Viewing entries tagged
Loop
Sports et Divertissements - Tennis from Metropolis Ensemble on Vimeo.
Erik Satie’s Sports et Divertissements (1914) arranged for chamber orchestra by David Bruce, performed on April 10, 2008 at The Times Center in New York City. Featuring Mike Daisey (narrator), and the Metropolis Ensemble led by conductor Andrew Cyr. Video by Timothy Bakland; sound by Ryan Streber.
Soprano Kiera Duffy and Metropolis musicians performs “Five Images from Sappho” by composer Esa-Pekka Salonen on April 10, 2008 at The Times Center in New York City. This performance was part of the Metropolis concert “LOOP.” Photo by Vern Kousky.
Metropolis Ensemble is pleased to offer a free download of Sports et Divertissements, recorded live at The Times Center in New York City on April 10, 2008. Erik Satie’s twenty-one brilliant thumbnail sketches are presented in a delightful arrangement for chamber orchestra by David Bruce, and featuring our resident funny-man Mike Daisey.
(right-click to download the mp3, ctrl-click on a mac)
David and Mike had the opportunity to sit down and discuss Satie’s work ahead of last month’s concert. The conversation – ranging from challenges of composing and updating this work, to the serious (and not so serious) business of comedy – is available in the
. Be sure to also watch the
Tennis
excerpt and see conductor Andrew Cyr serve up a surprise finale.
And because there should never be lack of razor-sharp wit, Mike Daisey invites you to his latest performance:
, running through June 22 at the Barrow Street Theatre. Dark, honest and hilarious, Daisey seeks answers to essential and dangerous questions about the art we’re making, the legacy we leave to the future, and who it is we believe we’re speaking to. An
is available for Metropolis Ensemble members and fans!
Sports et Divertissements is commissioned for chamber orchestra by Metropolis Ensemble. Special thanks to audio engineer Ryan Streber, videographer Tim Bakland, and video editor Dan Hayek.
Metropolis Ensemble and Piano Concerto by Ryan Francis are featured in this daily email newsletter, hailing the orchestra as “the hippest classical gang in the city.” Read the article…
Metropolis Ensemble and composer Ryan Francis are delighted to offer the complete live recording of Concerto for Piano and Chamber Orchestra during its world premiere performance at The Times Center in New York City on April 10, 2008. You can download it here, absolutely free.
Ryan Francis: Concerto for Piano and Chamber Orchestra:
(right-click to download the mp3s, ctrl-click on a mac)
You can also watch the entire
Concerto
, featuring pianist Anna Polonsky and the Metropolis Ensemble led by Artistic Director/Conductor Andrew Cyr on the
, along with an extensive archive of performances and behind-the-scenes footage.
Looking for more of Ryan Francis? Check out his
, and get ready for this summer’s world premiere of
. Ricardo Romaneiro joins forces with Ryan Francis and Leo Leite to re-conceptualize the most revolutionary work of the 20th Century, Igor Stravinsky’s
The Rite of Spring
, through the lens of the latest sounds and technology from electronica! Three opportunities to experience the revolution (July 16-18)!
Concerto for Piano and Chamber Orchestra is co-commission from the Metropolis Ensemble and the
with funds provided by the
. Metropolis Ensemble’s
and
programs are generously funded by the van Otterloo Foundation. Special thanks to audio engineer Ryan Streber, videographer Tim Bakland, and photographer Vern Kousky.
Ryan talks about his new piano concerto, the featured work in Metropolis Ensemble’s upcoming concert Loop.
Program notes for the LOOP concert on April 10, 2008, featuring the works of Ryan Francis, Maurice Ravel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Erik Satie (arranged by David Bruce). Texts for songs 1-4 from Sappho – A translation by Mary Barnard (Univ. of California Press, 1958) Copyright © 1958 by the Regenta of University of California, Copyright renewed by Mary Barnard. Used by arrangement with G. Schirmer, Inc. as agent for Chester Music Ltd. Texts for song 5 from The Love Songs of Sappho. Essay copyright © 1998 by Paul Roche. Introduction copyright © 1998 by Page duBois. Published 2001 by special arrangement with Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York, USA. Used by arrangement with G. Schirmer, Inc. as agent for Chester Music Ltd.
