"Either/Or, a new and first-rate new-music ensemble"
Bernard Holland, The New York Times
read
the full New York Times review
"Either/Or are making a splash with superb programming etched by some the city’s best musicians....this is a hot new group to watch."
"Once again an unorthodox menu proved successful for Either/Or, fast building a reputation for intriguing concerts constructed from works rarely heard, even in the music mecca of New York."
Bruce Hodges of MusicWeb.UK
"Either/Or have taken on a startlingly ambitious program"
Alan Lockwood of NYPress
- full reviews -
Either/Or Lachenmann Festival at Goethe Institute March 2008
by Bruce Hodges
Last year, Richard Carrick and David Shively, the two founders of Either/Or,
presented the New York premiere of Salut für Caudwell, Helmut Lachenmann's
"deconstruction of Spanish guitar technique," and I secretly
hoped that these two musicians would present it again. Prayers were answered,
and if anything, this reading, virtually one year later, was even more
staggeringly assured. Last year's had a "wow, let's see what we can
find in this piece" sense of adventure, and I was happy to join these
intrepid spelunkers on their quest. But this time, the reading had the
authority of those who have lived with the music and allowed it to penetrate
and develop—much like a string quartet that would rehearse and perform
the late quartets of Beethoven over time.
With the modest space at the Goethe Institut packed like a rock concert,
the room was buzzing with energy, the venerable composer seated in the
very front row. For most of its length, Salut für Caudwell requires
the performers to pluck, rap, scrape and ping the two guitars, only occasionally
using the instrument for its pitch capabilities. Often the performers
will pull the string so far that it snaps violently against the fingerboard,
in effect asking the instrument to demonstrate its percussive range. During
the final five minutes or so, the two players rub the face of the guitars
in precisely prescribed patterns, creating a soft, yet disciplined fabric
of rustling sounds. I have never heard a guitar piece even remotely similar
to what Lachenmann is exploring here, and Carrick and Shively could not
have been more dedicated in pursuing the composer's singular vision.
Lachenmann's Gran Torso (1972), his first string quartet, is assembled
primarily from pressing, scraping and scratching sounds. His second, from
1989 and subtitled Reigen seliger Geister (Dance of the Blessed Spirits)
expands on that language, adding an array of ultra-quiet whooshes and
what sometimes sounds like gas escaping at a low volume. The third, Grido
(2001), to my ears announces a dramatic evolution, with a complex array
of sounds and remarkable detail, with each moment precisely notated for
pitch, volume and attack. The players pluck, thump, knock and scrape the
wood, bowing the strings, the sides, the bridge and the scrolls of their
instruments. Basically any sound that can be made, is made, with melody
receding into the background, and texture, phrasing and color surging
up front. Sometimes it felt as if we were in a darkened room, watching
the four players—Jennifer Choi and Hrabba Atladottir on violins,
Dov Scheindlin on viola and Alex Waterman on cello—playing madly
with a box of lit fireworks.
To call the performance here "alert" would be a huge understatement.
Each member of this outstanding quartet was in keen alignment with the
others, ever-ready to plunge in to the composer's tingling sound world.
This is a work in which phrases are important, but each individual note
as well is freighted with meaning, and although it is dazzling to hear,
it must be a nightmare to learn. The composer, applauding as loudly as
anyone, stood for a huge ovation at the end, with the excited crowd cheering
as he and the quartet were eventually joined by Mr. Carrick and Mr. Shively
for a group bow.
Afterwards, one of the violinists confessed that she didn't quite know
what to think when first confronted with this score, never mind beginning
to rehearse it. Hearing it, I can only empathize with her temporary bafflement,
all the while chuckling at how magnificently she and the three others
exceeded the challenge.
