Stories » TWELVE TONES AND OPPRESSION by Michael Shapiro

Stories for July 06, 2020

  •

    Smartly played and engineered, Mark Abel's 'The Cave of Wondrous Voice' is music of expressive directness and charm / the arts fuse
     
    Posted At : July 1, 2020 12:00 AM

    One would find it hard to beat the all-star line-up featured in The Cave of Wondrous Voice, a new, hour-long survey of vocal and chamber music by the California-based composer Mark Abel. David Shifrin, Carol Rosenberger, Hila Plitmann, and Fred Sherry headline the album but they're not its only stars. On the whole, The Cave of Wonderous Voice is smartly played and engineered. Abel's writing throughout is fluent and often genial. While certain spots in the Trio, particularly, might benefit from grittier moments to offset the diatonic ones, this is music of considerable expressive directness as well as charm. SEE ALL the arts fuse Classical CD Reviews

  • Michael Shapiro joins FM91: Toledo to talk about his John Milton-inspired piano concerto - Archangel
     
    Posted At : July 1, 2020 12:00 AM

    Composer, pianist, and conductor Michael Shapiro joins us to talk about the music on his latest disc, including his John Milton-inspired piano concerto entitled Archangel. In this action-packed work, Shapiro lays out the epic Biblical battle between good and evil as a metaphor for the challenges we all face in our daily lives (which includes the current coronavirus pandemic – something Michael recently fell victim to himself). Also on the disc: orchestral excerpts from an opera based on Federico Garcia Lorca, and a full-throttle realization for orchestra of the famous organ Toccata by French composer Charles-Marie Widor. LISTEN TO THE CONVERSATION

  • Camille Thomas - Voice of Hope is the WFMT: Featured New Release
     
    Posted At : June 30, 2020 12:00 AM

    Voice of Hope is Camille Thomas's second album for Deutsche Grammophon. The Franco-Belgian cellist's program pays tribute to people's ability to triumph over adversity, create harmony in place of chaos, and overcome hatred with love. The album presents the world-premiere recording of Fazil Say's concerto Never Give Up, a response to terrorist attacks in Paris and Istanbul written for and premiered by Thomas, and also includes an exquisite selection of songs, prayers, and laments, Bruch's Kol Nidrei and Ravel's Kaddisch among them. For June 30, Camille Thomas - Voice of Hope is the WFMT: Chicago 'Featured New Release'

  • Lucas Debargue joins 'Ludwig Van Toronto' with words on some of his pandemic-projects, reading list, and the importance of emphasizing our similarities rather than differences.
     
    Posted At : June 30, 2020 12:00 AM

    Recently French composer and pianist Lucas Debargue breathed new life into the harpsichord sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti and presents works outside the standard piano repertoire. The Parisian pianist has already climbed the pinnacle of piano artistry with Beethoven, Liszt and Ravel and unleashed full-blown romantic thunderstorms with Schubert's A-minor Piano Sonata no. 14 and the madcap finale of Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit. On the album, Debargue devotes himself completely to Domenico Scarlatti. He already played four of this Italian master's sonatas on his highly acclaimed début album. Germany's Der Spiegel waxed ecstatic: "Debargue's Scarlatti recalls his mighty predecessors. He displays the subtle touch and feeling once bestowed on these miniatures by Vladimir Horowitz and imparts new sound to Scarlatti's keyboard music. … Debargue touches the outer limits of expression between joylessness and rapture: one may find it overwrought, but it's never less than gripping. And then there's the gentle Glenn Gould touch." Debargue joins us for this mini-episode of REMOTE with a couple words on some of his pandemic-projects, reading list, and the importance of emphasizing our similarities rather than differences.  READ THE Q&A

  • Max Richter's 'Sleep' now available as an app / Louder Than War
     
    Posted At : June 30, 2020 12:00 AM

    Max Richter's trailblazing 2015 composition Sleep is now available to download with the launch of a new app. The app enables listeners to reimagine the 8-hour Deutsche Grammophon recording in custom-made musical sessions to help with focus, meditation and sleep which many people will need in the midst of the pandemic lockdown. It brings to a wider audience some of the experience shared by those lucky enough to attend Richter's extraordinary eight-hour overnight performances of Sleep – complete with beds – including LTW's own Tim Cooper who wrote about it here when it came to London in 2017. READ THE FULL Louder Than War ARTICLE

  • 'And On' from Carla Bley Trio's 'Life Goes On' featured on Punto Radio - animajazz
     