Now, today, I shall sing beautifully for my friends’ pleasure
As a whirlwind, swoops an oak Love shakes my heart
Mother dear, I can’t finish my weaving You may blame Aphrodite soft as she is she has almost killed with love for that boy
Is the most beautiful of all stars
Raise up the rafters high, Hurrah for the wedding! Carpenters: higher and higher, Hurrah for the wedding! The bridegroom is equal to Ares, Hurrah for the wedding! Much taller than any tall man is, Hurrah for the wedding! As tall as the singer of Lesbos, Hurrah for the wedding! Towers over all singers of elsewhere, Hurrah for the wedding! I think I shall be a maiden forever Listen my dear, By the Goddess herself I swear That I (like you) Had only one Virginity to spare Yet did not fear To go over the bridal line When Hera bade me And cast it from me; So I cheer you on and loudly declare: “My own night was none Too bad And you my girl Have nothing to fear Nothing at all.” Raise up the rafters high, Hurrah for the wedding! Carpenters: higher and higher, Hurrah for the wedding! The bridegroom is equal to Ares, Hurrah for the wedding! Much taller than any tall man is, Hurrah for the wedding! As tall as the singer of Lesbos, Hurrah for the wedding! Towers over all singers of elsewhere, Hurrah for the wedding! [Bridesmaid’s carol I] Come, bride Brimming with roses Of love, bride, Gem of the lovely Goddess of Paphos: Go, bride, Go to the bed where sweetly and gently You’ll play with your bridegroom: So, bride, Hesperus lead you Star of the evening Happily onwards Where you shall wonder Where Hera on silver Sits Lady of Marriage. Raise up the rafters high, Hurrah for the wedding! Carpenters: higher and higher, Hurrah for the wedding! The bridegroom is equal to Ares, Hurrah for the wedding! Much taller than any tall man is, Hurrah for the wedding! As tall as the singer of Lesbos, Hurrah for the wedding! Towers over all singers of elsewhere, Hurrah for the wedding! They were exhausted and The black trance of night flooded into their eyes.
Program notes for the LOOP concert on April 10, 2008, featuring the works of Ryan Francis, Maurice Ravel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Erik Satie (arranged by David Bruce). If we imagine the history of art as some kind of Darwinian survival game, Sappho stands out as a genetic miracle. No (almost no) whole organism (poem) has survived; instead we have a couple of dozen pages’ worth of fragments. Some of them are almost complete little poems; most of them are isolated groups of words or single words far apart. Almost every generation of poets has tried to translate these scattered messages from a woman of whom we know very little. As always, interpretation tells more about the interpreter, and his time and culture, than the work itself. Our modern view of Sappho is similar to that of other art forms, more scholarly than romantic. It is important to remember that the best Sappho translation today (or the best Beethoven interpretation) will be seen as interesting, but slightly ridiculous, by future generations. We are prisoners of our own time and generation. It is the fragmentary nature of the material, and therefore an almost open form, that makes Sappho so fascinating to set to music. (After having typed this sentence I realized that I am still trying to give an intellectual, formal explanation wildly off the mark in the good old serialist tradition. That is exactly what I mean by being a prisoner of one’s own generation.) It is the tremendous energy of suffocated sexuality and the vibrant eroticism in Sappho that got my imagination going. Sappho reveals to us secrets of the female soul like nobody else. There is no subject more interesting. Between these small islands of words one can hear music. I set out to compose a cycle in which I would describe a woman’s life from childhood to old age and death. Timing was not right: my son Oliver was born in the middle of the composition period, and it became totally impossible for me to imagine death and loneliness. I decided to concentrate on the first part of life instead. A short description of the structure of Five Images from Sappho:
Tell everyone. The singer explains that she is going to tell a story. Music is fanfare-like, except for the word ‘beautifully’.
Without Warning. The first awakening of love. Descending figures in the beginning are metaphors of a gentle whirlwind.
It’s no use. A young girl is unable to concentrate on household chores. She is trying to explain to her mother why, but gets so excited that she can only stutter. Finally, she manages to get the words 'that boy’.
The evening star. I imagine: a girl is lying in the grass in the evening, gazing at the stars. For the first time she understands that even she will be old one day. The strings and the celesta describe the flicker of the stars.
Wedding. I combined several poems here to create a larger form. The singer has different roles in this song. In the refrain the crowd greets the bridegroom. It returns twice in different guises. After the interlude the bride has a brief moment of despair, but is comforted by an older woman ('listen, my dear’), who has a very balanced point of view, in my opinion.
After the second refrain girls gather outside the nuptial chamber and sing teasingly a song ('Come bride’). After the third refrain and an orchestral culmination, a voice describes the couple sleeping peacefully in each other’s arms.
