The world’s coming a part at the seems

to me it’s in the DarkteenAging process pool.

HELP

But how—-now? Sinkholes, swimmingpools

orbitsofboth?       (take as needed)

The world’s becoming crowds and dropouts and needs

(rise to them?)

Help?

The more difficult the obstacle, and the more interior its hold , the greater the value of struggling out of its dominance.  This is a principle I try to live by, and it is a powerfully humble basis for creating art  Any insincerity is painfully evident as is excess of pride in “who I am” and “what I can do”:  ego-driven pride about one’s work or oneself has a false effect. But there is a pride in overcoming obstacles which is innocent of this lie.

In every-day living I am trying to be genuinely useful  both in my personal relations and in any work I do. And I find that the same kind of sincerity is needed to discover the genuine depth-meaning of any musical interpretation, whether of my own composing or that of other  composers.

The single thing I value most in my life is a kind of serving. I pray I never lose this.

How is it that this orchestra piece, Quintet for Groups, composed in the 1960’s, should in 2008 seem relevant to the world as we experience it now? While in Germany for its rediscovery by the festival orchestra in Donaueshingen I talked to a number of people about this. My purpose in raising this issue now is not to seize the lead in this discussion. It is to ask, on a deep and personal level why this relevance should happen at this time.

There is, first of all, a parallel between the present conflict in the Near East and the phase the war in Vietnam had reached by the mid-’60’s. Both represent a push toward integration of very unlike cultures widely perceived as aggression and colonialism. I believe that both interpretations have had then and now a degree of accuracy, which accounts for the extreme degree of upset in world relations. Many people whose views are poles apart are having to face a depth of hostility so conflicting that it threatens chaos.  There is no escaping the complex interconnectedness even between sworn enemies.

To counter this downward spiral new conceptions of order and clarity of  relationships are of prime importance. This was the way I saw the world in the mid-’60’s and again, more than ever now. Order concepts of exactly this kind are what the microtonal just tuning of Quintet for Groups symbolizes. It is the way in which I have endeavored to clarify my own life and it is the fundamental concept in my way of organizing sounds in a piece of music.

Thanks to Marc Sabat for putting this online for us to enjoy. Here it is, Ben Johnston’s Quintet for Groups, as it was played live at the 2008 Donaueschingen Festival. More info about it here. Enjoy!

 

 Quintet for Groups: Play Now | Play in Popup

I remember thinking, as I watched the rehearsing orchestra players and conductor react to the music and to each other, that a very positive atmosphere was growing among all the participants; and this clearly spread to the concert hall staff, as they assisted in helping us composers know how we should proceed when receiving the audience’s applause. We responded and tried to help each other as well . I thought this was the most favorable indicator of all. When performers (let alone participating composers!) really enjoy getting a concert ready to present, that in itself is a very great satisfaction, whatever the audience reaction may be. I made an interior decision to make the whole experience as positive for all the participants as I was able to help it to be. This had been my aim all along, but as it seemed more and more possible to achieve, I began to feel the excitement of the possibilities.

Very few times I needed to urge the conductor to make changes of interpretation. I felt it was important to make sure that aggressive gestures not be allowed to evoke images of pride or of dominance. I wanted the percussion group’s active role at the beginning to be more like weather than like a human group’s self assertion. These changes became basic themes in the performance.

After the performance of Quintet for Groups, momentarily stopping the audience’s enthusiastic applause a representative of the orchestra announced that my piece had been chosen as the best orchestra piece of the festival by the orchestra players themselves. The Orchestra Award involves taking the piece into the orchestra’s repertory, playing it in many concert venues and, finally, recording it. Even more rousing applause resumed as the audience reacted to this news.  I made an effort to include the other composers in the recognition to the extent possible and was gratified at the effectiveness of this in making of us a group of friends, not a group of rivals. Subsequent reactions in Berlin as well were most favorable and full of new possibilities about which more will follow in due time.

End of report.

The next events were focused on the final rehearsal followed a day later by the performance of Quintet for Groups. The first move in this direction was locating me where I could communicate back and forth with the conductor. The obvious choice, the first row of seats, was occupied by ticketed audience members, who clearly prized their seating. Locating me next to one of these seat-holders in the aisle (using my wheelchair) also proved a problem, until, after much trial and error one man offered to cooperate. Keeping a positive attitude was key in this adjustment, but what made a real difference was the conversation the conductor had with me.

Realizing quickly that I would have a difficult time coming to him to make any comments or suggestions, he jumped down from the stage and came to me. Introducing himself he made it clear that he liked my composition very much and hoped I would let him present to me his interpretation of it. I assured him that I would be amenable. He pointedly went on to say that his entire conducting career had, from the end of World War II been in East Germany, which he hoped would pose no problems. I told him that this would be no problem, and given my commitment to discuss the piece with students at the Universität der Künste in East Berlin it probably would be an asset. I explained that my attitude to this composition is like that of an abstract expressionist painter to one of his paintings: the relations between the groups might be productive of many programmatic interpretations, any one of  which was as valid or as irrelevant as any other. I said that meeting him already gave me confidence that I would like his version of the composition. And this was very much the way our rehearsal went.

By the time we reached the placing of the Quintet in relation to the other works on the concert, I sensed a kind of increase of empathy with many of the orchesra players and even with some of the audience. When the composer of the first piece assured me he felt his composition made an appropriate introduction to mine. I sensed a real, not just a polite affirmation. And I was more than ready to reciprocate in kind, as it might be suitable.

