Obituary: Glen Roven (1958-2018)

The composer, conductor, producer and arranger died today.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Glen Roven. Publicity photo by Ahron R. Foster
© 2018 Roven Records.

If you work in this business long enough, you meet some extraordinary people. Some of them even  become your friends. That said, I am shocked and saddened to write this afternoon that Glen Roven has died. The composer, producer and conductor had just turned 60 years old. The cause of death is not known at press time.

Obituary: Edgar Froese: 1944-2016

The Tangerine Dream founder was 70.

Plugged in: Edgar Froese at work in the studio.

Edgar Froese, the electronic music pioneer who founded the pioneering German group Tangerine Dream, died at the age of 70. The keyboardist suffered an unexpected pulmonary embolism on January 20 while in Vienna, Austria.

What Beethoven Means (to Some)

A reflection on the composer's 245th birthday.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Beethoven said it best.
Image from the ironically named tonedeafstore.com.

The composer  Ludwig van Beethoven towers over the world of classical music, a colossus even though the man himself stood about five-four. Janus-like, his music looks forward and back at once, drawing on the rigid classical structures of the 18th century and looking ahead to the wild Romantic experimentation of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. But why is this composer, with his nine symphonies, thirty-two piano sonatas and one lone opera held in such high esteem? On the occasion of his 245th birthday, Superconductor seeks some of the reasons that Beethoven will forever be immortal.

In Memory of Ornette Coleman

The alto saxophonist and jazz pioneer was 85 years old. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Ornette Coleman. Image © Sony Entertainment

The composer, saxophonist and legendary jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman has died. In tribute, Superconductor offers a complete streamed performance of his seminal album Free Jazz, a collective improvisation for double quartet. It says more than any words could.

Famous Composer Found in Bronx

Anton Bruckner discovered near Bruckner Boulevard.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Out on the Boulevard: composer Anton Bruckner.

A small elderly man that has been missing for a month in the South Bronx has been identified as award-winning composer Anton Bruckner. Dr. Bruckner had arrived in New York on a cultural mission with the Vienna Philharmonic. He had disappeared at the beginning of March.

The Superconductor Interview: Matthias Pintscher

We sit down with the composer to discuss the NY PHIL BIENNIAL.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Composer Matthias Pintscher.
Photo by Jean Radel © 2011 matthiaspintscher.com

The Austrian composer-conductor Matthias Pintscher is one of the most important voices in the contemporary music scene. And thanks to his close association with the New York Philharmonic and his working relationship with music director Alan Gilbert, he has been a driving force behind the NY PHIL BIENNIAL, the 11-day new music event that has swept through Manhattan this month in a tidal wave of sonic innovation.

Obituary: Henri Dutilleux (1916-2013)

A small catalogue, and a huge impact.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Composer Henri Dutilleux died May 22, 2013 in Paris, France.

The great French composer Henri Dutilleux has died in Paris. He was 97.

Dutilleux helped guide the path of concert music in the 20th century away from the serial techniques first practiced by Schoenberg and Webern. His two Symphonies and Cello Concerto are among his most important works, complex pieces that challenged the ear while fearlessly breaking ground in the use of modes and atonality. A fierce self-critic, Dutilleux published a small catalogue of pieces over a long compositional career.

Obituary: Elliott Carter (1908-2012)

Elliott Carter: 1908-2012.

The American composer was 103. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Elliott Carter died peacefully today.

His death comes a little more than a month before his birthday, December 11. A report on NPR.org stated that according to his assistant, the composer died at home, of natural causes.

Mr. Carter was at the cutting edge of composition and new music creation in a career that spanned from the 20th century into the new millenium. An iconoclast even in his later years,, he wa considered the dean of American composers, working out of his W. 12th St. apartment in the heart of Manhattan's Greenwich Village.

His early exposure to music came when he was 15, at a Boston Symphony Orchestra performance of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring--still a relatively new work. (Pierre Monteux conducted.)

Obituary: Jon Lord (1941-2012)

Keyboard pioneer was a composer and founding member of Deep Purple. 

"We're as valid as anything by Beethoven."
--Jon Lord, in an interview with the New Musical Express, 1973.

Organist, composer Jon Lord.
Photo from JonLord.org.

Keyboardist, organist and composer Jon Lord has died after a long bout with pancreatic cancer. He was 71.

