New
Music Perspectives
By Guy Klucevsek
[ A reprint of an article in the Summer 1978 issue of
Accordion
Arts Magazine - Published by James Nightingale ]
The number of opportunities for accordionists to perform
in chamber ensembles is greater than ever. Classes in chamber music
performance are required in almost all college music programs. On
the professional level, chamber music concerts are frequently sponsored
at municipal libraries, community centers, and private grants in the arts
make it possible for art galleries and small performance spaces to sponsor
chamber music as well.
Unfortunately, the amount of good accordion repertoire
available for such situations is not yet up to the task. What can
the accordionist do when asked to perform at a concert where the instrumentation
is, say, accordion, trombone, flute, and voice? Given six months
of research, he may find something: but he may be forced, as a result,
to play an inferior piece of music because it is the only composition written
for the available orchestration. The solution to such cases can often
be found in music of open instrumentation, i.e., for any combination of
instruments. I will briefly describe several such pieces and then
provide tips on locating others.
In C by Terry Riley has become an avant-garde classic.
It can be done by any number of instruments, of any kind, plus a pulse
played on piano. The score contains 53 melodic fragments which everyone
performs in the same sequence. But each player decides how long a
time he will spend on each of the fragments in his part. The result
is a lovely wash of sound, with patterns phasing in-and-out of one another
for 45 to 90 minutes. I recommend a group of at least seven
performers for a good realization. Graciously, Riley has printed
the score on the record jacket of the Columbia recording of the piece.
John Cage has many, many compositions for open instrumentation.
One such work is Fontana Mix. A set of materials is provided:
plastic transparencies containing dots and a line, and solid white sheets
containing curves. The instructions allow for a great deal of freedom
in constructing the score (one must determine what parameters to control
and how), but it is hard work and takes a good deal of time. Once
the score is realized, there is still some room for improvisation in performance.
Earle Brown is one of the pioneers of graphic notation,
in which the spatial placement of dots or lines on blank sheets of paper
replaces the former 5-lines and 4-spaces notation. December 1952
contains horizontal and vertical lines of varying length, thickness and
placement. No instructions are given, but several correlations suggest
themselves: length indicates duration, height (placement) indicates pitch,
and thickness represents either density or volume. The piece can
be done as a solo, or with any number of instruments.
“Orchestra Of Our Time” recently commissioned Lukas Foss
to write a chamber work. The result is Music For Six, which
can be done by any six melody instruments. Like In C, this
piece is made up of melodic fragments, but the structure is much more complex.
Each instrumentalist has a separate part, with a unique set of patterns.
Some have rising lines of percussive, staccato quality; others have falling
lines of legato character. Some play in the tonality G-F#-E-D, others
play G-F-E-D, G-F-Eb-D, G#-F#-E-D, etc.. The result is a dreamlike
texture where similar fragments clash, collide, or come together, only
to drift apart again. At the end, against an 8th-note ostinato pattern,
a full-blown melody emerges out of all the chaos, played in a give-and-take
duet in long tones. Quite lovely.
There are many other compositions for open instrumentation.
To find them, I suggest you first look through all the issues of Source
Music of the Avant-Garde and Soundings (Peter Garland).
Both should be available at any major university music library. Next,
go to the card catalogue of the same library, or the music library of a
large-city public library, and look up the names, Earle Brown, John Cage,
Toshi Ichiyanagi, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Christian Wolff. Each
of these fine composers has written several chamber works for open instrumentation.
And the compositions are interesting, provocative, and easily obtainable
through major publishing houses.
Compositions cited:
In C, Terry Riley. Score on record jacket, Columbia
Records, Stereo MS 7178.
Fontana Mix, John Cage. C.F.Peters, Inc.
December 1952, Earle Brown. Associated Music
Publishers.
Music For Six, Lukas Foss, Carl Fischer, Inc.
