World Premiere of “Wingbeat”

Posted on May 21, 2022 by Mark
Wingbeat

Wingbeat for amplified harp and 2-channel fixed audio was chosen to be a part of the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival 2022. The premiere will be given by harpist Sonia Bize on Sunday, June 26, 2022, at 8:00 pm at the Loreto Theater in the Sheen Center, 18 Bleecker St., New York, NY.

This work was initially inspired by a pair of Mute Swans who live on the pond behind my house on Long Island. One day I was kayaking on the pond and I noticed a swan fly overhead.  Thereafter, each time I heard a swan fly overhead it sounded the same in pitches and pulse of its wingbeats. I made a recording and listened to it for more details. Included in the fixed audio are recorded (and processed) sounds of the swan’s wingbeats. Other swan sounds are included as well, for example, the sound of a swan running on the surface of the water to take flight. However, on the recording, I designed the water-slapping running sounds.

Wingbeat
Wingbeat

Though I am showing various artworks in this post the art in themselves had nothing to do with this piece. But the texts the artifacts are based on did inspire my work including constellations, stories, and myths. Not just legends about swans but legends combining swans and lyres (though not harps, they are close enough). 

Another aspect of swan in Wingbeat has to do with the basic material both the harp part and the fixed audio share. I extensively use the Carnatic Indian raga Hamsadhwani, C, D, E, G, B, and C throughout the work. Hamsadhwani means “song of the swan.” 

As a technical note, in addition to the swan wingbeat samples and other designed sounds, the use of granular synthesis and processed digital oscillators contributed greatly to the electroacoustic composition.

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George Crumb R.I.P.

Posted on February 6, 2022 by Mark
George Crumb R.I.P.
“Makrokosmos, vol. I” for amplified piano

I was 17 when I first started to officially study composition with Chinary Ung. At the time, I was aware of a number of contemporary composers. But until I met Chinary I neither heard of Chinary nor George Crumb. That would all soon change. At my first lesson with Chinary, who also worked with Crumb at Tanglewood, he pulled out this enormous score of “Star-Child” for orchestra. Chinary recently copied some of the parts for the New York Philharmonic’s world premiere. He also had a tape of the world premiere. Then, one by one, I became well acquainted with all of Crumb’s music.

I first met George Crumb at the University of Illinois in 1980. Crumb earned the Masters degree at the University of Illinois decades earlier. Now he was there to receive both a university award and a performance of his orchestra work “Star-Child.” He also gave a presentation to Ben Johnston’s small contemporary music seminar which I was a part of. After that time, I would meet him at BMI student awards parties. I knew a few of his students, the late Jim Primosh and Stephan Jaffe. Everyone who knew him well had a great impersonation of the master’s drawl. Stephan Jaffe would say, How do you take your coffee, George? “I like a shot a white in my java.”

George Crumb’s music went against the tide of his generation but he wasn’t a reactionary. His music is poetic and personal. It offers a future that comes from a past. His embracing of the music of Appalachia, Europe, and Asia was certainly inspired by Charles Ives. For a 17-year-old composer, his sonic world was inspiring at a time when serial thinking and pattern music had little to offer. A hint at who inspired him and who was important to Crumb at the time can be found in the initials at the end of each piece of “Makrokomos,” vol. I: B.B., W.R.C., J.B., R.L.F., G.H.C., A.W., P.Z., C.D., A.S., D.R.B., F.G.L., B.W.

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Notes on “Lament”

Posted on January 27, 2022 by Mark
Notes on "Lament" tarot reading

Notes on the Tarot Reading

According to my notes on Lament, I performed a seven-card tarot reading on February 5, 2006. The following are the cards and the scenes they are paired with:

Tarot Card                           Temporality              Scene

1. Magician                                   Distant Past                    Prelude

2. Emperor                                    Immediate Past             Scene 1

3. Temperance                              Present Influence          Scene 2

4. Reverse Nine of Cups             Present Obstacles         Scene 3

5. Wheel of Fortune                    Present Outlook            Interlude

6. Reverse Judgement                 Future Influences         Scene 4

7. Reverse Queen of Cups           Ultimate Result              Scene 5

The tarot reading revealed the form and direction my future monodrama would take. I interpreted this seven-card spread as a transformation from young and green to old and seasoned. Furthermore, the reading suggests an overall slowing down over time. Each section’s character is influenced by its corresponding card. Next, find a text that aligned with the tarot reading.

