American Masterpieces Chamber Music DavidThe NewNess of Lang by Steven Schick n my student days at the Staatliche “new” in new music, my Freiburg classmates In his percussion music, Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg, I had tripped on one of the principal, and Ifound myself seated behind an older dangerous, conceits of contemporary music: the Bang on a Can woman at a concert of particularly dour that, above all, it must be new. They fell new music by young German composers. into the ultimate trap of newness: excluding co-founder demonstrates She sat through most of the concert until, references to pre-existing music quickly apparently exasperated, she stood suddenly leads to a narrowing path of possibilities and and shouted, “You call this music?” ultimately to a vocabulary of conformism that true innovation My fellow students turned to stare and in which, whatever else the music might be, grumbled their objections. They were right it was not new. Two years earlier, in a 20th- incorporates the past. to take offense. What she should have century analysis class at the University of shouted was, “You call this new?” Iowa, my classmate David Lang sidestepped Through an overly devout reading of the that pothole. He claimed in class that a passage in Wozzeck was not all that different from a section in a new Talking Heads song and that both passages had something in common with Wagner. Our fellow students grumbled their objections. But what David was asserting at that moment was a fresh idea—really new—that connections across the contentiously defined boundaries of history and genre were not to be avoided, but rather embraced. Borrowing was permitted. That stance, in which David proclaimed David Lang (right) that popular and art music, recent and Opposite: So- Percussion older music, might share the same space, performing Lang’s so-called made him an ideal composer for percussion laws of nature at the 2008 instruments. After all, the search for Bang on a Can Marathon common ground, especially in cultural terms, had been central to early 20th- century percussion music. From the outset this music was a veritable Tower of Babel, 58 october 2009 David Lang exploding on the scene in a starburst of ideas about percussion music, David Lang telephone couldn’t deliver sufficient fidelity, multiple cultures. The composers of the likewise has always been ready to mix things he trusted my judgment. The working draft great early pieces—from George Antheil up. By doing so, he has created a fascinating of the piece was completed shortly before to Edgard Varèse to John Cage—thought library of fresh percussion music. the first performance at La Mama in 1991, nothing of placing Asian gongs next to Latin David’s first percussion solo, The Anvil and subsequent refinements took place bongos; glockenspiels next to oxen bells. Chorus, developed in a way that had a lot in regular debriefings after each concert. Yet as the century wore on, the relationship to do with our friendship. After our time The freedom in the piece’s sound world is between Western avant-garde percussion at the University of Iowa we went our matched by its cultural fluidity. The Anvil music and its polycultural roots had grown separate ways. But when David founded Chorus seems like both a drum set (with five uneasy. Even Iannis Xenakis, a composer Bang on a Can with his Yale classmates foot pedals) and a gamelan (wherein lower whose music I am devoted to, thought Michael Gordon and Julia Wolfe, we instruments play slower music and treble that his late percussion music, scored for began working together again. I was a instruments ornament them). Periodicity, congas, bongos and West African djembes, regular guest performer in the Bang on repetition, and recall in the piece come contained “no folkloric contamination.” a Can Marathons and later the founding from both cultures. There is also a lot of Here he clearly missed the point. percussionist of the Bang on a Can All-Stars. late 20th-century concert music here: a A mid-century generation of American The Anvil Chorus was the first installment performer comes on stage, bows, and plays composers reinstated the cultural fluidity of a series of a dozen or so pieces of David’s from a score. The Anvil Chorus lives in a of the early percussion music. The most that I have commissioned, premiered, or big world. important of these was Steve Reich, whose toured. This music has become a part of The great danger in music of this breadth masterpiece Drumming was composed after our friendship and allows us to take certain is that its openness will lead to a lack of a study trip to West Africa in the early risks together. The Anvil Chorus is a work focus, to a kind of hyphenated identity in 1970s. But Drumming is much more than scored for 14 percussion instruments of which no single aspect takes prominence. African-inspired music. It bears Reich’s the player’s choice. I was in San Diego David’s remedy is his variation on what I imprint as a jazz drummer; it shows his love and David lived in New York. Our daily think of as the Cage theorem: freedom in of Bach and of early vocal music; it shows rehearsals were held on the phone—I the area of sound production is directly his willingness to combine worlds. As the would discover a new sound and play it most important American heir to Reich’s for him. When the little speaker in the continued on pg 175 59 continued from pg 59 proportional to the rigor of its formal construction. In early Cage percussion music, the more volatile the sound world, either of us has known. A string of failed the more puritanical were the constraints attempts to commission the piece ended of form. Following Cage here—and to when the University of Iowa funded a some extent Steve Reich as well—David world to allow the composer some latitude single scene from the opera as a part of its in formal planning. But an individual’s Lang allows himself great latitude in the centennial celebrations. (The remainder choice of sound and aesthetic valence. walk is very like a fingerprint—unique of the work remains un-commissioned at and irreproducible—and becomes the Counterbalancing that latitude is a strict the time of this writing.) Hamsun’s story adherence to highly constructed rhythmic ultimately unpredictable sound source, is about a man who does not or will not requiring formal constraint. cycles and formal plans that contain and work and as a result is gradually starving. Walking. Robots. A piece modeled on focus dispersed sonic energies. In each of To avoid his landlord, to whom he owes David’s subsequent percussion pieces, the drum set playing. None of it is new. But money, he spends his days walking by borrowing—unselfconsciously and un- options grew and, by extension, the formal through Christiania (now Oslo). In the containment became more rigorous. abashedly, inventively—David Lang has aria, four percussionists walk in carefully exchanged the narrowness of newness for Scraping Song is a work for freely chosen constructed eighth-, quarter- and dotted- noise instruments and four scrapers. Much the big open world of freshness. It is a quarter note pulses on different materials— trade worth making any day. of the sound is unscored, but the rhythmic gravel, sand, wood and stone—while a cycling is extremely controlled: essentially soloist “walks” an obbligato solo part and Percussionist Steven Schick has commissioned a lesson in factorials, as the piece explores recites the places in Christiania he visits. the number of possible combinations of or premiered more than 100 new works. He One might think that walking, even on is Distinguished Professor of Music at the five- and six-beat patterns within a four- varied surfaces, would produce a uniform part phrase. The most recent Lang solo University of California, San Diego, artistic enough sound director of the percussion group red fish blue work, String of Pearls, for marimba, is the exception that proves the theorem. In fish, and music director and conductor of the the smorgasbord of varied and enticing La Jolla Symphony & Chorus. percussion timbres, the marimba is a straightforward single color—nourishing but not exciting, a little like that bowl of 48th Season garbanzo beans at the end of the salad bar. With comparatively little sonic freedom June 14—August 9, 2010 to constrain, formally Fantasia. String of Pearls is a As a farewell gift when I left the Bang on TAOS SCHOOL a Can All-Stars, David wrote Melody. It consists of a melody of just eight glockenspiel notes that are Unchainedpartnered with a noise instrument chosen by the OF MUSIC performer. Note and noise are to be played in unison in a perfect Langian mapping CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL of constraint onto the unpredictable land- Performing Artists & Faculty Include: scape of noise. In recent versions of the • Borromeo String Quartet piece, I have collaborated with computer • ntano String Quartet musician William Brent, who devised Bre sixteen robotic instruments to play a • St. Lawrence String Quartet doubled noise part. • Robert McDonald, pianist A fascinating recent piece is the “walking • Michael Tree, guest violist aria” from David’s percussion opera Hunger. Hunger, based on the Knut Hamsun novel, has been the longest- For a concert schedule or for running uncompleted project that information on the music school: • www.TaosSchoolofMusic.com • [email protected] 175 .