AMSTERDAM -- The Holland Festival -- a complex array of music, opera and theater along with unclassifiable ultra-hip events that began May 31 and runs through Sunday -- has had several interlocking themes this year. One has been the music of the German visionary composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, who had a long association with Dutch music and this 61-year-old event.
As part of celebrations planned for Stockhausen's 80th birthday in August, the festival commissioned a new work. And although the composer died unexpectedly in December, he had finished the score. It had its premiere here Thursday night in a memorial concert that spanned his extraordinary career.
The concert was held in Amsterdam's newest venue, the Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ -- a striking, 700-seat, flexible hall that juts out over the River IJ and provides fabulous harbor views.
The program began with "Punkte," Stockhausen's first orchestral score, written in 1952 while he was a student in Paris of the late Olivier Messiaen, whose 100th birthday the festival is also celebrating.
In the middle of the concert was "Litanei 97," a 1997 a cappella work from the composer's late weirdo period. Finally, after a second intermission, came the premiere of "Glanz," one in a series of chamber pieces called "Klang" (Sound) that Stockhausen was working on at the end of his life.
There was to have been one piece for every hour of the day. "Glanz" is Hour 10. Collectively, "Klang" was meant as music for "knocking on heaven's door" as the composer prepared for the next stage of his cosmic career.
If this all seems a bit much, to some extent it was. The concert was overseen by Kathinka Pasveer, one of Stockhausen's companions, so it included the hokey ritualism that the composer wanted for his later mystical pieces.
The Netherlands Chamber Choir members were dressed in cultish unisex white robes and moved in concentric circles as they sang, now and then adding silly choreographed hops.
The three main players onstage for "Glanz" were positioned around a cheesy 4-foot pyramid that began to glow as the piece progressed. They too were made to look preposterous. The men wore white suits. The violist had on a chiffon gown, with petticoats and big bow, perfect for a high school prom in 1960. Colored lights created the mood for each piece.
And yet all the music proved amazing. "Punkte" (Points) was Stockhausen's first experiment in creating what he called "point music," for which he found mathematical correlations between pitch, rhythm, dynamics and timbre. He was unhappy with the stiffness of the initial results, and he reworked the score several times over the next 40 years.
The final version is an extravagant orchestral score that maintains a youthful experimental exuberance but with the addition of the sheer sensuality of sound that became one of Stockhausen's hallmarks.
One thing "Punkte" retains from its original concept is its uncompromising difficulty for performers, and it has been little heard. But musicians are finally meeting its demands. There is a very good recent recording from Cologne conducted by Peter Eötvös, and the work will be given at the London Proms this summer. For Thursday's Radio Philharmonic Orchestra performance, the German conductor Wolfgang Lischke, a Stockhausen specialist, revealed a series of intricately made, lavishly colored, unconnected gestures occurring one after another for 27 minutes.
"Litanei 97" uses a text in which Stockhausen compares himself to a radio receiving vibrations from a higher plane. He offers his music as a way for the rest of us to tune in as well. What my built-in receiver got was pretty much static, the sound of choral hissing and crackling, notes swelling and falling, similar to the effect of stations being tuned in and out on old analog sets.
Again the performance -- led by James Wood, who conducted in the center of the circle, opened each section of the piece with a solo intonation and ended each section hitting Japanese bowls -- was riveting.
"Glanz" means, in German, "brilliance" or "shine." That is something that has always characterized Stockhausen's sound. Whether he asked a musician to play a single note or to master an acrobatically virtuosic phrase, whether he worked with acoustic music or electronic, he always managed to get a little more resonance than anyone else, which is, I think, the key to his mysticism.
"Glanz," also given a brilliant performance, this time by members of the Dutch new music group Asko, lacks some of Stockhausen's earlier flamboyance. But he never distilled out the mesmerizing sonority he could achieve from the simplest trills or held notes.
Although he intended the work for a clarinet, bassoon and viola trio, the festival persuaded the composer to make the piece a little bigger.
About midway through on Thursday, an oboe piped in unexpectedly from the top balcony, in dialogue with the trio. Next, a trumpet and trombone, on either side of the middle balcony, had a short interaction with the stage players. Finally, a tuba player walked across the stage, honking.