After some time looking for a text, I discovered the Dylan Thomas poem “Lament” written in early 1951. The poem is about the declining sexual history of a man (possibly a caricature of himself).  In the end, I decided to open the work with a piano prelude (Magician card) of vitality and virtuosity that would spin into Scene 1 (Emperor card) a young adult, not yet a man; followed by Scene 2 (Temperance card) now a man but acts like a boy; Scene 3 (Reversed Nine of Cups card) the falling off of being a gusty man and a half; Interlude (Wheel of Fortune) reevaluation; Scene 4 (Reverse Judgement card) he is half the man he was and dying of downfall; Scene 5 (Reverse Queen of Cups card) He is a man no more.

It’s not Jazz, it’s about Jazz…and other Things

notes on "Lament" 52nd Street jazz club

Because Thomas had visited New York City twice between 1951-1953, I fancied he visited Manhattan’s 52nd Street jazz clubs though there is no evidence of him ever doing so. I also imagined that Dylan Thomas’s wonderful theatrical voice transformed into a singer perhaps dressed in tweed to finalize the caricature of the great poet. This idea went from fantasy to a dream Lament will take place in.

In each of the five stanzas of the poem, the third line is always parenthetical and comically describes the temporal state of the singer, aka “Old Ram Rod.” This line is always sung by a female chorus that increases in size for over half the work to only decrease until there is only one female singer who finally leaves. These are some of the women with whom the singer has had affairs throughout his life.

What if…?

The dream takes place in a fictitious Manhattan 52nd Street jazz club between 1950 and 1960, including dim lighting, a bar, tables, and chairs. The ensemble is slightly off to the side. The singer has great freedom to develop his character. Lament uses an idea of jazz entwined with new music without any historical relationship. The inception of the piece is based on the question, What if there was a merger or fusion between jazz and new music in New York City in the 1950s? Certainly, this idea is similar to Gunter Schuller’s “Third Stream.” But this hypothetical question is realized in a dream and actualized.

The ensemble I settled on reflects progressive jazz or a new music ensemble of that time. In addition to the bass/baritone singer and female chorus is an ensemble consisting of bass clarinet, percussion, piano, and double bass.

Lament is a 55-minute monodrama.

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Chinary Ung’s Spiral Series

Posted on July 27, 2021 by Mark

Chinary UngThe 80th birthday of the Khmer-American composer Chinary Ung is next year. In honor of this great occasion, I have created a playlist of his Spiral series. The series began and includes 15 works that began in 1997 to the most recent Spiral XIV. All of these works are available through Edition Peters.

These compositions follow a metaphorical spiral through multiple series of manipulations. Both Asian and Western elements are readily discernible in this series.

Chinary Ung was my first composition teacher. The greatest effect on me was in the area of rhythm. I learned to feel rhythm asymmetrically. One technique to open up my mind to the realm of rhythm was to say a sentence out loud and then notate my reading as precisely as I could. The results were enlightening. My notations would include a mix of duplets, triplets, quintuplets, and dotted rhythms. If I were to speak in a symmetrical way the results were stiff. This is only one example of his pedagogy.

Playlist

Addendum

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Insight into Lament

Posted on July 19, 2021 by Mark

As I woke up, too soon I might add, I had the idea that my monodrama Lament is a dream; and why not. The initial idea I had for this work was for it to be a monodrama using the Thomas poem. The setting would be a 52nd street jazz club in Manhattan. I was imagining the type of jazz of the 1950s to 1960. During this incredible decade (for both jazz and new music), personalities, styles, and ideas were changing rapidly and I wanted to be able to pick and choose influences unencumbered by history. My guiding light was the question, “What if…?” The music freely references the jazz experience one might have had in the clubs of that time. It is the non-historical part, however, that allows for the work to be a dream—it’s outside of time. That Lament takes place in a dream explains much of its expression.