Conclusion to come.

Even at rehearsals seats were reserved. At one such time there were three of us in wheelchairs and we were all asked to locate as near the left rear entrance to the concert hall as possible but without (1) blocking the aisle, (2) hindering audience members from coming and going to their ticketed seats, (3) getting in each other’s way. One such wheelchair user and I got along with simple politeness, but the other one, with the assistance of her husband treated me as though I were there principally to irritate her. I could only conclude it was because from the infrequent times we spoke, she identified me as an American. I made an extra effort not to make matters worse, but this may illustrate from what extremes of attitude we progressed to a more positive attitude.

Marc and I tried to go to places for meals where performers and staff went, hoping to make a friendlier impression . This was worth the effort. One time I was asked by one of the orchestra performers to join her so she could ask about the music. I did so, and it turned out that the table just next to us was occupied by the prince and princess. She was beautiful but quite shy, but he proved to be genuinely interested and much more approachable.

One evening we attended a string quartet concert sponsored directly by them, at their invitation. It was not flattery to praise both their choice of music and their sensitive playing. I was asked about my string quartets and this led to an explanation of the manner of tuning in my orchestra composition. The quartet was on tour and could not attend the orchestra concert,  but clearly word reached orchestra members and further intrigued them. Marc and I spent more and more mealtimes where we could encounter such interesting and active people.

On another evening I met a violinist from Koln who wanted to pursue getting a performance of Carmilla there. This could be a real possibility.

More to come.

Following the Boulez keynote concert, changing my relationship to that was a challenge as the series of Donaueschingen Festival Events unfolded. I was much aware that active participation by me, with Marc Sabat’s help and my son Ross’s increasingly great participation was an essential first step. We made sure we were, notwithstanding my need to use the wheelchair, an active part of a significant number of festival events and that we were a participating part of those to the extent we could manage. As an example we attended a concert of student works where all works offered by students in residence in Donaueschingen were combined into a single multi-phased group composition. It was clear to all three of us that the significant moments were when a composition asserted its individual personality and style rather than merging into the mass of others. We were noticeable because of the wheelchair, but were able neither to exploit that nor to apologize for it. This was a kind of role-playing but we were bringing to it a sense of humor and a determination to use all events as positively as possible. Everything from attending a rehearsal of someone’s else orchestra piece to using the toilet (not a simple matter any more) had to be done in such a way as to avoid seeming a nuisance or an embarrassment. While this did not always succeed, keeping it very much in mind was a way of constantly reawakening myself when my alertness began to fade. These were long days, and essential parts of a process of making myself known as a positive person. A number of memorable new friends come to mind but none more vividly than the piano tuner whose job it was to tune the two grand pianos we were using in Quintet for Groups in just the way they had to be to support the special kind of consonance/dissonance I used as the basis of the composition. The process of tuning, which had to wait until all other uses of the concert hall were completed for the day—about 11:30p.m.—resulted in our being there working until about 3:00 A.M.. It challenged every one of us and when we knew we had done it well, we felt real friendship.

More to come.

Wasn’t dissonance emancipated ?

Emancipation should mean freedom from boundaries, no hierarchy : simply equality. Instead it too easily comes to mean something quite unlike that : an enforced equality. At the onset of the 20th centurt Arnold Schoenberg fought that fight but it’s not settled yet. I doubt if I can settle it either, but I want to make some suggestions.

Schoenberg did not begin his revolutionary work with serial ordering but with a kind of complexity of pitch relations  often called atonality—a form of dissonance seeking a complexity different from that of late romantic music. The kind of order implied by it depends upon approaching near to chaos. That this coincided with the near collapse of European civilization shows how very upsetting living in that time and place was.  But imposed order  does not bring new kinds of harmony. It challenges, bringing questions, not answers.

Recent events are showing us that, like it or not, in certain inescapable ways we already live in one interdependent world. Many attempts to achieve one unified world began as revolutions the chaos of which afforded opportunities for leaders with overweening ambition backed by radical world-views who sought to impose some innovative way of livIng on as large groups of people as possible. What is missing in such dissonant times is an equal importance for consonance: for clarity, for harmonious order. Music is not an answer but it can powerfully symbolize one.

More to come.

The first event I was asked to be sure to attend was a concert composed and conducted by Pierre Boulez. I certainly would have wanted to attend this concert even without being specifically reminded to be there, but I clearly understood that as a composer represented on the orchestra concert my presence at this opening festival event was important. I went and was startled, as probably most of the audience was, to find that Boulez devoted the first half of the evening to an interrelated cluster of compositions that can only be described as strong propaganda. It began with a replay of the sound-track of the entire CNN news coverage of the assasination of a group of dissident Columbian workers for the drug cartel. This was commented upon visually in German and in English and overwhelmed by two powerful sound elements: a painfully loud very high pitched dissonant electronic cluster lasting for the full length of the composition and a call to war by Bertolt Brecht specifically exhorting us to a merciless anti-capitalist crusade.

Just before beginning the music Boulez  asked all spectators to stand during the whole performance of the first composition. Since I was in a wheelchair loaned by the festival, this request, which I honored, made me unable to stand during the rest of the evening. At intermission I went, wheeled around by Marc Sabat, to the intermission gathering in the lobby. It was a very strange experience, calling for a great deal of self- discipline: i felt very much a misfit.

The second half of the evening was a  masterful Boulez orchestra composition. Curtain calls were so many and so enthusiastic that to terminate it Boulez had to signal  that he must end the evening and get some rest.