Why you gotta be so mean?
This is a question that I often find myself asking of others and their intent to cause others emotional distress. Do people not realize that their words and their conversations do in fact have long lasting effects? Are people so involved with making others look bad, and judging them; that they cannot see that they themselves are in fact so highly flawed and lacking important aspects of what it means to be a good person? Do people not realize that their actions can cause great hardships? Or do they even realize that what they do and say will eventually come back to them ten-fold? I think the answer to those questions are all, "Nope, as long as people listen to me, then I can talk all I want to about how evil others are."
This is a sad stance/position to take, and really causes a great deal of frustration and heartache on many people. So how do you deal with it?
The most effective response to meanness is compassion.
Where there is meanness, there is often a lot of pain, both in the
unkind person and for the person on the receiving end of a mean joke,
comment, or email.
You also have to first and foremost remember that you control your response when someone does or says something mean. We may not be able to control
much about our life circumstances, but with practice we can control
how we respond to those circumstances.
Take care of your own pain first. It is important that we understand that we have to be healthy and happy with ourselves before we can be strong enough to tackle the problems of others; or even take care of others. It is important to seek help to find solace within yourself first.
Before you attack back, let yourself
feel what is going on. You can simply repeat to yourself, “Pain, pain,
pain,” and breathe. Sometimes I have to say it out loud.
The key is not to deny what we are feeling, but rather to accept it. Take a moment to be mindful and narrate your emotions: This embarrassment is excruciating. I am so frightened right now. Hang in there with unpleasant feelings at least long enough to acknowledge them.
Often we don’t want to admit we are hurt by another person’s
meanness; we want to let it go without letting it get to us. If you can
do this, more power to you. But if you can’t, that’s okay, too. You will
survive the discomfort of your hurt feelings. It is perfectly normal to
feel bad when someone wounds you. Once you practice this sort of compassion within, we can move forward and: See mean people for what they really are—wounded
and tiny and probably threatened. Frightened mice masquerading as
roaring lions.
Finally, fight fire with water by sending
loving thoughts to the people who hurt you. This is an advanced
technique, but I can almost promise that it will make you feel better. It is better to approach people with saying things like “May you be happy. May you be healthy and strong.
May you be free from suffering” while imagining the person who tried to
hurt me.
When we send well-wishes to the hurting people who want us to share
their pain, we are able to rise above their suffering. We regain our
true power. After all, it is only when mean people actually are happy and free
from suffering that they will stop trying to take us down with them.
Remember we can control very few things in life, but what we can control is something more powerful than we think. We control the ability to help the world change, and to not allow people to gain control over us with their malicious intentions.
Thursday, August 6, 2015
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Do Orchestra's Need Conductors? by Lawrence McCrobie
A Study:
Do Orchestra’s Need Conductors?
By
Lawrence V. McCrobie
November 2014
Entering into the performance hall prior
to the start of a musical concert can leave one with a sense of excitement. A
feeling of great mystery, a journey that awaits the mind, body, and the
soul. However one might ask what
it is that allows the individual to embark on the journey of a musical
transgression into a state of mind where the music emotionally moves a person
to an emotive state of peace, serenity, and personal reflection. What one element exists that allows
essentially paper and ink to transform itself into something that has such a
profound effect on the music listener?
Music itself, in a written form, takes on a role of a mathematical equation
that can easily be carried out, however it is the addition of the human touch
to that equation that allows the impersonal written aspect to develop into an
“imperfect” and ever changing object.
The presence of a musical conductor, lends the emotive aspect to the
music. The role of the conductor in a musical organization is vital to the
overall direction of, and musicality, of bringing a musical work to life;
without a conductor music has no emotional connection. It has no one to create a unique and
different story each time the music is played, it has no one to make decisions
as to what story is to be told, or to create the high and low points of
energy. Simply stated: without a conductor,
music is nothing more than a math equation written on paper.
Current research exists that presents
information on the importance of a conductor not only as a musician, but also
as a leader in the orchestra.
