counter)induction Against Method

Boyce Bartlett Singleton Meyer Streber Tedesco The Hunt by Night (2020) Douglas Boyce (b. 1970) cl, vc, pf

Before (2019) Kyle Bartlett (b. 1971) bcl, vc, gtr

Ein Kleines Volkslied (1997) Alvin Singleton (b. 1940) bcl, vc, db, vib, e. gtr, pf

Forgiveness (2016) Jessica Meyer (b. 1974) bcl, loop pedal

Piano Quartet (2018) Ryan Streber (b. 1979) vln, vla, vc, pf Scherzo (2019) Diego Tedesco (b. 1974)

bcl, gtr, vln, vla, vc Miranda Cuckson, violin Benjamin Fingland, clarinet Daniel Lippel, guitar Jessica Meyer, viola Caleb van der Swaagh, cello Ning Yu, piano

Jeffrey Irving, vibraphone * Renate Rohlfing, piano * Randall Zigler, bass * * guest on Singleton What is counterinduction?

Ok, so, counterinduction: it’s a negative, it’s an abstract. Even to those familiar with its philosophical origin, it is often a point of confusion. It doesn't seem to have much to do with music, or sound, or making art. And yet, its logic (an effort to unseat all logics from their sacred pillars) is a logic of creation, a logic that activates unknown (or forgotten) potential. It is liberation, but not freedom; a liberation that clarifies inheritances and obligations — be they aesthetic, cultural, social, or otherwise — to the essential qualities of creative works.

Philosopher Paul K. Feyerabend’s masterwork Against Method outlines a principle that speaks to a certain contrariness that laid the groundwork for counter)induction’s twenty years (so far) of music-making. “Counterinduction” is the obverse of induction. It is not doing something that is illogical; rather it is doing the opposite of what is logical. It is not an ill-advised choice, it is the choice that most strongly stands against all advisement. And we’ve stuck by it for two decades – we work by small means for large effect; our pianos are forte, our silences loud, and our impact asymmetrical to its scale.

The counterinduction principle leaves us with an open question: what is left “after method”? Feyerabend describes “rules-of-thumb,” principles for action when practical and ethical dilemmas arise. No less fraught is aesthetic judgment, a necessary part of the mode-of-being of a musical enterprise like c)i, which aspires to a balance between aesthetic diversity and coherence. Add to that inescapable individual, financial, and cultural limitations, as well as c)i’s intrinsic desire to preserve its existence, and the question becomes “what then must we do?”

The gears of our society assimilate ideas, leveling them through a process which reduces their value to their usefulness as commodities. What remains are only the superficial remnants of their initial conception. Detached from their crucial foundations, they often impoverish or contradict their own origins. counter)induction seeks to reinforce the core aesthetic principles behind creative work that can become diluted by their participation in the marketplace.

In his late writings, Feyerabend suggests other strategies for confronting destructive concepts — the flattening of thought, the drift of science towards scientism, ill-considered mythologies of progress and invention — that are as threatening now to the social fabric as they have ever been. For him, the conquest of abundance is an imperializing project in which the richness of being (musical and other) is diluted. Seen in this light, the history of c)i stands in opposition to this exercise of reductive accumulation. c)i strives for music making which is grounded in a spirit of cooperation and idealism and a conceptualization of music not confined by the language of capital. A meaningful stance on the the dizzying contemporary diversity of aesthetic voices does not require a single sound, style, or agenda, but instead involves cultivating a clear voice that emerges from the workings of our own peculiar methods, our rules-of-thumb. Against Method inaugurates a new chapter: new members, new instruments, new works, but it retains our commitment to the creative practices of our ensemble and to substance over fashion. Notes on Pieces

Douglas Boyce: The Hunt By Night

This work, the third etude in the seventh quire of Boyce’s A Book of Etudes, is the final piece in a set of 21 linked but autonomous works containing all combinations of clarinet, cello, and piano.These etudes presume virtuosity as a given, and focus on the “technique” of performing together. Etude No. 3, Quire 7 is a modern caccia wherein the temporal orientations of the three musicians are bundled and re- bundled as the players shift roles from pursuer to pursued, from leader to outsider, from furious precision to savage confusion.

The title has two sources: Paulo Uccello’s 1470 eponymous painting, and Derek Mahon’s poem of the same. Uccello plays with symmetry and flatness in the colorful images of a hunt filled with hunters, horses, dogs, and horns; their chaotic but directed energy is set before the cold, rigid lines of the forest soon to envelop them. Mahon’s poetic exegesis transits back and forth, moving from the childlike play of the foreground with its pageantry, color, and the anticipation of the hunting horn to the dark interior of the forest, as “Crazed no more by foetid / Bestial howls,” the hunt is transformed, “horses to rocking- horses / Tamed and framed to courtly uses.” The work was written for Ning Yu, Ben Fingland, and Caleb van der Swaagh as a frustrating love-letter, marking and challenging their supreme musicianship and most excellent comity.

