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A Complete Guide to New Complexity and its Core Composers — Transcript

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0:00this is some of the most polarizing
0:02music of our time beautiful hyper
0:04expressive and futuristic to some but
0:06nothing but pretentious noise making for
0:09others
0:10i'm the classical nerd and today we're
0:12in for a doozy we're looking at new
0:15complexity surveying the five composers
0:17at its core and trying to drill to the
0:19bottom of how and why this music sounds
0:22and looks the way it does
0:25[Applause]
0:31new complexity is music that sounds and
0:33looks like a lot there's a lot of people
0:35who harbor a visceral dislike of this
0:37style of music precisely because there's
0:40so much information getting flung at you
0:42all of the time like your brain can't
0:44process what's going on because every
0:46sound is nuanced and complex and they're
0:49overlapped and dovetailed with one
0:51another and as listeners
0:52we can't be expected to keep up a
0:54prevailing question is this does
0:56notational complexity equal abstract
0:59musical complexity
1:01new complexity composers give performers
1:03pieces of music that are so detailed
1:05that traditional interpretive decision
1:07making cannot be done taking this angle
1:09new complexity is the end result of
1:11detail-oriented composers throughout
1:13history like leopoldokidovsky percy
1:16granger giorgio ligeti and janice
1:18sanakis who all controlled the finest
1:21details of how a performer would play
1:22their music this inverts the
1:24interpretive role of the performer
1:27instead of figuring out what to
1:28emphasize or add to a piece they're
1:30forced to come to grips with what they
1:31need to take out in order to make it
1:33playable while still
1:35having some fidelity to the score
1:37tom johnson's novelty solo bass piece
1:39failing from 1975 explores the same
1:42relationship although far from what we
1:44would call new complexity it's written
1:46to be so difficult that performances
1:48will never be perfect which is the very
1:51subject of the piece new complexity
1:53composers are interested in the
1:54interaction between notated material and
1:57the live performer not complex music
1:59from a purely sonic perspective if they
2:01were they'd just feed their music into a
2:04computer like milton babbitt did but
2:07babbitt was not of the new complexity
2:09and new complexity is not computer music
2:12although its composers write for
2:13synthesized sounds now and again
2:16there's a strained affect that this
2:18notational busy work is going for which
2:21forces performances to enter into a
2:23weird world you can tell that the
2:25performer has practiced a lot but the
2:27performance retains an edge of your seat
2:29quality as though it were being sight
2:30read this is a natural extension of
2:32western notational evolution consider
2:35rhythm time signatures and bar lines
2:38were devised to show regular beat
2:40structures
2:41and so composers are interested in
2:43unusual meters and rhythms have to
2:44resort to unconventional notations such
2:47as irrational time signatures where the
2:49denominator is the number of divisions
2:51of a whole note which means duplets get
2:53cut off halfway through and the music
2:55resets itself to a regular pulse on the
2:57ensuing downbeat but even this technique
3:00relies on playing off of an expected
3:02regularity of pulse in new complexity
3:04the ways in which western notation is
3:06inadequate are foregrounded and this by
3:08the way is not unique to one postmodern
3:10trend scholars who spend their time
3:12transcribing music of the late medieval
3:14r's subtilia into modern notation run
3:16into the same problems that music was
3:18written in a notation that allowed for
3:20unparalleled rhythmic complexity
3:22unsurprisingly new complexity composers
3:24tend to express affinity for early music
3:27like this the term new complexity gained
3:29traction in the 1980s in order to
3:32describe this style of music prominently
3:34by musicologist richard tupe in his
3:36article four facets of the new
3:38complexity originally took wanted to
3:40call his article four faces in the new
3:43england in reference to the members of
3:44the group who liked the music of charles
3:46ives the problem is not all of the
3:48members of the group were english tube
3:50never took credit for the term new
3:52complexity saying that he'd heard it
3:53from roger wright who'd heard it from
3:55nigel osborne and it can be traced all
3:57the way back to the music critic harry
3:59hallbrick who apparently coined it back
4:01in 1978 a full decade prior to tube's
4:04popularization of it two championed
4:06composers who resisted being
4:08unceremoniously
4:10lumped together based on their music's
4:12surface quality tube failed in their
4:15minds to acknowledge the fundamental
4:17aesthetic differences between them
4:19reducing them to nothing more than guys
4:21who wanted to squeeze as many notes onto
4:23a page as possible maximizing the amount
4:26of information the critique here is
4:27valid new complexity is often a school
4:30which really unusually is based on the
4:34visual element of these composer's
4:35scores not anything we can hear
4:38according to toop brian ferniehaw was
4:40the father of the movement and its
4:41facets were michael fennessy chris dinch
4:44richard barrett and james dillon this
4:46term has been associated with that
4:48generation of composers and it has not
4:50rubbed off on their students take haya
4:52chernovan who got her phd at uc san
4:55diego studying with fernihal who creates
4:56works which are difficult for performers
4:58and in which the notation imbues a sense
5:00of struggle but her music doesn't look
5:03like her old teachers and few if any
5:05would call chernovan a new complexity
5:07composer others of the school if it can
5:09even be called that are roger redgate
5:12klaus hubler and klaus steffenmannkov
5:15but these composers are beyond the scope
5:17of this video i mean good night in the
5:18mornings long enough already at the
5:20heart of the new complexity is a shared
5:22interest in five things to various
5:24degrees including extended playing
5:27techniques extremely complicated rhythms
5:29through polymeter nested tuplets
5:31irrational time signatures and being a
5:33continuation of tradition in other words
5:37modernist and not postmodernist
5:40connecting many but not all members are
5:42leftist politics the writings of walter
5:44benjamin affinity for charles ives in
5:47the art of roberto mata and francis
5:49bacon
5:50yet many of the things on the surface
5:52that link these composers an interest in
5:55microtones for instance originate from
5:57different impulses
5:58for fantasy it's to emulate non-western
6:00music for dench it's a general making
6:03strange and for barrett it's to emulate
6:05percy granger's free music that was
6:08unconstrained by granulation into
6:10discrete pitches the new complexity
6:12school were british in origin but spread
6:14all over the world in reaction to its
6:16musical conservatism ferny how left in
6:18the late 60s dench lives in australia
6:20now and has considered himself a fully
6:22australian composer since brexit and
6:25barrett lives in amsterdam finishes
6:28stuck around despite disastrous
6:30conditions he felt an obligation to stay
6:32couching that decision in more political
6:34terms than artistic ones
6:36franny how infinity achieved some
6:38prominence in the 1970s in new music
6:40circles and fernie how's avant-garde
6:42dominance was so strong that he
6:44coordinated the composition program at
6:47the biannual darmstadt summer courses
6:49until 1996
6:51cementing new complexity as a dominant
6:54idiom in contemporary music as composers
6:56who wrote in that style flocked to
6:58darmstadt and won their top prizes the
7:01very term new complexity gave its
7:03enemies something concrete to oppose and
7:05the emergent german school of neue
7:07einfacheid or new simplicity was happy
7:09to do just that
7:11wolfgang green a major figure in facade
7:14and brian fernihau were two of the three
7:16keynote speakers in dharmashot for the
7:171980 summer courses and ferny how came
