilities of sexual intercourse but did almost nothing to improve the original intension and meaning of sex- as an expression of lovemaking- the expansions of tone production have not actually elevated the quality or meaning of music, but merely diversified its modes of production.
My allusion to the Sexual Revolution continues- in the same way that the Sexual Revolution obsesses over touch, sensuality, and liberality, the obsession with sound in composition at its worst reduces the art to a materialistic- and therefore “sensual” (erotic) procedure. This is not surprising, and in my opinion falls conveniently in line with modernity’s already burgeoned obsession with hypnogogia and eroticism in the arts and entertainment industry.
My main point here is that it is bad to think “materially” about music. Music is not about sound. Good music, like good art, will naturally transcend its materials. There is nothing inherently wrong with loving sound- but it is equivalent to taking pleasure in a beautiful nude body. Sound must be a scaffold to something else.
[IV 2017]
I begin this note with a quote by a colleague of mine, who, after repeated listening to Berio’s Ritorni degli Snovidenia, retired to this conclusion:
“I wanted to understand what the thirty-minute continuum sought to achieve, where it was going, what it was communicating, what it was saying, but I could see only colors –very beautiful colors, certainly – but only colors that have nothing to say other than what they are, nothing else but themselves despite obvious intersubjective networks.”
Art music of the last 100 years has been heavily preoccupied with the manipulation of tone colour, the orchestration of sound, so heavily and to such depth that for some composers it inundates the entire cognitive process of composition. Tone-artists such as Haas, Radelescu and Scelsi, once considered side-liners, are now viewed as important composers for opposing the mainstreams in 20th century art music. In the case of Scelsi, Haas and the Romanian spectralists, the manipulation of tone colour becomes an almost mystical, intuitive procedure, though this method is often filtered through quasi-scientific processes of spectral and wave-form analysis.
None of this is very surprising when taken into account the massive expansion in the 20th century of what constitutes musical tone. In fact, the separation between tone and noise begins to dissolve as composers plumb and extend the extreme parameters of pitch, volume and technique. Man goes to space, composers expand forward and outward. In the same way that the Sexual Revolution of the 60's greatly expanded the permissibilities, methods and varieties of sexual intercourse, so too did the increasing obsession with pushing the parameters of tone and tone production.
My criticism of spectralism in some way mirrors my criticism of the Sexual Revolution. In the same way that the Sexual Revolution increased the permissibilities of sexual intercourse but did almost nothing to improve the original intension and meaning of sex- as an expression of lovemaking- the expansions of tone production have not actually elevated the quality or meaning of music, but merely diversified its modes of production.
My allusion to the Sexual Revolution continues- in the same way that the Sexual Revolution obsesses over touch, sensuality, and liberality, the obsession with sound in composition at its worst reduces the art to a materialistic- and therefore “sensual” (erotic) procedure. This is not surprising, and in my opinion falls conveniently in line with modernity’s already burgeoned obsession with hypnogogia and eroticism in the arts and entertainment industry.
My main point here is that it is bad to think “materially” about music. Music is not about sound. Good music, like good art, will naturally transcend its materials. There is nothing inherently wrong with loving sound- but it is equivalent to taking pleasure in a beautiful nude body. Sound must be a scaffold to something else.
[IV 2017]
V. CRUX
Wagner said that the Crucifixion was the most important moment in time and space, and so to paint the Crucifixion, as so many artists have done, was to get at the heart of time and space.
Francis Bacon knew this too, although he chose to crucify himself, or his lover, or a homunculus instead of Christ.
The question for today is, how do you make Crucifixions over and over again when the nails hurt so much.
[VII 2017]
Wagner said that the Crucifixion was the most important moment in time and space, and so to paint the Crucifixion, as so many artists have done, was to get at the heart of time and space.
Francis Bacon knew this too, although he chose to crucify himself, or his lover, or a homunculus instead of Christ.
The question for today is, how do you make Crucifixions over and over again when the nails hurt so much.
[VII 2017]
VI.
TV: If Beethoven was allowed to just repeat a four bar phrase without variation, why can’t I do that?
GK: Beethoven wasn’t allowed to do that either.
[II 2016]
TV: If Beethoven was allowed to just repeat a four bar phrase without variation, why can’t I do that?
GK: Beethoven wasn’t allowed to do that either.
[II 2016]
VII.
Listeners complain about the "emotional disconnect" when they listen to contemporary classical music, but this is not endemic to the genre. Pop music is rife with it: hyper slick productions, autotuning and regular pulsating rhythms may be regular pop music characteristics, but it also plays to a feeling of detachment. There is an unrealness, an angelic, non-physical presence that dominates pop music this year. Study the history of pop music, and you realize that its aesthetic simply mirrors the effects of whatever illicit drug was popular at the time. In 2016 it seems to be mainly pills.
