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Awesöme Orchestra’s 33rd Session: Philip Glass’s The Canyon

So here is where we would usually dive into the context needed to understand the piece, and then we would tell you a couple of musical things to listen for and then we would rant about how great this piece is. Today, that’s going to be a shorter process, because today we are getting MINIMAL.

Minimalism was a movement in the 1960′s/70′s, where composers intentionally simplified rhythm, melody and harmony. Repetition is minimalism’s best friend. But listen, just because it’s simplified, and just because we aren’t going to say a whole lot about it doesn’t mean this music isn’t incredibly rich. The richness comes from your experience of it though and we can’t really write about that, but we’ll help you get there.

Philip Glass is widely considered one of the “major minimalists” today, lauded by classical music audiences as well as winning Oscars for his film scoring.

The Canyon is what Glass calls a “dramatic episode”. It’s one of his three “portraits of nature” from 1988. It is not meant to reference any specific canyon but rather

“...an idealized canyon of the imagination.“

Wowwwwwww. Listen, you can see why this music has a reputation for being popular around the marijuana smokers. But you don’t need weed to be cool kids! This stuff is good anytime.

Like we said, repetition is a big deal here. This piece is one long crescendo till the very end when it gradually dies away again, but throughout there is a strong rhythmic groove, starting in the percussion (maracas and snare drum) then moving to the strings. To enjoy this we highly recommend getting a physical groove going– here’s some inspiration:

Get into that beat...and then suddenly the percussion is going to come in and totally throw you off. Clap hard for your percussionists guys, this is not easy stuff. Repeat. This is an awesome 16 minute ride guys, so jump on that groove train and just ride it. Don’t think too much, just let these harmonies and rhythmic disjunctions wash over you. Think about the canyon.

If you’re in the Bay Area, be sure to come to hear our friends at Awesöme Orchestra play this gem on Friday, July 3rd from 6:30-9:30 at American Steel Studios (1960 Mandela Parkway, Oakland)

#awesomeorchestra #minimalism #philipglass #groovin

Awesöme Orchestra Session 32: Why Beethoven??

So, why Beethoven? Why of all the great composers in history does this guy seem to continuously come out on top when folks talk greatest music of all time? You can’t turn around in this country without bumping into your local orchestra playing some a Beethoven symphony or concerto.. Beyond appearing on concert programing pretty much everywhere, Beethoven still gets his own tribute nights! The San Francisco Symphony is hosting it’s “Beethoven Marathon” later this month. No one else has come to represent musical art in quite the same way that we see with Beethoven. Why, why Beethoven?

Well, in the Grove Music Online’s (The Grove is THE place to start for any research into music history) vast, vast entry on the life of Beethoven, Scott Burnham presents a three pronged answer (musicians and music historians love groups of three) to the question, Why the heck do we care so much about Beethoven?

First, Beethoven is a perfect fit to the myth of the artist as hero. The whole idea of the noble starving artist (the martyr to music), willing to sacrifice everything for one’s art in the face of an adversarial outside world that doesn’t comprehend the beauty and sublime nature of his work grows out of the writings of early Romantic authors like E.T.A. Hoffman and Bettina Brentano. For these and many, many others Beethoven was the perfect human specimen to embody the ideals of what man could look like when he has realized the greatness of his potential. So, for a large number people, Beethoven serves as this arch-genius, archetypal, German super hero.

Oh, did I mention that German nationalism is a huge element in the elevation of Beethoven as artist supreme? Yup, Beethoven came to be seen as embodying ideals of German purity of spirit and noble intent, a model in line with state sanctioned morality. Take a wild guess as to which ultra nationalistic 20th century German regime was a HUGE fan of Beethoven.

Which brings me to the second big factor in Beethoven’s staying power: the appropriation of his music for outright political purposes. Even during the 1820’s while Beethoven was still alive, the rapidly growing state of Prussia (flush with new territories following acquisitions made after the fall of Napoleon, which in 1815 doubled the size of Prussia’s population) utilized Beethoven’s music to cultivate the sort of aesthetic and civic character that would be vital in the building of the future state of Germany.

In 1870, our old friend Richard Wagner famously publishes an article extolling Beethoven as the ideal saint of the new state of Germany, as clear a partisan use as any as that year marked the official birth of the united German empire under Wilhelm I of Prussia (and his buddy Otto von Bismarck) as well as the hundredth birthday of Beethoven. German politics have had a long relationship with Beethoven from this point on. The rise of Germany as an economic and political player and their adoption of Beethoven as a patron saint, means that Beethoven has received direct institutional support from one of the most powerful countries in the world for 195 years. To this day Beethoven has keeps his hand in politics: at the fall of the Berlin Wall, he was the composer of choice for any number of celebratory unification concerts and the European Union uses his 9th symphony as their “Anthem of Europe”.

