Musical Terrorism

[Christian Frederick]

… even pianist have their lunatic composers. Check this out. If I did this at work, I’m sure someone would call 911.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkWMVqCMj08

[Christian Frederick]

David you are brilliant.

Now everyone… open two windows and play both of these together with the sound on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkWMVqCMj08

http://youtube.com/watch?v=QvIrFCprYNQ

[David Ice]

You know, I was playing harp almost the same way she is playing piano a few months ago when I was so doped up on Oxycontin and Fentanyl for back pain.

[carl-swanson]

Christian- That’s just AWFUL! What’s really amazing to me is how long this kind of musical drivel has been going on. I can remember as an undergraduate A LONG TIME AGO hearing pieces just like this. And they all got played once and that was it. Modern music proponents have always bragged about how modern composers have thrown off and abandoned the constraints that “limited” past composers. But the reality is, nothing could be further from the truth. They are all straight jacketed into writing junk like this. And if it sounds in any way appealing, then the composer is not taken seriously by these people. To paraphrase Adlei Stevenson, composers seperate the wheat from the chaff and then use only the chaff.

[Bonnie Shaljean]

Anybody see the film Green Card?

[unknown-user]

I was there too, and I really liked this piece… I thought it was very touching.

[Christian Frederick]

I question the integrity of an individual when they use a pseudonym such as “A Harpist”. Very likely, this could have been the composer, the artistic director, or the programmer…. most likely someone from the world of academia.

I’m going to try to transcribe for harp the following composition from “NORA” as seen on YouTube and submit it as an anonymous composition for WHC in Vancouver.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ860P4iTaM

[Christian Frederick]

The sequel is even better! It’s much more harpistic.

Check this out and l”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0zgQAp7EYw&feature=related

[Christian Frederick]

Bonnie,

I found a VERY short clip of this scene. It’s about 20 seconds into the movie preview. Don’t blink or you will miss it!

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1084948761/

[Christian Frederick]

I’m hoping Emily decides to compose for harp. Oh my God! This is pure, unabridged talent!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUx4t4W4eVY&NR=1

[Jerusha Amado]

She’s a delight!

[eleanor-turner]

Hi all,
I am so glad that someone else went to the concert – so did I!! One of my colleagues drew my attention to this blog and the negative comments, so I had to read them as I was actually there, and like the harpist who wrote comment number 66, I really enjoyed it.
The playing was impeccable – a beautiful tone and strong but never forced sound, wonderfully composed and extremely moving. The title of the piece, and its description in the programme, indicated what it was likely to be like, so I (rightfully) went in to this concert without my young son! There was a lot of bad language, of course, and the text was broken up into fragments/motifs which certainly had an agressive effect – this was completely in context with the piece and really worked well. Lavinia is a true artist and could execute anything with great beauty, including this piece. The way she was duetting with the recording was astonishing – many of the motifs of thee voice were in unison with the same rhythms on the harp, and the harp copied the intonation of the voice- I’ve never heard such a clever use of the harp with a recording and was absolutely inspired to try this effect myself, as a composer as well as being a harpist.

Lavinia’s voice did indeed join with the recorded woman’s voice at some points, which was very effective and so startling – it was a powerful performance to say the least, and I agree entirely with post 66, there were many goosebumps and I was almost crying at the end. The harshness of the voice in the first movement gave way, in movements 2 and 3, to some gut-wrenching moments – it was really affecting and upsetting knowing you were listening to real humans going through this. The harp playing was angelic, I agree, and the harmonies were never atonal – dissonant in many places, but never ugly. The subject matter was only as offensive on stage, and on the harp, as it is in real life. You could see the intensity and the integrity of Lavinia’s own feelings on trying to use music to break this constant cycle of drug abuse. I thought that it was the right choice to use the New York as the setting of this, as the projects and the ghettos are the most famous example of this cycle of abuse. It was heart-rending and made me so much more sympathetic to the people who’ve got trapped inside this cycle. Of course, it could be anywhere in the World. I think that the message did come across without targetting American culture or anything like that – that didn’t even occur to me (I’m a half-Scottish, half-English girl and know many places in both countries where there are exactly the same cycles going on)

Anyway, I’m going on a bit….it really was fantastic though. Not everyone’s taste, of course, and very gritty stuff indeed. But above all – the playing – Lavinia is a huge talent with such passion and focus. Gwyneth Wentick is also astounding – and I too thoroughly enjoyed her Ginastera concerto! – but Lavinia was the highlight of my week in Amsterdam, and this particular piece was the most inspiring new music I heard.
(Incidentally, she also played a wonderful piece with a string quartet that she’d had to arrange at the last moment as the arranged quartet pulled out – it

[tony-morosco]

Eleanor,

Thank you for your contribution to this conversation. It is great to have the opinions of others who were there who didn’t feel the same as the initial post, and more importantly, why they felt different.

Since most of us commenting haven’t actually heard the piece (and of course on the Internet when has that ever stopped someone from offering an opinion) we had just the one sided description. From that I concluded that the piece was most likely not good, but your description has given me reason to think that perhaps it is worth hearing if, by some miracle, I ever get the opportunity.

[Julietta Anne Rabens]

Kathleen Erate wrote: It is a fact that there is protest music, and music that make statements. However, what Ms Meijer hopes to prove by her music is beyond me.

I have not heard this piece and so cannot comment on specifics. From what you have described of the piece, I would surmise that Ms Meijer is attempting to recreate a human experience that is foreign to many people who have not been faced with those sorts of tragedies. In the same way you would naturally reject the pain of such an experience, you have perhaps rejected this representation of that experience. This specific example may not serve as a model – I cannot judge that, but if the arts are ever understood to tell the truth about the human experience and to recreate a sense of empathy with an experience unlike our own, then the arts should challenge us. The assumptions that music is to be beautiful and soothing in all cases is culturally confined. Such a view is legitimate, but incomplete. Music has as many angles from which it can be viewed as a mountain has. It is all things that the human experience is: it is an abstract representation of the whole of it.

Certainly it is a rare person who can appreciate all music, but is there value in at least remaining curious as to why some people, even intelligent ones, find meaning and relevance in something we are most comfortable rejecting?

[Christian Frederick]

This is a great conversation, mainly because this subject has perplexed me for years. I can only imagine how bad the above so-call new composition is, judging on all the “new music” I have heard at AHS and WHC conferences.

I am not easily offended unless the intention is to hurt someone. For example, I am offended when I receive an email joke that make fun of people for their god-given attributes, such as jokes targeting handicap people.

I agree with David:
>>”I can’t define pornography,” one judge once famously said, “but I know it when I see it.” (Justice Stewart in Jacobellis v. Ohio 378 US 184 (1964).

[Author]

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