New Music Recitals 2011
  March 5, 2011
 

Recital Dates, 2011
Midori, violin; Charles Abramovic, piano

March 9 , Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Costa Mesa, CA
March 21, Wright Auditorium, Greenville, NC
March 22, South Orange Performing Arts Center, South Orange, NJ
March 23, Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall, New York, NY


Midori

Photo Credits
Midori: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
Watkins:©ArenaPAL / Hanya Chlala
Dean:©Mark Coulsen
Hosokawa:©Schott Promotion / P.Andersen
MacMillan:©ArenaPAL / Eric Richmond
Adams: Margaret Mitchell

Meet the Composers!
Click on each composer's name to read his biography.



HUW WATKINS
Coruscation and Reflection



BRETT DEAN
Berlin Music



TOSHIO HOSOKAWA
Vertical Time Study III



JAMES MACMILLAN
After the Tryst



JOHN ADAMS
Road Movies

Notes on the Recital Program


HUW WATKINS
Coruscation and Reflection (1998)

Coruscation and Reflection by Huw Watkins demonstrate moods that are polar opposites. However, as with Yin and Yang, the two works are also complementary in enhancing both the excitement and tranquility in the atmosphere. After the premiere of Coruscation in 1998, performed by violinist Daniel Bell (of the Petersen Quartet), the composer decided that it needed a companion work, hence the birth of Reflection. Each can be performed separately, but they are usually presented as a pair, which is also the composer's preference. Both works are characterized by the use of the pentatonic scale (five pitches per octave).
(Read more...)



BRETT DEAN
Berlin Music (2010)

The years that I spent living in Berlin from the mid 80's till 2000 signified a momentously formative time for me in many ways and Berlin Music, written in July and August of 2010 during my first extended period back in the city in more than ten years, pays homage to the role Berlin's rich musical life played in my own development as musician and composer. A further inspiration for the piece came through the awareness that I was writing this work for one of the great violin virtuosi of our age.
(Read more...)



TOSHIO HOSOKAWA
Vertical Time Study III for Violin and Piano (1994)

"Music is the place where notes and silence meet." - Toshio Hosokawa

In his early twenties, Hosokawa studied in Berlin for several years with the exiled Korean composer Isang Yun, and the post-war European style remains a major influence of his music, alongside intrinsic Eastern aesthetic principles.
(Read more...)



JAMES MACMILLAN
After the Tryst (1988)

James MacMillan's compositional output reflects his interest in his Scottish origins and its folk culture, as well as his traditional religious beliefs. Much of his oeuvre makes reference to these elements, and After the Tryst is no exception.

In 1984, inspired by The Tryst, William Soutar's account of an intensely passionate yet expiring love, MacMillan set the poem to music in the style of an old Scottish ballad. A few years later, the composer recreated the folk song's melody in two classical compositions: the violin / piano fragment After the Tryst in 1988 and, the following year, a larger orchestral work Tryst.
(Read more...)



JOHN ADAMS
Road Movies (1995)

Road Movies is quintessential John Adams, although chamber music does not occupy a large portion of his work. After decades of composing large-scaled operas and orchestral works, Adams discovered a gateway into more melodic writing in the early 1990s and ventured into composing for the chamber setting.

Adams refers to Road Movies as "travel music". The first and third movements utilize a rocking, or swinging, rhythm, illustrating the beat of driving on the open road. Adams's distinctive Minimalist and Serialist techniques are in evidence throughout the work.
(Read more...)

Charles Abramovic
Charles Abramovic
credit: Joseph Labolito

Pianist's Perspective
An Interview with Charles Abramovic


As a pianist, how do you approach an unknown contemporary work? Do you think that your being a composer as well affects the way you learn new contemporary works?

 Composing actually helps the learning process and understanding of all periods of music. One looks at the music from the inside, so to speak, and sees the structural elements more clearly. There was much less of a distinction between performer and composer before the 20th Century, with notable exceptions like Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev. However, the explosion of musical styles and innovations in the last century has created unique challenges for performers. There is not much difference on the level of assimilation when learning different works of Mozart or Beethoven, for instance. There are common harmonic, rhythmic and melodic conventions, and fairly consistent structural principles. However, with contemporary music one can have a bewildering array of possible styles, notations, and technical challenges to overcome. The end result has to be a communicative performance that makes the composer's intention clear to an audience.

