I watched the two-hour documentary on Philip Glass this weekend called GLASS: Portrait in 12 parts. It’s a terrific look inside one of America’s most successful composers. The amount of work he has done in his life is stunning: operas, symphonies, film scores, concertos, chamber music, piano music. He confesses to getting up early in the morning and working all day: “that’s my secret.”
He doesn’t care whether people like his music or not. “There is plenty of other music to listen to. You don’t have to listen to mine. Listen to Mozart, or the Beatles…”
I love hearing him confess that he never has a plan when he starts composing–he just starts. When asked what he was composing, he answered: “It’s the 8th Symphony, but I’m not sure whether it’s the first movement or the third movement.”
Does Glass’s music mean that we should perpetuate kosher voice leading a la Bach, or throw it out the window as any chord can really go to any chord. One this is for sure, fingers still appreciate good voice leading, regardless of the esthetic.
What blew my mind was that Glass composes with pencil. PENCIL! Can you imagine the king of repetition using a pencil? Copy and paste is what computers do best Phil!
The film gave me a new respect for Philip Glass as an artist, an American icon, and as a person.
Doodla deedla doodla deedla Doodle diddy doodle diddy Doodla deedla doodla deedla Doodle diddy doodle diddy
I think about retiring from academia quite a lot these days. One thing I would miss is the affiliation with an organization that ensures I have a performances of my music. Once you retire, you don’t have the same connection. I look at many American composers late works and no one seems to care too much. Oddballs like me may love Griffes or Carpenter or Reale, but the whole world? Not so much. I personally LOVE Stravinsky’s late work, but most don’t. It rarely gets performed.
What American composers of so-called classical concert music are still played extensively today? John Philip Sousa, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, I’m not going to count Stravinsky and Schoenberg (tho the verdict is probably the same) all come to mind. Not too many university professors or composers of “modern” music. These days John Adams is our most popular I’d imagine. Many of us may lust after John’s success, but we are also very happy for him, as he’s “one of us.”
I asked Aaron Copland what he was composing in fall 1976: “Nothing, and I am not accepting commissions; if people want to play my music, there’s plenty of it available in my catalog.”
Today I went through an old journal, listing old UCLA Music faculty and their appointments and salaries. I looked at all the composers and saw their careers over a span of decades. I sighed and thought about how none of their music is heard these days. And I’m sure that this is true for every music school in America.
NOTE TO SELF:
So, should I worry about what I compose after I retire? No. I’ll compose if I want to, and if someone or group commissions me. America doesn’t care about composers so much, especially old ones, so don’t expect to be any different.
So in your retirement, Roger, why not reinvent yourself? Try something new! Catch up on reading! Blog more (count on it), and put more energy into our publishing company. Travel. Meet some new friends. Take risks. Love life while you still have it.
I love being a composer and what it has afforded me in this life and this world. I have loved the time spent composing it, playing it in progress for my close friends, and most especially, having premieres of new pieces. I went into this profession knowing I would not ever be “famous” like the Beethoven club, and have accepted that.
It shouldn’t be relevant to anyone as to whether what you’ve done in our life lasts beyond your lifetime. You’ll be dead, or at least, not here. Your music is important here and now, and that’s enough.
Leon Kirchner © Jamie Cope
Leon was my teacher at Harvard between 1978 and 1983. I remember fondly our coffee breaks between classes; the composition seminar was slow but good. I preferred Earl Kim’s analysis seminars. Private lessons with Leon were always thrilling.
He guided my Masters degree which was “Sweet Alchemy” for orchestra, (commissioned by ALEA III). We had to play our own music at the piano, no matter what it was scored for, so I composed the piece so that I could play it, but also using my new tonal language. I played it for the seminar one day and his only comment was “Why do you have to write that harmonic stuff?” I replied that I was tired of thinking I had to grow up to become the next Elliott Carter, or Karlheinz Stockhausen. It’s not who I am, I insisted. He smiled and went on to the next composer. Leon used the same phrase–that harmonic stuff–when John Adams (who was also a Kirchner student) sent a cassette of “Shakers Loops.” Kirchner played it for our composition class.
Leon retired the year after I graduated for what I thought was a medical reason (his heart?). Of my professors at Harvard, Kirchner outlived Earl Kim, and Ivan Tcherepnin — Tison Street is alive and well in NYC. I mowed Leon’s lawn one summer. He introduced my to Randall Thompson in 1980 for whom I served as a personal assistant.
Leon always wished that he were better respected as a conductor. “Ah c’mon, you’ve had a great career” I replied.
I told him that I had figured out the style of this music: “It’s Russian Mysticism” out of the rib of Scriabin. He roared with laughter and we went back to our lesson.
In my first set of qualifying exams, Leon asked me what the iambic rhythmic figures were in the section just before the development in the B flat Sonata, first movement. I said I didn’t know. (I do now.) Because of this error, the committee (Leon) decided to give me a John Knowles Paine Traveling Fellowship to go to LA and investigate film music, and come back in a year to face a second set of oral exams where you will be expected to tell us the difference between Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven as exemplified by their complete string quartets, piano sonatas and symphonies.
I returned the following year and was grilled on Varese’s “Ameriques” and Debussy’ “La Mer.” Leon didn’t attend as he withdrew from all graduate teaching for a year — I have no idea why. I worked hard on that, and they didn’t even ask me about it.
It was Leon Kirchner who called Henri Lazarof to recommend me for the job at UCLA. That telephone call changed my life.
Farewell Leon. Thanks for everything. You had a wonderful life!
