Leon Kirchner was a force of nature, as pianist, conductor, composer, and musical analyst. In 1966, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his Third String Quartet with Electronic Sound, which he had learned about mostly from Morton Subotnick, and never taught any of his students. I sought him out that year for a personal interview, before deciding on whether to attend Harvard College and study composition with him. It took months of phone calls and numerous messages, but I finally did reach him, and set up an appointment, at his home in Cambridge. What I thought would take about an hour ended up lasting over two and a half hours, as he insisted on impressing on me, in detail, the importance of acquiring and studying every note and every word of the Schnabel edition of the Beethoven Piano Sonatas (which of course I then did). At the end of those two and a half hours, he informed me that he had spent that amount of time with me not because of the recommendation I had brought with me from my composition teacher Elie Siegmeister, but because of the regards I had for him from cellist Benar Heifetz (who had played his music at Marlboro), the husband of my piano teacher Olga Heifetz. Indeed, I was to learn, Kirchner generally got along with and had a much higher regard (and use?) for performers than composers.

John Adams, a first-rate clarinetist and conductor who decided to become a composer and studied with Kirchner at Harvard the same years I did, has described him as “devastatingly candid” whose negative assessment “could require weeks for one to recover enough self-esteem to continue.” That was to some extent the effect Kirchner had on me, especially regarding a piece I wrote in his class, inspired by The Living Theatre - and R.D. Laing - called “The Bird of Paradise.” Although it called for a part to be recorded on tape, inspired partly by Kirchner’s Third Quartet, I was not encouraged to find a way to realize that part; Robert Moog told me (in 1970) that there was no way to do it technologically. Today there probably is, perhaps using portions of a recording of a 1970 reading I was allowed to conduct with James Yannatos’s Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra; but Kirchner’s remarks in class, that he liked the first 12 bars of the piece but after that thought I should start over, made me so depressed that the piece has lain dormant ever since. He was also very ambivalent on the question of whether to join a protest against the Vietnam War which would forbid the broadcast of any of his music by American Forces Network. Not so the other composition teacher at Harvard, Earl Kim, who was the first to move for complete amnesty for the war protesters who had occupied University Hall, and later took off a whole year to work for Musicians for Peace and against nuclear war. After two years of study with Kim and one with Kirchner, I went back to Kim.

But Kim’s output as a composer was much more limited than Kirchner’s. Only a handful of Kim’s pieces were available for broadcast on the Harvard radio, whereas Kirchner’s took several hours, in an “orgy” I produced for and on Kirchner’s 50th birthday, Jan. 24, 1969, after which Kirchner took me to lunch.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. My freshman year, before getting involved in the radio, I wrote 9 articles, competing to become an editor of the Harvard Crimson. The last two were finally published, on Mar. 4 & 11, 1968: I’ve posted them on my website at
http://ljlehrman.artists-in-residence.com/articles/harvardcrimson1.html
and
http://ljlehrman.artists-in-residence.com/articles/harvardcrimson2.html

In the first article, I reviewed the Harvard Band. In the final article, I took on the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, in a concert conducted by Kirchner, with his fellow faculty member Luise Vosgerchian (with whom I had also hoped to study) as soloist in his Second Piano Concerto. It was to be a great event, a confluence of the two most dynamic figures on the music department’s faculty.
Unfortunately, Vosgerchian missed some rehearsals due to illness, and when I played through the score Kirchner loaned me, and listened to the recording he had made with Mitropoulos of his First Piano Concerto, I sensed that something was wrong with the performance: He had written a piece inspired by the spirit of Berg and Schoenberg, while she was playing it as if it had been written by Bartók or Stravinsky. It tore me apart, but I felt I had to say it, somehow. When I tried speaking to Vosgerchian about it, she retorted, annoyed: “But I was only playing what the composer wrote and wanted!” Kirchner himself was more reticent. But the following January, he subtly agreed that I had been right. (”Right too soon” was how he once lovingly characterized a Mozart piece he conducted - a recording of which was played at his Miller Theatre memorial - hoping someone would attribute that quality to him too.)

