This Thursday at 10 a.m., the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) and Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen will launch the third SoundBox program in the current season of performances streamed through the SFSymphony+ on-demand service. Salonen will curate and conduct a program entitled Patterns. The program will feature works by three of the composers associated with minimalist techniques, which became a major focus of attention after they emerged during the Sixties and the decades that followed. Two of those composers will frame the entire program, which will begin with Steve Reich’s “Clapping Music” and conclude with Terry Riley’s “In C.”
For those unfamiliar with these selections, “Clapping Music” was a composition based entirely on rhythm, requiring only two performers doing nothing more that establishing those rhythms through clapping their hands. As can be seen from this photograph, Salonen will join other SFS musicians (six of them) for a “group performance” in which two “clapping choruses” will account for the two parts of the score:
photograph by Kristen Loken, courtesy of SFS
“In C,” on the other hand, was composed for any number of musicians playing any number of instruments and all reading from the same score.
According to the Wikipedia page for this composition, Riley himself suggested that “a group of about 35 is desired;” but he then qualified this recommendation by saying “smaller or larger groups will work.” The score itself consists of a collection of short phrases, all oriented around the note C, numbered from 1 to 53. The tempo for these phrases is established by “The Pulse,” which is nothing more than the note C played in repeated eighth notes, usually on the high register of a piano. Each musician (other than any of them providing “The Pulse”) is required to play all 53 of the phrases in their numerical order. However, each phrase may be repeated as many times as the performer wishes, and the performer can pause as long as (s)he wishes before advancing to the next phrase.
The music was first performed in 1964 by members of the San Francisco Tape Music Center; and, since I have been writing, I have had occasion to listen to performances in both Herbst Theatre and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. For the Soundbox performance Salonen will provide the pulse playing on a toy piano. There will be 27 SFS musicians playing the 53 fragments. Instrumentation will include violins, violas, cellos, flute, piccolo, oboe, cor anglais, clarinet, bassoons, contrabassoon, horn, trumpet, trombones, tuba, percussion, and ukulele.
The other “pioneering minimalist” in the program will be the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. He developed his own compositional style in the Seventies, giving it the name “tintinnabuli.” This basically involves a return to the major triad, thus swinging the pendulum away from the explorations in atonality that emerged during the first half of the twentieth century. Pärt himself justified the name because he felt that the three pitches of a major triad “are like bells” (presumably because they can reverberate against each other). On the Soundbox program his music will be represented by “Spiegel im Spiegel” (mirror in the mirror), which was composed as a duo for violin (Chen Zhao) and piano (Elizabeth Dorman). They will be joined by Adji Cissoko and Shuaib Elhassan, members of the Alonzo King LINES Ballet performing choreography by King.
In addition to providing these three reflections on music from about half a century ago, the program will also present the world premiere of “Saltat sobrius” (dancing sober) composed by Salonen. The music is a fantasy on one of the earliest documented compositions of polyphony, the four-part organum “Sederunt principes” (the princes sat), composed by Pérotin to be sung in Notre-Dame de Paris. Salonen’s score is instrumental, written for a chamber ensemble of violas, cellos, basses, and harp.
This program will be made available for viewing at 10 a.m. this coming Thursday, April 15. As with previous SoundBox events, the admission fee for viewing this SoundBox episode will be $15. Donors that have contributed $250 or more will be entitled to receive complimentary subscriptions to both the SoundBox and CURRENTS series of concerts. Payment for a single admission will be processed through the Patterns Web page, while subscriptions may be purchased through the home page for the entire Digital Season.
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