The third big reason we remember Beethoven is of course the small issue that he tended to revolutionize whatever style he chose to work in(with the possible exception of opera, as his one attempt, Fidelio, is not everyone’s favorite). Every composer after has to deal with the legacy of his body of work. Beethoven’s musical influences merit their own, extended post, but for right now let’s just look at the symphony. As a genre and format, the symphony is a musical piece that had developed most its key characteristics under Mozart and Haydn. Beethoven’s first two symphonies sound very similar to these early composers but breaks out stylistically and aesthetically with his third. Beyond the actual music itself, composers before Beethoven were always writing their symphonies for patrons, wealthy individuals looking to show off their prestige and sophistication by presenting, at their own expense, music composed and played by the hottest talent. Symphonies were tools of aristocratic peacock strutting.

Beethoven wrote symphonies for himself. Though benefiting greatly from rich sponsors, Beethoven achieved a level of economic autonomy which allowed him to compose without needing to satisfy the tastes of whoever put down the cash. Beethoven managed to develop an artistic voice outside the influence of any other individual. Friedrich Nietzsche traces a three part progression (there’s that three again) that starts with Rousseau (birth of the enlightenment, inherent value of the individual/human rights/dignity/Democrary), goes momentarily and wildly astray with Napoleon (who starts as idealistic believer in the rights of man and proceeds to demolish the rights of any individual not part of his empire) and reaches its perfection in the person of Beethoven(and Goethe too) (the triumph of the individual achieving true agency and independence all the while refraining from you know, conquering the world Yay!)

#beethoven #germany #cake #german politics #awesomeorchestra

Awesöme Orchestra Session 32: The Carousel Waltz

Oooo the Carousel Waltz. This is the beginning of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic music Carouse and the piece is actually somewhat of an anomaly in music which is always fun to talk about so let’s go!

Generally when we sit down for a musical or opera we can expect a nice old overture at the beginning. A typical overture would normally be a fun medley of tunes we’ll hear throughout the evening and most likely is unstaged. Richard Rodgers was having none of that. Apparently he didn’t like overtures because the “banging of seats by latecomers” ruined the music. To get the audience to sit up and focus, Rodgers composed wholly original music to be accompanied by a pantomime onstage which establishes our protagonists Julie and Billy’s whole relationship (which is most of the plot of this show) and foreshadows the trouble it will cause, skipping the whole overture and typical “opening number” business and lets us dive into the story right away.

Ballsy!

Here’s the full waltz in all its glory without pantomime…

And here’s what they did in the 1956 movie. You’ll notice the waltz has been cut up a lot, but because unfortunately there’s not a great video of the opening pantomime floating around, this is the best thing. And it’s pretty great! Because of movie magic they can cram a lot into their shorter cut.

The music sets up the pantomime with fantastic musical imagery. You can hear the sun set at the beginning, as the boardwalk starts to come to life. What I love about the melody is that it’s a great example of diegetic music (that is, music that is an actual part of the story, that the characters themselves can hear and experience), since it’s the music playing on the carousel. Some recordings/arrangements use a tambourine or bells which strengthens that mechanical feeling.There’s a great moment around 2:12 in the first video above where we hear the carousel barker get all tough in the brass and you can practically hear guys flexing their muscles. I have to say that I always love a harp glissando to add a little magic and romance to any piece and rodgers is just tastefully cheesy enough, as you can hear at around 0:52 in the same video.

This piece also sets up a little bit of the musical characterization of Julie and Billy which is continued throughout the musical. Billy favors simple and regular 8th note rhythms (short short short short etc) where Julie more frequently uses a dotted rhythm (long short long short etc) so all the anticipation we hear at the beginning (around 0:49) begins to Julie’s music and all the bravado of the carousel barker theme fits into Billy’s simpler, stauncher rhythmic patterns.

We’re actually not going to delve into the plot here because it’s not totally necessary for the waltz and because someday we hope to give Carousel a full entry to itself. But heck it’s JUNE

Sorry guys, got carried away there…just because it’s June! June! Juuuuuuuuuuuneeeeeeee!

So if you live in the bay area, come on down to the Ed Roberts Campus, 3075 Adeline St. in Berkeley on June 6, 12-3pm to hear Awesöme Orchestra play this unique piece in musical theater repertoire. I’ll just leave you with this last bit of carousel magic…