7:20to oppose their aesthetics in writing
7:22some writers however invert this
7:24timeline consider new complexity a
7:26reaction against whatever strands of
7:29simplicity brought neua einfacheit into
7:31the fold so tied was new complexity to
7:34darmstadt that in 1997 mankop thought
7:37that they could reasonably be called the
7:39second dharmstadt school
7:41the original dharmstad composers in
7:43monkoff's terms the first darmstadt
7:45school were all into serial music and
7:48its possibilities of formalizing and
7:50organizing and manipulating music
7:53through various mathematical processes
7:55and the equal inclusion of all
7:57parameters
7:58different analysts take different tacts
8:00as to the relationship between the total
8:02serialism of the 1950s and 1960s and the
8:05new complexity of the 1970s through the
8:07present in particular fernie hell's
8:09rhythmic procedures have a link to the
8:11complicated processes of the integral
8:13serialists and barrett calls himself a
8:16serialist but for other writers like
8:18stuart paul duncan new complexity was a
8:20rejection of serialists mechanical
8:23approach to interpretation where
8:24performers only job is to render the
8:26music exactly as it appears on the page
8:29the difficulty of talking about new
8:31complexity is that musical genres aren't
8:33supposed to be defined by the intricacy
8:36of their notation and yet this is all
8:37the new complexity has going for it to
8:39define it against that which is not new
8:42complexity the assumption that new
8:44complexity was an outgrowth of serialism
8:46was the result of people looking at
8:48these dense scores and assuming that the
8:50only way somebody could produce
8:52something of the sort was if they were
8:54using a rigorous and systematized
8:57process but complexity alone tells us
8:59nothing about how music is constructed
9:02or how it sounds the complexity is a
9:04byproduct of something else which
9:06differs between composers
9:08the performer is paramount in new
9:10complexity on some level either the
9:12composer or the performer is forced to
9:14contend with some complicated system and
9:17the excitement and drama of the pieces
9:18is to be found within that struggle
9:20composers have to be knowledgeable about
9:23every sound an instrument can make at
9:25any given time and what notational
9:27choices can be made to get the performer
9:30in the right head space for this front
9:32house music has a lot of beams for this
9:34reason short note values imply speed and
9:36the beaming implies connectivity
9:39renotating a piece like unity capsule at
9:41the quarter note level would make it
9:42likely to be played more moderately and
9:44interpreted as less continuous
9:47that being said let's get on to the
9:49composers of troops article beginning
9:51with brian fernandel
9:59cerne hell was born in january 1943.
10:03early on in bombed out england he'd
10:04learned to play dilapidated woodwinds
10:06and at 11 he joined his coventry
10:08school's brass band where he played the
10:10cornet and began composing when he first
10:12heard edgard versus
10:15at 16 he said that he wore the record
10:17outplaying it so much he didn't
10:19understand it but he knew that it was
10:21music his parents were not that
10:23approving or encouraging of their son's
10:25efforts which soon flowered at the
10:27birmingham school of music and then at
10:29the royal academy of music he butted up
10:31against an upper-class conservatism
10:32which led him to take his flute and
10:34pursue studies on the continent in 1968
10:37first going to the netherlands studying
10:39with tondaleo and then to switzerland
10:41studying with klaus huber ferniehl
10:43learned german not by any standard
10:45method but pouring over the writings of
10:48goethe and using these as vocabulary
10:51lists formal study was for practical
10:53benefits because ferninghal had already
10:55developed quite a bit of his language
10:57through personal study of the music he
10:59liked pieces by carl heinz stockhausen
11:02and pierre boulez fascinated him but
11:04since he didn't have a comprehensive
11:06understanding of their techniques when
11:08he went to imitate their aesthetics he
11:10took a surface level concept and
11:12magnified it his analysis of anton de
11:14vabren's music gave him an appreciation
11:16not for 12 tone music exactly but for
11:19vayburn's compact style so funny how's
11:23early sonatas for string quartet from
11:241967 take vayburn's legendary
11:27ephemerality and expand it into a 45
11:31minute 20 section piece where each
11:34section is self-contained
11:36this was the impetus for his ongoing
11:38love of the string quartet in addition
11:40to the sonatas he's written six numbered
11:42quartets one withdrawn and four
11:44unnumbered works for the same ensemble
11:46as ferniha distinguishes between string
11:47quartets and works
11:49for string quartet
11:55[Music]
12:04[Music]
12:09this complexity caps performability at a
12:11moderately sized chamber ensemble and
12:14there's a good reason that much of
12:15fernie has more played stuff tops out
12:18the level of the string quartet huge
12:20pieces like fire cycle beta were passion
12:22projects with little hope of performance
12:25when written later tonom treats the
12:27orchestra as a hundred and one soloists
12:30and their parts are no easier than they
12:31would be in a solo work frenehill's
12:33insistence on transcendental complexity
12:35runs into a brick wall at this scale his
12:37experience with the flute is useful for
12:39his earliest and in many ways most
12:41successful works cassandra's dream song
12:43and unity capsule which exist at the
12:45boundaries of what humans can play for
12:47cassandra's dream song ferny house says
12:48that the notation however dense it is is
12:51not a one-to-one representation of the
12:53end product a good performance is not
12:56about replicating everything but about
12:58the attempt inevitable failings are just
13:00part of the sound world ferny how knew
13:02that he was calling for notes outside
13:03the instruments range things that were
13:06impossible to do at the same time and
13:08other assorted things that only the
13:09flutists would know the amount of
13:11information that furniture throws at the
13:13performer resists memorization in unity
13:16capsule he takes every way sound can be
13:18made with a human on a flute and filters
13:21that through the composite instrument of
13:23flutist plus flute an endless network of
13:26possibilities wrapped up in one
13:28instrument which explains the title
13:30unity capsule for years i wondered what
13:32that meant i didn't know until i
13:33researched this video these works are
13:35polyphonicizations of single instruments
13:37or lines and represent furniture's idea
13:40that performers are resonators for
13:42pieces the notation is so important that
13:45funny how thinks through it first
13:47sketches in the traditional sense are
13:49not part of ferninghouse style he also
13:51doesn't shy away from theatricality the
13:53second of fernie how's time in motion
13:55studies a parody of british worker
13:57efficiency tests
13:58is for cello with a specific wiring and
14:01amplification
14:02to turn it into a music theater piece
14:04although fernie how would dispute that
14:06it is throughout fernando string writing
14:07he's interested in creating
14:09personalities not unlike elliot carter
14:11did in his quartets this is most
14:13prominent in ferny house string trio and
14:15sixth string quartet while he nearly
14:18called the second of the eventual three
14:19time in motion studies as electric chair
14:22music he didn't want to be too on the
14:24nose in addition to a solo part that
14:26divorces left and right hands the cellos
14:28test to operate foot pedals to affect
14:30electronics which are also hooked up to
14:32their own body
14:34[Music]
15:03funny how composes layers of material
15:05and applies filters through process or
15:07intuition to remove material from an
15:09underlying source and end up with a
15:12surface a basic filter would be like
15:14having a sequence of notes and then the
15:15filter allows through certain notes that
15:18are in the filters when you take this