    Posted At : June 30, 2020 12:00 AM

    In episode 925 of "ANIMAJAZZ", conceived and conducted by BRUNO POLLACCI , broadcast TUESDAY June 30 at 20.30, on PUNTORADIO, also streaming on www.puntoradio.fm and in an immediate podcast on http: // animajazz. eu will be the protagonists CARLA BLEY - ANDY SHEPPARD - STEVE SWALLOW - CD "Life Goes On" - "Life Goes On_ III. And On "(ECM). The third volume of a sequence of albums begun with Trios in 2013 and continued with Andando El Tiempo (2016), Life Goes On – once more recorded in Lugano and produced by Manfred Eicher - features striking new music from American pianist/composer Carla Bley, whose trio with saxophonist Andy Sheppard and bassist Swallow has a long history. (Their first recording in trio format was Songs with Legs, recorded for the ECM-distributed WATT label in 1994.) Bley has composed for ensembles of every size but, over time, the trio has established itself as an ideal unit for expressing the essence of her work. Throughout Life Goes On, Carla's terse, distinctive piano, shaping phrases irreducible as Monk or Satie, is beautifully framed by Swallow's eloquent, elegant bass guitar and Sheppard's yearning saxes. This trio has a unique collective sound, reflecting – as The Telegraph recently noted – "musical mastery of a rare order".  We remind you that "ANIMAJAZZ" can be heard on TUESDAY at 20.30 in immediate podcast on http://animajazz.eu and the "DOWNLOAD" of the episode can be made, free of charge, from the podcasts area. Happy listening. SEE THE PLAYLIST

  • OSM and Nagano - The John Adams Album on Decca wins 2020 JUNO award for 'Classical album of the year: large ensemble' / CBC
     
    Posted At : June 29, 2020 12:00 AM

    The 2020 Juno Awards have wrapped, announcing a list of winners that has been on hold since the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered the in-person Saskatoon weekend of events in March. But tonight, June 29, the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) and CBC combined the usual two-night series of events into an hour-and-a-half-long pre-recorded special, delivering a night that Canadian music fans have been waiting for. Winner for 'Classical album of the year: large ensemble' is Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, conducted by Kent Nagano, The John Adams Album. Released to coincide with Nagano's final season with the Montréal Symphony, The John Adams Album contains his key orchestral works conducted by one of his greatest, lifelong champions "Like all great pieces, each time one returns to them and restudies them, I'm able to find something more - new dimensions that I haven't seen before, other reflections of innovation and genius." - Kent Nagano on John Adams SEE ALL WINNERS ON CBC PAGE

Top 10 for Jul

  • Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile :

    Not Our First Goat Rodeo

     Sony Music Masterworks today releases Not Our First Goat Rodeo, the long-awaited follow-up album to the GRAMMY Award-winning The Goat Rodeo Sessions, with Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile.
  • Thelonious Monk :

    Palo Alto

     In the fall of 1968, a sixteen-year old high school student named Danny Scher had a dream to invite legendary jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk and his all-star quartet to perform a concert at his local high school in Palo Alto, CA.
  • Harry Connick Jr :

    Stars Still Shine

     GRAMMY and Emmy Award-winning singer and actor Harry Connick, Jr.
  • Bettye LaVette :

    Blackbirds

     Blues Hall of Famer Bettye LaVette has decided to release her stirring rendition of "Strange Fruit" ahead of schedule as it says as much about the history of American racism and the state of the country today.
  • Terence Blanchard :

    DA 5 BLOODS OMPS

     Milan Records today releases DA 5 BLOODS (ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SCORE) with music composed by six-time GRAMMY® Award-winning trumpeter and composer TERENCE BLANCHARD.
  • Jimmy Heath :

    Love Letter

     Verve Records announces the release of Love Letter, a parting masterpiece and the first all-ballads album from magisterial tenor saxophonist-composer Jimmy Heath.
  • Ludovico Einaudi :

    12 Songs From Home

     Ludovico Einaudi today releases a special 12-track digital collection, ‘12 Songs From Home', out digitally on Decca Records on 8thMay 2020 with artwork drawn by the composer.
  • Soundtracks :

    Animal Crackers

     Soon to be released on Netflix July 24th - Owen Huntington's life is one continuous loop of work, eat, and sleep.
  • John Scofield :

    Swallow Tales

     Guitarist John Scofield celebrates the music of his friend and mentor Steve Swallow in an outgoing and spirited recording, made in an afternoon in New York City in March 2019 - "old school" style as Scofield says, acknowledging that more than forty years of preparation led up to it.
  • El-P :

    Capone OMPS

     Milan Records Today Releases Capone (Original Motion Picture Score) With Music By The Grammy-Nominated Run The Jewels' Producer And Rapper El-P.

TWELVE TONES AND OPPRESSION by Michael Shapiro

Posted: March 16, 2020 12:00 AM | By: Admin
Bookmark and Share

TWELVE TONES AND OPPRESSION

by Michael Shapiro

I just read about composer and pianist Charles Wuorinen's passing.

I was an undergrad at Columbia from 1969–1973 when Wuorinen taught undergrads. I saw him in the hallways at Dodge in those days. Wuorinen never smiled and was always taciturn. He made it clear he knew better.

I stayed away and spent happier times with Joel Newman, Denis Stevens, and Paul Henry Lang learning about Josquin, Monteverdi, and Haydn.

