Sixteen Composers Reflect on Inheritance

Adam Tendler at the piano keyboard (photograph by Cameron McLeod, from the home page on Tendler’s Web site)

Last night saw the return of Adam Tendler to San Francisco to present another solo piano recital. Unless, I am mistaken, this was his first appearance since February of 2019, when he gave a solo recital for the Piano Talks series of concerts presented by the Ross McKee Foundation. This time his recital was presented by Other Minds at the Brava Theater in the Mission. The title of the program was Inheritances, which refers to the money received through the last will and testament of his father. That money was then distributed equally among sixteen composers, each of whom would create a work for Tendler to perform for the aforementioned program. The contributing composers were as follows:

1. Laurie Anderson
2. Missy Mazzoli
3. Scott Wollschleger
4. Angélica Negrón
5. John Glover
6. Mary Prescott
7. Timo Andres
8. Ted Hearne
9. inti figgis-vizueta
10. Sara Kirkland Snider
11. Christopher Cerrone
12. Marco Balter
13. Pamela Z
14. Darian Donavan Thomas
15. Nico Muhly
16. Devonté Hynes

When Tendler introduced the program last night, he said it would run around 90 minutes; but it seemed to run longer, perhaps by as much as a quarter of an hour.

Sadly, from a more subjective point of view, after about half a dozen of the selections, the program began to feel as if it would go on forever. Ironically, one of the “movements” turned out be a home movie. The “musical significance” of this selection was, at best, ambiguous; but it was still a bit of a relief from the “roll call” of the piano solo compositions. It is clear that this program was conceived and executed with the best of intentions, but we all know about the road paved with good intentions and where it leads.

I still remember the skill that Tendler brought to delivering the “talks” part of his Piano Talks recital. I suspect that, if he had trimmed down the number of composers by half and then introduced each with his own spoken reflections (rather than consigning those reflections to print in the program book), this would have been a far more engaging experience. It might even have piqued my own perceptions of those composers on his list that have never given me much (if any) satisfaction in my past listening experiences.

Sticking it to Milton Babbitt?

In 1958 the popular magazine High Fidelity published an article by the highly intellectual composer Milton Babbitt. Babbitt had entitled the article "The Composer as Specialist;" and it addressed the mindset gulf between many composers following in the footsteps of Arnold Schoenberg and most audiences. (Schoenberg himself had addressed this topic.) Without Babbitt's knowledge or consent, High Fidelity changed the title to "Who Cares if You Listen?;" and Babbitt has been living with the consequences of that decision ever since. However, even if he found the title "offensively vulgar," there remains that connotation of detachment in his "specialist" stance.

I have no idea if Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson intentionally decided to exploit this stance and twit Babbitt at the same time, but they definitely found an amusing and clever way to do so. Here is the BBC News account of their project:

US rock star Lou Reed and his artist wife Laurie Anderson are to stage a "high-frequency concert" for canines in Australia.

Music for Dogs, to be held outside the Sydney Opera House, is billed as "an inter-species social gathering on a scale never seen before in Australia".

The bizarre recital in June will be largely inaudible to the human ear.

The couple said they have experience making music for at least one dog - their rat terrier, Lollabelle.

"She likes things with a lot of smoothness but with beats in them,'' Ms Anderson told the Sydney Morning Herald.

She said the inspiration for the performance at the Vivid Live festival in Sydney came while she was backstage at an event and thought: "Wouldn't it be great, if you were playing a concert and you look out and you see all dogs?"

The show, created by Ms Anderson, will last for 20 minutes as she says "dogs don't have a giant concentration span".

The sounds will be played at high frequency like a dog whistle, setting dogs' ears twitching but barely audible to their owners.

It is billed in the festival programme as "an absolute must for any dog and their two-legged friends".

The link to Babbitt is delightfully obvious: Now we have "Who cares if you can't listen?" However, even if Babbitt was not the intended target, this is clearly aimed at those who tend to get excessively serious about concert attendance, particularly in an opera house. It takes a certain level of chutzpah to break with such a strongly-held social tradition; and I would say that the level is high enough for Reed and Anderson to share the Chutzpah of the Week award!

Dennis Russell Davies to Return to Other Minds

Dennis Russell Davies performing for Other Minds in 2022 (photograph by David Magnusson, courtesy of Other Minds)

Next month Other Minds will host a benefit recital to celebrate the 80th birthday of pianist Dennis Russell Davies. Davies will be joined by his wife, Maki Namekawa, to present a recital of solo and four-hand piano music. This will be their fifth appearance in San Francisco hosted by Other Minds.

The highlight of the program will be a four-hand arrangement of selected movements from the six-episode tone poem Má vlast (my fatherland). (The best known of those movements is frequently performed on its own: “Vitava,” the Czech name of the river Moldau.) The rest of the program will be focused primarily on the twentieth century, with compositions by Maurice Ravel, John Cage, Philip Glass, and Laurie Anderson.

Only 80 tickets will be available for this event. As of this writing, tickets may be purchased for either $70 or $100. They may be purchased through an Eventbrite Web page. The performance will begin at 8 p.m. on Friday, March 22, preceded by a dessert reception at 7 p.m. The venue will be the McCarthy Art Studio in the Mission, and the address will be provided once ticket purchase has been confirmed.