PERSONAE (1981) 1. Jackson Pollock:The War Goddess mp3Jules Eskin, cello,Edwin Barker, bass
MP3: Play audio file (personae1.pollock.mp3)
PERSONAE (1981) 2. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn: St Peter in Prison mp3Jules Eskin, cello,Edwin Barker, bass
MP3: Play audio file (personae2.rembrandt.mp3)
PERSONAE (1981) 3. Rene Magritte: The Reckless Sleeper mp3Jules Eskin, cello,Edwin Barker, bass
MP3: Play audio file (personae3.magritte.mp3)
PERSONAE (1981) 4. Mark Rothko: Music for Rothko Chapel mp3Jules Eskin, cello,Edwin Barker, bass
MP3: Play audio file (personae4.rothko.mp3)
ARIAS for cello and piano (1989) 1. Cl’airea mp3Ronald Leonard, cello, Antoinette Perry, piano. This movement written for the wedding of Paul Reale and Claire Rydell.
MP3: Play audio file (arias-cello1.clairea.mp3)
ARIAS for cello and piano 2. Mount Shasta mp3Dedicated to the memory of Charlie Swigart.
MP3: Play audio file (arias-cello2.mount_shasta.mp3)
ARIAS for cello and piano 3. In Paris mp3Dedicated to John Hall and the memories of our trip there in 1989.
MP3: Play audio file (arias-cello3.in_paris.mp3)
I seem to have been obsessed with lumping sets of four movements or songs in most of the music from this period. Like Four Painters, this piece paints musical portraits of four poets. The process of trying to figure out how to express the musical persona of a particular poet is a mysterious one but an exciting one for a composer. As I have been “inspired” by paintings, and have set poetry, this compositional exercise turned the tables a bit and allowed me to look at another side of poets: the one projected by their poetry, which may not necessarily be the persona they had in life.
James Merrill and I were friends. He let me stay in the maid’s quarters in his New York apartment. I’ve always had a hard time setting his poetry as I prefer to hear him, or imagine him reading it.
This work is for string quartet and was commissioned by, dedicated to and premiered by The Ives Quartet.
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Four Poets (2005) for string quartet
MP3: Play audio file (4poets1.pound.mp3)
Ezra Pound
MP3: Play audio file (4poets2.schiller.mp3)
Friedrich Schiller
MP3: Play audio file (4poets3.merrill.mp3)
James Merrill
MP3: Play audio file (4poets4.williams.mp3)
William Carlos Williams
Music: Roger Bourland Performers: The Ives Quartet Publisher: Yelton Rhodes Music
I’ve had a life-long habit of composing music inspired by paintings. In this piece, I’ve decided to compose musical portraits of four painters. I loved this commission, my most recent from Pacific Serenades, and would do another in a heartbeat. The musical language is related to American Baroque in my mind.
MP3: Play audio file (4painters1.picasso.mp3)
1. Picasso
MP3: Play audio file (4painters2.thbenton.mp3)
2. Thomas Hart Benton
MP3: Play audio file (4painters3.man_ray.mp3)
3. Man Ray
MP3: Play audio file (4painters4.matisse.mp3)
4. Henri Matisse
Music: Roger Bourland Publisher: Pacific Serenades Music
Cantilena was commissioned for the first season of the award-winning Los Angeles chamber music ensemble, Pacific Serenades. The premiere was in the home of Leland Burns. This work was originally written for flutist, composer, and director of PacSer, Mark Carlson. Alden Ashforth had advised me to compose long lines for Mark as “…he plays as though he were a violinist.”
The performance here is one by Gary Gray, professor of clarinet at UCLA, and Thomas Harmon playing organ (Tom also played the premiere with Mark), both good friends.
This little piece has please quite a few, but it has annoyed some as well. I put it on a Composers in Red Sneakers concert in Boston and it stuck out like a sore thumb — wrong venue, even though that performance featured a soprano sax. The Boston Globe called the piece “treacle.” Hmmm.
MP3: Play audio file (cantilena.clar.mp3)
Cantilena (1981) Music: Roger Bourland Publisher: ECS Publishing Performers: Tom Harmon, organ; Gary Gray, clarinet
Death of Narcissus was composed for one of the Composers in Red Sneakers concerts. In that we were all students, we had composition assignments for our classes and had to keep producing for the Sneakers series, we had to compose all the time to keep up. This one was composed very quickly. It was one of the two pieces I composed while house-sitting for John and Rosemary Harbison. (I copied parts for John’s first symphony that summer.) I love the fantastical flow of this piece, and the eccentric form.
I’d like to revisit this piece and tidy up a few loose edges.
MP3: Play audio file (death_of_narcissus.mp3)
Death of Narcissus (1980) Music: Roger Bourland Richard Cornell conducts the Red Sneakers chamber ensemble Publisher: Yelton Rhodes Music
AMERICAN BAROQUE was commissioned by Mark Carlson and Pacific Serenades for their 1991-92 season. Like many of the music I was writing at that time, the form of the word is roughly palindrdomic, for instance ABCDEDC’B'A’. The sewing machine quality of the melody is something you will hear in this piece that vaguely evokes Baroque string music. I was in love with Ravel chamber music at that time, so you will hear a bit of that in the texture.
The chamber music I wrote in the early 1980s had a distinct Americana flavor to it. I say farewell to Americana in this piece, as my SEVEN POLLOCK PAINTING was an exorcism from atonality.
MP3: Play audio file (american_baroque.mp3)
American Baroque (1992) for piano trio Music: Roger Bourland Performers: Mark Kaplan, vln; Antonio Lysy, vcl; Walter Ponce, pno Publisher: Yelton Rhodes Music
