News for 2012

2012 Premieres

Arrangement for concert band for the Kids Compose project will be premiered on Feb. 7 2012 at the IU Musical Arts Center

A new Musical Comedy, Aureus, with a book and lyrics by G.H. Ellis, music by Mahlon Berv will be premiered in April of 2012 at the IU Music Theater Building.

A new piece for solo violin, Blue and White, was premiered on Nov. 29, 2011 by Benjamin Hart at the IU School of Fine Arts

News

Circus Fanfare for Orchestra was performed to great acclaim at Yale University by the Jonathan Edwards College Philharmonic on Nov. 6

Obsession, for string quartet, will be performed on December 1st, 7:30 pm at the Chapel of the Holy Innocents of Bard College, don't miss it!

Upcoming Events for 2010-2011

2010 Performance of Circus Fanfare(Arrangement for Chamber Orchestra) by the Jonathan Edwards Chamber Ensemble at Yale University, Conductor Spencer Cromwell

2010 Commission of new work for chamber ensemble by the Contemporaneous Ensemble at Bard College, Artistic Directors Diogo Ahmed and David Bloom

Upcoming Events

This Year's upcoming performances include-

Premiere of Obsession, for String Quartet and tom-tom drums with choreography, at the Buskirk Chumley Theater this April

Premiere of Anguish, Solo Piano Piece, at Indiana University, this Spring

Violin Sonata in C Minor, Berv, Shenker

Violin Sonata in C Minor, Berv, Shenker

Unless a Grain of Wheat, The Eclipse, Mahlon Berv

Unless a Grain of Wheat, The Eclipse, Mahlon Berv

Spencer Cromwell Conducts Mahlon Berv's Circus Fanfare

Spencer Cromwell Conducts Mahlon Berv's Circus Fanfare

Mannes Honors Composition Concert and Graduation

Last Saturday was the Honors Composition Concert at Mannes College. This was the final concert of my four years of study at Mannes pre-college, functioning as my senior recital. I have to say that this concert was simultaneously one of the most intensely enjoyable, exciting and gratifying experiences of my life.

I specifically wrote a piece called Circus fanfare for this concert, intended as a special celebration of the accomplishments of the Honors composers, (Anteo Fabris, Kamron Sanie, Deniz Tetik, and myself) at Mannes.

From the Program Notes-

My original inspiration for this piece, was that I wanted to do something to celebrate and honor the achievements of my fellow composers and friends here at Mannes, especially the graduating seniors. It just so happened that the four honors composers; Kamron, Anteo, Deniz and I, played violin, trumpet, french horn, and piano respectively, and so I thought it would be fun if we could all play together in the same piece. After thinking it over, I decided to add some percussion instruments, with the intention that the glockenspiel and timpani would not only be used for effect, but could work as solo instruments. I ended up naming the piece after I began writing it, because something in the music reminded me of a circus, and of course, a fanfare. This is my first piece for such a large ensemble, and it was quite an adventure learning how to write for so many instruments. Finally, this piece is dedicated to my composition teacher, Eleanor Cory, whose guidance and support have helped me more greatly than I can express in words.

Lang Lang does it again

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/arts/music/23met.html?scp=1&sq=Brahms%20and%20Stravinsky&st=cse

He was much more friendly about klang klang than I would have been

"Lang Lang is an abomination not only to classical music but to the arts as a whole. He represents everything that is wrong with today's popular culture and more, and should be left for vaudeville, not carnegie. I am rather happy Brahms didn't have to live through that blasphemous performance, because I'm afraid it would have distressed him even more greatly than the groundbreaking yet misunderstood premiere of the work."- Mahlon

Wise words from Andre Previn

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10188

The Night Stalin died (and Prokofiev)

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/05/magazine/the-night-stalin-died.html?sec=&spon=&&scp=2&sq=rostislav%20dubinsky&st=cse

Boulez, a torrent of energy and mastery, at 84

You have to impose your will - not with a hammer, but you have to be able to convince people of your point of view."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/aug/28/classicalmusicandopera2