The Kirchner 50th Birthday orgy broadcast an archival recording of a much more sensitive performance of the Second Concerto, by Leon Fleisher, Milton Katims, and the Seattle Symphony. When it looked as though we might not get clearance to broadcast that, I mentioned to Kirchner that we might broadcast the HRO performance. “No,” he said wryly: “You took care of that.” And 30 years later, at his 80th birthday celebration, which I reviewed for Aufbau – please see
http://ljlehrman.artists-in-residence.com/articles/aufbau75.html
– he remembered me, with the words: “You once wrote a very important article about my work….”

I wish I could have loved the music he wrote after I started studying with him as much as the music he had written earlier. I came down to New York to hear the premiere of his 1970 Music for Orchestra and review it for WHRB - having given up on the Crimson as too dangerous in terms of department politics - and hated it. (I understand he revised it in 1988.) It seemed so pretentious and empty. I called the station and said I would not be sending a review after all.

His opera Lily was even worse, notwithstanding a few lovely passages, especially for soprano Susan Belling (née Belink, daughter of Cantor Norman Belink, who had trained me for my bar mitzvah and then organized the first Creative Jewish Music Group on Long Island with me). Jack Beeson recently told me a story, not in his recently-published book, of how he attended rehearsals and the premiere of Lily at N.Y. City Opera, and watched as Kirchner worked himself into exhaustion, refusing to delegate authority to anyone, spent the dress rehearsal in the hospital, and then muttered after conducting the premiere: “I will never again allow a company to wreck my operas [sic]!” - thus blaming everyone else for his own shortcomings and mistakes.

So, it is with mixed feelings that I now share my thoughts with you about one of the most important teachers I ever had, from whom I learned a great deal about music, in terms of both what to do and what not to do.

CONTENTS

LIVE EVENTS“Prepared and Unprepared” Peter Kroll, 6
A Space-Inspired Event BLC, 6
Love and Rockets Michael McDonagh, 7
Getting an Earful (ACA Festival) BLC, 8
Madrigals Made Magical Randy Woolf, 11
A New Era Begins Barry O’Neal, 12

DOTTED NOTES from …
BLC, 13
Leonard Lehrman, 13

The Printed Word Frank Retzel, 14

Critic at Large Leonard Lehrman, 15

RECORDINGS
Picture This! BLC, 17
A Rural Setting Gary A. Edwards, 18
Fearless Harmonic Beauty Nancy Garniez, 19
Wit and Wisdom on Display Nancy Garniez, 19
When Everything Is a Surprise Gary A. Edwards, 21

Recent Releases, 22
Composer Index, 22
The Puzzle Page, 23
Bulletin Board, 23

The award was given to the 63 year old American composer for his recent recording, “Music of Fred Lerdahl, Vol. 2″ (BRIDGE 9269), a disc which includes chamber and orchestral music by Lerdahl composed during the past three decades.

For more information on this award visit here.

This national competition has been one of the most exciting events at the New York Art Ensemble, and this will mark its 11th year.

The winning composer will receive a $1,000 cash award and a New York Art Ensemble performance of the winning piece on our 2010 Tribeca New Music Festival coming up this June in New York City.

In addition to the winning prize the New York Art Ensemble also recognize runners up with Honorable Mentions and Emerging Composer status where appropriate.

Interested individuals should follow the Competition Guidelines found on the New York Art Ensemble website.

If you know of any young composers who may be eligible, please let them know.

The deadline is January 8, 2010.

In a survey just conducted by Classical Archives, the ultimate online destination for classical music, over 20% of the respondents said they love classical music because it relaxes them and acts as a stress reliever in their hectic lives. The survey suggests that classical music, more than rock and pop, is able to calm the nerves in tough times.

