Month: July 2017

Fiddling while Rome burns?

These days, when I (figuratively) put pen to music paper, I have to remind myself why I do this. Suffering from a steady drumbeat of depressing news (which I should make more of an effort to avoid), I can’t help but feel as the notes spin out that I am perhaps fiddling while Rome burns. Music is one of the most extraordinary expressions of human spirit, yet when our country has been (astonishingly) placed voluntarily by the electorate into the hands of barbarians, I wonder how writing more notes, no matter how beautiful, will ever cure that ailment.

As a youngster, I grew up in a household with a rather small collection of classical music. I spent many hours, late at night, lying in the dark staring at the living room ceiling, being carried to another world by a recording of Bach’s b minor mass that my mother, for whatever reason, had in her record collection. The urge to create something so achingly beautiful that survives the passing events of the world, no matter how devastating they might be for those who have to live (or die) through them, was born there, in the Bronx, during such nights.

My music writing is my way of paying back Bach (and many others) for that gift. I can only hope that the music, for whatever it is worth, in its own small way, will help keep the barbarians at bay, serving as a reminder of a delicate, interior world that is real, valuable and needs to be cherished and nurtured, perhaps most of all during bad times.

My first CD

I’m thrilled that, at long last, after many years of wanting to do this but never quite getting ‘round to it, my first CD is now available on Innova Records.  Performed by the Diderot Quartet, the CD includes three of my string quartets – American Landscapes, Lonely Voices and At the Center of all Things.  With great thanks to all who made it happen – especially Ralph Farris, who masterfully made it all come together.  Of course, thanks to Renee, who on a daily basis has to live with my obsessions, this CD being one of many.

Thoughts following a visit to MOMA

A visit to the Museum of Modern Art with Renee and Noah got me wondering about why some works, at least for me, had strong emotional content – and others fell flat.  On the day we were there, the majority of works on the 3^rd floor simply said nothing to me, while an escalator ride up to the 4^th floor was like entering a different world, one where the paintings spoke volumes.  It occurred to me that some contemporary artists, as they struggle to find a language that is uniquely their own and different from what came before, experiment with the basic elements that make up a painting, and not always with equal success.  The difference in my reaction to the paintings had nothing to do with their surface content – abstract versus representational. Rather, it seemed to me that some based their art on an intellectual concept that was untied to emotion, and the result felt that way.  The basic tools of the trade – color, line, shape, texture, tone, design – were all in evident, masterful use in the paintings that, for me at least, had something to say, but in many cases for the other works, some one of those important elements was missing, and as a result, the entire work wound up feeling like mere decoration on the wall.

As I thought about this, it occurred to me that there is a strong analogy with musical composition.  Those great works of music, the ones that live with you as if dear friends, use all of the tools at a composers command – pitch, timbre, rhythm, volume, harmony, and, perhaps most importantly, structure – to create a soundscape that can transmit emotional content as if straight from the heart.  The day following our visit to MOMA, I was listening to new music on the radio, and what I heard fell as flat on my ears as those artworks on MOMA’s 3^rd floor.  The pieces I heard that afternoon all used varying pitches, in various rhythms, played on various instruments, so, yup, it was music – but, decoration on a sonic wall.  Most of what I heard lacked any kind of perceptible structure.  They were just spinning notes until they stopped, without apparent direction or purpose.  Many kept at a sustained level of volume, without any variance that can create a sense of motion, as if traveling from one place to another.  They simply started and eventually stopped (thankfully, in many cases).  For me at least, music like that isn’t worth the labor of writing down the notes.  Yes, music is artifice, but the goal should be to use all of the elements of musical composition combined in such a manner as to create the greatest of illusions – one that can send shivers down your spine, whether of joy or grief.  Succeeding at that is another matter entirely, but the attempt should be made.