Kyle Bartlett: Before

With its contingency on action and physicality, Before concerns itself with t h e f o u n d a t i o n s o f m u s i c ; a m u s i c f r o m b e f o r e t h e e s t a b l i s h m e n t o f t h e p r i s o n house of language. Here, three nomads explore a shared terrain, seeking commonality and recognition. Their wordless refrain re-territorializes the ritual space of performance, not through the simplistic crudeness of language, but rather through the more resilient truth of the experience, of the increasingly rare experience of un-mediated being together. Once common, the phenomenon of “being-together” was supposedly rendered obsolete by the virtuality of our current digital noosphere. But these three travelers show us the insufficiency of the Modern, and the radical necessity of the chamber, the home, the cave, the first fire-side. Alvin Singleton: Ein Kleines Volkslied

In his Ein Kleines Volkslied (1997) (based on the Scottish folk song “Annie Laurie”), Alvin Singleton establishes fixed vocabularies of musical material for each of the instruments in the sextet. Dramatic tremolos in the cello, gliding dyads in the electric guitar, and pizzicato bass lines establish a mysterious film noir-esque opening. Once it enters midway through the piece, the piano alternates between mournful expressivity and pointillistic passages that interlock with percolating quintuplet figures in the vibraphone. The bass clarinet part balances lyrical gestures with short bursts of sixteenth notes that catalyze other instruments in the ensemble. The sparseness of the orchestration throughout much of the work gives way to density as Singleton merges the disparate threads together into a brief closing climax.

With its unique collage of references, Ein Kleines Volkslied resonates with counter)induction’s counterinductive impulse. The context of the commission itself (it was written for the Bang on a Can All Stars) frames the work’s gesture towards populism, an aesthetic orientation that Singleton proceeds to subvert by injecting the material with complexity and abstraction. The balance between populism and modernism notwithstanding, the playful pun on Mozart in the title sets the tone for this lightly bittersweet piece.

Jessica Meyer: Forgiveness

Forgiveness connects to counter)induction’s collectivity at the smallest level, the mess of working together in the greatest of intimacies. Written for her partner of 27 years and inspired by the U2 lyric “we’ll hurt each other, and we’ll do it again,” the work explores the inevitable difficult moments that all couples face as they go through life together. The captured sounds are looped, worked and reworked; forgiveness is not an act, but a process. This process of connection, reconnection, and the care that it requires resonates with the collectivity of the ensemble over the last 20 years. Ryan Streber: Piano Quartet

Streber writes, “The Piano Quartet is based on a melodic idea that came to me while driving on a winding country road in Dutchess County and which I subsequently couldn’t get out of my head. This idée fixe is heard in various guises throughout the piece, both in a slow and tranquil setting as well as in faster, more rigid and contrapuntal contexts. The writing is at times self-consciously traditional and almost neoclassical in its approach to this venerable instrumentation. The piece was composed for and is dedicated to counter)induction with love and gratitude.”

The Piano Quartet’s formal balance evokes (or, perhaps, invokes) an elegant poetic, which is amplified by intricate counterpoint and a harmonic tranquility. This is a subtle historicality, not a reference or tip-of-the-hat to the ascended masters, but an activation of potential in both form and content; an inevitable intensity and dynamism implicit in the work’s structure. Diego Tedesco: Scherzo

True to its name, Tedesco’s Scherzo is, as its composer writes, “a written- out joke for guitar, clarinet, violin, viola, and cello. The basic melodic material of the piece is a descending chromatic scale, to which an idea of a certain stasis is contrasted. These two ideas are conducted through a classical form in which continuous wandering takes us further and further away from the starting point. After that, a recapitulation returns us to recognizable landscapes. An active but directionless finale closes the piece.” Downplaying the frenetic repetition, chaotic collisions, and transformations of the piece, the calm tone of Tedesco’s words implies that they are themselves a bit of a joke. As with the other works on this disk, the rhetoric here is of the collectivity of an ensemble and, more specifically, the play of playing. The fluctuations from subgroups to the whole add another layer of polyphony. Union, disunion, parity, family resemblances, and affinities are interrogated in as detailed a manner as the pitches, rhythms, and gestures of the scherzo-theme itself. Scherzo was written for counter)induction.

BIOGRAPHIES

KYLE BARTLETT sets musical boundaries in order to overstep them, whether in a stripped-down musical language of savage intensity (Damnation, Inevitable Failure of Manifest Coherence) or through delicately distilled, gestural sound events (Eleven Aphorisms, Lay Down Your Burden). Her works have been performed by American and European ensembles including Network for New Music, PRISM Saxophone Quartet, E-MEX (DE), and Oerknal (NL). www.kylebartlett.com

DOUGLAS BOYCE writes music exploring the historical entailments of musical-being and the temporal poetics of performance. He is Associate Professor of Music at George Washington University. www. douglasboyce.net

MIRANDA CUCKSON delights listeners with her playing of a large range of music, from the newest creations to music of older eras. She has in recent years become one of the most acclaimed and dedicated champions of contemporary music. She is passionate about the creative role of the performer/interpreter and she performs worldwide as soloist and chamber musician at concert halls and informal spaces. She is director of Nunc and member of AMOC and counter)induction. www.mirandacuckson.