Conclusion of Bartok and Shostakovich Essay

One can speculate that the tragic personal experiences of the two composers, especially Shostakovich's, greatly affected the development of their compositional styles, possibly leading them both to write in a darker, more macabre style. An interesting connection between the two composers is that both had trouble getting performances of their works, largely because of government censorship. Much of Bartók and Shostakovich's music was not easily accepted at first. Bartók's famous Miraculous Mandarin was rejected because of its sexual content, and Stalin denounced Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth opera, effectively banning much of his music for a number of years. Sadly, Shostakovich and Bartók were never fully accepted in their native countries during their lives. Continuous rejection and pressure is what caused Bartók to emigrate to America in later life, and Shostakovich was so deeply disturbed by Totalitarian Russia, and the death and imprisonment of so many of his friends and family by Stalin, that he nearly committed suicide. Bartok’s Miraculous Mandarin was meant to depict the ugliness and chaos of the materialistic society in which he lived, a society marred by prostitution and violence. These and other factors contributed to Bartok’s declaration that the Miraculous Mandarin "will be hellish music if I succeed."
Although both quartets mentioned incorporate many of the same general musical elements; use of folk material, arch form, rhythmic ingenuity, each piece is distinctly Bartókian and Shostakovian respectively. The most striking difference between the two quartets is the way they end. Bartók's piece ends in a triumphant Allegro molto. Shostakovich on the other hand, ends his piece with a lamenting Largo. Though both composers were inclined to representing the darker side of human nature, in the case of these two string quartets, Shostakovich certainly “out-bluebeards” Bartók.
Works Cited
"Bartok Virtual Exhibition TOC." Zenetudom. 03 Jan. 2009 .
Bloom, Cecil. "Shostakovich and the Jews." Midstream Magazine Sept. 2006: 38-42.
Braddell, Rory. "The Mounting of a Jewel." Braddellr. 03 Jan. 2009 .
Downes, Stephen. "Eros in the Metropolis." Journal of the Royal Musical Association 125 (2000): 41-61.
Fanning, David. Shostakovich : String Quartet No. 8. Ed. Wyndham Thomas. Grand Rapids: Ashgate, Limited, 2004.
Glyde, Judith. "From Oppression to Expression." Strings 1 Oct. 2002.
Hughes, Peter. "BELA BARTOK: COMPOSER." Harvard Square Library | Unitarian Biographies | Cambridge | History | Philosophy. 03 Jan. 2009 .
Ladd, MIchael. "Bartok: SQ4 Analysis." BayArea Santa Clara Sunnyvale Mountain View Palo Alto San Francisco San Jose Silicon Valley Colocation, Co-location. 03 Jan. 2009 .
Ladd, Michael. "Formal Considerations in Bela Bartok's 4th string quartet."
"Music under Soviet rule: Eighth Quartet." Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. 03 Jan. 2009 .
Ross, Alex. The Rest Is Noise : Listening to the Twentieth Century. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007.
Shostakovich, Dmitriaei Dmitrievich, and Solomon Volkov. Testimony : The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich. New York: Amadeus P, 2004.

Side by Side

Some of the notable similarities between these two quartets by Bartók and Shostakovich are their usage of folk melody, their insistent, exhilarating rhythmic vitality, their harmonic complexity, and their symmetrical nature. Bartók was fond of writing in the arch form, in which material from different movements would appear and develop in unique ways. Both Shostakovich's string quartet no. 8, and Bartók's no. 4 are written in five movements, and both are very symmetrical works. Although Bartók's symmetry is more obvious, there is still an underlying arch idea at work in Shostakovich's 8th. In the final movement of the 8th quartet, Shostakovich returns to the famous DSCH theme in the German notation, (representing his name), and develops it into a full fugue. In the same way, Bartók reintroduces a theme from the first movement of the fourth quartet into the crushing finale. A remarkable coincidence is that both themes are very similar, with the first two notes being identical. (D Eb E D Db for Bartók, D, Eb C, and B for Shostakovich.)

Shostakovich

The myth of Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8, often labeled the Dresden quartet, is that it was inspired by a tour of the fire-bombed city of Dresden in 1960. The carnage and destruction that Shostakovich witnessed apparently inspired him to write the piece in a remarkable 3 days, and he dedicated it to 'the victims of fascism and war'. Later on, scholars began to realize that the dedication to the 'victims of fascism and war' is really a coded dedication to the victims of Stalin's Soviet regime. It is also thought that Shostakovich had composed much of the piece in his head, prior to writing it down.
One of the reasons this quartet is so appealing to modern audiences, myself included, and one of Shostakovich's most popular, is due to its unyielding, almost maniacal rhythmic drive. The famous second movement, now known as the "Dance of Death", incorporates a Jewish melody turned on its head. Interruptive and shocking accents abound throughout the piece, and the melody is belted out with such super charged motion that it seems on the verge of collapse.