Raymond Leppard in his article “Music and the Conductor” argues that the conductor’s role as an
interpreter has far surpassed the fact that the conductor is also a coordinator
of the orchestra, and that it is the conductor that ultimately must decide what
the end result is to be, and what should be done. They exist to form an overall
view of the works to be played. Leonid Sabaneev and SW Pring also present
evidence in the Musical Times through
their article “A Conductor less Orchestra”,
that an orchestra without a conductor is one that lacks in artistry; and that
their playing lacks connection to the audience and the personality of the music
is lost. An argument is also
presented on evidence that through a conductor, many orchestras are able to
achieve a high level of performance far quicker than a group that tries to do
the work without a leader. Robert Ponsonby delivers a message in his 2008
interview in the Tempo, that the
conscious relationship between what the conductor wants and what the musician
gives is very important. He also gives an introduction of how conductors are
allowed to interpret the musical piece in their own vision, and that over time
opinions change, which allows a piece to take on a new meaning after several
years of studying before the conductor visits the piece again. Clemens Wollner
and Wolfgang Auhagen, through their article in Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, finds that
experienced conductors have gained such a great deal of knowledge through their
training, that their ability to vision the music as a unique and ever changing
piece of art is easily achieved. Though explained best through Christopher
Keene’s article “Conductor” in the Music
Educators Journal, conductors are jack of all trades and thus are afforded
the ability to bring character and existence to a piece of music allowing it to
become inspirational to those that are there to absorb the performance.
So what is it that makes the role of a conductor
such an important overall aspect to an orchestra? Does the orchestra really need the conductor in front of
them in order to perform at a high level of musicality? What purpose does the
music conductor actually serve, and is it a necessary role in the performance
of a music composition? These are all important questions when trying to
develop the answer to why is the conductor necessary, and needed. It is seemingly apparent from first
glance that a conductor serves only one function during a rehearsal or even a
performance; to stand in front of the group and wave the baton for the
musicians, but is this an important and necessary role? The question remains, if the conductor
were taken away, would the musical ensemble actually have the ability to
continue on without their presence and leadership? There have been various studies on this topic, and Professor
Aloimonos of the University of Maryland Computer Science department did one of
the most influential, as well as recent, studies. This study was unique because it was conducted using the
newest technology consisting of LED laser lights that were attached not only to
the conductor’s baton, but also to the bows of the instrumentalists within the
orchestra. The ensemble was then
surrounded with the use of infrared cameras, which were placed to detect and
monitor the movements of the conductor’s baton and the movements of the
musicians. Through this study,
Aloimonos was able to gather enough information to make the determination that
the movement of the baton could in fact predict the movements of the musician’s
bows. This would lead to the
conclusion that the conductor really was dictating the movements of the
musicians, and thus was the one responsible overall for the sounds that an
audience would be hearing. The
study went on to conclude additional information, concluding that; “What we
found is the more the influence of the conductor to the players, the more
aesthetic — aesthetically pleasing the music was overall”.[1]
This is an important conclusion of information on the need for a conductor, and
even more important; the fact that the test environment was controlled to allow
the researchers to not know which of the conductors were advanced, nor which
were amateurs, yet to conclude that the proficiency of the conductor really did
have an impact on the overall sense of sound and musical finesse that was obtainable
from the ensemble.
But what makes the conductor such an
important figure to the orchestra? The answer is rather simple, and one that is
easily understood. Music in the written
form is simply a sheet of paper with ink on it. It is through the ability to take that information and
process it, that music has the ability to come alive. In group musical settings, regardless of how well the
musicians are trained, the ability to come together and all play in a way that
produces a masterpiece is something that is difficult, and nearly impossible to
do, without some sort of leader.
The Soviets during the 1918-1920 era, began to think of the Orchestra
Conductor as a person that himself did not play in the ensemble, but rather
took from the orchestra the praise and success of a job well done. This lead to
the conductor becoming a person that was looked at as an unsuccessful and an un-extolled
individual, but rather as a person that was disgusted and looked unpleasantly
upon. It was Zeitlin, a Moscow
Violin Professor and the leader of the Kussewitzky Orchestra, that proposed
that ensembles really did not need a conductor; and with that the era of
conductor-less orchestras were born in the Soviet Union. It is important to note that Zeitlin did
not “invent” the method of a conductor-less ensemble, as they were ever present
already in the form of chamber ensembles, but rather adapted the method over to
become introduced to the full-sized ensemble. There was one flaw with this method; even though there was
not an individual in front of the ensemble with a baton, there was still a
leader, one that made musical decisions and decided how things were going to be
played. Zeitlin, himself, had become the very thing that he was looking to do
away with: the conductor. It was
noted, “during the actual concert the players kept a watchful eye on Zeitlin
and his bow—the bow of the first violin”.[2]
This method did not last long, mainly due to the fact that in theory a conductor
was present, and economically not having a conductor only added a great deal of
overall cost and rehearsal time to the orchestras; as many additional rehearsals
were needed in order for a conductor-less ensemble to provide a musical concert
experience on the same level as an ensemble with the presence of a musical conductor.