15:19filtering technique and combine it with
15:21the parametric counterpoint of his early
15:23flute pieces it results in what in 1991
15:26he called interference form where
15:29multiple layers interrupt one another
15:30constantly of all ferny hills notational
15:33practices this is the most novel because
15:35he'll notate these lines of wildly
15:37different characters on two staves and
15:39draw lines to show where one stops and
15:42the other starts it's an ensemble piece
15:44compressed into a single instrument and
15:46often something about the instruments
15:48determines the layering in 1989's
15:51tritico per gs furniture starts by
15:54putting quiet low registered glissandos
15:56on one staff and loud double stops with
15:58lots of vibrato on the other and then
16:00shows where one note value is cut short
16:02in order to be interrupted it's about
16:04interfering with gestures which
16:06furniture treats as objects in
16:08themselves the processes involved are so
16:10complex that when writing a piece
16:11furniture may forget what they are and
16:13has to invent new ones that continue
16:15whatever surface level texture he has
16:17going preserving that continuity but
16:20exploring different processes that get
16:22him the same surface measures in bar
16:24lines represent barriers of potential
16:26energy states so changing where those
16:28lie changes the performance
16:30he composes algorithmically to create
16:32grids that underpin his music and has
16:34turned to a computer program called
16:36patchwork to help keep track of these
16:38layers similar andrea has a great
16:40breakdown of how this works in the
16:41string trio although ferniehill is known
16:42for a naughty pitch language he's also
16:45not a composer who has always been
16:47concerned with pitch he's described it
16:49as foregrounding a technique of
16:50unraveling which is more crucial than
16:53what's undergoing the unraveling pitch
16:55is a secondary consideration to texture
16:57so his music is more concerned with
16:59texture types than with writing pitches
17:02that constitute it this allows fernie
17:04how to create what andrea calls damage
17:06structures where a device compromises
17:09the music in some significant way
17:11furniture rejects the connection of his
17:13music with serialism because serialism
17:15is concerned with setting up a system of
17:17possibilities which he does with
17:19patchwork to an extent but serialism
17:21goes through every permutation which
17:24fernikow describes as totally alien to
17:26his style he admits that his vast
17:28precompositional structures are almost
17:30nowhere to be found within the finished
17:32product he particularly cites his solo
17:34violin piece unsicked by farben where
17:36the material is constantly fragmented by
17:38shifting between any number of
17:39simultaneously unfolding layers notated
17:42rhythm and meter is like a
17:43transliteration of a language into a
17:45writing system that's not built to
17:47handle it sure you can try to write
17:49chinese using the latin alphabet but
17:51unless you make significant alterations
17:53that account for things like tone the
17:56script is not really going to work
17:58furniture's music is known for these
18:00irrational time signatures where the
18:01denominator is an unusual value of a
18:04whole note and for funny how these time
18:05signatures
18:07act as slightly more complicated tuplets
18:09they first appear in 1981's lima icon
18:11epigram later on than one might expect
18:14for what it's worth furniture is
18:16entirely capable of singing these
18:17rhythms which is like
18:20how performers get around ferny house
18:22notation by simplifying things rebarring
18:24measure feeling every tuplet in new
18:26rhythm as a tempo change and so on then
18:29performers only have to recall the
18:31correct tempi for each of these changes
18:34freddiehome doesn't like this and for
18:36good reason it not only reduces the
18:38complexity the performer has to deal
18:39with when interacting with his scores
18:41but it also destroys the feeling of
18:43continuity that he implies by the
18:45notation he chooses he knows there are
18:47simpler ways to get what he wants but he
18:48also wants to be able to be surprised by
18:50his own music through the performer's
18:52interactions with it yeah performers
18:54especially in chamber music contexts
18:56where communication and cohesion are
18:58critical
18:59they painstakingly annotate and
19:01re-notate these scores if now daddy and
19:03his eponymous quartet love playing
19:04vernee house music but there's more than
19:06a hint of trepidation for them when it
19:08comes to how ferny how feels like he has
19:10to write his scores they have to
19:12renotate it for ensemble cohesion and
19:14the end result is a version of the score
19:17and parts that doesn't communicate
19:19exactly the same thing on the other hand
19:21it is playable a string quartet no
19:23matter its caliber has to do whatever it
19:25can to make sure that they're together
19:27and the radical alterations of their
19:29parts render pieces that prize a style
19:32of accuracy that ferny hound doesn't
19:33care for consider his comments about his
19:35guitar piece puts a shot in zvei ferny
19:38house said that he was after the
19:39creation of polyphonic continuity while
19:41constraining players to realize the
19:43notated material in ways which
19:45frequently go counter to the risks
19:48think
19:48these quotes are so long instinctive
19:50feel of what would be natural there
19:53got it yet even though his music is
19:55difficult it is idiomatic verneja refers
19:58to a counterpoint between perceived oral
20:00complexity and the actual performative
20:03difficulty at any given moment anybody
20:05who plays an instrument will know that
20:07there are things that sound and look
20:10really impressive to outsiders but are
20:12really easy to perform my mom used to
20:14think that me crossing my hands when
20:15practicing a piano piece was just the
20:17coolest looking thing
20:19and it's super duper easy not that it
20:21doesn't take a long time to learn a
20:22fernie how piece percussionist stephen
20:24schick estimated that it took 1 200
20:27hours of practice from the time he got
20:29the score to bone alphabet to his
20:31premiering performance in february 1992
20:34if you didn't eat sleep or do anything
20:36for 50 straight days that's the level of
20:39commitment required for anyhow sees this
20:40as an upside by eliminating performers
20:43who are not willing to put in the work
20:44on the flip side is a huge time
20:46commitment for not that many
20:48performances like performers who
20:49commission for anyhow know what they're
20:51getting into and likely wouldn't be able
20:52to perform them enough to recoup their
20:54losses shik took about nine months
20:56practicing it and only felt it
20:58worthwhile after about 30 performances
21:02but that's gonna differ depending on who
21:04you are and what the piece is
21:08[Music]
21:16klaus huber helped fernie hall get
21:17academic jobs first in freiburg germany
21:20in 1973 where he spent 13 years as a
21:22part-time lecturer and after a reef stop
21:24over in the hague at the rural
21:26conservatory he came to the united
21:28states and has had two full-time
21:29teaching posts in california first at
21:32san diego and currently at stanford what
21:35makes him attractive as a teacher is his
21:36steadfast refusal to teach students to
21:38write new complexity not least because
21:41he doesn't identify with new complexity
21:43fernando contrasts fidelity with
21:45exactitude such that a good performance
21:47can take liberties so long as the
21:49performer is trying their best to be
21:50faithful to the score the pursuit of
21:52accuracy is more important than being
21:55accurate
21:57[Music]
22:01michael finissie is another english
22:02composer born only three years after
22:04fernando his style comes from an
22:06extension of his performance his
22:08earliest memories were at the piano and
22:10he backed into her career in music his
22:12father was a documentary photographer
22:14while never taught what composition was
22:16he was interested in modern music since
22:18about the age of eight and asked for the
