Miss Piggy Lunchbox

From Gregorian Chant all the way up through Mahler and Strauss at the very beginning of the 20th century, music had gradually added dissonance and stretching of harmony and melody in what amounts to a sort of evolution. As human ears became accustomed to certain tonal structures, composers were able to make things exciting by breaking a few of the old rules, ears adjusted, and so on. This isn’t earth-shattering and you can hear the same effect in comparing popular music of today to that of 50 years ago.

The point at which the wheels came off the gradual-and-natural-evolution train, however, was with Arnold Schoenberg, who examined this gradualness and decided that he might as well be a millennium ahead of his time and just throw off tonality altogether. Of course, it doesn’t really work like that…things happen gradually for a reason and you can’t, for the most part, jump all of the musical world forward several hundred years.

Curiously, though, Schoenberg was quite celebrated in his time. While his giant leap forward in harmony might have been a bit much, he enables the listener to come with him by emphasizing beautiful static sounds and graspable melodies throughout his 5 Pieces For Orchestra from 1909. When you listen to it now, in fact, you realize how much modern music owes to Schoenberg.

Without this piece, composed well before Schoenberg’s conception and articulation of “12-tone music,” film music wouldn’t sound the same, nor would the music of cartoons. Consider Bugs Bunny walking along while Elmer Fudd shoots at him, anvils fall from the sky, and animals run off cliffs only to be suspended in mid-air for several seconds. The music accompanying these scenes, with its quick and quickly-changing motifs is straight out of this work. He eventually leads you down into the same deep, dark hole that Berg does to open the disc, but he’s at least holding his hand as he gradually takes you further and further from the life you once knew and might never see again.

Schoenberg’s students in what was dubbed the Second Viennese School (the first being loosely comprised of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven), Alban Berg and Anton Webern, on the other hand…well, they’re a little harder to get your head around. Berg’s contribution here, his 3 Pieces For Orchestra, originally composed in 1914 but revised in 1929 (which is the version on this disc), is particularly abstruse. It is grandly symphonic, a sonic maelstrom with no life presevers in the form of melodies or static beauty to guide you through. If you want to listen to this, it’s put your head down, lean into the wind, and push through. Its final part is militant both in its sometimes, but not for long, march feel and in the unpredictable explosions and cacophony, the sonic equivalent of what the middle of a World War I cannon bombardment must have felt like…and it was written around the time of Germany’s march through Europe in 1914. I like it more and more with each listen, as its ominous flower of darkness is slowly opening itself up to me, but it’s still tough.

If you know anything about Webern, it’s that he was a miniaturist, composing very short works, some only a few seconds long, that laid out his musical thought quickly with little to no development. As with Schoenberg’s 12-tone system, though, throw that notion away for this CD because Webern’s composition, 6 Pieces For Orchestra, was written before then, though all but one of the Pieces are still quite short, ranging from 0:55 to 2:33. They all stem from the death of his mother, and you can hear the seeds of his later work here as he wastes no time in explicating each emotion succinctly. There’s nothing traditionally beautiful here, but a wide range of sounds is produced, from a bubbling, percolating muck (II), to a gargantuan sounding funeral march whose climax is nearly deafening (IV), to chords upon chords layered in such a way that they simply refuse to resolve, bringing to mind a sumptuous but unsatisfying infinity. It is equal parts mystifying and palpably close to something familiar. Here, Webern lies nearly halfway between the now-everywhere sounds of Schoenberg and the total mindf**k of Berg.

One of the comparisons that leads off Alex Ross’ history of 20th Century classical music is that modern music is the analogue to modern film, dance, and visual art…not just in that it’s new, but in that the 20th century has seemingly produced art that has been so violently opposed to what came before it. I agree. This is absolutely the analogue to Kandinsky, Pollock, and David Lynch: there are parts that excite you, but it’s more about color, maybe a little about form, and less about some cohesive representativeness…and since music was always the least representative of all art forms (save possibly dance), the revolt against the structures that were there seem even more revolutionary.

One final note that I can’t fit in anywhere else. I love that James Levine conducted these pieces. Not because I think his interpreations are fine (I have no point of comparison) or that he’s one of my favorite conductors (I just don’t have enough data to really form an opinion on that), but just because I heard him speak when I lived in Boston (where he is now Music Director of the BSO), and found him to be intelligent, articulate, and quite likeable despite (or maybe because of) disagreeing with certain musical opinions of his. It was an intellectually challenging, enlightening, and mildly disturbing experience…much like this album.

Rating:

Mixers: ha, yeah right
Non-keepers: 3 Pieces For Orchestra III; 6 Pieces For Orchestra V, VI; 5 Pieces For Orchestra IV, V
Filed Between: Ben Folds Five (Whatever And Ever Amen) and The Best of Both Worlds – The Rykodisc and Hannibal World Music Sampler

I got this two-disc set for Mahler’s eighth symphony, more often referred to as the Symphony of a Thousand since it premieried with 171 instrumentalists and a chorus of about 850. It’s a monster-sized symphony and widely regarded as one of the canonical pieces that would influence, directly and indirectly, most other 20th century classical pieces. The eighth’s reputation is well deserved, as I’ve never heard anything quite like it, however I came away from this recording more enamored with Mahler’s fourth symphony.

