A Feast of New Music
he fashion today is that everything have had a more conventional career ; it is
must be radical and new . They are our good fortune that he chose to devote
not the same thing . "Radical" himself to creating music rather than play-
means a return to roots, and "new" means ing the standard repertory .
"Improvisation" is a loaded word, and
something that has never happened
before . By these definitions, most of the Goldstein was careful to explain, in a
music performed in Santa Fe last month wide-ranging discussion the day after his
concert, that freedom does not mean anar-
was neither, some was one or the other,
but a surprising amount was excellent . chy . While the performer does have
An event that was interesting but choice about what sound he will play at
any given moments, the parameters of the
neither radical nor new was the perfor-
piece are defined by the composer .
mance by Bay area, avant-garde com-
poser Lou Harrison and the Mills College In this, Goldstein is literally radical but
not new, in that sense of returning to roots .
Gamelan . Following in the footsteps of
Haydn, Pierne, De Falla and Satie, Har- Baroque music is exactly composed, but
with plenty of space for the creativity of
rison presented a puppet opera, Richard
Whittington, utilizing a text by John the performer .
Masefield, the gamelan, and voices . The Goldstein's performance shone with an
intensity and sonority that was totally
flat shadow puppets, held up against a
silken screen and lighted from behind, satisfying, whether in his ensemble com-
were traditional, but elsewhere Harrison positions, which included taped sounds
cross-cultured with a vengeance . The only and sometimes slide projections, or in the
things new were the gamelan instruments mesmerizing Soundings, in which Gold-
which are now made in the U .S . They are stein thoroughly explored the possibilities
aluminum which produces a lighter, of the violin . One would not have been
brighter tone than the traditional in- surprised to see flames coming out of the
struments of brass and iron . But cross instruments, or his ears, or both!
cultural synthesis, no matter how con- Space limitations always dictate severe
sciously done, takes generations and choices, and I have reserved little of it for
many practitioners before it jells, as has the "stars" of Tone Roads West, poet/com-
happened in jazz . The gamelan is no ex- poser Jackson MacLow and poet Carolyn
ception . Forche . I felt it was more important to
What disappointed this listener was that discuss New Mexico-based artists .
the whole thing was so undeveloped . Har- At 60, Jackson MacLow is still a search-
rison is a gifted composer, but with so ing, questing man, and he won all hearts
magnificent an instrument, as well as ade- when, during a discussion with Malcolm
quate voices, he seems to have merely Goldstein, he reminded us : "Whatsoever
sketched instead of creating a fully re- thy hand findeth to do, do it with they
alized work . might ." If there are any rules to art, this is
Oriental arts are in no hurry, traditional a cardinal one, and MacLow knows this
puppet shows often last from dusk to to the marrow of his bones . The results,
dawn, and there is little connection bet- however, were equivocal . MacLow is
ween their concepts of action, tension and noted for his explorations of verbal sounds
release, and ours . Richard Whittington is divorced from conventional meaning . This
more narrated than acted, and tended is fascinating to the person who is doing it,
toward what we, with our saturated senses but not usually transferable .
and television nurtured impatience, Carolyn Forche is a thoughtful and
would call boring . Many of the patrons, forceful person, as indicated by the talk
who had laid out $8, walked out . she gave on El Salvador and in a smaller
discussion on the same somber topic . I did
not hear her read because I was simply too
exhausted . Mea culpa . '
"Sounds are excellent (of themselves)" There is also little space to talk about
said grand old composer of the avant- the pride of poets from New Mexico who
garde, John Cage . So they proved during read . The most forceful was Joy Harjo who
Tone Roads West, the marathon poetry combined rhythmic vitality with non-
and music festival put together by Santa cliche imagery . The gods be thanked, she
Fe composer Peter Garland, poet Arthur did not read (as so many do) in one of
Sze and indefatigable administrator those wispy, apologetic, high little girl
Suzanne Jamison . This was the first time voices that reminds one of Jackie Ken-
an event of this nature has taken place in nedy .
Santa Fe, and it is to be hoped the funding The final event of the Festival was a per-
will be forthcoming to make it an annual formance by Charles Amirkhanian of
bash . Of the five concerts given over four Berkeley of a work utilizing tape, "music,"
days, three were exciting . Honors were text-sound, and projections by Carol Law .
divided among Santa Fe composers This reminded me of the chic/hip
Joseph Weber and Peter Garland, and underground movies I used to see at the
Boston composer-violinist Malcolm Gold- old Italian Hall in North Beach in the'50s .
stein, making his first Southwestern ap- Not a cliche was missed . The money
pearance . would have been much better spent to
Weber is a lanky, flame-haired and bring Pauline Oliveros or Kay Gardner to
bearded man in whom time and fortune the Festival . While the organizers were
have created some flame-like opinions careful to include a female poet at every
and a certain bittersweet tension . Born in reading, it still apparently did not occur
Antioch, California, he attended San to anybody that women write music .
Francisco State University, where his Tone Roads West was preceded by the
teacher was the composer Roger Nixon . world premiere at C .G . Rein Gallery of
His peers during the yeasty time of the Woody Vasulka's video "opera" The Com-
'60s were such now recognized composers mission .
as Loren Rush, Steve Reich, and Pauline The plot is operatic indeed : the 19th
Oliveros . century composer Hector Berlioz was
The comparison will doubtless not ostensibly commissioned to compose a
please him, but Weber's performance of his work for the notorious violinist Niccolo
own compositions on piano and the St . Paganini who was very widely believed to
Francis Auditorium organ inevitably be the devil . The commission turned out to
reminded me of the work of former Santa be a fraud . Even more bizarre was the
Fe/Taos composer Tom Ehrlich . There is odyssey of Paganini s corpse, with which
the driving energy, the extended, The Commission is largely concerned .
marvelously arched line, the sonority. If music is "organized sound", as
Weber gladly admits the influence of Edgard Varese averred, then The Com-
Debussy on his work, and the result is missions is a musical work . But it was more
pure delight . electronically manipulated chant and nar-
Driving energy is also evident in razor- rative . As with most endeavors in this
thin, 30 year old Peter Garland, who may field, because it was done by a person not
not make 40 unless he learns to pace principally a composer, it was peculiarly
himself . He is certainly full of passionate truncated and undeveloped ; splendid op-
intensity, and his music is compelling . portunities to play with sound were al-
While his earlier piano/harp pieces are lowed to slide by .
wonderfully lyrical, his more recent work, However, video is not basically sound
particularly Matachin Dances (played by but image . In The Commission, montage,
Malcolm Goldstein and Lynn Case, with crosscut, wipe, fade and computer
Garland handling the gourd rattles), is manipulation of image were used to the
one of the few really successful uses of hilt . The imagery was sometimes riveting,
"ethnic" materials by an "Anglo" com- but just as often exhausting . No matter
poser . how accustomed one is to television com-
Energy as pure delight is again ap- mercials, scores and scores of images
plicable to the dazzling work of Malcolm flashed rapidly upon the retina is
Goldstein who flinches at being called a overload .
virtuoso . There is no doubt that he could - Joanne Forman
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