I watched a Puccini opera and it shook me out of this paradigm. The music is so passionately obsessed with authentic displays of love, death and tragedy. When I listen to Puccini it actually triggers a physiological defense mechanism in my body.
[2016]
Listeners complain about the "emotional disconnect" when they listen to contemporary classical music, but this is not endemic to the genre. Pop music is rife with it: hyper slick productions, autotuning and regular pulsating rhythms may be regular pop music characteristics, but it also plays to a feeling of detachment. There is an unrealness, an angelic, non-physical presence that dominates pop music this year. Study the history of pop music, and you realize that its aesthetic simply mirrors the effects of whatever illicit drug was popular at the time. In 2016 it seems to be mainly pills.
I watched a Puccini opera and it shook me out of this paradigm. The music is so passionately obsessed with authentic displays of love, death and tragedy. When I listen to Puccini it actually triggers a physiological defense mechanism in my body.
[2016]
VIII. BRAHMS: WOOD/METAL B
Brahms is one of my favourite composers, although I will admit to favouring mainly his piano and chamber works. Articulating my favour towards Brahms has always been problematic- but I defend on the basis that, like most good composers, Brahms is able to express the complexities and multiplicities of emotions and the human condition: the Op. 119 Rhapsody in Eb is simultaneously joyous and terrifying, victorious and tragic.
Tonight I was thinking about an interview with Shigesato Itoi, creator of the Mother series, where he discusses the logo for Mother 3:
“The logo for Mother 3 is its title composed of both wood and metal. Itoi states that when things that do not match at all are attached to one another, it is unsettling. In the only novel Itoi has written, Family Fall Out, he wrote about a hearse, which contains a ‘casket of both metal and wood,’ a contrast between organic and inorganic that ‘makes you feel a little weird.’ “
As disconnected as it may sound, this best describes the music of Brahms to me. The Op. 118 Intermezzo in A is overwhelmingly poignant, purple-red like heart blood, but is rife with subtle rhythmic canons that have a mechanistic and fatalistic quality. Like the chaconne, the canon is “locked- in” to its fate.
That is the music of Brahms- fatalistic, melancholic, and mechanistic: it is mainly about pain. The music moves hazily in a downward motion, clad in organic material that disguises inorganic underpinnings.
[2016]
Brahms is one of my favourite composers, although I will admit to favouring mainly his piano and chamber works. Articulating my favour towards Brahms has always been problematic- but I defend on the basis that, like most good composers, Brahms is able to express the complexities and multiplicities of emotions and the human condition: the Op. 119 Rhapsody in Eb is simultaneously joyous and terrifying, victorious and tragic.
Tonight I was thinking about an interview with Shigesato Itoi, creator of the Mother series, where he discusses the logo for Mother 3:
“The logo for Mother 3 is its title composed of both wood and metal. Itoi states that when things that do not match at all are attached to one another, it is unsettling. In the only novel Itoi has written, Family Fall Out, he wrote about a hearse, which contains a ‘casket of both metal and wood,’ a contrast between organic and inorganic that ‘makes you feel a little weird.’ “
As disconnected as it may sound, this best describes the music of Brahms to me. The Op. 118 Intermezzo in A is overwhelmingly poignant, purple-red like heart blood, but is rife with subtle rhythmic canons that have a mechanistic and fatalistic quality. Like the chaconne, the canon is “locked- in” to its fate.
That is the music of Brahms- fatalistic, melancholic, and mechanistic: it is mainly about pain. The music moves hazily in a downward motion, clad in organic material that disguises inorganic underpinnings.
[2016]
XI. FORMALIZATION/PHANTOM PAIN
Formalizing a musical structure means experiencing phantom pain, but instead of still feeling a limb/organ that has been removed, the pain is a result of making a connection with an EXTRA limb that has been more or less willed into existence. Instead of making an incision to remove a limb or an organ, we make an incision to carve something into a whole. The “phantom pain” is the sensation that something IS there because it must be there.
See also: “House in the fog” –Britten
[IX 2015]
Formalizing a musical structure means experiencing phantom pain, but instead of still feeling a limb/organ that has been removed, the pain is a result of making a connection with an EXTRA limb that has been more or less willed into existence. Instead of making an incision to remove a limb or an organ, we make an incision to carve something into a whole. The “phantom pain” is the sensation that something IS there because it must be there.