Me and Pierre Boulez

http://21stcenturyclassical.blogspot.com/2009/03/2-hours-with-pierre-boulez.html

William Kapell

The Golden Sound

Bartok

One of the reasons Bartók was and is so influential to composers is that he developed his own theoretical approach to composition called polymodal chromaticism. Analogous to Schoenberg's 12 tone method, Bartók created a system in which he "juxtaposes different pitch collections, based on a common pitch, to derive extensions from the basic diatonic mode" (Braddell). In his Harvard Lectures, Bartók shows how he combined the Phrygian and Lydian modes into one mode containing all 12 tones. Unlike the chordal chromaticism of the late nineteenth century, Bartók developed what he called modal chromaticism. Bartók explains that he was inspired to create this system because he discovered the basis of it within the folk melodies of Eastern Europe.
Bartók was also obsessed with the idea of symmetry, and he was fascinated with the golden mean. An example of just how meticulous Bartók was when it came to symmetry is that the total number of beats in the fourth string quartet is equal to 2584. This is the 18th number in the Fibonacci series, a rather remarkable feat! So Bartók was interested in symmetry in the aesthetic sense of the word, (symmetry that gives the feeling of proportionality and balance but is not perfectly symmetrical) as well as the mathematical sense. One of the reasons the whole tone scale, augmented chords, and diminished seventh chords, were favored by Bartók, is because of their inherent symmetries.
Bartók's usage of canons in his fourth string quartet could be seen as another example of his inclination for symmetry. One of the first appearances of symmetry in all of music is with the canon. Songs such as frère Jacque and row your boat are simple canons or rounds. Canons are symmetrical because they derive from the same material, one original theme that is repeated and varied depending on the composition. There are many types of cannons. In the quartet, Bartók uses free canons and free imitation, where there is less restriction on individual parts. He also uses the mirror canon, in which the subsequent voices imitate the initial voice in inversion.

Shostakovich

Shostakovich on the other hand, was somewhat less ambitious than Bartók when it came to collecting folk music, yet at the same time, certain folk music captivated him. Although he was an atheist and non-Jew, Shostakovich was fascinated by Jewish folk music. Shostakovich's interest in Jewish or Klezmer music probably stems from his close Jewish friend Ivan Sollertinsky. Sollertinsky was artistic director of the Leningrad Philharmonic, and when he died, Shostakovich, who conversed with Sollertinsky on all things musical, was inspired to incorporate a Jewish melody into his piano trio no. 2 in e minor. Shostakovich also felt a special connection to the plight of the Jewish people, for as he was persecuted and censored by Stalin's regime, the Jews were persecuted and censored by Hitler and Nazism. And finally, Shostakovich was apparently fascinated with Jewish music itself, apart from its social implications. According to the somewhat disputed but mostly accurate Testimony, or memoirs of Shostakovich, as related by Solomon Volkov, Shostakovich said that "Jewish music has made a most powerful impression on me. I never tire of delighting in it, it's multifaceted, it can appear to be happy while it is tragic. It's almost always laughter through tears." The ambiguity in Jewish music, of the combination of pain and suffering with happiness and exultation, is something that is very prominent in Shostakovich's work. Shostakovich himself was a very mysterious man. Shostakovich loathed Stalin and all that was communist, for it was under Stalin's orders that much of Shostakovich's music and that of his contemporaries was brandished as bourgeoisie, or formalist, and therefore considered unacceptable for the public. He was also forced to speak in Soviet code during Stalin's reign. Interestingly, nearly everything that Shostakovich said had a hint of irony in it, and he is one of the few composers able to express sarcasm in music. Though Stalin believed in and used the Leningrad Symphony for Soviet Propaganda (the Allies used it as a symbol of freedom), Shostakovich later explained that the Leningrad was really meant to satire, in a grotesque way, the dark and tragic aspects of war, totalitarianism, and racism that sprung from the soviet regime, and on close listening, one can hear what Shostakovich meant by this.