22:20score of charles ives conquered sonata
22:22as a 12th birthday present man after my
22:25own heart he trained as a teacher and
22:27when he had to teach a music course his
22:29sight singing was so good that he was
22:31told he should apply to music school
22:32when he got into the royal college of
22:34music but he didn't know the first thing
22:36about theory he entered college able to
22:38identify a fugue but unable to tell you
22:40what the tonic and dominant were he
22:42never learned how to play the piano in
22:44the traditional sense either preferring
22:45to spread his hands out over the
22:47keyboard instead of keeping them in a
22:49central position his ferocious sight
22:51reading skills made him a natural
22:52rehearsal pianist which informed his
22:54compositions he was asked to play huge
22:57orchestral scores and enjoy the
22:59challenge of turning the piano into an
23:01orchestra and when one can read
23:02orchestral scores at the piano having a
23:04lot of notes and information for solo
23:06piano
23:07isn't a whole lot more difficult i'd
23:09argue is actually less fantasy's music
23:11is primarily for his own instrument
23:13where he's produced a series of long and
23:16complicated works when not fulfilling a
23:17commission he writes for the piano like
23:19for any how fantasy burst onto the scene
23:21in the late 1960s with a piano suite
23:23entitled songs 5-9 and with increasing
23:26reputation in the 1970s a decade where
23:29he spent every free moment composing his
23:32works are often thought of
23:33autobiographically as he finishes up one
23:35piece and then moves on to the next one
23:37without a break in early years he would
23:39dovetail the end of one piece into the
23:41beginning of the next he wrote seven
23:43piano concerti from 1975 to 1981. two of
23:47which are for solo piano continuing the
23:49tradition of imitating an entire
23:50orchestra on a single instrument which
23:53was pioneered by charles valentin
23:55al-khan one of fantasy's heroes each
23:57concerto adopts a completely different
23:58attitude towards the relationship
24:00between soloist and ensemble
24:08[Music]
24:16[Music]
24:32[Music]
25:22[Music]
25:34however what limited fame he had in new
25:36music circles was off of the back of a
25:38monstrous piano suite called english
25:40country tunes in 50 minutes phineasy
25:44contrasts his typically violent textures
25:46with smooth simple melodies distraught
25:49over not having achieved a wider appeal
25:50he spent time in australia in 1980 and
25:53his music subsequently opened up to a
25:55wider range of influences fantasy likes
25:58folk music from all over the world his
26:00suite where fake folk melodies are
26:02stretched distorted and destroyed to
26:05give an intentionally frenetic quality
26:07to the music also serves as a commentary
26:09on contemporary english society and the
26:12perils of industrialization
26:15he likes folk tunes with irregular pulse
26:17groupings with a special interest in
26:19those of eastern europe the trans
26:21caucasus the music of the kurds and
26:24aboriginal australian folk tunes for him
26:26it represents the origins of music free
26:28from the trappings of westernized music
26:30making many of those same impulses exist
26:32in his work outside solo piano and in
26:35their adoption of various folk musics
26:37are more inclined to explore microtones
26:39something that the piano just can't do
26:41quarter tones themselves become a point
26:43of
26:43interest and obsession in their gradual
26:46inclusion or elimination over the course
26:48of a work typical features of fantasy's
26:50music are a focus on the piano
26:52very long cycles of music that sometimes
26:54take upwards of a decade for him to
26:56compose
26:57avoidance of extended techniques
26:59especially for the piano a borrowing and
27:02synthesis of other composer's material
27:03through his unique approach to
27:05transcription
27:06more on that a bit grace note
27:08figurations so vast as to adopt a kind
27:10of spatial notation openly aggressive
27:13and violent figures use of extreme
27:15register and tuplets that while complex
27:18in their own right rarely go more than
27:20one level deep unlike the nested tuplets
27:23of brian fernando like funny how fantasy
27:25is interested in the psychology of
27:27notation and how composers choices
27:29impact performers fantasy thinks of
27:31music as a series of processes with
27:34clearly audible forms that discard
27:36received tradition fernando plans his
27:38forms in advance while finishing figures
27:41it out as he goes along finissi also
27:43rejects the orthodoxy of these various
27:46schools he never went through a
27:47serialist phase and loves romantic
27:50composers like tchaikovsky he feels that
27:52extended techniques draw too much
27:53attention to themselves as sounds and
27:56not a part of the discourse as a pianist
27:58he felt stupid having to reach inside
28:00the piano and pluck something he had to
28:02do this while he was a rehearsal pianist
28:04with the london contemporary dance
28:05theater in the 1970s which also exposed
28:07him to a lot of the minimalism that was
28:09coming out of the united states at the
28:11time he and ferny he said were
28:13derided as these unplayable composers up
28:16through the 70s at which point
28:17performers who were looking for a
28:19challenge began to play their works but
28:21only a small fraction of performers who
28:23were interested in new music would touch
28:25new complexity with a 10-foot pole hence
28:28the close relationships that these
28:29composers have to individual performers
28:32small ensembles and in finnish's case
28:35himself as soloist for much of his
28:37output returning to this important idea
28:39of transcription this takes after
28:41busoni's ideas of the same thing that
28:44all music is transcription much as
28:46writing down a thought as a
28:48transcription of a thought in the
28:49abstract the act of creation of
28:51formalizing one's ideas on a page
28:54necessarily filters them he has little
28:56interest in generating his own material
28:58and indeed casts doubt on the idea that
29:01one can have a truly original idea in
29:03music because music is in fantasy's
29:05words socially determined fantasy makes
29:08a distinction between transcription and
29:10arrangement the latter is something
29:12that's a little more pre-planned so his
29:14gershwin arrangements have a title that
29:16gives away a crucial difference between
29:18them and say the verdi transcriptions
29:20fantasy's transcriptions engage in a
29:22vast amount of meta commentary requiring
29:24listeners to come to his music with
29:26several prerequisites just to understand
29:28what's going on like his early piano
29:30work romeo and juliet are drowning
29:32mashes together music from berlioz and
29:34berg engaging in a process of
29:36objectification and recontextualization
29:38and throughout his career he has written
29:40pieces in homage to some of his favorite
29:42iconoclastic composers these include
29:44ives khanlankaro and percy granger by
29:47far his biggest transcription project is
29:48his reinterpretation of verdi's opera
29:50tunes in the monumental verdi
29:52transcriptions even the stuff that
29:53sounds so very far into verdi such as
29:55the series of violent low register
29:57chords that start the piece are somehow
29:59pulled from verdi's material definitely
30:01this seed of one's pants approach to
30:03transcription is intended to retain
30:04something of the original flavor of the
30:06pieces that he's transcribing
30:10it's kind of like this meme about
30:11chicken nuggets once finished he had
30:13gained more recognition in the late 80s
30:14and early 90s he began using his music
30:17to speak out more on issues deep to him
30:19particularly at the intersection of his
30:20leftist politics and homosexuality take
30:23stanley stokes e street 1836 and nine
30:26romantics pieces which come around the
30:28turn of the decade the aids-inspired
30:30song cycle unknown ground from 1992 and
30:33the orchestra will speak its name from
30:351996 there's an exclamation point in the
30:37title
30:38try to get that across which is a
30:39collage of material from gay artists
