VIDEO: Composing with Twelve Tones

VIDEO: Composing with Twelve Tones

This is one of the most informative and educational videos on any musical topic that I have ever seen. Youtuber Vihart has condensed many hours of information into the densest half hour explainer on serialism one could imagine.

“María” Provokes and Penetrates at Le Poisson Rouge

“María” Provokes and Penetrates at Le Poisson Rouge

I occasionally write for Sequenza21. Here's a concert review from a very special concert I attended in 2013:

Greenberg managed to turn the cramped, uncooperatively spare stage to her advantage, projecting into the space a smokey, claustrophobic Buenos Aires alleyway positively dripping with sinful lust and criminality, where “Hustlers, pimps, and devils appear at every turn,” as Greenberg wrote in the program.

 

Nuance and Rubato

Nuance and Rubato

...Bartok, for instance, gives us not only metronome markings, but precise timings for sections as a second check against grossly deforming his works. He believes his music to be more delicate with regards to timing, so one wrong move and snap. Mahler, on the other hand, gives loads of instruction with regard to tempo, some metronome markings, but a degree of sturdy flexibility to his music. It seems that his approach to harmony and orchestration further supports this.

The Musico-Linguistics Meme: Recursion and Musical Meaning since Bernstein in Boston

The Musico-Linguistics Meme: Recursion and Musical Meaning since Bernstein in Boston

Leonard Bernstein's Norton Lecture Series of 1973 has played a critical role in helping to define a particular landscape of thought which might be best described by Bernstein’s own (admittedly nonacademic) term, "musico-linguistics". While not a formal discipline, the term characterizes and encompasses the body of thought upon which he speculates in six multi-hour lectures at Harvard. 

Timothy Kramer: Three Pairs Suite

Timothy Kramer: Three Pairs Suite

Listen to a recording of Timothy Kramer’s Three Pairs Suite for Pierrot ensemble + percussion. The title of the piece is an allusion to Elliot Carter’s Triple Duo, though comparison with Carter ends there. Performed on November 6, 2011 at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas Texas as part of the Dallas Festival of Modern Music.

How We Hear Boulez

How We Hear Boulez

A year before my first Boulez performance, I wrote an essay about what it's like to listen to Boulez in 2009.

...upon repeated hearing, this music does indeed open itself up to the listener. It slowly, reticently yawns forth its secrets to the hearer in unexpected ways. His output is by no means monolithic either, with very thorny yet electric piano sonatas and sometimes breathless long-distance sprints like Sur Incises (cue the linked clip to 4:15 to hear this ‘long-distance sprint’), contrasted by eerily celestial portions of Pli selon Pli and the richly colorful ‘folds’ of the aforementioned Le Marteau.

Jordan Randall Smith is the Music Director of Symphony Number One.