Program notes for the LOOP concert on April 10, 2008, featuring the works of Ryan Francis, Maurice Ravel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Erik Satie (arranged by David Bruce). This concerto feels like an arrival point for me artistically that has been in the works for the past four years. I’ve been exploring a lot of seemingly (to me, at least) disparate musical concepts, but this concerto is the crucible in which I’m forging them all together. On the one hand, I’ve written a good deal of music that deals more with textural as opposed to ‘metric’ rhythms, and I also have a parallel string of pieces that are concerned with electronic influence on acoustic music, which are much more metrically complex, while retaining more harmonic clarity. My interest in electronics has influence the concerto on both an aural level and a process level. While the concerto’s orchestration is often designed to create 'electronic’ timbres, I also decided to forego my traditional paper-and-pencil-exclusively method of composing, in favor of working with MIDI maps. This new method of working allowed me to explore and develop textures that I probably would have never discovered were I simply working with my hands on a keyboard, and this influenced the soloist’s part in particular. I would write with grids, unconcerned with playability, and would then transcribe them into mensural notation and revise and revise until they were completely idiomatic. The result has been that the piano writing is often utterly different than my previous work, which was my goal. Each of the movements were developed out of piano etudes that I have been writing for the past year, and the form of each movement reflects the same sort of obsessive quality of an etude, although I allowed myself to be a little more expansive as well; this is a concerto, after all!
The first movement could almost be a chorale, were it not for the sharp syncopated disjunctive melodic contours that cut through the texture.
The second movement is a sort of musical Jacob’s Ladder, constantly rising musical gestures that are also continuously falling.
The third movement is more about color than the others, and less rhythmically driving as well, although there is a gentle repeated note pulse that runs through much of the movement.
The final movement is comprised of two basic layers: a light, distant textural one, and a foreground built on constantly evolving loops of material.
Program notes for the LOOP concert on April 10, 2008, featuring the works of Ryan Francis, Maurice Ravel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Erik Satie (arranged by David Bruce). Translation by Ned Rorem.
My soul rises toward your brow where, O peaceful sister, Mon âme vers ton front où rêve, ô calme sœur, a dappled autumn dreams, un automne jonché de taches de rousseur, and toward the roving sky of your angelic eye, et vers le ciel errant de ton œil angélique as in a melancholy garden, faithful, monte, comme dans un jardin mélancolique, a white plume of water sights toward heaven’s blue! fidèle, un blanc jet d’eau soupire vers l’azur! Toward the compassionate blue of pale and pure October Vers l’azur attendri d’octobre pâle et pur that onto vast pools mirrors infinite indolence qui mire aux grands bassins sa langueur infinie and, over a swampwhere the dark death of leaves et laisse, sur l’eau morte où la fauve agonie floats in the wind and digs a cold furrow des feuilles erre au vent et creuse un froid sillon, letting the yellow sun draw out a long ray. se traîner le soleil jaune d’un long rayon.
Princess! envious of the youthful Hebe Princesse! à jalouser le destin d’une Hébé rising up on this cup at the touch of your lips, qui poind sur cette tasse au baiser de vos lèvres, I spend my ardor, but have only the low rank of abbot j’use mes feux mais n’ai rang discret que d’abbé and shall never appear even naked on the Sèvres. et ne figurerai même nu sur le Sèvres. Since I’m not your whiskered lap-dog, Comme je ne suis pas ton bichon embarbé, nor candy, nor rouge, nor sentimental pose, ni la pastille, ni du rouge, ni jeux mièvres and since I know your glance on me is blind, et que sur moi je sais ton regard clos tombé, O blonde, whose divine hairdessers are goldsmiths! blonde dont les coiffeurs divins sont des orfèvres! Appoint us – you in whose laughter so many berries Nommez-nous… toi de qui tant de ris framboisés join a flock of tame lambs se joignent en troupeaux d’agneaux apprivoisés nibbling every vow and bleating with joy, chez tous broutant les vœux et bêlant aux délires, appoint us – so that Eros winged with a fan will paint me upon it, nommez-nous… pour qu’Amour ailé d’un éventail a flute in my fingers to lull those sheep, m’y peigne flûte aux doigts endormant ce bercail, Princess, appoint us shepherd of your smiles. Princesse, nommez-nous berger de vos sourires.
Risen from haunch and spurt Surgi de la croupe et du bond of ephemeral glassware d'une verrerie éphémère without causing the bitter eve to bloom, sans fleurir la veillée amère the ignored neck is stopped. le col ignoré s’interrompt. I, sylph of this cold ceiling, Je crois bien que deux bouches n’ont do not believe that two mouths – bu, ni son amant ni ma mère, neither my mother’s nor her lover’s – jamais à la même chimère ever drank from the same mad fancy. moi, sylphe de ce froid plafond! The pure vase empty of fluid Le pur vase d’aucun breuvage which tireless widowhood que l’inexhaustible veuvage slowly kills but does not consent to, agonise mais ne consent, innocent but funereal kiss! naïf baiser des plus funèbres! To expire to nought announcing A rien expirer annonçant a rose in the darkness. une rose dans les ténèbres.