What is the role of the performer for this type of new music?

 This is an interesting question without an easy answer (like most interesting questions). Perhaps one needs to ask first about the role of a performer in more traditional repertoire. I am always fascinated by Busoni's comment that the interpreter uses inspiration to make up for what cannot be written in musical notation. It certainly is impossible for a composer to write exactly what they imagine in their inner ear. Also, a performance takes on its own role and life in illuminating the score. Certainly there are many ways to approach older music (Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, etc.) and each performer will bring something of his or her own artistic temperament to the musical experience. This is also true in contemporary music, although we have the privilege of getting direct input from the composer in interpretive aspects such as tempo, dynamics, structure, gesture, etc. In the end the performer needs to project a clear narrative based on the information in the composer's score and their own artistic experience making the music as coherent as possible to the listener.

What should the audience do before attending a contemporary music recital?

 We live in an age where, through libraries databases and Internet sites, one can explore and listen to a tremendous range of music. The easiest way for an audience to prepare for a new music concert or recital is to listen to several works of a composer listed on the program to get a sense of their style. Unlike a concert there is a chance for repeated listening. Also, knowing something of the background and other interests of a composer is very helpful. For example, knowing of James MacMillan's interest in both Scottish folk music and religious music can help enrich a listener's experience of his music. Also, younger composers tend to absorb and expand on the work of their composition teachers. So exploring some of Isang Yun's music (one of Hosokawa's teachers) can also be quite interesting to see both similarities and differences between mentor and student.

Why does the general public not always welcome new music today?

 Many years ago, during my first visit to Tokyo, I attended the famous Kabuki-za theatre. This was a wonderful experience on many levels, but I was especially struck by how long my interest was maintained during the performance. I certainly had little knowledge of Kabuki theatre, but I just let the experience take over and tried to leave any pre-conceived ideas behind. The most common problem that audiences have with new music is entering into a new aural experience and leaving previous their musical assumptions behind. I think this is difficult with new music as there are pre-conceived ideas as to what music or musical performance should be. Is it entertainment? Education? A transcendental event? An intellectual experience? Emotional catharsis? A high-wire act? In a strange way music can be all of these things and much more, although rarely all in the same work. There are new aspects of musical language that developed in the 20th century that have left some audiences confused and lacking reference points for listening. The primary one is the dissolution of tonality that began with Schoenberg and his followers. Our musical experiences from childhood on are based on tonal music (or modal depending on ethnic background). Our main organizing principle for understanding most music is based on tonal expectations, which guides us, even subconsciously, through a piece of music. Once this is lost the other aspects of music need to take over, especially rhythm and texture. In fact sometimes the idea of sound itself is the guiding principle in a contemporary musical work. If audiences can think of a musical work as organized time using pitches, rhythms, harmonies, and textures (including what some might even call noise) there is a better chance of entering into the creative mindset of a composer. They should consider their roles as listeners as taking part in a musical adventure.

Familiarize your ears with the New Music Program - listen to soundclips!

Audiovisual clips by John Adams

Toshio Hosokawa's work In die Tiefe der Zeit

Audiovisual clips by James MacMillan

Recording clips by Brett Dean

Soundclip of Huw Watkins' Coruscation and Reflection

Photo Credits
Watkins: ©ArenaPAL / Hanya Chlala
Adams: Deborah O'Grady
Hosokawa: Kazu Ishikawa

Words from the Composers


James MacMillan on After The Tryst

In 1984 I set William Soutar's love poem The Tryst to music in the style of an old Scottish ballad. This I sang in folk clubs and bars around Scotland with my old folk group Broadstone. The composition and performances of this song made a lasting impression on me as it felt as if I had tapped into a deep reservoir of shared tradition as my setting was quite faithful to the old ballad style.
Four years later I started developing this music into something else. In After The Tryst I elongated and ornamented the original melody into a virtuosic and highly expressive miniature for violin with piano accompaniment. The original harmonic outline is still adhered to and emphasized by the most simple series of arpeggiated chords on the piano. This work was the initial sketch for Búsqueda and Tryst.