30:42superimposed over the emergence of a
30:44single melody over the course of its
30:4622-minute run time the five and a half
30:48hour long history of photography and
30:50sound at the center of which is a
30:51movement called 17 immortal homosexual
30:54poets covering a whopping 40 minutes
30:56sums up many of the strands of phineas's
30:58career he feels alienated from society
31:00for his politics and for his sexuality
31:03this is what led him to explore folk
31:05music from outside england before
31:07returning to english folk music with a
31:08critical lens which is what had led to
31:11the english country tunes many years
31:12before phoenici's status as a piano
31:14focused artistic outsider has drawn
31:16comparisons to kaikosuru sarabji another
31:18reclusive gay composer and fantasy's
31:20music makes use of surabjian tendencies
31:23in the use of this sign to show that the
31:24music is up an octave and also in the
31:26vastness of his canvases and uses of
31:28tuplets and filigree fantasy also
31:30written opera he calls them stage works
31:33called shameful vice about the last
31:35stage of tchaikovsky who he has
31:36interpreted as a martyr his research led
31:39him to the conclusion that tchaikovsky's
31:40death was an ordered suicide shameful
31:42vice is organized into 14 sections that
31:44mirror the stations of the cross as
31:46fantasy has had a deep engagement with
31:49religious music not least of which is
31:51due to the influence of his music
31:52director life partner philip adams
31:54fantasy has a strong attraction to
31:56experimental film and has even taught
31:58film techniques at sussex university
31:59this helps explain the dramatic breadth
32:01of his works as he often makes
32:02comparison between cinematography and
32:05composition however he rejected his
32:07works for film and theater as his
32:09admitted stubbornness butted up against
32:11others eventually he learned that he
32:13just wasn't that good of a collaborator
32:15rather he wants to emphasize the human
32:17element of performance removing art from
32:19being put on some pedestal and as he
32:21says making art out of a part of
32:24people's lives while fernijo is
32:25concerned with the technical side of his
32:27place in history finnish's less
32:29structured approach makes his social
32:31commentary more approachable drawing
32:32upon the influence of ives phinessey
32:34doesn't believe that any music can exist
32:36as pure music therefore he leans into
32:39programs and politics fantasy knows that
32:42contemporary music with a political bent
32:45will be preaching to the choir and a
32:47pretty small choir at that so he focuses
32:49the political elements of his music when
32:52working with amateur groups orchestras
32:54he said deserve to be extinct for their
32:56intimidation of composers and he's
32:58written relatively rarely for them he
33:00considers his musical meaning in the
33:02intervals and the relative density or
33:04sparseness of his textures with timbre a
33:08lesser consideration
33:09[Music]
33:14dench was born in london in 1953. early
33:17on he was banned from listening to
33:18popular music like the beatles out of a
33:20moral panic against rock when he finally
33:23did he hated them preferring the larger
33:24canvases of fish and the grateful dead
33:27he began composing at eight informed by
33:29his father's eccentric musical tastes in
33:321969 dench won third prize in the
33:34southern television young composers
33:36competition out of 750 entries
33:39but his work was not played on the air
33:42as promised dench figured it had to do
33:44with his pieces polytonality and as
33:46figures of the conservative
33:48establishment doubted dench's bonafides
33:50dench heard a broadcast of jean
33:52barracay's mammoth serialist piano
33:54sonata and immediately took it into his
33:56sound world ives was another major
33:58influence even though dench doesn't
34:00identify a stylistic overlap he sees a
34:03similarity in their approach for one
34:05thing in many of ive's masterpieces the
34:08three places in new england among them
34:10there are a lot of musical lines going
34:11on at the same time but rarely does
34:14anything truly line up for more than a
34:15moment here or there
34:17but the biggest influence is that of
34:18scriabin his music he said stopped him
34:21in his tracks when he first heard the
34:23opus 74 preludes and the early
34:25post-scriabin futurists of the soviet
34:28union have loomed large for him the jazz
34:31fusion of robert greitenger's piece city
34:33of glass is another piece that dench
34:35likes to cite in interviews
34:37and because he found work in record
34:38shops not only does he have an enormous
34:41cd collection to this day but he became
34:43a fan of a wider circle than just that
34:45of contemporary classical out to the can
34:48and miles davis he was a frank zappa fan
34:51once but found zappa's quote gender
34:53politics to be so repellent that it
34:56outweighed their compositional interest
34:58ginge saw what he called a punk
35:00modernism which started out in reaction
35:02to what he felt was an english bloodless
35:05modernism that emulated the works of
35:07peter maxwell davies he felt a kinship
35:09with punk's antagonism towards
35:11mainstream english culture and this
35:13meant little to no interest in making
35:15performers comfortable this anti-english
35:17sentiment may have something to do with
35:19his identity as a real francophile he
35:21considers himself self-taught because he
35:23never formally studied composition but
35:25he had a few lessons which he thought
35:27were horrible experiences he finds
35:29academic things tedious and never stop a
35:32university post he just doesn't think
35:34composition can be taught and he takes
35:36the view that trying to teach it can be
35:38intrusive nonetheless one of the major
35:40downsides of a non-university post is a
35:42lack of access to things like advanced
35:45music technology applying his ideas of
35:47musical originality and complexity in a
35:49music text space would lead to music
35:51that in a sense composes itself outwards
35:54in response to the events of a
35:55particular performance he doesn't like
35:57electronic media because he likes the
35:59differences and performances that humans
36:01provide he was briefly a member of
36:03cornelius cardu scratch orchestra in the
36:05early 70s but had to distance himself
36:07from it because he wanted to retain his
36:09belief in the power of notating music
36:11the first piece he felt was truly his
36:13was helical written around the time he
36:15first met michael finishing dench uses
36:17music to illuminate what it means to be
36:19human so with ferny hell's rise in the
36:21early 1970s and dench's subsequent
36:24interest in the new worlds that
36:25ferninghal is exploring particularly
36:27with this piece transit dinch found much
36:30as ferny hill himself did that english
36:32new music specialists became less
36:34interested in playing his music
36:37right when he was starting to get some
36:38more performances like furniture dench
36:40loves the flute and likes writing
36:42polyphonically for monophonic
36:44instruments repelled by thatcherite
36:46politics dench abandoned britain for
36:49unaffordable tuscany in 1987 only to
36:52move to west berlin for a year right
36:53before the fall of the burling wall and
36:55then finally to australia on christmas
36:571989 initially due to his then marriage
36:59to australian flutist laura chislett he
37:01was shocked upon arriving in australia
37:03that the notion that all artists were
37:06left leaning to far left in their
37:08politics was only a reality for
37:10continental europe and parts of the us
37:13in australia there was a pre-existing
37:14antagonism towards him and his music he
37:17cites the adelaide pastoral companies
37:19hostility to modernism that resulted in
37:21the complete absence of state funding
37:23for his works between 1994 and 2011
37:27which stalled his career he became an
37:28australian citizen in 1992 and after
37:31several decades there dench has settled
37:33into the victorian town of balarat with
37:35his wife the singer and musicologist
37:37catherine sullivan whom he met in 2003.