I can't explain why this all felt as consequential as it did, other than by noting that as a student of sound, Stockhausen had mastered by the end of his life a seemingly supernatural sonic power capable of casting a spell. The Dutch are as sophisticated and skeptical an audience as you will find anywhere. A standing ovation here is rare and special. They stood Thursday. So did I.
mark.swed@latimes.com
Saturday, 21 June 2008
Jonah Smith
Artist: Jonah Smith
Genre(s):
Pop
Discography:
Jonah Smith
Year: 2007
Tracks: 12
Husky-voiced pop-soul singer/songwriter and piano player Jonah Smith grew up in Syracuse, NY, and got his lead off acting with bassist Ben Rubin in Burlington, VT, in the mid-'90s. The two relocated to Boston, and Smith formed a band called Deluxe. In 2000, the circle moved to Brooklyn, where, by November 2000, it had evolved into the Jonah Smith Band, featuring a reversive Rubin along with David Soler on guitar and foot pedal brand, Bob Reynolds on saxophone, and Marko Djordjevic on drums. They reinforced up a following in the Northeast, transcription the self-released albums Industry Rule (2001) and Beneath the Underdog (2003). After Smith appeared at the SXSW euphony conference in 2006, he obtained a manager and a booking agent, and he sign to Relix Records, which gave him his first-class honours degree national CD release with Jonah Smith on June 27, 2006.
Free System Projekt and Patchwork
Kaiser Chiefs Isle Of Wight Show Jeopardised By Fuel Strikes
Kaiser Chiefs will headline tonight's Isle of Wight Festival with borrowed equipment after their tour crew became stuck in fuel protest in Spain.
Lorry drivers are currently protesting in the country over the rising price of fuel.
The band's instruments and staging equipment, including lights, are still stranded in the country, according to reports.
Kaiser Chiefs frontman Ricky Wilson said that the band will preview tracks from their third album at tonight's show.
As previously reported on Gigwise, the band are currently recording the album with Mark Ronson.
Sex Pistols and The Police will headline the remaining nights of the festival. For all the latest information, check out our new look Festival Guide.
See Also
Judge to Doc Jiffy -- You Can Stay ... Almost
Daniel Serrano -- aka Dr. Jiffy Lube -- is one step closer to being allowed to stay in the country. Motor oil salesmen rejoice!The government is withdrawing an aggravated felony charge against Serrano, but a judge could still deport him if he is found guilty on the charge of having committed a crime of moral turpitude. He just finished serving time in a federal prison for drug smuggling.
Serrano is trying to get out on bond, which the judge said he would allow if he can prove he has a job offer waiting for him.
So far, the only lead Serrano has presented to the court is a letter offering him a job ... back in 2005.
See Also
Angelina Jolie on Being Pregnant: "It Makes Me Feel Like a Woman"
With rumors swirling she has already given birth, Angelina Jolie opens up to July's Vanity Fair magazine, where she talks about being pregnant, raising an international family, their 2-year-old daughter Shiloh and how they annoy their children.
On being pregnant, the 32-year-old says, "I love it. It makes me feel like a woman. It makes me feel that all the things about my body are suddenly there for a reason. It makes you feel round and supple, and to have a little life inside you is amazing. Also, I�m fortunate. I think some women have a different experience depending on their partner. I think that affects it. I happen to be with somebody who finds pregnancy very sexy. So that makes me feel very sexy."
And on her international family, compromising of three adopted children, Maddox, Pax, and Zahara, as well as a biological daughter, Shiloh, Jolie says, "When I was growing up I wanted to adopt, because I was aware there were kids that didn�t have parents. It�s not a humanitarian thing, because I don�t see it as a sacrifice. It�s a gift. We�re all lucky to have each other. I look at Shiloh � because, obviously, physically, she is the one that looks like Brad and I when we were little � and say, �If these were our brothers and sisters, how much would we have known by the time we were six that it took into our 30s and 40s to figure out?� I suppose I�m giving them the childhood I always wished I had."
And on the birth of daughter Shiloh, now two, Jolie says, "We were in this little hospital in Africa when Shi was born. I don�t think there was anybody else in the hospital. It was just a little cottage, the three of us. It ended up being the greatest thing�. I had a C-section and I found it fascinating. I didn�t find it a sacrifice and I didn�t find it a painful experience. I found it a fascinating miracle of what a body can do."
And on nannies, "We don�t ever have anybody spend the night. We may have to adjust that when the next one comes. But we do have ladies that work with us, and they�re also from different cultures and back-grounds. One lady�s a Vietnamese teacher � wonderful. One is of Congolese descent from Belgium. Another is from the States and is really creative and does art programs."
On raising her children, "Artists raise their kids differently. We communicate to the point where we probably annoy our children. We have art around the house, we have books, we go to plays, we talk. Our focus is art and painting and dress-up and singing. It�s what we love. So I think you can see how artists in some way raise other artists."
See Also
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)