BENJAMIN FINGLAND interprets a diverse range of clarinet literature, with performances conveying “spiritedness and humor,” “unflagging precision and energy,” “eloquence and passion,” and “dazzling technique” (The New York Times). A proponent of the music of our time, he works closely with living composers, and in addition to being a founding member of counter)induction, plays with many leading contemporary ensembles including NOVUS NY, International Contemporary Ensemble, the New York New Music Ensemble, and the Network for New Music. He is also a member of the renowned Dorian Wind Quintet. www.benjaminfingland. com

Guitarist DANIEL LIPPEL, called an “exciting soloist” (New York Times), enjoys a diverse career as a soloist, chamber musician, collaborator in several contexts, and recording artist. A member of the International Contemporary Ensemble since 2005 and counter)induction since 2019, Lippel’s recent performance highlights include recitals at Le Poisson Rouge in New York, Sinus Ton Festival (Germany), and the National University of Colombia in Bogota. www.danlippel.com

With playing that is “fierce and lyrical” and works that are “other-worldly” (The Strad) and “evocative” (New York Times), JESSICA MEYER is a versatile composer and violist whose works have been commissioned and performed by many established ensembles including A Far Cry, the American Brass Quintet, and Roomful of Teeth. Upcoming projects include being the composer-in-residence at the Spoleto Festival which includes a premiere by the St. Lawrence String Quartet, the premiere of her viola concerto at the Miller Theater in New York, and an orchestral work to be presented nationwide as part of Carnegie Hall’s Link UP program. www.jessicameyermusic.com ALVIN SINGLETON was born in Brooklyn, New York, and has served as Composer-in-Residence with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, UNISYS Composer-in-Residence with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and Visiting Professor of Composition at the Yale University School of Music. Among numerous awards, he was the recipient of a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship and was commissioned by The Serge Koussevitsky Music Foundation and American Composers Orchestra for the orchestral work When Given a Choice, which premiered at Carnegie Hall in April 2004. His music is recorded on the Albany Records, Elektra/Nonesuch, First Edition, Tzadik, and Innova labels. www.alvinsingleton.com

RYAN STREBER is a composer and audio engineer based in Mt. Vernon, NY and Sharon, CT. Ryan co-owns and runs Oktaven Audio where he has engineered hundreds of classical and jazz recordings over the past decade. www.ryanstreber.com / www.oktavenaudio.com Cellist CALEB VAN DER SWAAGH is a versatile chamber musician, soloist, and occasional composer. He is a member of counter)induction and Ensemble Échappé and is an alumnus of Ensemble ACJW (now known as Ensemble Connect). www.calebvanderswaagh.com

Born in Buenos Aires, DIEGO TEDESCO studied composition with Julio Viera and Francisco Kröpfl, and has been awarded the “National Award” for Symphonic and Chamber music, first prize at the Juan Carlos Paz competition, a Koussevitzky Foundation music award, and a commission from the Teatro Colón of Buenos Aires for his first opera, El Fiord. His works (musical and visual) are delicate in texture, playful in energy, elegant in form, and fierce when they need to be.

Pianist NING YU has been working at the forefront of the current creative music scene in the US as a chamber and solo musician. She is a member of counter)induction, piano percussion quartet Yarn/Wire, and Ensemble Signal. She teaches at the George Washington University in Washington DC. www.ningyupiano.com Credits

Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Ryan Streber, Oktaven Audio, Mt. Vernon, NY (Session dates: Bartlett and Meyer: 6/19/20; Singleton 8/15/20; Tedesco: 6/18/19; Boyce: 2/1/2020; Streber: 11/13/19)

Executive Producers: counter)induction, New Focus Recordings

Session producers: Ryan Streber (all tracks), Daniel Lippel (Piano Quartet), Douglas Boyce (The Hunt by Night), Jessica Meyer (Forgiveness)

Editing producers: Ryan Streber (Piano Quartet, The Hunt by Night, Forgiveness, Ein Kleines Volkslied), Jessica Meyer (Forgiveness), Daniel Lippel (Scherzo, Before, Ein Kleines Volkslied)

Liner notes: counter)induction

Text supervision: Caleb van der Swaagh, Daniel Lippel

Design and Layout: Jessica Slaven

Artwork: Diego Tedesco

This album is funded in part by The Alice M. Ditson Fund and the recording of The Hunt by Night is partially supported by a grant by George Washington University. Ein Kleines Volkslied was commissioned by Bang on a Can as part of the national series of works sponsored by Meet the Composer/Arts Endowment Commissioning Music/USA, with support from the Helen F. Whitaker Fund.