We’re follow­ing this little scandal with interest over here at Andres & Sons Bakery Enter­prises LLC. I can’t seem to bring myself to feel terribly passion­ately one way or another; I think it’s best to approach these situ­a­tions logi­cally. Yes, it’s disap­point­ing when a musician or artist “phones it in”; it’s also incred­i­bly common. People seem to be quite miffed about it, though, so the gracious thing for Golijov to do would be to return most of the commis­sion fee, simply for failing to fulfill his contract (which I assume included language about writing original music). Maybe hold on to a couple grand to serve to compen­sate him as orchestrator/arranger.

photo: WMUR New Hampshire

Today I have a present for you which I think you will like. That’s correct, a song I wrote! 

Timo Andres: Two River Songs — II. I am Bound

It’s a setting of an inscrip­tion by Thoreau, from A Week on the Concord and Merri­mack Rivers. Recorded in live perfor­mance by the young baritone Daniel Schwait (who also happens to be my first cousin!) and my frequent collab­o­ra­tor Tema Watstein on violin. 

I am freshly back from an adven­ture in Iowa with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony, listen­ing at home to their perfor­mance of Bathtub Shrine. The CD appeared in my dressing room when I went to pack up after the concert. That’s how you should do it, orchestras! 

Timo Andres: Bathtub Shrine

Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony, Jason Wein­berger, conduc­tor

Over the past couple of out-of-town jaunts I’ve been reading Ishig­uro’s The Uncon­soled, at the recom­men­da­tion of my friend Carl Willat. It’s the third of his books I’ve read, and by far the strangest—it pulls off the trick of being fasci­nat­ing and will­fully boring at the same time. What initially drew me in is that it’s about a composer-pianist (!) who visits an unnamed city to give a Very Impor­tant Concert. I’m not implying that my out-of-town expe­ri­ences have been anything like the events in the book (really! Don’t take this the wrong way!) but I know it will resonate with any of you itin­er­ant musi­cians. There are some passing details which I know composers will enjoy, too, such as an extended debate about musical theory in which the theo­ret­i­cal concepts and terms are all fictional. 

Now it’s back to the grind­stone; looks as though the next few weeks will be free to compose. I have just deliv­ered a new piece to the Cadillac Moon Ensemble, called Trade Secrets; the parts for Old Keys are mailed out; and the wonder­ful Kristin Lee is playing a short piece I wrote for her this week at a Metrop­o­lis Ensemble fundraiser, though the public-at-large will have to wait to hear it. 

Which reminds me, hearti­est congrat­u­la­tions to Andrew Cyr and Kate Gilmore, who have just produced a baby boy!

Welcome back to this episode of new music video hour! We’ve got some­thing pretty special today: a new video from our friends The Living Earth Show (Andy and Travis) playing my new piece, You broke it, you bought it, backed up by a band of skele­tons, minerals, and model organs. Here, look: 

Which leads us to another video, this one of a live perfor­mance of my Coro­na­tion Concerto re-compo­si­tion this past Septem­ber with Metrop­o­lis Ensemble. Listen up around 11:52 for the passage on which the previous piece is entirely based: 

I know I’ve been spamming you all about this in every conceiv­able way, but just in case you haven’t heard: 

I’m playing a last-minute show on Saturday, January 28 (this Saturday!) at 92YTribeca at 200 Hudson St. in New York. Opening act is the trio New Morse Code (viola, cello, percus­sion) at 9 PM; I’ll go on at 10. The core of my set is the US première of a wonder­ful piece by the young British composer Martin Suckling called Lieder Ohne Worte (Songs Without Words). This will be nestled amongst some “wordless songs” by Schubert (the Impromptu Op. 90 no. 3, Liszt’s tran­scrip­tion of Ständ­chen) and me (At the River, and Fast Flows the River, for which I’ll be joined by my frequent and longtime collab­o­ra­tor Hannah Collins on cello). 

And hey, if it turns out you hate it, you can always sneak next door for the “Beaches sing and cry along”.

I was recently alerted, via a reader, to the most hilar­i­ously over-the-top bad review I’ve ever received. For poster­i­ty’s sake, here’s the excerpt in full: 

…the evening’s major offense [was] Timothy Andres’s “Crashing Through Fences” for piccolo, glock­en­spiel, and drums, a brain-damaging assault on listen­ers’ delicate hearing and sound-center process­ing apparati. This terror­is­tic thought exper­i­ment in cogni­tive disso­nance and shock would’ve been best left as such. As it was, its perfor­mance did more than simply produce headaches; it made more than one listener disori­ented and distressed. Andres’s tech­nique was simple: Juxta­pose soft and subtle high-kHz sounds with unpre­dictably occur­ring percus­sions most remi­nis­cent of random gunshots. In an era in which terror is no figment, one hopes that malev­o­lent govern­ments don’t get hold of Andres’s score, and that he doesn’t receive a contract from the C.I.A. to develop the musical equiv­a­lent of water­board­ing torture devices.

If you’re reading this, and you’re from the CIA, call me and we’ll work out a licens­ing deal? You already have my number.

