I’m on a pretty serious orchestra/chamber music/string quartet bender right now, and fuck… Penderecki is intense. I haven’t heard this since music school and it sounds SO GOOD. Can you find me a more intense piece for orchestra?
It’s a bit of a research vibe. I’ve spent quite a bit of time sort of avoiding this kind of music. You can’t listen to it on the train, no way to bump it in yr car, and PATIENCE seems to be the world least favorite virtue (this might just be New York talking - but I just read a list of notes for British business owners to prepare for the 2012 Olympics in London describing cultural differences of importance. Of Americans they say, “Time is a very important commodity. People ‘save’ time and ‘spend’ time as if it were money in the bank”). Anyway, beyond all that I get afraid that some kind of lofty ideas will enter my brain and I’ll spend the next 5 years trying to find an orchestra of people with the time and energy and willingness to actually rehearse and play a piece of music that’s more fully “composed” - and then you might as well add another 5 years trying to write that music while simultaneously acting as a “manager” for a zillion people who all have their own complicated lives and schedules. The answer is always “There is not enough money”. How do you “SPEND TIME” huddled over a piece of paper (or computer program) when that time and work has such little chance of being performed, let alone successful in terms of PROFIT. SO yes this idea is an expense, and it sort of requires someone self-righteous/centered/confident enough (or naive enough… or in college and not yet realizing how much money it is costing to have a little bit of mind freedom) to decide to spend their hard earned cash (time) on such an esoteric exercise as writing a piece of music for a chamber ensemble of any kind. It then would require quite the charismatic individual to convince however many players that it’s a valid “expense” of their time… Am I right? AMIRIGHT?
We give that overindulgence and ambition some kind of a shot with the SKELETON$ BIG BAND - but a bit of its ability to function, I think, is due to the open nature of the music. It’s not something we need to workshop/shed for hours for weeks for months - nor something that requires a Conservatory performance degree. It’s simple, but open: allowing for complex things to happen just by having more fun and or investing a bit more of the SELF into the music. Perhaps by blasting out a freaky squeal in momentary expulsions of MUSICAL FREEDOM!!
Anyway, chamber music is about conceiving a piece of music from beginning to end - writing on the page every miniature detail of every musical event. It should be a beautiful piece of music ON PAPER. And in that case - does it matter if anyone ever performs it?
This is just another mind vomit daydream. Questions and thoughts from your friends here at SKELETONS TELEVISION™. Stay tuned for the next transmission…
It was also just a big philosophical intro to say, “OH by the way”: I’m writing a new piece for string quartet to be performed by the Brooklyn Philharmonic on March 27th at the Brooklyn Museum.
CHECK IT: http://www.brooklynphilharmonic.org/.
After that I’ll be writing a piece for Orchestra to be read (in a rehearsal - which alone is HUGE - see mind vomit above) by the Brooklyn Philharmonic.
Who’da thunk it? I hope you enjoy this intense, intense piece of music by Penderecki. Find me some more!
With love and apathy,
-Matt
