|
|
Sunday, March
2, 2003 at 3pm
Zappa
and the Emerging American Composer
Carnegie Hall
Steven
Sloane, conductor
David Moss,
Omar Ebrahim, vocalists
 DAN
COLEMAN: L'alma respira (World premiere. Commissioned by the
Helen F. Whitaker Fund)
HSUEH-YUNG
SHEN: Autumn Fall (World premiere. Commissioned by the Helen F.
Whitaker Fund)
BRIAN ROBISON:
In Search of the Miraculous (World premiere. Commissioned by the
Helen F. Whitaker Fund)
FRANK ZAPPA
arr. Ali N. Askin:
The Adventures
of Greggery Peccary (U.S. Premiere)
G-Spot Tornado
The Dog Breath
Variations/Uncle Meat (a.k.a. Dog/Meat) (NY Premiere)
Peaches en
Regalia (U.S. Premiere)
Digging
the Nuggets
by Daniel Felsenfield
It is a
strange image: Frank Zappa seated next to Pierre Boulez. Boulez looks
avuncular and charming, Zappa hirsute, gaunt, legs crossed, somewhat
terrifying. Appearances aside, these two artists have both everything
and nothing in common: Zappa, the angry iconoclast with a guitar, a
one-man Brecht/Weill/Spike Jones (the list goes on) simultaneously
seeking and disparaging academic acceptance; Boulez, his own brand of
iconoclast, with the legendary ear and more legendary aesthetic fury.
Now, ten years
after Zappa's death, it isn't strange to think of him as a composer
of concert music. We watched him age and make the move, as often
happens, from outspoken young freak to sated elder statesman. In his
younger days - aside from isolated concerts Zappa and his band gave
with Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic (which Zappa
launched by saying "Hit it, Zubin!") - Zappa the rock
musician was, in the public eye, a very different person from the
late-night downstairs scribbler of concert music ("dots on
paper," as he called it).
One of the
most admirable things about Zappa's concert music, creativity and
aesthetics aside, is the sheer amount he wrote. Like Mozart or
Beethoven before him (and please pardon the comparison, which may
raise a few hackles), he led a life devoted solely, almost
monastically, to music: he never gave into the ruinous temptations or
"bad boy" behavior that too often accompanies fame, and to
which many of his rock contemporaries fell victim. After all, time
spent stoned would have cut into his time to compose. Instead of
becoming just another victim of the counterculture (a culture he
participated in and helped to create, yet which he at the same time
mocked avidly - a typical Zappa dichotomy), he worked at his craft,
writing complex "pieces" for his menacingly talented band
rather than making millions with love songs and catchy hits.
And then
there's the variety of Zappa's output: "operas" like Joe's
Garage, Thingfish and Uncle Meat; jazz recordings
like "Hot Rats" and "Jazz from Hell";
straightforward rock albums like "We're Only in it for the
Money" and "Freak Out"; innumerable live records like
"Broadway the Hard Way" and the "You Can't Do That on
Stage Any More" series. But most intriguing, at least for the
present forum, are records with the titles "Frank Zappa Conducts
the London Symphony Orchestra," "Strictly Genteel" and
"The Yellow Shark." These discs represent Zappa the
"serious" composer, and they comprise a recorded legacy
that would make even the most avant of the avant-garde envious -
particularly because Zappa was an unabashed rocker who never had any
serious academic training (barring a few theory lessons). But this
member of the great unwashed redefined the notion of
"longhair" music, bringing serious composition to the
post-peace-and-love generation.
"The
origin of much of the music people are familiar with was for the
orchestra," says Gail Zappa, his widow and keeper-of-the-flame,
"but [the individual pieces] were reconstituted for whatever
band Frank had going at the time." Near the end of his life, he
made a transition from notated music to full use of the Synclavier
synthesizer. But to the end, and for whatever available forces, it
seems Frank Zappa was always composing. In his book, The Real
Frank Zappa Book (which hovers between confession, manifesto and
a handbook for life) he writes: " 'What do you do for a living,
Dad?' If any of my kids ever asked me that question, the answer would
have to be: 'What I do is composition.' " He goes on: "I
love putting little black dots on music paper. I'd sit for sixteen
hours at a time, hunched over a chair with a bottle of India ink, and
draw beams and dots. No other activity could have enticed me away
from the table. I'd maybe get up for coffee or to eat, but other than
that, I was glued to the chair for weeks and months on end, writing music."
It is as a
composer of "classical" or "art" music that Zappa
most often showed his serious side - and he did have one. Even on
early releases like "Freak Out" and "Lumpy Gravy"
the musicians in the studio were reading from scores, and you can
hear references to Stravinsky, Bartók and Varèse in
"songs" like "Help, I'm a Rock" and the musical
tales of an adventurous groupie called Suzie Creamcheese. A recently
re-released 1999 CD featuring Ensemble Modern and called
"Everything is Healing Nicely" is mostly for diehard fans,
but those interested in Zappa's dots will welcome it. It's an
intentionally unpolished record, a set of basement tapes for the
high-art set, but that is the greater portion of its charm. You can
hear Zappa dealing with the Ensemble Modern, exacting precise
performances from this fearless group in his own fashion. Listen to
the lilting melody in "Amnerika Goes Home" - Zappa, the
ironist who never wrote a love song, could write as breathtaking a
melody as anyone. It's so gorgeous, so long and Puccini-like, that it
makes one wonder what he could have done had he devoted himself just
a little more seriously to concert music.
"The
present-day composer refuses to die." These words of Edgard
Varèse, Zappa's hero, are true of Zappa tenfold. The man
refuses to die, and not in legacy: the depth of Zappa's output is
still being discovered. Down in "the vault," a
temperature-controlled basement in the composer's Southern California
home, hundreds of new pieces are being unearthed.
Why is Zappa,
the ultimate fly in the ointment, still so inscrutable ten years
after his death? And, frankly (mind the pun), what makes this
oh-so-public figure so difficult to write about? His was a talent -
more like a set of talents - impossible to nail down. He is the
artist you love to hate to love to hate to love; our collective
opinion, as a classical music culture, of the man seems to shift
daily. His art was lent currency by the Boulez seal of approval, but
since his death, and as his legacy becomes clearer over time, his
place in the classical music world grows more and more vague.
There is a
photo. In the background, Ensemble Modern rehearses; inconspicuously
lurking in the foreground is Zappa, back to us, beside a table strewn
with multiple coffee cups, a case of cigarettes and an ashtray. He is
listening, taking the traditional seat of the composer - not leading
the band, not angling for attention, but sitting with his scores and
being mindful of the ensemble's efforts.
But very
likely, back in his very individual brain, lurks the same thought
that many a great artist has: he probably wishes he could be home
working, creating more music. That's all this man ever did. And like
him or not, agree or disagree with his politics or aesthetics or the
personal "pissed-off" chip-on-shoulder vibe he seemed to
carry around, he left us a generous and carefully crafted batch of
highly original music. This is as much as can be said about any great artist.
Thanks, Frank.
This
article originally appeared, in a different form, on andante.com,
and is reproduced with permission.
Composer
Daniel Felsenfeld comes originally from California, where he earned
his BFA at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He received
a Master's degree from the New England Conservatory of Music, for
which is currently completing his DMA thesis. Danny has had
fellowships at the Composer's Conference and the MacDowell Colony. |