Here is the full roster of results to the survey, which asked:

60.2% - It is simply the best music there is
20.3% - Relaxes me when life is stressing me out
9.0% - My parents played classical music at home growing up
7.6% - I’m a freak for culture
2.9% - It is a great aphrodisiac

Nolan Gasser, Artistic Director, Classical Archives, notes, that “Are the results surprising? Hardly. Especially in tough economic times, people are turning to classical music to help them get through the day and to give them the calm and resolve they need to face their daily challenges. People are finding that there’s nothing like the inspiration and soothing nature of classical music to relieve the stresses of a tough economy.”

CONTACT: Jayme Schwartz
HWH PR/ Social Media
212-355-5049, x128
jaymes@hwhpr.com

Firm Provides Acoustical Consulting for New Symphony Hall in Centro de Bellas Artes

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – October 5, 2009 – Acentech Inc., a nationally recognized multi-disciplinary acoustics, audiovisual systems design, and vibration consulting firm, is proud to announce that it has completed work on the Sala Sinfonica Pablo Casals, a new symphony hall within the Centro de Bellas Artes complex in San Juan , Puerto Rico . The new hall was inaugurated on October 3rd with a symphonic concert by the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra. Acentech’s Studio A, specializing in the performing arts, provided architectural acoustics consulting, sound system design, mechanical system noise and vibration control consulting, and acoustical computer modeling for the highly anticipated project.

Designed by architect Rodolfo Fernández and named after the beloved Spanish Catalan cellist and conductor Pablo Casals, Sala Sinfonica Pablo Casals will be the new permanent home of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra). The new 1,300-seat Sala Sinfonica Pablo Casals will be dedicated to musical performances, serving a range of symphonic, chamber, and popular music styles. The hall was specifically designed to meet the acoustical profile for classical music: sufficient reverberance or liveness, good clarity, plenty of strength, and a high degree of spaciousness. These sound attributes are supported by interior materials chosen for their appearance, practicality and acoustics, offering an embracing listening experience for the audience and superior sound for the performers. The ceiling and walls are made of multiple layers of drywall and solid wood, respectively, to be both acoustically reflective and beautiful.

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts announced today that its new visitor center and ticketing facility, located across from Josie Robertson Plaza and the Revson Fountain on Broadway between West 62nd and 63rd Streets, will be named David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center in honor of the philanthropist and financier David M. Rubenstein, Vice Chairman of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

The dedication recognizes the $10 million gift recently pledged to Lincoln Center by Mr. Rubenstein. The David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center will officially open on November 24. As Chairman of the Campaign Steering Committee charged with raising capital funds for Lincoln Center ’s physical transformation, Mr. Rubenstein’s leadership was crucial to raising more than $600 million, unprecedented in the history of Lincoln Center .

Kind Words for an “Unequipped” Reviewer
Thank you very much for reviewing our Immersion DVD-Audio and mailing me a copy of the issue. I appreciate the thorough way you offered some comments on each piece.

I hope you get to hear this in surround someday. All the music uses surround in ways that are missing in stereo.

I also note it is technically impossible for the DVD-Audio format to support moving images; it can only present a limited number of still images.

Good luck with your publication,
Tom [Steenland]
Starkland [Records]
Boulder, CO

Roses from the South?
Dear Barry,
Thank you so much for sending me the latest edition of the New Music Connoisseur. This journal is such a fascinating treasure of features and activities on the contemporary music scene; I am enjoying it immensely. You and your entire editorial staff are to be congratulated on the work you do.

It was also very nice to see my review of Leonard’s excellent CD in print.

Thanks again,
Ken Boulton
Southeastern Louisiana U.
Hammond, LA

East-West Perspective
Dear Barry,
You are still my best source of New York new music info.

Sending my best wishes,
Dr. Jane Brockman, composer
Santa Monica, CA

A Missing Event
Hi Barry,
Sounds like some really cool developments are in the works. Really looking forward to the “new and improved, more taste and less filling!” NMC!