Born Jonathan Douglas Lord, in Leicester in 1941, Mr. Lord began studying classical piano at the age of five. He was a London session musician in th early '60s playing keyboards on The Kinks classic "You Really Got Me." In 1968, he founded Deep Purple with guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, injecting his classical influence into projects like Concerto for Group and Orchestra.

Mr. Lord's signature sound combined the Hammond organ with the Leslie speaker cabinet, a rotating amplifier that created a distinctive, swirling tone. He then drove the Leslie through a Marshall stack to create an over-driven sound that could duel on equal footing with Mr. Blackmore's guitar.

After the first of many lineup changes, Purple evolved from blues and experimental music into one of the cornerstones of the first wave of British heavy metal music. They recorded seminal albums like Deep Purple In Rock, Machine Head and the live Made in Japan. Internatonal stars, Purple rode the forefront of a wave that also included Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.

Pierre Boulez Nixes BBC Proms

Composer will not conduct his Le marteau sans maître.

Composer and conductor Pierre Boulez.

A recent report on Norman Lebrecht's Slipped Disc revealed that Pierre Boulez, one of the most important conductors and composers still active on the international classical music circuit, has been forced to withdraw from this year's BBC Proms He is unable to fly to the United Kingdom due to recent eye surgery.

Francis Xavier-Roth will take his place on the podium, leading Boulez' iconic Le marteau sans maître ("The Hammer without a Master") on July 26. Other concerts, featuring Boulez' experimental music paired with Beethoven symphonies, will be conducted by Daniel Barenboim.

Putting Ideas Together II

Ed. Note: Sometimes, a cow is just a cow.

Atom Heart Mother by Pink Floyd from the album of the same title.
Written and performed by Pink Floyd. © 1971 EMI/Harvest.

Furtwängler: The Composer

Wilhelm Furtwängler. Photo  from the archives of the Berlin Philharmonic
 © Wilhelm-Furtwängler-Gesellschaft.

The conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886-1954) remains a controversial figure today. He was widely criticized for remaining in Hitler's Germany up until 1944. (He left for Switzerland, hours before he was nearly arrested.) However, the maestro never joined the Nazi party, and made successful efforts to rescue Jewish musicians and composers and get them out of Germany.

The years following the fall of Hitler marked the rise of the recording industry, and Furtwängler (following de-Nazification hearings in 1946) became one of its first stars. But he always considered himself a composer first, and a conductor second. His best-known work is the Symphony No. 2 in E Minor. Written during his years in Switzerland, is an enormous four-movement work. Epic in size and scope, it is a cousin to the Bruckner Eighth, but with a distinct voice of its own.

The Second Symphony proves Furtwängler to be a talented, if conservative composer. He eschews the serial techniques of the 20th century, using an old-fashioned structure to work out his musical ideas at length. Not surprisingly, the Second dropped into obscurity after its 1947 premiere. However, in 2002, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra applied itself to performing and recording the work, under the baton of Daniel Barenboim.

Here's the Furtwängler Second, movement by movement.

First Movement: Assai moderato
A stately opening in the bassoons yields to horns, then a slow figure in the strings. The instruments play a soft canon, joined by the English horn. Then, the main theme, building and swelling as clarinets and trumpets add color. The brass surges forth over a river of strings. Quotes from Wagner are audible. The work rises to a climax three times, stops, and surges again.

Second movement: Andante semplice
A questing theme in the clarinets gets handed over to the low strings. This is a slow, surging, pastorale, with bird-twitters in the flutes and gentle rolls of timpani.

Third Movement: Scherzo, un poco Moderato
The third is a meaty Scherzo, with chorales of Bach-like complexity unfolding in the woodwinds and horns over chugging, propulsive strings. The trio section features a slower tempo and extraordinarily detailed dialogue between the woodwinds.

Fourth Movement: Langsam, Allmählich vorwärts/Allegro molto
This one of the longest symphonic movements not written by Gustav Mahler, clocking in on this recording at 30'13". It takes the form of a long climb to a musical summit. The finale opens with a descending figure and a soft hunting call in the horns that will eventually transform into the noble main theme of the finale.

The strings mourn, playing tremolos and shimmering figures. These alternate with the slow hunting calls, providing the entire movement with steady, relentless momentum. Finally, the summit, and a majestic brass coda in the final minute, followed by moretremolos and three loud chords to bring this massive symphony to a close.