Getting to Know a 21st Century Composer

Most of the contemporary composers I’ve listened to are already known and significant entities in their field. Their works get air time on radio, or their selections are part of orchestral performances I’ve attended.

This weekend, I heard a lecture by composer Adam Schoenberg (sponsored by the Washington University Department of Music) and, the next day, a performance of his work, “Finding Rothko,” performed by the Washington University Orchestra. He’s young (late twenties, early thirties, I’d guess), the composer in residence for the Kansas City Symphony, has the kind of academic credentials one would expect (Oberlin, Julliard) of a “leading composer of his generation,”  has been described as “stunning, bold, open, and optimistic” (whatever all that means) by the critics, and considers himself a “21st century composer.”

What he means by that last phrase is that his music is differentiated by the full use of computers and technology. His process, for example, is to start with “sketches” written by hand, after being drafted up on the piano, then he transfers those sketches to a computer program called Finale. It was truly fascinating to hear during his lecture an orchestral piece in electronic form (the MIDI version) and then a recording of an orchestra performing it. Just the little snippets he showed about what you can do in the software was mind-blowing to a neophyte. He talks of orchestration in terms of palate, color, and texture.

When Barack Obama was elected, Schoenberg was so overwhelmed he felt like he had to “return” the gift he felt he (and presumably the rest of America and the world) had been given. In words from his website, Schoenberg felt what is was like to be an American. So he wrote an “American” symphony. Regardless of your politics, surely anyone would consider that a pretty damn cool thing to do.

He acknowledged the courage it would take to label a symphony “American.” Maybe that’s where the adjective “bold” comes from in his reviews. He also noted, for general interest, that he considers Aaron Copeland’s Third Symphony the “quintessential” American symphony.  Schoenberg was also commissioned to compose a 21st century Pictures at an Exhibition (the Mussorgsky piano piece later orchestrated to great notoriety by Ravel), although why anyone would subject a composer to that challenge, or at least one described in that way, I’m not sure (maybe that’s where the adjective “open” comes from).

Another part of the “process” of bringing orchestral music to life is that a composer gets very little time with an actual orchestra. You are lucky if you get more than two or three run-throughs before the actual performance. While this makes sense, on reflection (orchestra time = money), it was humbling for me to think about. For example, much contemporary orchestral music is rhythmically complex. Just getting the rhythms down, to say nothing about the notes, interpretation, nuance, etc, seems like it’d take days if not weeks. Schoenberg lamented the fact that orchestra players spend their careers in effect practicing the old war horses (Beethoven, Brahms, Stravinsky, Mahler, etc), while contemporary works don’t get the equivalent of a New York minute.

The performance of “Finding Rothko” was moving, in the sense that the composer was right there, I understood from the lecture that the players probably had little time to get intimate with the piece and they were students to boot. Plus, it was parents’ weekend at the university so a sizable crowd was present. Critics have labeled Schoenberg’s work “mysterious” and that certainly fit.

My own take is that the piece (in four movements but I never detected any pauses between them) graduated from stirrings, swirling, swelling, and finally swarming. The beginning was very atmospheric, much like listening in a forest active with birds and wildlife. Then more energy was injected, and musical fragments began swirling around each other. They seemed to find each other in a latter section that I found to be of more traditional harmony and melody. Then came the finale with big brass, even bigger bass drum, somewhat atonal, and the swarming ensued. It backed off to let the tune through and then finished with a pleasant sweep of lush, melodious strings much like Barber’s Adagio for Strings except hopeful instead of hopeless (maybe that’s where the adjective “optimistic” comes from?). All of it was not only rhythmically complex, but exhilarating.

While I enjoyed every moment of this experience, this analytic glimpse into the process of composition and the mind of the composer followed by reward of a performance, I wasn’t sure “Finding Rothko” ultimately managed to tie those rich musical fragments together into a narrative arc. However, that may never have been the composer’s intention so take comment as an observation, not a critique. Plus, as Schoenberg stated, the work is based on four paintings by Rothko to which he had a “visceral reaction” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.  However, my observation did make me curious whether another facet of 21st century composition might be fragmentation, disjointedness, or attention deficit disorder captured in music, a product of a hyper-connected, always on, multi-tasking society. When everything is supposed to be connected, maybe less really is?

In testing that hypothesis informally, I hope to discover more work from composers like Adam Schoenberg. If contemporary composers are of interest to you, you might want to read an earlier blog post of mine on Barbara Harbach.