USB DONE RIGHT: Two magic boxes that let computer audio ...

mentor Gustav Mahler, and others,
sometimes “correcting” what he viewed
as defects in the originals’ style. These
three composers are grouped into the
neoclassical category because of the way
they explored musical form, but they did
not collaborate. Schoenberg actually
disliked Stravinsky.
Microtonalists like Charles Ives,
Karlheinz Stockhausen and Terry Riley
abandoned fixed key signatures and the
eight-note octave. Others like Harry
Partch dropped the equal-temperament
tuning system. Starting in mid-century,
composers experimented with pieces
made of prerecorded sounds, rather than
music performed from a score. Known
as musique concrète, it is at the root of live
electronic and electroacoustic music.
Names in this school are Pierre Schaeffer,
Edgard Varèse and the American
John Cage. Cage introduced the idea of
random events determining the content
The recording is The Young Person’s
Guide to the Orchestra with the Kansas
City Symphony on Reference Recordings.
Get it in the HRx version if your
computer system will either output
native high-resolution files, or downsample
them acceptably. Apple’s iTunes
will accept the file in high-res if your
Import Settings preference is set to AIFF
or Apple Lossless. The recording, which
won a Grammy in 2011, is also available
on hybrid SACD/HDCD.
GET THE COMPLETE VERSION!
of a performance. His most famous piece
is 4’33”, in which musicians take their
places but do not play their instruments
for four minutes and thirty-three seconds.
The “musical content” is whatever
the audience happens to hear during that Contemporary classical music (but
time.
can we still call it that?) has not suc-
To choose a single disc of Modern ceeded in furnishing a new, common
music is to snub almost everyone. If artistic approach to music. Rising popu-
you’re going to do that, better go all the lation and improved communications
way. I’m going to recommend a piece have made it possible, even necessary,
that was intended to teach a musical for multiple schools to flourish simul-
tradition, by a Modern composer I taneously. This will pose a problem for
haven’t mentioned at all. That would be a playlist after a collection has grown,
Benjamin Britten.
when different works from the same
period may not seem to have much in
common. We can, however, create a
Contemporary playlist toward the end
of the 20th You’ll have noticed that this free
version of UHF Magazine
is not quite complete. But you can
get the complete version
from Maggie for $4.
Click here, and away we go!
Century.
We can populate it with Minimalists:
Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Terry Riley
and John Adams, major composers in
this group. Typically such music is
composed of rhythmic and tonal phrases
repeated with small variations which
accumulate to give the impression of
waves propagating through the music.
It can be rewarding when you listen
with focused attention, but it works for
driving and housework as well!
Another composers’ group would
include John Tavener (not to be confused
with the Renaissance English composer
John Taverner), Arvo Pärt, and Henryk
Gorecki, whose Third Symphony of Sorrowful
Song, in memory of those lost in
the Holocaust, had worldwide appeal.
The work of all three has a strong
spiritual dimension. Pärt’s characteristic
style, which he calls tintinnabulist, is
inspired by Medieval and Renaissance
music. He turned to these while his
native Estonia was under Soviet occupation.
In several of their works, both
he and Steve Reich have abandoned
harmonic movement by composing long
pieces in a single key. However the fact
that their music is in a key at all makes
it more accessible than that of some
Moderns.
In one way, listening to composers of
the Contemporary period, and even the
Modern, is like visiting an audio show
and looking for innovative gear. You are
bound to find at least one odd-looking
speaker which you would probably not
consider buying but which proves that
audio designers are continuing to push
the creative envelope. If you associate
contemporary music with the weird and
the experimental, you will be confirmed
in this by the work of Sir Harrison
Birtwistle and George Crumb. The
latter explores timbre with spoken flute
(you can imagine the technique) and
glass marbles pouring into a piano. More
accessible may be the music of Thomas
Adès.
My suggestion for this playlist
category would be kuniko plays reich, a
performance on marimba by Japanese
percussionist Kuniko, available in formats
from MP3 to 24/192 FLAC, or as a
physical CD, from Linn Records. Reich
originally wrote Electric Counterpoint,
for guitarist Pat Metheny in 1987, and
Kuniko has arranged it for percussion
with Reich’s approval. The performance
is masterful and the sound is vivid.
Having done this research to make
my own iTunes playlists, I can vouch for
the fact that it works well from several
points of view. It makes it a little easier to
find a given work and it makes it simple
to set up a program of background listening
in one style (although the Modern
and Contemporary pieces tend to vary
a little more than the others). More than
these, it gives me a feel for Western
musical development over time. I think
I listen a little better for that.
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 69
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