37:40australia's leading new music ensemble
37:42illusion has commissioned him on a
37:43number of occasions like ive's dinch has
37:45a number of day jobs and has gone
37:47through many periods of writing music in
37:49the off hours such as when he was
37:51working for the australian taxation
37:52office dinch regards notation as
37:55something of a necessary evil he uses
37:57notation too in his words
37:59engage the performer by implying a world
38:02dominated by interpretive rubato
38:05notation is not just reflexively seeing
38:07a note and playing a note but a series
38:09of capsules of information that must be
38:12decoded and digested into a performance
38:15through the medium of the performer he
38:17encourages creative decoding of his
38:18notation adopted around the time of his
38:20piece ix-lands the first of his pieces
38:22where he considered himself a truly
38:24australian composer
38:26for dench the music sits behind the
38:29notation relying on the performer as
38:31interpreter to make meaningful decisions
38:33about the score
38:34the goal is not to overload the
38:36performer with an anxiety-inducing level
38:38of information but just to put in enough
38:41detail to overcome the inevitable loss
38:43of information as material is notated
38:46engraved interpreted and finally
38:49listened to
38:50each step of that process differs a bit
38:52from a composer's initial vision
38:54to the end result into the listener's
38:56ear so the composer has to notate more
38:59than they might otherwise choose to do
39:01in order to accommodate
39:03and anticipate this loss of information
39:05dench thinks about his music not in
39:07notation but time space how long
39:09something will last out to the second
39:11and once a section is written like this
39:13he'll go back over it and put it into
39:16more traditional notation in x-lens he
39:18simplified this rhythmic filtering and
39:20presented performers with something less
39:22intimidating than something that he
39:24would have done previously which is why
39:25this is a turning point despite the
39:27fantastic lily pond work of his engraver
39:29andrew bernard his handwritten scores
39:31fit his music better than industry's
39:33standard typesetting which one of his
39:34phd examiners complained about his
39:36process does not play well with software
39:38nonetheless his music is the simplest
39:40looking of the new complexity as he
39:42doesn't go outside what he considers a
39:43team notational toolbox
39:46he combines menstrual and proportional
39:48notation in an attempt to make his music
39:51easier to decode three centimeters
39:53equals one second regardless of tempo
39:57because nature does not have steady
39:58beats iterative subdivisions and dench's
40:00music seeks to replicate nature his
40:02notation is what he calls irreducible
40:04everything needs to be notated in full
40:13[Music]
40:30do
40:37[Music]
41:00[Music]
41:15dench distinguishes complexity of
41:17process from complexity of finished
41:19music engaging with the material at
41:21every step of the process and thinking
41:23of layers of embedded structures where
41:25small bits of music are related to all
41:28the layers around it which in turn build
41:30up to form an entire piece guaranteeing
41:33a grammatical unity for a piece while
41:35allowing it to be truly long his piano
41:38sonata is over an hour and a half and
41:40although it is split up into movements
41:42they can't be extracted without dench's
41:45express written consent even visually
41:47you can see these long arches in his
41:49music which he thinks of as fractal-like
41:52structures and he's only controlling the
41:53degree of granularity akin to sharpening
41:56the resolution of an image ferniehill
41:58regards dench's works as a flow of
42:00non-objects which in ditch's mind is a
42:03staggered or simultaneous present
42:05consisting of a meta-stacked time you'll
42:08find no steady meter or pulse in his
42:11music in this layered temporal
42:12environment he finds a lot in common
42:14with ives but the higher resolution of
42:17notational solution is the more granular
42:19it is in his words the more that dentist
42:22fountains performers have been reduced
42:24in their freedoms an inverse to the
42:26fernie howingen approach
42:28dentures withdrawn a guitar piece for
42:30being too hard not unplayable but hard
42:33enough that it sounds like it's
42:34difficult and dinch doesn't want that
42:36you can see now why these composers all
42:39object to being lumped in with one
42:41another although a fan and acquaintance
42:42of zanakis the greek composer's
42:44mathematically rigorous music was just a
42:46starting point
42:48dinch wouldn't have had such an affinity
42:49for zunakus music if he didn't hear an
42:52expressive human element in the
42:53resulting work dench's attempts at doing
42:56something similar by using naturally
42:58occurring numerological series ended up
43:00less successful because there was no
43:03human impulse embedded in there applying
43:05natural phenomena to music didn't work
43:07for him so dench invented what he calls
43:10a
43:10geomatic approach
43:12this approach imports musical meaning
43:15from non-musical domains creating a
43:18musical grammar that is disconnected
43:20from historical practices his titles
43:22give insight into these relationships
43:24inspired by tiffareth by the portuguese
43:26composer emmanuel nunes which turned
43:29names into numbers by formula and using
43:32those numbers as raw material dench does
43:34the same thing converting the rules of
43:36language into numbers that had no
43:39relation to natural processes
43:41but because they come from something
43:43they have these internal connections and
43:45symmetries this allows dench to link
43:47titles into his pieces by using them as
43:50raw material dench encodes his music
43:52with levity and an affinity for science
43:55and science fiction concepts the idea of
43:58science fiction music is that sci-fi is
44:01to fiction as his music is to the rest
44:03of new music and he's also always using
44:06science and science fiction as a point
44:07of inspiration he's obsessed with how
44:09pieces end and is taken to writing long
44:11works so as to prevent pieces from
44:13immediately proceeding or succeeding his
44:16works piece is at least half a concert
44:18long which richard tupe called
44:20cyclomania his piano sonata is based on
44:23the life cycle of the physical universe
44:26he rejects the new complexity label as
44:28much as he rejects another label that's
44:30thrown in his direction that of
44:32maximalism this means that while he
44:34approaches his pieces in the same way
44:37details are lost from one piece to the
44:39next and he has a difficult time
44:42resuming work on a piece if he has to
44:44stop hints his habit of meticulously
44:46storing all of his sketches so he can
44:49reverse engineer what he was doing if he
44:51has to take a break from obese on form
44:53dinch says it's all rhythm the
44:55fractal-like character of his forms
44:57means that the difference between one
44:59local rhythm and the form of a whole
45:01piece is a question of blowing one up or
45:04shrinking one down to get the other
45:06which allows dench to write long works
45:08that hang together by virtue of a broad
45:11self-similarity the coherency of a piece
45:14to dench must be in the same relative
45:16level of crudeness or sophistication
45:19across various musical parameters that
45:21is to say if you're dealing with an
45:22advanced and very microtunal pitch
45:24language it should follow that your
45:26rhythmic language ought to not sound
45:28like haydn or mozart like that would
45:29just be kind of bizarre
45:34[Applause]
45:37welsh composer richard barrett born in
45:39swansea in 1959 came to music quite late
45:42initially in the fields of genetics and
45:44microbiology barrett's compositional
45:46career started slowly and fits and
45:48starts up through the mid 1980s because
45:51of his outsider status barrett didn't
45:53have access to advanced electronic
45:54studios so he made electronic music
45:57through guitar pedals rudimentary casio
46:00keyboards and cassette machines barrett
46:02found creative ways to use this
46:03rudimentary technology forming fert with
46:06paul obermeyer in 1986. for its first
46:09seven years firt remained at this crude
46:11level of technology and they've retained
46:13the idea of doing advanced things with
46:15rudimentary materials ever since
46:18one of these techniques was taking the
46:20output of a cassette and routing it
46:22through their sampling keyboards
46:24barrett noblemeyer had no way of knowing
46:26what was going to come out when they did
46:27this
46:28and over many years they've trained