With the need for a conductor explained
and accepted, we move into the understanding of the qualities that make a conductor
effective, and why is it important for them to be able to make artistic
decisions in relation to the musical delivery, and portrayal, of a musical
composition. There are many
aspects that a competent conductor should have, among some of those traits
reside the need to have a rich understanding of the nature of the piece and the
analytical formula used in the compositional aspect of the work. It is important to understand the mood
of the work in which they are conducting, as well as the technical demands of
the composition. Lacking in these
areas can lead to a performance that is not necessarily lacking in clarity, but
rather lacking in the meaning of the work as the composer upon its conception
intended it.
"Any asino can conduct," the autocratic Italian maestro Arturo
Toscanini once said, comparing routine conductors to dunces. "But to make
music, eh? Is difficile”![3]
This is a familiar statement that is made a great deal of time in the
conducting world. There are many
people holding positions that have something lacking when it comes to the
ability to consistently produce a high level of musicality when it comes to concert
time. But it might somewhat shock
people to know that the ones who seemingly “violate” the main qualities needed
to be considered a top conductor, are those that hold positions in the top ensemble
conducting positions. Take for
example Leonard Slatkin’s 2009 "La Traviata" failure, which resulted
in Slatkin being forced to withdraw from the Opera Production after its opening
night performance. The performance
that was given of the Opera, by the orchestra, left it apparently clear that
Slatkin himself was not familiar with Verdi’s work, and because of that, the
performance drew sharp criticism on the abilities of Slatkin to remain in a
position of such high distinction.
Although this moment brought a bit of shame on the world renowned conductor,
it is in fact a learning moment that can be taken into account, for even under
the baton of a celebrated conductor, the orchestra was unable to deliver a
stellar performance of the musical composition, leading one to wonder what the
performance would had been like had the ensemble simply not had a conductor.
But does this explain the need for a conductor? Or are we simply looking for reasons to
say that conductors should stay?
Another example of the importance of a conductor would come in the form
of the young Conductor Lionel Bringuier, who at the young age of 23 (at the
time of this example) was the Associate Conductor for the extraordinary Los
Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra; led by the world-renowned and widely respected
Gustav Dudamel. In 2011 during a
performance at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Conductor Gustav Duamel pulled a
neck muscle and during intermission made the decision that he would be unable
to conduct the second half of the concert featuring Tchaikovsky's
"Pathetique" Symphony.
This meant that it fell into the hands of Bringuier to step in and
conduct the LA Phil in this performance. Because of this particular situation, many blog’s and
discussion board topics appeared afterwards on what exactly it is that a
conductor does, and if they were really necessary? Now even though the LA Phil’s performance of the
“Pathetique” Symphony went over extremely well, even with the last minute
addition of Bringuier, it must be noted that the success of the ensembles performance
was attributed to Bringuier being at all of the rehearsals of Dudamel’s;
learning all of the styles and gestures that had been rehearsed and planed, and
even through the knowledge of Bringuier’s charisma and musicality was tested
and was triumph, the end result was a performance that was not fully at par with
what Dudamel himself would have given.
The end conclusion in all of the
information presented is that conductors are necessary to a musical
ensemble. That what makes a
competent, and successful, conductor is something that cannot truly be
measured. There are qualities that
must be present for a conductor to be successful in front of the ensemble in
which they stand in front of; some of which are being familiar with the music,
having a strong personality, and not being afraid to take risks with the music,
as well as the interpretation of
the music, for it is with risks that some of the most memorable musical moments
have been, and will be, created.
It is important to remember that the world of music is simply far too vast
for a sole musician to fathom. All one can do is take one piece at a time and
realize that the wonderful thing about being a conductor is that you never reach
a point of having all the answers.
There are aspects of every piece that continue to be ever changing, and
change due to knowledge gained from other musical experiences. Knowing that the
joy of music is never constant, yet ever changing ensures that the human touch
of a ensemble conductor will continue to be needed for the creation of
memorable music.
Bibliography
Bamberger, Carl. The Conducter's Art. New York, NY:
McGraw-Hill, 1965.
Keene, Christopher.
"Conductor." Music Educators Journal 63, no. No. 7 (1977):
86-88. http:///www.jstor.org/stable/3395221 (accessed September 27, 2014).
Leppard, Raymond .
"Music and the Conductor." Journal of the Royal Society of Arts
121, no. No. 5207 (1973): 707-716. http:///www.jstor.org/stable/41371148 (accessed
September 27, 2014).
Ponsonby, Robert. "The
Art of the Conductor." Tempo 62, no. No. 243 (2008): 2-15.
http:///www.jstor.org/stable/40072751 (accessed September 27, 2014).
Sabaneev, Leonid, and S.W.