See also: “House in the fog” –Britten
[IX 2015]
XII. POST-WAGNERIAN TIME
Western classical music was incubated mainly in the Church. Early and common-practice music, with its Messianic cycles of exposition, conflict and recapitulation, are built from allegories of Christian doctrine. In early music this extends down to the atomic level, to the laws of voice leading and dissonance control. Much, if not most, of contemporary music today, engages with this Western tradition of poetic discourse of tension/resolution, whether we personally choose to acknowledge it or not.
It is no surprise that the last vestiges of this tradition were overthrown after WWII, as Europe witnessed a massive decline in religious observance. Composers who eradicated the traditional practices of Western music, also indirectly eradicated the "Christianity" inherent in their music. For the composers who broke with this tradition, their alternative wellsprings of creativity lay principally in two areas: pre-Platonic artistic ritualism (the archaic), and the music and philosophies of non-Western cultures (Eastern philosophy and religion, music of indigenous Asian, African, and First Nations people).
But let's take a step back to the 19th century, when this truly began to unravel. Christian time is unidirectional: it begins with the creation of the universe, it extends for several millenia, then it ends with the second coming of Christ and the redemption of the world. This concept of time is built into the microsphere of tonality: the tension must release, the dominant 7th must lead to the tonic. Pieces of music must end, have a telos. Beginning with Wagner, composers began to learn how to stretch out harmonic tension to such a point that musical time begins to lose its unidirectionality. Consider the "Tristan chord". If one analyzes it, there is nothing shocking about it. No systems are broken, it can be re-spelled as a half-diminished seventh chord, etc. But the shocking thing about it is the sound, which is multidirectional: we are totally without a roadmap with this chord. The next step is whole-tone sonorities. Because the whole tone scale has such a limited amount of transpositions (only 2) and no leading tone, its potential for harmonic multidirectionality is intense. Scriabin also corrupts the Christianity of the dominant seventh chord: he begins to build entire musical works on strings of heavily altered dominant sonorities. He does not seek the tonic, but rather mystically wades through an alternative hell-scape, where the universe is just one facet on a hideous diamond.
As harmonic practices developed through the next decades, this multidirectional approach to harmony eventually progresses to an omnidirectionality, realized in the systems of dodecaphony and free atonality. As harmonic progression represents a flow of musical time, we can longer hold to a world-view of Christian time: instead we are embracing a musical space that is circular in nature, without clear endings, perforations or corners.
Western classical music was incubated mainly in the Church. Early and common-practice music, with its Messianic cycles of exposition, conflict and recapitulation, are built from allegories of Christian doctrine. In early music this extends down to the atomic level, to the laws of voice leading and dissonance control. Much, if not most, of contemporary music today, engages with this Western tradition of poetic discourse of tension/resolution, whether we personally choose to acknowledge it or not.
It is no surprise that the last vestiges of this tradition were overthrown after WWII, as Europe witnessed a massive decline in religious observance. Composers who eradicated the traditional practices of Western music, also indirectly eradicated the "Christianity" inherent in their music. For the composers who broke with this tradition, their alternative wellsprings of creativity lay principally in two areas: pre-Platonic artistic ritualism (the archaic), and the music and philosophies of non-Western cultures (Eastern philosophy and religion, music of indigenous Asian, African, and First Nations people).
But let's take a step back to the 19th century, when this truly began to unravel. Christian time is unidirectional: it begins with the creation of the universe, it extends for several millenia, then it ends with the second coming of Christ and the redemption of the world. This concept of time is built into the microsphere of tonality: the tension must release, the dominant 7th must lead to the tonic. Pieces of music must end, have a telos. Beginning with Wagner, composers began to learn how to stretch out harmonic tension to such a point that musical time begins to lose its unidirectionality. Consider the "Tristan chord". If one analyzes it, there is nothing shocking about it. No systems are broken, it can be re-spelled as a half-diminished seventh chord, etc. But the shocking thing about it is the sound, which is multidirectional: we are totally without a roadmap with this chord. The next step is whole-tone sonorities. Because the whole tone scale has such a limited amount of transpositions (only 2) and no leading tone, its potential for harmonic multidirectionality is intense. Scriabin also corrupts the Christianity of the dominant seventh chord: he begins to build entire musical works on strings of heavily altered dominant sonorities. He does not seek the tonic, but rather mystically wades through an alternative hell-scape, where the universe is just one facet on a hideous diamond.
As harmonic practices developed through the next decades, this multidirectional approach to harmony eventually progresses to an omnidirectionality, realized in the systems of dodecaphony and free atonality. As harmonic progression represents a flow of musical time, we can longer hold to a world-view of Christian time: instead we are embracing a musical space that is circular in nature, without clear endings, perforations or corners.