The fourth premiered in 1901 and is simultaneously gorgeous, unpredictable, and immediately accessible. Its four movements hold tight to traditional symphonic form. The main themes are comfortably tonic, but Mahler’s development of them introduces touches of dissonance here and there that bring an air of excitedness to modern ears. The list of symphonies I’m familiar with is very short, but this is almost certainly my favorite of that small bunch.

The lengthy eighth symphony is accompanied by a chorus nearly thoughout its entire 80 minutes. It is divided into two parts and, by its extensive use of vocal soloists, is reminiscent of cantatas from centuries earlier. The eighth is a difficult, challenging listen. I’m talking straight from Algebra to Calculus hard. This symphony will make you feel stupid…honestly, I think it’s very similar brain patterns to that lost-in-math-class feeling.

Like all challenging music, it sounds better if you’re paying attention to it rather than focusing on some other task while it’s playing in the background. The first part is bold proclamations layered upon bold proclamations topped with even bolder proclamations. It places a strong emphasis on choral harmonies and themes, especially prior to the wacky, Debussy-esque orchestral interlude midway through. The last nine minutes are fabulously majestic.

The second part uses the text from the final scene of Goethe’s Faust, complete with choruses of angels, blessed boys, younger angels, penitents, “more perfect angels.” The first 14 minutes are quite enjoyable. It contrasts with the first part by starting slowly and quietly, with a lone, trembling violin and continues in dramatic, suspenseful fashion. The final 10 minutes, with their glorious climax, are brilliant. I defy you to listen to that many choral members sing the praises of pagan gods and not come away spiritually moved. The 36 minutes or so in the middle, though, are quite ponderous and dense. I’m talking four-dimensional geometry from a translated Soviet-era textbook hard. You’ll walk away from this part not quite sure what you just heard, whether you understood it, or whether there was really anything to understand, but convinced that there was definitely a lot of something there.

The sound on these recordings from the 1980’s is amazing. The performances are note perfect and every participant can be heard clearly. If I close my eyes I can see all 1000 performers crammed into my office.

Rating:

Keepers: Symphony 4, Movements 1, 2, and 4, Symphony 8, Part 1: “Veni, Creator Spiritus,” “Imple superna gratia,” “Veni, Creator Spiritus” (again), “Gloria Patria Domino,” Part 2: “Waldung sie schwankt heran,” “Uns bleibt ein Erdenrest,” “Blicket auf zum Retterblick,” “Alles Vergängliche”
Filed Between: Made In MN—Everything From A To Z (a two-disc Minnesota music sampler put out by Best Buy) and Main Stage Live—Falcon Ridge Folk Festival

Just in case you weren’t quite sure that I would buy absolutely anything that Melvins put out, here I am reviewing The Making Love Demos, which are “mastered” versions of four-track demos the band recorded in 1987. Furthermore, these aren’t even mastered from the original four-track tapes, which have been lost, but are instead taken from a cassette the band gave their friend Brian Walsby 20 years ago. Finally, the only way to get this CD is to buy it with Walsby’s book, Manchild 3.

So that’s what I did.

The book is filled with Walsby’s drawings and thoughts on music and his life. The style is that of a comic book, but I get the feeling Walsby would bristle at the term. The biggest section is a journal of Walsby’s trip on a Melvins tour through the South a few years ago. At one point he talks about how each night they would create a single t-shirt with markers, making it as offensive as possible and pricing it really high to see if it sold. It always did, according to Walsby, and I can’t help but think that this shirt that I own (except that mine is white) came out of this process. Honestly, I’m surprised I haven’t bought a Melvins turd yet. (Although I suppose most people would say that any CD by Melvins is a turd.)

Some of these songs came out on 1989’s Ozma, recorded with a different bassist. That album was ostensibly recorded in a studio and all, but it sounds an awful lot like this, which also sounds a lot like 1987’s Gluey Porch Treatments and 1986’s Six Songs. The point being, for anything that Melvins recorded in the 80’s, the sound quality just doesn’t matter. They hadn’t yet figured out how to sound like they sounded like crap by sounding awesome, they kind of just sounded like crap and, noise merchants that they were, a poor recording environment just sounded like it was intentional, and it probably was, for all I know.

And even though this sounds like crap, it’s still awesome in a way only Melvins can be. In the 80’s they were at their bombastic, amelodic worst, but somehow, through the din, it all worked. Melvins have always been the superlatives of unlistenable music, and that alone makes them magnificent. The fact that it’s all really good and, given enough time, listenable, and the fact that they’ve changed so much and yet remained completely on the fringes of the music world in the last 20 years makes them a truly historic movement worthy of being placed in the highest tiers of music’s long and storied history.

Manchild wasn’t an unenjoyable read, but I didn’t need it. Really, guys, you could out-do your forebearers, Kiss, and brand a turd and I’d buy it. At this rate, it does seem they will release Fecal Matter at some point, which I really would rush out and buy.

Rating:

Mixers: How many Melvins demos from a 1987 cassette do you think would work well on a mix? Although, “Creepy Smell,” “My Small % Shows Most,” and “Repulsion” came close.
Non-keepers: “Dime Lined Divide”
Filed Between: A Senile Animal and Melvins+Lustmord (Pigs Of The Roman Empire)