The setting would be in a fictitious 52nd street jazz club in Manhattan.

Lament

One idea I have struggled with is I haven’t accepted Thomas’s title. I have always viewed the final stanza of the poem as not a bad, sad or regrettable place to be. Rather, it is a mature and spiritual acceptance of the life cycle. I get to see the time arc at a deeper level, one that Thomas could not have imagined. Yet the whole episode is a dream and allows for multiple interpretations. My interpretation doesn’t take anything away from the poem but it does make it self-accepting. Hopefully, the experience will feel authentic.

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NYCEMF 2021 June 21-27

Posted on June 23, 2021 by Mark
In-Between was chosen for the NYCEMF 2021.

In-Between (2020) was chosen for the NYCEMF 2021, virtually. That’s okay. But I hope we find a venue that will present this work on a HUGE screen to do justice to Chris’s film. I would also like to hear 8″ or 10″ woofers produce some of the lowest sounds. This piece isn’t about exploiting the eyes and ears but it does offer up a number of visceral stretches that sneak up on the audience. You realize you are experiencing something but you don’t remember when it started.

There are a total of 28 concerts, installations, papers read, and workshops given. Visit https://nycemf.org.

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What is My Music?

Posted on April 16, 2021 by Mark

To compose music that is as wonderful as the first works of music I ever heard. I’m trying to create an experience that I call the “musical experience.” Obviously, I can’t duplicate my previous work. Part of the creation of that effect is making something unexpected happen. It’s a combination of using sounds you think you understand, to create a result you know you don’t understand. The sum of the materials does not predict the result. I want to compose music that puts me in the position of innocence and recreate the feeling of innocence. In other words, I compose music I want to listen to.

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Sound Source for “In-Between”

Posted on January 21, 2018 by Mark Gustavson

In-Between is a new fixed media composition. Most of the recorded sounds and pitches are derived from  recordings I made of a large tam-tam.

I processed the recordings in a MAX spectral freeze patch (designed by Jean-François Charles) to create these freezes among many of others:

Some of the processing highlights microtonal beatings between intervals and spectral changes depending on the proximity of the freeze to the attack as in Freeze #3.
Freeze #4 reveals the most prominent pitches of the tam-tam.

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Hymn to the Vanished Arranged for Concert Band

Posted on January 20, 2018 by Mark Gustavson

Hymn-to-the-Vanished-first-page

The first page of Hymn to the Vanished for concert band.

I composed Hymn to the Vanished in a whirlwind of emotions following September 11, 2001. Because there would be limited rehearsal time the music director and I settled on string orchestra as the best vehicle for the piece. Recently, however, I revisited this piece with the idea that a different type of ensemble could bring a more powerful quality to the piece. My decision to rewrite the piece for concert band not only retains the feeling of prayer but strengthens it by the use of “call and response.” The heartbeat motive that was originally in the double bass now incorporates timpani, snare drum, bass drum, tuba, and euphonium and offers great resonance. Maybe the greatest change occurs to the original sustained string chords. These chords are now charged with a quarter-note pulse. This change adds the element of suspense that is only broken by the sustained climactic chords by the entire ensemble. The instrumentation is for piccolo, flutes 1 & 2, oboes 1 & 2, Eb clarinet, clarinets 1, 2 & 3, alto clarinet, bass clarinet, soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, trumpets 1, 2 & 3, 4 horns, trombones 1 & 2, bass trombone, euphonium, tuba, timpani, snare drum, bass drum and crash cymbals with a duration of eight minutes.

Click here for the full score. Download it for free.

Hymn to the Vanished was composed just after 9/11 for a December 2001 concert by the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra. It was also performed a few months later by the string ensemble S.O.N.Y.C. at Carnegie Hall. The work is dedicated to all the lives lost on September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

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How to Lament

Posted on August 4, 2017 by Mark Gustavson

An article from the New York Times Magazine How to Lament.

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