Pring. "The Conductorless Orchestra." The Musical Times 69,
no. No. 1022 (1928): 307-309. http:///www.jstor.org/stable/916271 (accessed
September 27, 2014).
Wallace, William.
"Conductors and Conducting. III. The Conductor in the Making." The
Musical Times 65, no. No. 979 (1924): 785-787. http://www.jstor.org/stable/911259
(accessed September 27, 2014).
Wollner, Clemens, and
Wolfgang Auhagen. "Perceiving Conductors' Expressive Gestures from
Different Visual Perspectives. An Exploratory Continuous Response Study." Music
Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal 26, no. No. 2 (2008): 129-143.
http:///www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/mp.2008.26.2.129 (accessed September 27,
2014).
Vedantam,
Shankar. "Do Orchestras Really Need Conductors?" NPR. November 27,
2012.
(accessed October 31, 2014).
Program Notes Campbellsville University Orchestra Winter 2015 Concert
Program Notes provided by Lawrence V. McCrobie- Graduate
Student Conducting
Libiamo, libiamo
(Brindisi) from La Traviata, by Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Brindisi is a term for a toasting or drinking song. In this
case, young Alfredo offers the toast to his hostess, Violetta, to whom he has
just been introduced; privately, he thereafter confesses he has had a crush on
her for over a year. The jolly mood of the party contrasts with what is to
become a less-than-idyllic romance, as the audience soon begins to sense. The
1853 libretto by Francesco Piave is based on a story by Alexandre Dumas, and
the locale is outside Paris in about 1840; but even in Verdi’s time, liberties
were often taken with the era.
Toreador Song from
Carmen, by George Bizet (1838-1875)
There is a legend that the “Toreador Song” was not part of
the original score, and that Bizet added it at the urging of the management of
the Paris Opera Comique in order to make the opera more popular. Supposedly,
Bizet grumbled, “Well, if they want tripe, we will give them tripe,” and dashed
off the song. The story is unproven but certainly possible; when the opera was
rehearsed in 1874, there were abundant complaints from the chorus, orchestra,
and theater management. The latter feared, correctly, that the lust and violence
of the plot would lose them the “PG” rating they enjoyed at the time; after
all, a character dying violently onstage in the final scene was hardly family
fare. However, while the opera was criticized in reviews and by the clergy, it
nonetheless played 33 performances in Paris before Bizet’s death (45 in total)
and by the following November was being produced in 20 cities, with the “tripe”
among its most recognizable signatures. The bullfight music is the background
in the last scene, while the fatal confrontation between Don José and
Carmen—unrepentant to the last—is taking place outside the bullring. It is sung
here in French, with the crowd—including children, who jeer the appearance of
the Alguazil, the chief functionary of the bullfighting commission—delighting
in each new appearance in the stylized bullring parade, and finally shouting
bravos for torero Escamillo, who has replaced Don José in Carmen’s affections.
Overture to the opera
Hansel and Gretel, by Engelbert Humperdinck (1851-1921)
The "real" Engelbert Humperdinck made an impact on
the music repertoire that will far outlast the modern pop singer who adopted
the same stage-name as a joke. Humperdinck was a respected music teacher and
composer in Germany whose time followed Wagner by only a little bit. In fact,
he assisted Wagner at Bayreuth and eventually tutored Wagner's son Siegfried in
music. He was a prolific composer of vocal music, including accompanied songs,
choral works and works for the stage. But in spite of his masterful command of
instrumen-tal writing and orchestration, he composed very little for large
orchestra other than its use in opera.
He wrote a half-dozen operas, all of which could be classed
as "fairy-tale" opera. Audiences of the time found his works to be a
welcome contrast to the profundity of Wagner's music drama, and he was very
popular. One opera, though, stands out far above the rest. Hansel and Gretel.
It was an instant success, playing performances in more than 50 different
theatres during its first year. In fact, a touring company was formed to take
the show on the road. Although this is common nowadays for hit Broadway
musicals, it was absolutely unheard of at the time.
Humperdinck's musical language was essentially the same as
Wagner's, whom he knew so well because of their association at Bayreuth.
Humperdinck never developed a system of specific musical motives to represent
characters as did Wagner, and the overture does not follow a specific story
line. Nevertheless, the music evokes the moods found in the story: an initial
dreamy seductiveness, followed by danger and ultimately conflict as the
children confront the witch.
The overture opens with one of the most beautiful chorales
for the French horn section ever written. (Humperdinck would later return to
this theme for the famous "prayer and dream" scene in the opera.) A
trumpet fanfare then introduces a faster section, which starts serenely and
gradually introduces tension. Towards the end of the overture, the composer
weaves together all the various themes in an elegant counterpoint worthy of
Wagner's Meistersinger prelude. This leads to a stirring climax, after which the
opening horn chorale once again establishes the dreamy mood with which the
opera begins.