Q&A with Huw Watkins

Huw Watkins How does Coruscation and Reflection fit into your overall oeuvre and into the continuum of classical music?

 It is one of the earliest pieces of mine that is published, and one of the first pieces I wrote which I'm still happy to be performed now! I wrote it while I was a postgraduate student at the Royal College of Music in London, and performing regularly in a violin and piano duo with Daniel Bell (the violinist who gave it its first performance).

When you composed it, were you looking more to your contemporaries and to the world around you for your inspiration or to composers of the past?

I was very much looking at my contemporaries for inspiration. At the time, I was probably discovering composers unknown to me at a quicker rate than any other time, and no doubt picking up all sorts of ideas in doing so.

 Does the same hold true for compositions you are working on at the present time?

 At present I am about to start work on a violin concerto, so I will be studying the great violin concertos of the past as much as new ones, by people like Ligeti and Adès, for inspiration.



John Adams on Road Movies

John Adams

After years of studiously avoiding the chamber music format I suddenly began to compose for the medium in real earnest. The 1992 Chamber Symphony was followed by the string quartet, John's Book of Alleged Dances, written for Kronos in 1994, and then comes Road Movies. My music of the 70s and 80s was principally about massed sonorities and the physical and emotional potency of big walls of triadic harmony. These musical gestures were not really germane to chamber music with its democratic parceling of roles, its transparency and timbral delicacy. Moreover, the challenge of writing melodically, something that chamber music demands above and beyond all else, was yet to be solved. Fortunately, a breakthrough in melodic writing came about during the writing of The Death of Klinghoffer, an opera whose subject and mood required a whole new appraisal of my musical language.

The title "Road Movies" is total whimsy, probably suggested by the "groove" in the piano part, all of which is required to be played in a "swing" mode (second and fourth of every group of four notes are played slightly late). Movement I is a relaxed drive down a not unfamiliar road. Material is recirculated in a sequence of recalls that suggest a rondo form. Movement II is a simple meditation of several small motives. A solitary figure in an empty desert landscape. Movement III is for four wheel drives only, a big perpetual motion machine called "40% Swing". On modern MIDI sequencers the desired amount of swing can be adjusted with almost ridiculous accuracy. 40% provides a giddy, bouncy ride, somewhere between an Ives ragtime and a long rideout by the Goodman Orchestra, circa 1939. It is very difficult for violin and piano to maintain over the seven-minute stretch, especially in the tricky cross-hand style of the piano part. Relax, and leave the driving to us.

Q&A with Toshio Hosokawa

Toshio Hosokawa How does Vertical Time Study III fit into your overall oeuvre and into the continuum of classical music?

The idea that my music is calligraphy by sounds with eastern brush is expressed in this work like my other works. Each note of the violin is the stroke of calligraphy traced on the white canvas which symbolizes time and space. The piano represents the white canvas as the background.
Regarding the connections with the European classical music, this work was influenced by Shoenberg's "Phantasy" for violin and piano, op.47 and Webern's "4 Stuecke" op. 7. From the point of view of the oriental contemporary music, "Gasa" composed by Isang Yun was influential in my work.

When you composed it, were you looking more to your contemporaries and to the world around you for your inspiration or to composers of the past?

Both of them.
My music is profoundly influenced by both the contemporary music and the European classical music in the past. Furthermore, I'm also inspired by Japanese traditional music.

Does the same hold true for compositions you are working on at the present time?

Yes, exactly.



Notes on Berlin Music by Brett Dean

As a member of the Berlin Philharmonic's viola section in the 80's and 90's, I had shared the stage with Midori on several memorable occasions when she was our guest soloist. However I first formally met Midori backstage at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles in October of 2006 while I was there performing my viola concerto with the LA Philharmonic. Midori had heard some of my music by then and was keen to discuss a new work for violin and piano. I was of course thrilled and excited about the prospect of writing a piece especially for her. Midori commissioned the work herself, a relatively unusual thing in my experience - such funding most often comes from a festival or music institution. It's certainly a very welcoming gesture towards the composer, indicating a strong sense of personal connection and identification with the project.