46:30themselves to react musically to
46:32unexpected events at the rate of several
46:35times per second
46:37his work with ferd has led him to
46:38classify electronic instruments as
46:41either active which require performer
46:44input to sound
46:45reactive where the performer manipulates
46:48a steady stream of sonic information
46:50passive where the performer doesn't have
46:52to do anything and autonomous where the
46:55instruments act
46:57sort of as their own performers
46:59this unconventionality when applied to
47:01something like a standard midi
47:03controller would map midi information of
47:06for instance how hard you press a note
47:08down which is called velocity and apply
47:10that to how much the pitch of a sample
47:12is warped at darmstadt in 1986
47:16barrett said that he was still beginning
47:17to define his compositional and
47:20paracompositional aims but by the end of
47:22the decade barrett's music had made it
47:23to australia where the newly formed
47:25delusion ensemble took it up and their
47:27support and commissions unlocked his
47:29latent creativity he only wrote 15
47:32pieces between 1982 and 1990 for about
47:35two pieces per year over that eight year
47:36span
47:37his paces increased considerably with 40
47:40double bars under his belt from 2010 to
47:422018 alone and those were longer works
47:45in that time he also submitted a
47:46doctoral thesis to the university of
47:48leeds
47:49an odd career move especially since
47:51barrett wasn't after an academic job he
47:54just wanted space to organize his
47:55thoughts in a formal and recognizable
47:57way uniquely among these composers
47:59barrett is unashamedly serialist this
48:02label is what most of new complexity
48:04shuns
48:05barrett speaks of resisting the
48:07evaporation of meaning positioning him
48:09as squarely a modernist and against
48:11post-modernism which does jive with the
48:13rest of them and he works by taking a
48:15musical parameter dividing it up into
48:17sections and then moving through those
48:19sections at meaningful moments within a
48:21piece
48:22serialism guarantees exhaustivity if you
48:25set up some process it's only serial if
48:28you cover every possibility that that
48:30process outputs and try to do so in an
48:32even-handed way he's critical of the
48:34early techniques of trying to serialize
48:37dynamic level and the assumption of
48:39octave equivalency that is that all c's
48:42or all e's or f sharps are the same
48:44thing and the imperceptibility of serial
48:47procedures in complex textures because
48:49of this he traces his serial lineage
48:51through the work of carlheim stockhausen
48:53as well as of all things 1970s rock
48:56stockhausen was an influential character
48:58for a lot of rock's more
48:59forward-thinking ensembles most famously
49:01the beatles who put him on the sgt
49:03pepper's cover because as barrett notes
49:05the instruments of contemporary music
49:07and rock music had a great degree of
49:10overlap his composed music often deals
49:12with live instruments and electronics
49:14which leaves it open to the same
49:16amplification and processing techniques
49:18found in someone like brian eno one of
49:20barrett's hundreds of pop music
49:22influences
49:23like fantasy barrett reworks and
49:25recomposes using other composers
49:26materials in a way i find more direct
49:30and audible than much of fantasy and
49:32where it's subsumed by these crashing
49:34textures barrett particularly likes the
49:36f above middle c as a starting and
49:38ending point for a lot of his processes
49:40i can't tell you why because i'm trying
49:41to keep it a family-friendly channel all
49:43sources are as usual down in the
49:44description in the contemporary realm
49:46another important influence is giannis
49:48zanakis forbearance tanaka's statistical
49:50approach to composition makes more sense
49:53on a large scale than a buildup of
49:55various serial structures in which by
49:58definition occur on a small scale
50:00barrett conceives of music as existing
50:02in a multi-dimensional conceptual space
50:05which allows for a fusion of the
50:07disparates between free improvisation
50:09and a strict highly structured serialism
50:11as two ends of a spectrum
50:13pathways through these spaces are
50:15determined by probability something else
50:17that zinc is like to use
50:19barrett applies probability to create a
50:21heterophonic texture a texture common to
50:24non-western musics where multiple
50:26variations of a melody will go on at
50:28exactly the same time
50:30this removes the need for harmonic
50:32structure and allows different things to
50:34unfold at different rates in different
50:36performances which is perfect for
50:38improvisation and also widely adaptable
50:41through algorithm barrick refers to the
50:42system as possessing several different
50:44levels of pitch focus applying this idea
50:47to rhythm allows for degrees of rhythmic
50:49precision or imprecision and thus
50:51explains barrett's affinity for complex
50:53rhythms nested tuplets and the
50:55irrational subdivisions common to new
50:57complexity
50:58in contrast to the idea of complexity
51:01barrett says that his music is as simple
51:03as it can be under the circumstances and
51:05he's always trying to find ways of
51:07making them simpler without losing that
51:09which they attempt to express barrett
51:12works in the simultaneous streams of
51:13improvisation and composition and while
51:16he deals with him separately he sees an
51:18underlying unity beneath them
51:20improvisation as a method of composition
51:22his improvisatory scores particularly
51:24his mostly conductor-less codex series
51:26barrett-wright scores that intend to
51:28focus performers attention in such a way
51:30that it encourages them to do something
51:32different than they usually do if left
51:35to improvise codex 5 from 2007 is
51:38constructed to be available to amateur
51:40musicians as well as professional ones
51:42however improvisation is not something
51:44one can do in barrett's work at sight
51:47performers still have to rehearse if
51:50only to make sure that they're on the
51:51same page and are approaching the
51:53performance operating under the same
51:55rules and game plan barrett talks about
51:58radically idiomatic instrumentalism his
52:00words in which the materials of a work
52:02have their origins in the consideration
52:04of the instrument its history and its
52:07performer he also likes writing work
52:09complexes which are comprised of many
52:11smaller pieces that can be combined in
52:13different ways to form a larger hole
52:16an example is his piece world line
52:18completed in 2014 which consists of five
52:21individual pieces of music that can be
52:24reshaped notation in barrett's work is
52:26the medium of communication between
52:27composer and performer with seated
52:30improvisation finding a balance between
52:32notated music and improvised material in
52:35ways where notated material influences
52:38improvisations barrett more so than
52:40fantasy or dench is interested in the
52:42intersection of music and politics in
52:44relation to a class-based worldview in
52:46that sense barrett continues the legacy
52:48of cornelius cardu
52:50barrett seeks to write music that
52:52encodes what he calls a radical
52:53political position
52:55but not through the use of text like
52:57punk music would
52:59he's not sure it's possible to do this
53:00but he feels like it's worthwhile to ask
53:03and pursue
53:04unlike fantasy barrett's use of
53:05non-western instruments isn't to evoke
53:07non-western music but to distance the
53:10music from any one tradition altogether
53:13modernism in barrett is continually an
53:16ongoing project
53:18[Music]
53:24dylan the only scottish composer cited
53:26in tupes facets of new complexity was
53:29born in glasgow in october 1950 and
53:31spent his first nine years there before
53:33moving to london this was late enough
53:35that he retained a certain scottishness
53:37about himself and he got started in
53:39music through playing in traditional
53:41bagpipes ensembles he was also in an rmb
53:44band called influx his early life
53:46consisted of disaffected intellectual
53:49wandering knowing that he wanted to be a
53:51composer but without any confidence in
53:53the academic path of composition to get
53:56him to where he wanted to go
53:57his personal library fills to the brim
53:59with books on all manner of subjects
54:02i like to think that mine is too but
54:04they're all over here because gotta have
54:06the look like other new complexity
54:08composers dylan did not directly come to
54:10music through higher education instead
54:13studying art at the university of
54:15glasgow starting in 1968.