Danzón No. 2, by
Arturo Márquez (b. 1950)
Born to musical parents in Álamos, a colonial town hugging
the western foothills of the Sierra Madre of Sonora, the boy soon migrated with
his family to Los Angeles where Márquez spent his teen years and began his
musical education in earnest. Eventually, his studies took him to Mexico City,
Paris (under a scholarship) and, with a Fulbright now to his credit, he
collected an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia.
While the range and variety of his music have elevated his
stature as one of the most important Mexican composers of his generation. Márquez’s
most popular works have, indeed, played off his use of familiar and traditional
idioms, as attested by the many awards he has accumulated. Purists may prefer
the edgy avant-garde, yet all over the Americas, especially today, serious
composers who acknowledge their populist cultural roots have won increasing
acknowledgment in return from hungry followers fans. Danzón No. 2 has been
embraced as an unofficial national anthem of Mexico.
Márquez relates the inspiration behind his Danzón No. 2,
when in 1993 he traveled to Malinalco (near Toluca) with the painter Andrés
Fonseca and the dancer Irene Martínez, “both of which are experts in salon
dances with a special passion for the danzón.” That experience, plus later
visits to Veracruz and the Colonia Danzón in Mexico City led him “to learn the
danzón’s rhythms, its form, its melodic outline” and “to understand that the
apparent lightness of the danzón is only like a visiting card for a type of
music full of sensuality and qualitative seriousness…which old Mexican people
continue to dance with a touch of nostalgia and a jubilant escape toward their
own emotional world.” While the composer says he tried “to get as close as
possible to the dance, its melodies and its wild rhythms,” he acknowledges that
his symphonic setting “violates” its intimacy, form and harmonic language.
The traditional danzón, a salon dance for couples, uses
rondo form and is derived from the 19th century contredanse and the Cuban
habanera. One of at least eight danzónes by Márquez so far, this one was
commissioned by Mexico’s National Autonomous University, whose symphony
orchestra premiered it in 1994. It remains a staple of the Simón Bolívar Youth
Orchestra, which, under Gustavo Dudamel, toured the U.S. and Europe in 2007.
Piano Concerto No 20 in D minor, K466 ALLEGRO, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
It is not difficult to understand why the nineteenth century
kept Mozart’s D minor piano concerto on the concert platform while ignoring
many of his other works, for it is quintessentially Romantic in nature.
Mozart’s D minor concerto is dark and surprising in its
outer movements while cradling a central slow movement of such tender lyricism
that it would take a heart of steel not to succumb to its blandishments. A
Rondo finale that is full of irregularities offsets the turbulence of the
opening movement – it even harks back to the tempestuous first movement. The
unusual (for Mozart) addition of two trumpets and timpani to the orchestra for
this concerto also contributes to the drama. But when all is said and done,
Mozart cannot resist providing us with a ‘happy ending’ by concluding his
masterpiece triumphantly in D major.
Given the unsettling parry and thrust of this concerto, it
is astonishing to learn that the copyists were still busy writing out the
orchestral parts the day before the concert. The orchestral musicians must have
been the very best in Vienna, for the ever-critical Leopold Mozart (who arrived
just in time to hear his son give the first performance of the concerto in
Vienna in February 1785) noted how wonderfully the entire subscription concert
had been performed – and the orchestral parts are no mere trifling
accompaniment. The writing for both soloist and orchestra is powerful and
dramatic, with the orchestra playing an equally important part in the musical
development of the work. It is not hard to hear why Beethoven, who performed
this concerto frequently, should have been so attracted to this magnificent
specimen of Mozart’s art – but then, so are we all.
K466 has always been a regular visitor to the concert platform,
and will continue to be so as long as we have ears! It is a perfect example of
why music can so deeply touch human emotions while mere words can only hope to
scratch the surface. But then, that is why Mozart is one of the immortals – his
music goes straight to the heart.
Hallelujah, by
Leonard Cohen (b. 1934)
Since Leonard
Cohen recorded his now-famous song “Hallelujah,” hundreds of other
artists have recorded it. Performances of the song have been watched and heard
millions of times on television, on the radio, and in concert settings. It is
impressive that this once obscure Cohen song, originally rejected by his record
label, became one of the most familiar songs in the world, known by just about
everyone practically everywhere.