I’m having a week of domes­tic­ity and editing: baking bread, doing laundry, and finish­ing up my piece for the Los Angeles Chamber Orches­tra. I’ve dragged out the state of being “nearly done” with this piece for months, somehow; it’s one of those crea­tures that you can’t leave alone, other­wise it’s suddenly in the corner doing some­thing terribly risky with an elec­tri­cal cord. Every page presents its own set of problems, some more easily remedied than others (why on earth are the clar­inets marked ‘arco’? And how can this modu­la­tion feel totally earned?).

The other thing to worry about at this step is giving the piece a title. I’m finicky about what I call my pieces (and what other composers call theirs—let me know if you need some pointed crit­i­cism). I don’t think a title actually has to bear too much on the substance of the piece. It’s more about spurring a kind of process with a few words, because you can’t very well just change the title after every­thing’s done. It’s got to make an initial impres­sion, perhaps be unique or memo­rable, but then you’ve got to be able to live with it. The best titles take on their own meaning over time, distinct from the meaning of the words them­selves, more to do with the music. A side benefit of having a solid title is that it can contribute to the popu­lar­ity of a piece (see: Short Ride in a Fast Machine, any of the “named” Beethoven sonatas, etc.).

The words I’m turning over in my head right now are “boulder pushing”. Titles can predate the pieces they suit, some­times by years. “Boulder pushing” has been a sticky note on my desktop for at least that long; before that it was inex­plic­a­bly a repeat­ing event in my calendar; I think one of my brothers must have put it in there. It fits the musical substance of this piece, much of which has to do with a feeling of grav­i­ta­tional pull—gradually speeding up as it works its way from high to low, or vice versa. Sections almost never sit still, instead agitat­ing to move on to the next thing. The themes are quite simple in them­selves (one of them is an arpeg­giated triad) but are constantly overlaid with copies of them­selves, often at differ­ent tempi and in differ­ent keys, grad­u­ally accruing tension and momentum. These kind of gestures are rooted in my obses­sion with Ligeti’s music, one of the best at imbuing register with meaning.

Boulder Pushing sounds diffi­cult, arduous, not like some­thing to which one would will­ingly subject oneself (it’s no Tod und Verk­lärung, but still). That said, it’s a piano concerto we’re talking about. Is there any clas­si­cal form more asso­ci­ated with struggle, weight, even heroism? Then again, isn’t all that a bit romantic, old-fash­ioned, Sturm und Drang for 2011? I’m going to be playing this thing, after all, and doesn’t it seem egoma­ni­a­cal to cast oneself in such a role? Maybe I’m thinking about this entire thing too liter­ally, too program­mat­i­cally. It’s not as though this piece has a story. It’s abstract, about form, gesture, process…I’m a serious composer. Wait, did I really just say that out loud?

Thinking about titles can get you into these self-defeat­ing knots. That’s why you some­times have to surren­der to the visceral, intu­itive choice. Over-thought titles are the worst.

My friend Aaron over at WQXR sent me some ques­tions regard­ing Sunday’s Beethoven orgy. And here is what I answered:

1. How did you meet Beethoven? 

When I was eight, I came home from having oral surgery to find volume I of Beethoven’s sonatas waiting on the piano—a conva­les­cence gift from my parents. I sat down and started to sight-read them, starting with Op. 2, and I haven’t stopped.

2. Why did you pick this sonata(s)?

The two sonatas I picked are a study in oppo­sites: the Wald­stein is grand, virtu­osic, popular, boldy exper­i­men­tal, and in the bright, familiar key of C major. It’s Beethoven at his most joyous—the joy of playing the piano, and of being alive.

Op. 78 is tiny (just ten minutes), little-known (unde­servedly), and in the exotic key of F sharp. The first movement is an oddly textbook sonata form (two repeats!), the mature composer demon­strat­ing his facility through humble, almost ascetic means. Appar­ently it was one of his own favorites of the 32, and I can under­stand why; it has the contained bril­liance of a preco­cious child.

There’s some overlap, though. Both sonatas have a certain sense of melodic ease that didn’t always come natu­rally to Beethoven. They mostly forgo the char­ac­ter­is­tic mood­i­ness of the Tempest or Appas­sion­ata, and lack the contra­pun­tal rigor that marks the later sonatas. And they have that endear­ing Teutonic sense of humor; the fake-out at the reca­pit­u­la­tion of the Wald­stein, the goofy chro­matic flights in Op. 78’s scherzo.

3. What does Beethoven mean to you today?

I think pretty much the same thing Beethoven has always meant to everyone: a composer who wrote fasci­nat­ing, strange, amazing music.

Took a bike jaunt up to Inwood yester­day to visit the Bros. Kaplan. We drank some cham­pagne, ate some pork with pork on it, played some Beethoven. It was my first time visiting Inwood, which is about 20 miles from my place, so I spent the night. The weather was tremen­dous for the ride back to Brooklyn this morning. I took a few photos with my phone: 

The fog on the Hudson reminded me of this Simon & Garfunkel song: 

I stopped for lunch at one of my favorite China­town holes in the wall, Pros­per­ity Dumpling. Sesame pancake sand­wiches with five-spice pork and vegetables.