Program notes for the LOOP concert on April 10, 2008, featuring the works of Ryan Francis, Maurice Ravel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Erik Satie (arranged by David Bruce).
The allure of Mallarmé’s cryptic inscrutable symbolist verses inspired many composers to use them as texts – or pretexts – for composition. Nevertheless, when Mallarmé was informed by Debussy that he intended to musicalize his famous poem, L’apres-midi d’un faune, the poet replied, “I thought I had already done that.”
Debussy and Ravel had each, unbeknownst to one another, seized upon two of the three poems that comprise Ravel’s cycle for as texts for songs, a coincidence that Debussy found “a phenomenon of autosuggestion worthy of communication to the Academy of Medicine.” Ravel found his specific inspiration when Igor Stravinsky showed him the score for his Poèmes de la lyrique japonaise which employed an unusual chamber ensemble derived from one that Schoenberg used for Pierrot Lunaire. Impressed by the coloristic possibilities of such an ensemble, Ravel decided to devise his Mallarmé settings for the same combination of instruments and soprano for a prospective performance of all three works that never took place.
What Ravel achieved in these songs is less an interpretation of the texts – for, indeed, how could one interpret poems of such scrupulous, suave ambiguity? – than a supreme act of poetic transposition into music. The first song, Soupir, for example, both naively and sophisticatedly true to its title, has the arched structure of a sigh: the voice rising exquisitely to a subtle climax; and then the long sad languor of release. The string glissandi that thrum, fountain-like, behind the entire first half of the song find their etiolated echo at the end, bracketing, as if in a sad mirror, the very impossibility of the “azure.”
In Placet Futile, the vain supplication is offered to a Watteau-painted princess, as remote as a figure enameled on a china plate. But whoever this princess might be, the proud deportment of the petitioner shines clearly through angular melodic lines and intricate chromatic harmonies, maintaining inflections perfectly natural to speech. The mood is undeniably restrained, a quiet pain tightening the throat. But listen to the magical entreaty at “nommez-nous…” where the flute unfurls like a silver tongue and slowly settles to the ground like a ribbon of silver, not to seduce, for seduction requires an agency wholly absent from Mallarmé’s delicate sonnet, but to present the singer’s eternal submission on a platter of china for the perfect princess’s cool contemplation.
With Surgi de la croupe et du bond, Mallarmé pushes his text even further into the realm of music. The poem exhales a studied elusiveness that cancels form, eloquence, rhetoric. Ravel responds with music of extreme harmonic vagueness, music that even flirts, at times, with bitonality. The spare musical texture is punctured by bell-like octaves on the piano which have been heard at crucial points in the previous songs: now the knell dominates. Even the most striking effects, such as the glassy shimmer that surrounds the climax on the word “agonise,” are kept on this side of expressivity, never quite breaking through the mood of spectral silence.
Ravel, so often acclaimed for his supreme musical taste, makes these songs literally tasteful: like the taste of lime sherbet or raspberry laughs. His music does not interpret but particularizes Mallarmé’s intentional ambiguities, fixes them to a specific and eradicable flavor. It is the taste of infinite dissolution, of longing, of boredom, of chic black lacquered Nothingness.
“This concerto feels like an arrival point for me artistically that has been in the works for the past four years.”
David Bruce offers his thoughts on creating a chamber orchestra arrangement of Erik Satie’s famous work.
Metropolis Ensemble’s Wet Ink Composer Resident, Ryan Francis, won a competitive commission from the American Composers Forum with funds provided by the Jerome Foundation for his Piano Concerto. The world premiere will be presented by the Metropolis Ensemble’s spring concert, Loop, on April 10, 2008 with pianist Anna Polonsky and conductor Andrew Cyr. Here’s the official announcement:
The American Composers Forum announces the results of the 2007 Jerome Composers Commissioning Program (JCCP). JCCP, now in its 28th year and one of only a few national commissioning programs, supports the production of new musical works by emerging composers. It seeks to boost a composer’s career by offering composers an early commission and more experienced composers a chance to stretch their current boundaries. Composers apply with an ensemble or presenter and request support to underwrite the commissioning fee. Awards this year ranged from $3,000-8,000. A total of 17 projects were funded from a pool of $90,000.
Jerome Foundation was created by artist and philanthropist Jerome Hill in 1964, and makes grants to support emerging artists across the performing and visual arts, particularly those based in Minnesota and New York.
American Composers Forum is an organization committed to supporting composers and developing new markets for their music. Through grants, commissions, and performance programs, the Forum provides resources for over 1,700 composers around the world.
Congratulations to Ryan for this exciting achievement!
