Rhea Fowler and Micaela Tobin contribute a piece titled A City Upon a Hill? The composers describe the piece as follows:
"A City Upon a Hill?" is our reaction to the events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The main theme is based on the infamous slogan, 'Make America Great Again,' in which each variation of the Americana-inspired theme becomes increasingly dissonant on the arrival of the word 'again.' ... The sonic dissonance is meant to echo the cognitive dissonance of the far right movement itself, as the piece chronicles the gradual radicalization of an individual who holds an idealized, nostalgic memory of a freedom and equality that has never truly existed in America; someone who believes themselves to be a true patriot while simultaneously undermining basic democratic values and American institutions.
The piece is for solo violin with some solo voice and electronic samples of chanting, protest, etc. This is, so far, the most obviously political piece on the album and as it deals with events in 2021 and not related to the pandemic, it would seem to be a bit outside the parameters of the project, though as Gandelsman asked for pieces reflecting on "the time we were all living through" I suppose this fits.
Here is a clip of the piece from the album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZfpc92JYCo
Here are the composers discussing the piece:
Rhiannon Giddens piece is titled New to the Session. Her background is rooted in traditional fiddle music and she is often inspired by dance as in this piece. We don't seem to have a clip of her talking about the piece, but here is Johnny Gandelsman with a live performance:
And that brings us to the end of the first CD.
3 comments:
I pre-ordered this 3-CD set for $50 and, for the most part, find it un-listenable. It's more noise than music to my ears. I do like the last piece on disc 3, "Breathe." Through most of the pieces, I keep waiting for the actual music to start. I don't have the patience for the depth of listening and analysis you give it here. After saying all that, I realize Johnny Gandelsman must be a very good violinist, and so I intend to seek out something recorded by him in more established repertoire, probably the older the better for my taste. The players on this disc remind me of what I'd often think while listening to some pieces in the New Music New Haven concerts: the composers can obviously notate any sound imaginable, and the instrumentalists can duly play it...but why bother with THIS?
You did pick a good one, though. I like this New to the Session, it has an old-time American sound and real melody and harmony, no twitching and torture. Maybe I should give the discs another listen when I'm in an open mood.
When I was an undergraduate at McGill way back in the 70s I attended a lot of contemporary music concerts. It was easy because the series put on by the Societé de Musique Contemporanée du Québec was held in the School of Music's concert hall. My expectation was that only one piece on any given program was likely to be interesting or enjoyable and that was usually fulfilled. What keeps me listening to new music is that every now and then you hear something absolutely extraordinary. But most of the time it is no better than noise.
I'm reserving judgement on the Gandelsman album--after all, I've only gotten to the end of disc 1.
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