The actual writing of the work was scheduled for completion in late spring / early summer 2010. Midori had indicated to me quite early on that she allows time in her summer break for the learning of new repertoire as the demands of the regular season don't often allow for such preparation. This made a lot of sense, yet despite the best of intentions, life itself can intervene - in this instance a house move in Melbourne as well as the première of my first opera at the Sydney Opera House in March last year. Hence my correspondence with Midori from that time reflects a composer battling the dreaded deadline bug. Berlin Music gradually took shape however and was completed - somewhat later than planned - in early August, 2010.

The title pays homage to the city of Berlin where I lived and worked for many years and have recently returned to spend part of each year. Whilst not programmatic music, it was a reflection of the inspiration I felt at once more living and working in this extraordinarily cultural city.

Through our ensuing correspondence, I asked for feedback should there be any or problems or questions about the work. No news was obviously good news; there didn't seem to be any major issues arising from Midori's January rehearsal period with pianist Charles Abramovic. I was very relieved, as the piece makes some unusual demands on both performers. Firstly, the violin's G-string is tuned down a whole tone to F throughout the entire work, meaning that everything played on that string sounds a whole tone lower than one would expect. The violin part consequently features two lines of music for all of the passages played on the "F" string; one indicating the fingerings to be played and one showing how it actually sounds. Midori mentioned that she'd encountered "scordatura" (or retuning) before, however usually only for short sections within a longer work such as in John Adams' Road Movies, and not for an entire work as in this case.

Secondly the pianist has to play on two different instruments in the course of the work. In addition to a concert grand piano, one entire movement is to be played on an adjacently-positioned upright piano that features a practice pedal, giving the piano a distant, muted sound. To accompany the necessary movement from one piano to the other, a sustained linking chord is played, with the sustain pedal held in place by a weight or wedge.

It's one of the privileges of my job to see a work come to life, from dots on a page to sound in a room, especially when being played by such marvellous musicians. I met with Midori and pianist Charles Abramovic in Stockholm on February 12th, the day before the world première. We worked for about two hours, rehearsing the entire piece in considerable detail. In many ways, such experiences are among the most enjoyable and informative for a composer. One grapples with the very stuff of music, trying things out with the players, shaping and preparing it for its moment on stage. Midori and I discussed certain aspects of the violin part and agreed on some small but significant changes. Charles also had a few queries which we were able to sort out quite easily. Apart from a few changes of notes and dynamic details, it was above all the flow of the music in performance that deviated here and there from what I'd written on the page. And it's not every day that one discusses a new invention for the piano, yet that's what we experienced in Stockholm. The piano tuner brought along a specially furnished wedge that he'd made out of felt to place on top of the sustain pedal to keep it pressed down for the link passage mentioned earlier. In this way, there were now four of us creatively contributing to the realisation of this new work!

After the weeks and months writing the piece and the hours and days spent learning and rehearsing it, the performance itself, being an ephemeral thing, seemed to fly by in a matter of seconds. Well, it was about 17 minutes to be exact, but for me performances are over in a flash, particularly when it's a new piece. I was thrilled with how it went in Stockholm and it seemed to be a big success. But as superb a team as Midori and Charles are, any new work takes a little while to "settle in", and by the time we met again a week later in London, following two further performances of the piece in Spain in the interim, their interpretation of Berlin Music had grown and blossomed further and they seemed to have truly "moved in" to this new house. Their terrific performance in the beautiful Wigmore Hall was one that I will cherish.

I've just put the finishing touches on the final version of the score - now ready for print, including all the details discussed and tried out in Stockholm and London: a change of dynamic here, a different note there, some modifications to the tempi, even a slightly longer bar in the fourth movement that I've re-written in time for the next set of performances in the States in March. Composing really is a jointly creative process and so my heartfelt thanks go to Midori and Charles for their wonderful artistry in bringing my music to life.

Learn more!

