uch has been written over the past year about But Wuorinen’s compositional approach couldn’t be more the so-called “Generation of ’38,” the large, distant from the polystylism that characterizes many of his con- eclectic group of successful American com- temporaries. He has long been identified with Milton Babbitt, posers—including William Bolcom, Paul George Perle, and the late Donald Martino—the principal Chihara, John Corigliano, Alvin Curran, John architects of post-World War II American serialism. And while MHarbison, Frederic Rzewski, and Joan serialism is a term Wuorinen no longer embraces, strict orga- Tower—who happen to have been born in 1938. This year, of nizational procedures, chromaticism, and rhythmic complexity course, they all are turning 70, prompting concert celebrations remain hallmarks of his vast compositional output. all over the country. But one important member of this illus- Continuing to create this kind of music—especially in the face trious group—Charles Wuorinen, whose birthday was June 9— of today’s constant polemics against it—can be seen as an act of doesn’t quite align with the rest, either in aesthetic inclination defiance. Richard Taruskin, in his massive six-volume Oxford or career trajectory. History of Western Music dismisses the serialists as “just an enor- A wunderkind who began composing at the age of five, mous flowering of Augenmusik.” Alex Ross, in his bestselling Wuorinen received more BMI Student Composer Awards than The Rest Is Noise, grants that Wuorinen “has a flair for instru- any other composer (four, between 1959 and 1963). He was mental drama” but contends that “the average listener could be awarded the Pulitzer Prize at the age of 32 (younger than anyone pardoned” for thinking that composers like Wuorinen, who have before or since); and later that same year, 1970, he was signed “eschewed audience-friendly gestures,” all sound the same. by the prestigious publisher C.F. Peters. Like many others in the Wuorinen, for his part, has been equally disparaging of other ’38 generation, he is a phenomenal performer whose compo- contemporary movements, from Cagean experimentalism, minimal- sitions require extraordinary instrumental virtuosity. ism, and neo-Romanticism to rock and hip-hop. His less-than- THE EXCEPTIONAL MUSIC OF A co-founder of the legendary Group for Contemporary Music, Charles Wuorinen is one of those rare “triple threats”—a consummate pianist, conductor, and composer. Rejecting the CHARLES WUORINEN polystylism that emerged in the work of his contemporaries, he has written rewarding chamber works for just about every instrumental combination one can think of. By Frank Oteri 28 july/august 2008 MUSIC OF CHARLES WUORINEN 29 prophetic assessment of the contemporary compositional land- important ensemble genres and composed for such contemporary scape, stated in the opening paragraph of his 1979 book, Simple combinations as the saxophone quartet and the percussion Composition, still sums up his basic position: ensemble. He has explored electronically generated sound (his Pulitzer was the only one ever awarded for an all-electronic work), [W]hile the tonal system, in an atrophied or vestigial form, is composed for such unprecedented groupings as celesta/harp/ still used today in popular and commercial music, and even piano and mezzo-soprano/English horn, and scored for “outsider” occasionally in the works of backward-looking serious composers, instruments like the accordion and congas. it is no longer employed by serious composers of the mainstream. For Wuorinen, it is all one sound world. The titles of his works It has been replaced or succeeded by the 12-tone system. follow no particular pattern, distributing themselves among for- mal genre appellations (e.g., String Quartet No. 3), abstraction Given this kind of pronouncement, not to mention Wuorinen’s (Composition for Oboe and Piano), apparent structural clues ascendancy during the anti-authoritarian 1960s, it might come (Adapting to the Times, Dodecadactyl) and pure whimsy (On as a surprise to those unfamiliar with his music that Wuorinen Alligators or Lepton, named for Wuorinen’s cat). In that spirit, I could also be called a traditionalist. He has famously described have organized the following descriptions of Wuorinen’s chamber seeking a compositional path that is evolutionary rather than oeuvre by size of forces rather than instrumentation. There revolutionary, and the Western canon still profoundly inspires and should be something for anyone reading these pages to pursue. informs much of his music. His musical vocabulary is extremely broad, spanning from Dufay and Josquin to Haydn and Brahms DUOS: TWO DISTINCT VOICES Wuorinen is a and on to Wolpe, Varèse, and Carter. A motif from Tchaikovsky’s prolific producer of duos—41 to date. Each of his four piano-and- First Piano Concerto is actually audible in his 1980 piano solo, The violin works has clear associations with the so-called common Blue Bamboula; and some of his works—wholesale re-castings of practice period, with the 1966 Duo perhaps coming closest to an