I’m off to a concert now (my 9-year old twins playing in the school orchestra), but just one quick thing about the current issue: How could the passing of Max Neuhaus go unnoticed!? One of the most underappreciated American composers of the post-War era, in my opinion. I was just in New York last weekend for a premiere, and paid a visit to Times Square in memoriam, to see/hear/experience
his Times Square installation (you know that work, right?). If not, there is a wonderful 8-minute documentary video about it on his website: http://www.max-neuhaus.info/audiovideo/) Truly a loss, and I hope that NMC will write something about him in the next issue!

Off I go.
All best,
Lansing McLoskey
Odhecaton Z Music
Miami, FL
[Ed. note: Max Neuhaus passed away about the time we began putting the last issue to bed. His obituary appears in this issue.]

A Blast from the Past!
Dear Mr. Cohen,
I am writing because I discovered that one of the contributing editors to New Music Connoisseur
is Larry Vide. I was wondering if he is the same Larry Vide who taught English and Drama at Sheepshead Bay High School when I was a student there (I graduated in 1963). If so, could [we exchange] contact information?…

I … just wanted to tell Mr. Vide that I am one of his success stories, having been inspired by him and having gone on to become an English professor at Ohio State University, where I have been teaching for over thirty years. Teachers, as you may know, so rarely get to hear these kinds of things, and I just wanted to express my gratitude and share information.

My best,
Professor Les Tannenbaum
Department of English
Ohio State University
Columbus, OH 43210
[Ed. note: The Larry Vide Mr. Tanenbaum is seeking is indeed the same Larry (or Laurence) Vide he studied with and who has been serving as an illustrator for NMC for almost ten years.]

Betts, Donald: “Painted Shadows of Childhood,” 16
Boulez, Pierre: Incises, 9
Brockman, Jane: Fireflies, 17-18
Carter, Elliott: Esprit Rude/Esprit Doux, 7
Clearfield, Andrea: Tibetan, 12
Copland, Aaron: A Lincoln Portrait, 13
Corigliano, John: Suite from “The Red Violin,” 9-10
Debussy, Claude: Etudes, Book 1, p 9
Dello Joio, Justin: Blue Mountain (opera), 16-17
Epstein, Marti: Ophelia, 17
Finko, David: Moses; Concerto Pno, Piccolo, 9-10
Folio, Cynthia: When the Spirit Catches You, 12
French, Tania Gabrielle: Musings on the Way, 17-18
Galbraith, Nancy: Voices … Beautify the Earth, 17-18
Gerber, Steven R.: Spirituals…; Clar. Conc. +, 18-19
Hagerty, Mark: High Octane, 12
Hardish, Patrick: Solo for Pete (drum set), 7
Hindemith, Paul: Requiem For Those We Love, 13
Kaminsky, Laura: Until a Name, 17-18
Klucevsek, Guy: Suite from Mixed Company, 12
Kraft, Leo: 5 Sonnets of Shakespeare, 7
La Berge, Anne: Revamper, 17-18
Lachert, Piotr: Sonatas #9 & #17, p 18
Larsen, Libby: Now I Pull Silver, 17
Ligeti, Gyorgy: Piano Etudes I, p 9
Lipper, Binnette: Piano Etudes, I, 17-18
Luening, Otto: Suite for Solo Flute, 7
Pehrson, Joseph: Transpian (pno, electronics), 7
Penderecki, Krzysztof: Vn, Pno Sonata #2, p 18
Persichetti, Vincent: Parable XV, 12
Pritsker, Gene: Works for Guitar, 19-20
Read Thomas, Augusta: Pulsar; Incantation, 12
Rudin, Andrew: Concerto (5 instruments) +, 9-10
Schonthal, Ruth: Theme and Variations, 17-18
Siegmeister, Elie: Abraham Lincoln…Midnight ++, 13
Siegmeister, Elie: I Have a Dream; vocal works, 7-8
Silverman, Faye-Ellen: Taming the Furies, 17-18
Stravinsky, Igor: Petrushka (excerpts), 9
Stravinsky, Igor: Pulchinella (excerpts), 9
Suskind, Joyce Hope: Celebration, 17-18
Talbot, Joby: Music to accompany The Lodger, 12
Thomson, Virgil: “O, Virgil,” (11 selections), 10
Ung, Chinary: Spiral VI; X; XII ++++++, 11-12
Unsworth, Adam: Halfway There, 12
Van Maanen, Cynthia: Blue Jays, 17-18
Vercoe, Elizabeth: To Music, 17-18
Wagner, Melinda: Insomnia, 17-18
Wilson, Mark Edwards: Time Variations +++++, 19