Wuorinen ran then an ensemble with Harvey Sollberger which Elliott Carter and his wife financially supported. Harvey was a delightful man with an easy smile and talent for the flute but unfortunately with little talent for teaching in his composition class. The contrast with the rigorous Boulanger style learning I had had from Elie Siegmeister or my later studies with Vincent Persichetti was striking and revealing. I remember Harvey with happiness however as he was kind but I was perplexed how he worked with Wuorinen who seemed angry all the time.

For I found the academic imposition of 12-tone note spinning in those days (from Wuorinen and others) revolting especially when we were fighting against governmental suppression (similar to today). I found (and still find) such pieces deadening and gray with no life in them. Certainly no melodic line I could find solace in. No harmony or rhythm I cared to follow or could even hear. No happiness. Where was it going except into darkness? Consumed with only a rage and black sorrow with which I never empathized. Rage and sorrow are fine but not as a constant, perpetual and demanded diet. Nothing I could enjoy. And please don't tell me what to like and care for. I am not talking about the First World War period of Arnold, Anton, and Alban which reflected its time and was organically felt. The cerebral nature of the predominantly college style when I attended Columbia felt just plain wrong to me then, a denial of the self, and of creative freedom.

I found the tenor when I was at Columbia to be arrogant and despotic however and anti-learning. I just didn't get it, still don't, and still seek being what the jazz musicians call "sent" when I listen to music.

After college I heard Boulez conduct one of Wuorinen's pieces at a Perspective Encounter concert downtown. in which my friend the bass Harris Poor sang. The piece was active but ultimately dead on arrival. It seemed a culmination of everything I found impossible to listen to. I just didn't care for it and was bored by its needless complexities.

Today I remain someone who is not solely interested in style or how one puts notes together. I respond to expression, love, and caring. Use whatever style or way you choose. But have taste, technique, and desire. Know from whence you came (study all the literature) and where you are going.

Being told what is right, evolutionary sound, is just plain wrong, Orwellian style mass direction is lifeless, and not where I care to or will ever go.

Especially now.

Crossover Media Projects with Michael Shapiro

  • Michael Shapiro

    Second Symphony for Orchestra, CBSO

    Notes by the composer..........My Second Symphony is a work of absolute music.? It has no subtext; it tells no "story"; it just is.? I had always wished to write a four-movement symphony, containing a serious first movement, a scherzo, a lyrical slow movement, and a set of variations concluding in transcendence.? Working in 2010 with Maestra Marin Alsop and the virtuosic Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music (for the California premiere of my Roller Coaster) provided inspiration to open my symphonic veins further, write a large work for large orchestra, and out came this purely instrumental symphony (my first, Symphony Pomes Penyeach, is a song cycle).? The Second Symphony is scored for full orchestra including the usual complement of winds, brass, percussion, and strings, but adding alto flute and English horn for their special pungency. Its premiere reading with The Chappaqua Orchestra in the United States was immediately followed by this recording in July, 2015 with the miraculous City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at CBSO Centre in Birmingham, UK. ? The recording sessions with these great musicians confirmed the sounds, textures, timbres, rhythms, and, yes, emotions I intended to impart when I wrote the work.? It is preserved now for listeners to hear, and, I trust, be moved by ? a symphony in four movements for orchestra, plain and simple, colorful and complex, a work that is absolutely what it is.? The symphony is dedicated to Marjorie Perlin.
    Duration of the Second Symphony: 36'

  • Michael Shapiro

    ARCHANGEL

    Michael Shapiro breathes new life into the famous Toccata from the Fifth Organ Symphony by Victorian French composer Charles-Marie Widor with this arrangement for full orchestra named Widorama! played by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by the composer. Shapiro's arrangement of the famous Toccata, frequently used by organists for weddings and church services, brings the work into the concert hall in highly dramatic fashion.

    ‘Archangel Concerto for Piano and Orchestra' features pianist Steven Beck (New York Philharmonic, Brooklyn Knights). The Concerto is probably the most programmatic piece of music Michael Shapiro has ever written.  Archangel is in two books or movements. Book One depicts the war between the forces of good and evil set forth in John Milton's Paradise Lost. Book Two portrays Adam and Eve (and the Serpent) in Eden and their being cast out into the world we all live.  Archangel is therefore about the most basic and terrifying truth, the fight between good and evil raging to this day.

    ‘Perlimplinito, Opera Sweet, A Lace Paper Valentine for Orchestra' contains the entr'acte music from Shapiro's first opera, based on the play by Federico Garcia Lorca. The fantastical story of an old man who falls tragically in love with a beautiful young woman who cuckolds him on their wedding night with the five races of the earth, the music of Perlimplinito is emotional, visceral, and beautifully lyrical. A perfect piece for Valentine's Day!

    ‘Roller Coaster for Orchestra,' is a five-minute wild ride. Premiered at the Cabrillo Festival in California by conductor Marin Alsop, the piece is a musical representation of the Coney Island (Brooklyn NY) Cyclone amusement park ride and a metaphor for life's ups and downs.