Early Music literature—revel in what he has called “pre-revolu- accompanied solo piece (but Wuorinen the pianist is of course tionary traditions.” incapable of creating mere accompaniment). The 1974 Fantasia But to describe Wuorinen’s music as reactionary or conserva- begins as a bona fide accompanied solo and gradually trans- tive would also be a misrepresentation. Rather, it presents an forms into something else, as the notions of playing together alternate reality. It has developed beyond its original theoretical and playing separately are cleverly contrasted. The title of the underpinnings, embracing intuition and incorporating ideas aphoristic Six Pieces (1977) hints at Webern, as does the from fractal geometry, as well as what Wuorinen (who is increas- brevity of several movements—which run an emotional gamut, ingly reluctant to engage in analytical discussions of this sort) from the sudden tempest of the opening to an extraordinarily calls “pitch centricity.” Admittedly erudite, his music has moments tender finale. The title of Wuorinen’s 1988 Sonata suggests a of lightness and even humor. nod to the classics, but its five contrasting sections offer a clearly The composer’s chamber music output—nearly a hundred discernible symmetry within a tightly woven single movement pieces—traces his compositional path perhaps more clearly than that bristles with intensity. The work, which critic Tim Page has his work in other arenas. He has contributed to nearly all of the continued on pg. 100 With Group for New Music With Scott St. John, Carmit Zori, Fred Sherry, Ursula Oppens, co-founder Harvey Sollberger, and Curtis Macomber at BargeMusic, near Brooklyn Bridge 1986 30 july/august 2008 BRINGING TOGETHER POETRY AND MUSIC: Charles Wuorinen’s Ashberyana BY SARAH ROTHENBERG harles Wuorinen is a formidable rewarding. The demands for precision presence. Musicians who con- are great, but they are balanced with a quer his music may still be supreme economy. In reaction to the intimidated by the man. Upon popular minimalist movement led by fellow WIT PERMEATES meeting him, one is immediately septuagenarians Steve Reich and Philip struck by his piercing intelli- Glass, Wuorinen has been described as a WUORINEN’S Cgence and unwavering confidence in his “maximalist”; but I find the term mislead- aesthetic values. He expresses himself ing. The thought process and creative MUSIC. BUT with remarkable clarity and brings to the activity may be maximal, but the resultant SENSUOSITY— banal exercises of daily life a thoughtfully music has been honed down to the conceived, critical world view. This idio- absolutely essential. PURE DELIGHT syncratic vision is not without surprises. Wuorinen’s acerbic humor permeates The first time that I worked with Charles his music, yet a sensuousness—a pure IN SOUND—IS was for a performance of A Winter’s Tale, pleasure in sound—is also evident in his his setting of Dylan Thomas’s poem for brilliant instrumentation. His music may ALSO EVIDENT. soprano and chamber ensemble. (An be associated with what one might call accomplished conductor, he often leads his high modernism, but he looks to the past own works.) After a rehearsal, following a as well. His roots go back not just to the two exists. Note, for instance, the expressive few of the preferred Tanqueray dry martinis, seminal modernists of the last century, intimacy of Fenton Songs I, dedicated to I found myself lost in a heated debate Schoenberg and Stravinsky, but beyond, Wuorinen’s partner of many years, between Charles and cellist Fred Sherry. as exemplified by his reworkings of such Howard Stokar. Their dispute was filled with esoteric early masters as Josquin Desprez and Wuorinen celebrates his 70th birthday references to a subject of which I was Thomas Morley. Wuorinen takes the long as a singular, uncompromising voice in totally ignorant: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s view. Trends may come and go, but he modern music. Composing with remarkable Terminator movies. So beware of cultural holds to his convictions. speed and assurance, he has produced an stereotypes. In today’s “heart on the sleeve” con- array of major works in different genres. The element of surprise in Charles’s fessional culture, Wuorinen’s emotional Although he has received his share of personality extends to his music. Playing reserve may be misunderstood; but where rave reviews, Wuorinen does not owe his it is intensely engaging, challenging and sentimentality is absent, feeling still success to the critics. The force behind Conducting in Germany, At home ca 1998. in New York. 31 Music America, and additional support with the poet John Ashbery, who never IN ASHBERYANA, from Works & Process made Da Camera’s ceases to be amazed by language. In commissioning of Ashberyana possible. Ashberyana, music and poetry each retain THE SOLITARY Scored for baritone, trombone, string their identity, and there is a sense of space TROMBONE ACTS quartet and piano, Wuorinen pairs the around the words that is surprising for a baritone and trombone as unexpected setting of so many of them.