When Cohen first recorded Hallelujah in 1984, the timing for
the release of this song wasn’t right. It was 1984, a huge year for pop music,
with Prince’s “Purple Rain,” Madonna’s “Like A Virgin,”
Bruce Springsteen’s “Born In The USA” and MTV dominating the world,
and face it music by a 50-year-old man didn’t resonate as something that would
be appealing to the mass. But even when Cohen did eventually release
Hallelujah, it still didn’t get any attention. None of the reviews of the record
picked up on it at all, making it something that was eventually labeled as a
“gem that no one could see.”
It was not until singer John Cale saw it that the song would
have any hope of ever becoming such a loved and recognized piece of music. Cale
recorded his version in 1991 for a Cohen tribute album, and that’s the version
millions of kids heard when they went to see the movie “Shrek.” However the
artist who really put Hallelujah on the map was the late Jeff Buckley. He
started playing it in his shows and recorded it in 1994.
Shenandoah, by Dr.
James W. Moore
The end of the Civil War marked the beginning of the great
westward migration: millions of pioneers in search of riches or simply a new
life set out in endless wagon trains, pushing the frontier ever closer to the
Pacific. With them they took precious few belongings, but many memories of the
land they loved and left behind. “Shenandoah,” the words of a wistful Virginia
settler transplanted west of the Missouri river, is an expression of his
homesickness. Not only is “Shenandoah” one of the greatest American songs; Dr.
James W Moore’s arrangement stands as one of the most unforgettable folksong
arrangements in the repertoire.
The arrangement is a jazzy take on the rich American rooted folk song
that was initially written for Campbellsville University Professor Dr. Wesley
Roberts to perform on Organ. The
piece was then adapted from that original arrangement by Dr Moore for Symphony
Orchestra. The end result is a
piece that is filled with unique flair of a Jazz push towards the new and the
sad and long ago memories of the Virginia countryside.
Violin Concerto-Unsuk Chin by Lawrence McCrobie
Unsuk Chin
Paper by Lawrence McCrobie
Paper by Lawrence McCrobie
Creating a musical composition
that is unique, accessible and full of emotion
is the goal of all composers when they begin the composition process. The path that the overall form,
and style, of
the specific piece takes;
will ultimately lead
the composition into the
desire direction. Grawemeyer winning
composer Unsuk Chin uses her Violin
Concerto to introduce unique, and delicate, styles of
composition in order to deliver what many consider
a stellar example of what Contemporary music should entail. Chin uses her diverse musical
training to create a work that is accessible by many, and one
that is easily understood by the majority. Though her writing
style is not original, or sophisticated, she was able to
take and create a melting pot
of the composition styles
learned from the tutelage
of her various musical influences, and produce a
musical work that is full of energy, newness, and uniqueness.
It is important to understand for what
purpose the Grawemeyer Award was created, and for what it
stands, in order to discuss the winners of this prestigious award in Music
Composition. In 1983, a
local businessman named Charles Grawemeyer met with then Dean
of the University of Louisville School of Music, Dr. Jerry Ball, to discuss
establishing a prize within the field of music.[1]
With that in mind, 1985 was the
first year that the Grawemeyer Award
was presented with the honor going to a Polish composer
Witold Lutoslawski for his Symphony No.3.[3]
This started a tradition of selecting the best possible composers,
through their personal compositions, that displayed unique and ground breaking
compositions that would paved the way for new music to continue to be written
and grow in popularity.
On January 14, 2003 the process of
submitting Unsuk Chin’s Violin Concerto began, with a letter from Boosey &
Hawkes Editorial Committee to the Grawemeyer Music Award Committee (Figure 1)
and followed up on January 15, 2003 with a detailed letter from the Chairman of
the Boosey & Hawkes Editorial Committee, Mr. David Allenby (Figure 2).
Unsuk Chin, the Grawemeyer nominee,
born in Seoul, South Korea in 1961 was from a very poor family. Her father, a Presbyterian minister, taught
Unsuk to read music and encouraged his daughter to explore and develop her
musical talents. At the young age
of two, Unsuk began her piano studies where she would frequently accompany
singers at her church on the spiritual hymns. In a biographic interview, Unsuk says that she discovered
music during her early childhood and was immensely fascinated by it.[4] She further discusses her career
aspirations, at an early age, to go on to become a concert pianist, but her
family was not financially able to support and foster those dreams. She went on
in the interview to say that around the age of 13 she began to let go of her
dream to be a famous concert pianist, in favor of composing music. Thus reflecting back to the significance
of the statement as to the purpose of the Grawemeyer
award by Dr. Jerry Ball, of trying to find the next Mozart, Unsuk Chin was well
on her way to becoming just that.