John Adams
• http://www.earbox.com/
• http://www.boosey.com/composer/John+Adams

Brett Dean
• http://www.boosey.com/composer/Brett+Dean
• http://intermusica.co.uk/artists/composer-conductor/brett-dean/biography

Toshio Hosokawa
• http://www.naxos.com/person/Toshio_Hosokawa/20268.htm
• http://www.schott-music.com/shop/persons/az/9153/
• http://www.karstenwitt.com/en/artist/toshio_hosokawa/biography/

James MacMillan
• http://www.boosey.com/composer/James+MacMillan
• http://intermusica.co.uk/artists/composer-conductor/james-macmillan/biography

Huw Watkins
• http://www.hazardchase.co.uk/artists/huw_watkins
• http://www.schott-music.com/shop/persons/az/63120/

Boosey & Hawkes
• http://www.boosey.com/

Schott Music
• http://www.schott-music.com/

SUGGESTED LISTENING

The following is a short selection of recordings by each of the composers featured in Midori's New Music Recitals 2011:

HUW WATKINS
 1. Coruscation and Reflection
Plus works by Wood, Salter, Cashian, Grime, Matthews
Alexandra Wood, violin; Huw Watkins, piano
USK 1226CD

2. Dream
Plus works by Martland, O'Regan, Yarde, Tavener
Britten Sinfonia
SIGNUM CLASSICS SIGCD149

3. Cello Sonata
Plus Alexander Goehr: Sonata Op. 45
Paul Watkins, cello / Huw Watkins, violin
NIMBUS RECORDS NI 5699



TOSHIO HOSOKAWA
 1. Tabi-bito
Isao Nakamura (percussion) / WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln / Ken Takaseki (conductor) / WDR Rundfunkchor Köln / Rupert Huber
STRADIVARIUS STR 33818

2."Haiku" for Pierre Boulez
Plus works by Yuasa, Takemitsu, Miyoshi, Fujikura
Hiroaki Takenouchi, piano
LORELT LNT128

3. In die Tiefe der Zeit
Plus works by other composers
Fie Schouten, clarinet/bass clarinet / Marko Kassl, accordion
KARNATIC LAB RECORDS KLR 019



BRETT DEAN
 1. Water Music (2009)
Four recent works performed by the Swedish Chamber Orchestra conducted by HK Gruber and Brett Dean, including Pastoral Symphony and Carlo.
BIS-CD-1576

2. Testament (2009)
Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Sebastian Lang-Lessing.
ABC Classics 4763219

3. Carlo (1997)
Music for Strings and Sampler
Swedish Chamber Orchestra / HK Gruber
BIS-CD-1576

4. Ariel's Music (1995)
For Solo Clarinet and Orchestra
Paul Dean / Melbourne Symphony Orchestra / Markus Stenz
ABC 476 160-6



JOHN ADAMS
 1. Doctor Atomic Symphony, Guide to Strange Places
St Louis Symphony / David Robertson
Nonesuch 07559 7993288

2. Nixon in China
Robert Orth / Maria Kanyova / Marc Heller / Colorado Symphony Orchestra / Marin Alsop
Naxos 8.669022-24

3. Short Ride on a Fast Machine (Fanfare For Orchestra)
San Francisco Symphony / Edo de Waart
Nonesuch 79144-2

4. On the Transmigration of Souls
Nmon Ford, baritone / Gwinnett Young Singers / Atlanta Symphony Choruses and Orchestra / Robert Spano
Telarc CD-80673



JAMES MACMILLAN
 1. Quickening, The Sacrifice: Three Interludes
The Hilliard Ensemble / Robin Blaze / Rogers Covey-Crump / Steven Harrold / Gordon Jones / CBS Youth Chorus / CBS Chorus Simon Halsey, chorus director / BBC Philharmonic / James MacMillan
CHSA 5072

2. St John Passion
Christopher Maltman / London Symphony Chorus / London Symphony Orchestra / Sir Colin Davis
LSO0671 (LSO LIVE world premiere recording: April 2008, Barbican, London)

3. Seven Last Words from the Cross, On the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, Te Deum
Polyphony/ Britten Sinfonia / James Vivian / Stephen Layton
Hyperion CDA 67460

4. The World's Ransoming, The Confession of Isobel Gowdie
Christine Pendril, cor anglais / London Symphony Orchestra / Sir Colin Davis
LSO 0124