My friend Justin pulled me out to a intriguing concert last night at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle, Columbus Avenue at 60th Street - the final event in Wordless Music 's current season featuring the music of Gavin Bryars, John Adams and Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood.
I was pleasantly surprised to hear the show open with Bryars 1969 composition"The Sinking of the Titanic" - the occasion? Bryars 65th birthday. I didn't know Bryars was a Capricorn but have always related to him as a fellow Yorkshireman. No wonder I've felt an affinity for his work since first hearing the original recording of "The Sinking..." released on Brian Eno's Obscure imprint. Logically, "Sinking..." is derived from research into the “unsinkable” luxury liner. It's also a piece that echoes the people around Bryars at the time he wrote it - his former improvisational crew Derek Bailey and Tony Oxley (with whom he had a band called Joseph Holbrooke), the composer John Cage whom Bryars worked with in the US and most of all his associate composer Cornelius Cardew (whose piece "The Great Learning" is one of the most overlooked masterpieces of Minimalist composition). Fundamentally what struck me in the Wordless Music Orchestra's interpretation was how much the piece itself echoes the movement of waves - it's full of ebbs and flows. Also particularly affectively done in this rendition was the haunting voices of the hymn "Autumn" (the composition which the Titanic's band continued to play as it sank). I especially loved the very English pastoral feel of the opening too.
I hadn't really thought of "The Sinking of the Titanic" for a long while, having not much cared for versions of it released after the Obscure edition (which sounds to my ears bathed in a deep underwater echo that is somehow parallel to the post-dub echo of Basic Channel). That is until very late last year when a new version appeared - a recording with Bryars himself on double bass, Philip Jeck on turntables and the ensemble Alter Ego (Strings, Brass, Wind, Percussion, Keyboard, Tape Recorder and sound design). I would say that this new recording is the definitive version of the piece given Bryars' own involvement and the fresh techniques / approaches employed by Jeck/Alter Ego. It's also probably the most complete rendition of a piece that is inherently open to new takes. Interestingly enough the piece really does have moments were you can feel a kind of undertow happening. Listening to the Wordless Music Orchestra I started to think about what was happening in the world when Bryars wrote the piece - 1969, a time of serious turmoil and change and quickly realized how relevant the ideas of the piece are to our times now. The Titanic in the piece now could quite easily be our America today.
To close on Gavin, my favorite Bryars pieces are the more minimalist (as in repetitive based) compositions found on his 1981 Les Disques Du Crépuscule album "Hommages" and it's follow up disc, the 1986 "Three Viennese Dancers" released on ECM's New Series. For me these stand by a great school of British Minimalism that includes Cornelius Cardew, Michael Nyman, The Lost Jockey, Regular Music and Andrew Poppy. Here's some additional reading - a story on Bryars on the occasion of his 60th Birthday from The Independent
The second piece on the bill was an early John Adams piece "Christian Zeal and Activity" which seemed to be added more for it's aptness to the context of being performed in a church than anything else. Though that said it did make an interesting transition into the New York Premiere of "Jonathan "Jonny" Richard Guy Greenwood's "Popcorn Superhet Receiver" (listen to a BBC recording of the piece in real audio). Of course a large percentage of the crowd were at the show for this - and mainly because of Jonny's role in a band no one can hate - Radiohead. But that in and of itself was a great thing. The first time I experienced this side of Greenwood was in his recent soundtrack for Paul Thomas Anderson’s "There Will Be Blood" - though I haven't seen the movie yet. TWBB is what I would describe as "dark side" music so I was expecting "Popcorn..." to be challenging. It wasn't. It was an interesting piece from a man trying out ideas. Overall I don't feel it holds together as one piece. There's pastoral lightness to segments, twisted attempts at György Ligeti style glissando, a wonderful percussive section were the violinists play like they are guitarists and everyone hits and plucks rather than bows but it's hardly in the league of the man he quotes as influencing him in the program notes - Krzysztof Penderecki, neither is it even close to the league of the Penderecki piece he cites -"Threnody for the victims of Hiroshima." But all that said I don't want to be too harsh to Greenwood. It was a great presentation and an enjoyable piece- it shows he has potential but hasn't reached genius level yet. I do like his ideas and will keep an ear out for more of his classical work. I especially liked how he described his approach to composing the piece in the program - "...there were some blind alleys, too. Having the luxury of workshops with the BBC Concert Orchestra, we tried other ideas. One was to build a drum machine out of white noise. I figured it would be simple: a high cluster of tones for the high-hat, a fuller cluster for the snare, and you'd have yourself a Roland 808 drum machine made from what is basically 32 wooden boxes strung with wires. And everyone'd be amazed. The first few seconds of one run-through was enough to know that this wasn't going to worry Kraftwerk much."
Reading about Greenwood on wikipedia led me to discover this video clip of a version of "In Rainbow's" cut "Arpeggi" performed by Radiohead with the London Sinfonietta and Arab Orchestra of Nazareth.
Related to this is a piece from the Independent that reveals Greenwood often cites Arabic music as a key influence. Good on ya Jonny!!
To close here is the the New York Times preview for the show in which they talk to Greenwood and the man behind Wordless Music. Also check out Wordless Music's live broadcast page at WNYC hopefully they'll post a recording of the night in the future. Oh and if you want to know what a Popcorn Superhet Receiver is click here.
Jan 25th update: Broadcast Audio
Popcorn Superhet Receiver
The Sinking of the Titanic
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