Learning the styles and methods of composition was something that Unsuk
self-taught; she learned the techniques of
composing from borrowing scores of others and copying them out by hand. Her most remembered score copying was when
she copied the entire score of Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique Symphony.[5]
Entering Seoul National University
on her third attempt in admission, Chin went on to study with Sukhi Kang[6]
who was a student of another influence
of Chin, Isang Yun[7], an composer
that eventually gain International standing. Through her studies with Kang (and inspiration from
the teachings of Yun to Kang) Chin was exposed to the techniques and trends of
avant-garde music that was being seen in the Post-war Western style of
music. After her studies at the
Seoul National University from 1981-1984 (Music Composition major), earning her
bachelor of music degree, she was poised to write many pieces of music, and
eventually went on to win many international prizes in her early 20’s. Her
1984 work - Gestaltne (Figures) – was what
many agree set her into the path to eventually become internationally
acclaimed and a runner for the eventual winning of the Grawemeyer Award.
The work from 1984 was recognized by many musical organizations including
the International Society for Contemporary Music. But it was the honor of
the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD)[8]
award to study music in Germany that was the pivotal point in her advancement
in the field of music composition.
In Germany she studied with Gyorgy Ligeti, whose musical style and
philosophy had a huge impact on Chin’s music.[9] It was in fact Ligeti who put Chin on
her path to write the Grawemeyer piece, Violin
Concerto, because he had stated to Chin that she needed to find and develop
her own compositional language.[10]
In 1988 Chin moved to Berlin to
begin her work at the electronic music studio at the Technical University. It
was her work at the Technical University where Chin finally found the calling
of her own personal music composition style, stating: “The experience at the
Technical University was a very helpful step toward being able to compose music
that can be felt with the heart, casting away the music that is thought out in
the brain with logic.”[11]
This work allowed Chin to explore the various ways in which she could use the
standard acoustical instruments and create new sonorities that lead to the
ability to create highly rich colors of sounds in a formally structured
sense. This new style lead Boosey
& Hawkes to offer her an exclusive publishing contract, of which has been
in place since 1995.
Many of Chin’s notable
composition include: Gestalten (Figures)-1984, Die
Troerinnen (Trojan Women) 1986, Akrostichon-Wortspiel
(1991-93), Santika Ekatala (1993), Fantasie mecanique (1994), Xi (1998), Double Concerto (2002) ParaMetaString
(1997), Miroirs des temps (1999), Piano Etudes 2,3,4 (1995), Piano Concerto (1996), Piano Etude No. 1 In C (1999) Piano Etude No. 6 “grains” (2000), Spectres Speculaires (2000), and her
2001 Violin Concerto, which won the 2004
Grawemeyer Award and attracted a great deal of International acclaim. Her work
was described as “a synthesis of glittering orchestration, refined sonorities,
volatility of expression, musical puzzles, and unexpected turns.”[12]
Chin’s fascination with the
Indonesian Gamelan musical style coupled with the new sense of avant-garde
music and the electronic sounding element really lead Chin to create, not only
a unique piece in the Violin Concerto,
but one that really defined New Music as a way to emotionally capture its
listeners and challenge them to listen for the musical techniques utilized to
create the rich sounds, and to do so in a highly structured fashion.
The Violin Concerto is considered to be Chin’s most famous works,
and has won her numerous awards.[13] The work begins with an introductory
section that starts simply, with the marimbas, gong drum, and double bass
sustaining a mysterious cloud of sonority. Out of this cloud emerges the solo
violin, playing only octaves and fifths, the basic elements of sound, and the
basic structure of which the notes of the violin are based on. The texture
builds slowly in complexity until it cuts off abruptly. The beginning of the
piece is what one may consider being a driving force, or machine- like
motion, with the rhythmic feel of the marimba as a shimmering texture serving
as a background motor of this piece.
It is then given a further gamelan feel to it through the introduction
of the gongs that are resonating through the opening statement and the presence
of the solo violin which is actively painting the listener with attractive
washes of color to listen for.[14]
(Score Example 1) The violin
beings the piece in a calm and soothing pattern consisting of intervallic leaps
of octaves (D to D) and 5ths. As the solo violin continues into the opening theme, the
calming nature is soon diminished, and a wild frenzy begins to spin into
existence through the introduction the Bassoon.[15]
(Score Example 2) This
opening statement is also playing on the sonority of what one might hear as
tuning of the instrument for eventual performance. This opening statement and overall feel returns as the
entire work comes to a close in the fourth movement. Though seen in a different
scoring format, this link to the opening gesture is used to create the sense of
a full circle of completion, beginning with the tuning up of the violin, to the
simple introduction of octaves and fifths heard in the opening statement.