54:17his interest in indian classical music
54:19led him to study it at the university of
54:21kiel with punita gupta and they also
54:23studied acoustics and linguistics in
54:24london in the 1970s while dylan studied
54:27music in many different forms he was
54:29never taught composition and his
54:30independent streak manifested in a
54:32strikingly original language that won
54:34several prizes through the late 1970s
54:36and early 1980s
54:38along with fernie how he taught in
54:39darmstadt throughout the 1980s and from
54:412007 to 2014 he was a professor at the
54:44university of minnesota
54:46because of his variegated studies dylan
54:49like the other new complexity composers
54:51pulls from a multitude of points of
54:52inspiration
54:54from ancient poetry to physics
54:56and because he didn't learn composition
54:58in a university setting he was not
54:59exposed to serialism until he was well
55:02into his career and it didn't affect his
55:05thinking because
55:06he wasn't sure that the techniques of
55:08serialism actually legitimately forced
55:10composers to contend with all of their
55:12materials inherent possibilities which
55:15had been serialism's basic promise what
55:17he wanted to instead was to reclaim
55:20musical meaning dylan's work especially
55:22early on is characterized by density and
55:24ferocity two prefers to the aggression
55:27of his work influenced as it was by
55:29veraz and zanakis but it has settled
55:32into a more refined world ever since a
55:35formal elegance that fernihal linked to
55:37dylan's interest in spectralist
55:38tendencies spectralism a separate
55:40mid-century school of thought used
55:42instruments to reinforce partials of
55:44overtone series of certain fundamental
55:46frequencies essentially recreating the
55:48sound of a single instrument with a
55:50large ensemble
55:51given his knowledge of acoustics if any
55:53of these composers were to overlap with
55:55spectralism it would be dylan take his
55:57ensemble work uben which translates to
56:00overstepping where the initial material
56:02is a harmonic series of an e and
56:04distance from that series gives dylan
56:06something approaching dissonance the
56:08harmonic series is used as a kind of
56:10found object that dylan can play with by
56:12going outside of it investigating its
56:14properties in a separate way from its
56:17historical meaning and usage and
56:19influence on the way the western music
56:21operates dylan's goal is to write music
56:23that is so layered and nuanced that
56:26listeners can always find something new
56:27in it he likens the process to building
56:30a gothic cathedral where architectural
56:32feats could go unnoticed by parishioners
56:34for years or decades on end he thinks of
56:37his music like rivers hence the title of
56:39his mammoth project nine rivers
56:42like fantasy dylan writes works
56:44containing pieces for all sorts of
56:46ensembles which can operate on their own
56:48or in the context of an evening length
56:50work
56:52[Music]
57:11pieces may be grouped under the same
57:13title but contain individual movements
57:16of vastly different instrumentations
57:18dylan's success has mostly been on
57:20continental europe and much less in the
57:21united kingdom and his titles are
57:24intentionally obscure in contrast to
57:26dench's use of titles as a structural
57:28element of composition dylan's approach
57:30allows for the kinds of very stark
57:32limitations that wouldn't make sense for
57:35the aesthetics of other composers
57:36discussed in this video
57:38not only is he very open about his use
57:40of clear-cut formal designs that link to
57:42the past but in his sixth string quartet
57:45he has a whole long section where the
57:47ensemble only plays within the span of a
57:49single whole tone
57:51he tends to think of music in terms of
57:52its relative smoothness or turbulence as
57:55opposed to the more traditional view of
57:57composition as tension and resolution in
58:00different forms so we can write music
58:02with a clear narrative structure but
58:04achieve not through continuity of one
58:06thing to the next
58:08but in engaging with disruption from one
58:10movement to another directionality in
58:12terms of discontinuity in his words
58:16dylan is pleasantly surprised that
58:18contemporary music has managed to
58:19survive the onslaught of other outlets
58:21of human attention and regards his music
58:24as the defense of something that the
58:26world cannot afford to lose
58:28more than most of the modernists of new
58:30complexity dylan understands the need
58:32for clarity of structure we're also
58:34talking about music in terms of
58:36things like overlapping braids a
58:38metaphor he developed while braiding his
58:40then young daughter's hair
58:43[Music]
58:47we are not far enough removed from new
58:49complexity to see the end of these
58:51composers careers or their ongoing
58:53impacts on the development of western
58:55music moving forward
58:57to wrap this up i want to underscore
58:59again how each of these composers while
59:02disliking the term new complexity end up
59:04writing music that on the surface level
59:07looks similar and this visual similarity
59:09is what holds them together as a school
59:12or movement while there is some overlap
59:14in how these composers sound
59:16digging into why they write what they do
59:18reveals interlocking constellations of
59:21impulses aesthetics and viewpoints
59:24and even if it's not music that you like
59:26or it's music that you think you don't
59:28like it's not music that can be
59:29dismissed out of hand if you don't like
59:31one composer you can't discount another
59:33composer just because of that it's a
59:35movement of great intellectual depth and
59:37rigor and its composers are well worth a
59:40deeper understanding
59:43[Music]
59:59you

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