^ All composers whose works are commented on in this issue are listed. Mere mentions are not cited.

+ Each plus-sign indicates an unnamed selection.

Note: Underlined surnames indicate recording; Titles may exclude articles and conjunctions; three dots also indicate title abridgement.

Gene Pritsker is an expert guitarist, so it should be no surprise that he is very capable of writing for his native instrument. Greg Baker has come out with a compendium of the complete solo Pritsker acoustic and electric guitar music to date, and he does a fine job of navigating the intricacies of Pritsker’s work.

I found it particularly striking that the album started out quietly with acoustic guitar and, in fact, a piece based upon classical models, the work of Joaquin Rodrigo. This was the first of a set of four pieces, the eponym of the CD title: Scars, Wounds and Lacerations (with “Snow” the 4th piece to, as stated, “numb the effect”). I enjoyed “Scars,” and also “Wounds” with its insistent melody, but if I had to choose my injury, I would probably go with the piece “Lacerations” which, based upon Brazilian guitar styles, had an exceptional harmonic and melodic variety.

A shift to electric guitar, then, made a strong contrast to what was, in my view, the most accomplished piece on this album, Pritsker’s Quaaludes and Fugues. The humorous title aside, these really are preludes and fugues for solo electric guitar. The three preludes are especially striking and, indeed, do have a quasi drug-induced quality, since Pritsker uses the special pedal effects of the electric guitar. In my opinion, it is these effects which make the electric guitar so versatile and one of the preeminent electric instruments of our time: Quaalude #1 uses phaser effects, Quaalude #2 uses a chorus effect and Quaalude #3 a delay effect to create various unbalanced and unsettling dream states. These are entirely within the nature of the concept of the classical prelude. Fugues #1 and #3 are, essentially, three-voice fugues, which must take some dexterity on the part of the guitarist but are played here effortlessly by Greg Baker. The second fugue is actually a canon, with the second guitar voice imitating one beat later. Fugues 1 and 2 use an “overdrive” effect on the guitar to produce a distortion, very appropriate to the intellectually forceful nature of the fugal form, but the very final Fugue #3 has the electric guitar in its native mode, with no effects whatsoever. This piece is an incredibly imaginative, accomplished, and varied work for electric guitar. So far, I have encountered nothing like it for this instrument.

Another favorite work is a piece for four classical acoustic guitars, Two Dances from Satan’s Great Ball, which was performed on the Composers Concordance concert of February 13, 2006. Since there is obviously only one real Greg Baker, this piece was skillfully overdubbed. I find the two dances, particularly the first, to be lively and full of harmonic change and fun. The title is taken from the novel The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. There are obvious Brazilian influences and tuneful development as well as an emphasis on the guitar’s percussive qualities. I also hear some nice imitative treatment of the material, especially in the first piece. The CD also contains an extended Requiem for solo electric guitar and pre-recorded electronics based upon the September 11th tragedy, a nice short solo classical guitar piece with many turns and moods based on Cuban rhythms called “Dead Souls,” the title derived from the unfinished novel by Nikolai Gogol, and an overdubbed piece for three classical guitars, “Still Laughing Even Louder,” which uses extended guitar techniques for the acoustic instrument: light fi ngernail strumming, slides, knocking and the like.

Anyone interested in contemporary guitar music and playing who has the versatility to appreciate both the classical acoustic and electric genre should be in possession of this CD.