It is important to note that
throughout the opening section of the Violin
Concerto, Chin employesemploys a
method of using the soloist and the orchestra as two separate entities, and
really utilizing them for specific purposes. Even though the Orchestra is in itself a separate group, it
is used without ever really creating itself a persona of its own, more
specifically it is used strictly as a supporting feature to the soloist. It provides harmonic support and very
little in the melodic sense through the work, and never takes the dominant
lead, where one might have seen concertos of the past do so. The violin soloist also takes a
non-traditional approach in the work, remaining the center of the work
throughout the entire piece, with very little absence from the musical line.
One important feature of the Orchestra comes in the form of being present and
providing the soloist with a broad spectrum of balance through rich and warm
supporting sounds, and also accomplishes this through the creation of warm and
uncommon timbres of sound from the unusual pairings of instruments together,
and the vast use of the percussion section to provide the underlying role of
harmonic support. One can see this
odd pairing of instruments at approximately measure 38, where one will notice
the percussive elements of the marimba take to doubling the solo violin, and
allowing the harps to provide the rhythmic element, and the horns to provide
counter harmony as the section statement continues.[16]
(Score Example 3)
Overall this work provides, in
itself, a great example of the continued push towards creating musical elements
that are unique and fascinating for audiences to experience. To take in these new and intriguing
sounds from instruments, that have for centuries been at the core of Classical
Orchestral music, allows the listener to embark on a journey that creates a sense
of self expression as well as a journey that enables the music to tell a
different story each time it is heard. In an interview,
when asked what she would like the listening audience to experience,
Unsuk Chin stated she would like
everybody to “hear in it what they can and want”.[17] I think that Unsuk created something
that was reflective of many styles and various techniques, from the vague
gamelan nature of the music to the electronic variants that appear through the
various performance techniques on the instruments, to the incorporation of
Western Music culture styles as it relates to Jazz. Chin
creates more than a work;
she creates a journey
that can be classified as something extremely delicate and light that
transcends into extra terrestrial stratospheres. Though her methods of creating the music, and the ultimate
styles of the music may not be fully original in form, nor sophisticated in the
compositional structure, she has effectively created a
musical work that is full of energy, newness and uniqueness. With all of those components combined,
Chin’s Violin Concerto is not only worthy of the Grawemeyer Award
in Music Composition, but is also worthy of being a stellar example of what
Contemporary music should entail and encompass.
[1]
University
of Louisville, "The Grawemeyer Awards, H. Charles Grawemeyer
Biography." Accessed March 20, 2014.
http://grawemeyer.org/about/h-charles-grawemeyer-biography.html.
[4] Interview,.
http://usasians-articles.tripod.com/unsuk-chin.html
[5] Kim, Sung
Hyun Kim, ,
“Unsuk Chin: Dreaming Alice in Contemporary Music,” chap. In Today’s Classic: A
Series of Biographies of 40 Modern Composers from Stravinsky to Unsuk Chin (Paju:
Art Books, 2010) 463.
[6] Korean-born Kang (b. 1934)
studied in Korea and Germany. A
former student of Isang Yun, Kang is known for his work with experimental and
electronic music.
[7] Isang Yu (1917-1995) a
Korean-born composer. Studies in Germany lead him to create a fusion between Korean
traditional music and the music considered to be avant-garde.
[8] DAAD is a private, federally
funded and state-funded, self-governing national agency of the institutions of
higher education in Germany, representing 365 German higher education
institutions.
[9] Program note from
www.bso.org/Images/program_notes/Chin_celloConcerto.pdf
[10] Interview. Hhttp://usasians-articles.tripod.com/unsuk-chin.html
[11] Hae Young Yoo, “Western Music
in Modern Korea: A Study of Two Women Composers,” (DMA
diss, Rice University, 2005.),
59
[12] Program note from
http://www.foresthill-sf.com/musicaldays-2006/P-Chin.html
[13] Anne Ozorio, Anne. "Unsuk
Chin Total Immersion, Barbican." Bachtrack. Accessed
March 20, 2014. http://bachtrack.com/review-unsuk-chin-barbican.
[14] Unsuk
Chin, Violin Concerto, (London, England: Boosey & Hawkes, 2001). Chin,
Unsuk. Violin Concerto. London, England: Boosey & Hawkes, 2001.
[16] Unsuk
Chin, Unsuk. Violin Concerto.
London, England: Boosey & Hawkes, 2001.
[17] Interview.
Hhtp://usasians-articles.tripod.com/unsuk-chin.html
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