…
Seen
and Heard International Concert Review November 9, 2007
Either/Or Fall Concert
by Bruce Hodges
This
uncompromisingly abstract program once again showed that Either/Or offers
a listening experience unlike any other in New York City. The oldest piece
on the program, Nono’s …sofferte onde serene…, was championed
by Maurizio Pollini, whose classic recording may be the only recording,
and live performances are rare. The sonorities were inspired by bells
audible from the Nono’s home in Venice, and the electronic portion
sometimes duplicates the piano’s timbre, but with extra frequencies
either added or taken away, often seeming to foreshadow some of the concerns
of the spectralist composers. With David Shively monitoring the electronics,
Richard Carrick made the piece sound positively nostalgic. His shimmering
piano tones were in complete contrast to the tape’s primal rumblings.
Carrick’s Duo Flow was constructed for violin and cello, and part
of a longer cycle using various permutations of a string trio, with the
entire piece to be finished next year. It was the gentlest of the works
on the program, and I sometimes thought, Bartók Visits Africa,
acknowledging Carrick’s scholarship and interest in the music of
the Tanzania and elsewhere. Filled with episodes of glissandi and pizzicatos,
the work was lovingly played by violinist Andrea Schultz and cellist Alex
Waterman. I particularly liked a middle section that had the mystery of
some sinister folk song.
Australian-born composer Thomas Meadowcroft (born 1972) has studied with
George Crumb and Brian Ferneyhough, and completed A Vanity Press in Los
Angeles. The material was assembled over a period of seven years, with
the help of Waterman, and includes a panorama of cello sounds, to which
Meadowcroft added tones from a Hammond theatre organ purchased from “a
guy’s grandmother in Orange County.” Waterman came out with
a huge score that dwarfed its music stand, then plunged his cello into
a sea of harmonics, haze, fuzz and raspy textures—an intense, scratchy
trance. From the enthusiastic audience response, it might have been the
evening’s sleeper hit.
Roar – crash – wail comes from an evening-length work called
The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies by John Luther Adams, and it is an
exploration of sound in its purest form. Its three sections are for gong,
cymbals and siren, respectively, all combined with electronics. From an
almost imperceptible rumbling, the first section builds to a thunderous
groan. The second presses cymbals to an outer limit of piercing volume,
as does the final section, which (in this case) percussionist Shively
graciously restrained, so as not to cause neighboring residents undue
alarm. At its peak, a hand-cranked siren can be heard for three-quarters
of a mile. Shively expertly modulated each section, fluidly increasing
the volume and bending over with hunched concentration that at the conclusion,
made him jerk upright and shake to stave off muscle cramps. One could
only admire this kind of dogged focus and devotion to a composer’s
austere, slightly impish vision.
Seen
and Heard International Concert Review April 6, 2007
Either/Or Festival Concert #1
by Bruce Hodges
Shortly after I took my seat for this year’s Either/Or Festival,
a chuckling friend next to me quipped, “I always try to make the
latest crotales premiere.” For those unfamiliar with these small,
high-pitched cymbals struck with mallets, they are often used as piercing
accents, balancing out lower-pitched percussion instruments. But I doubt
most composers would consider writing a piece for crotales alone, as Andrew
Byrne has done in “Cradle Song,” a section of Radiation Studies.
David Shively’s flying hands produced a shrieking mass of metallic,
reverberant overtones, able to cause one’s inner ear to vibrate
unmercifully. (I doubt any babies being rocked to sleep were actually
getting any.) Perhaps I was taking the title too literally, but the relentless
pinging does create the feeling of being irradiated, and even odder, it’s
a sensation I wouldn’t mind experiencing again.
Richard Carrick, the festival’s founder, continued with the tersely
titled ∞+1 (i.e., Infinity Plus One) for solo piano. Beginning with
a sequence of savage chords, the work makes its way though a repeated
note and ends with a section of descending chromatic passages. Some of
Carrick’s concerns seem to be the construction of chords and their
overtones, reverberation – and silence. I heard it almost as a contemporary
piano etude, and the sensitive performance by the composer would surely
be seen as definitive.
Carrick’s relative gentleness was all but blown out of the room
by Alex Waterman’s ferocious reading of Kottos, in which Iannis
Xenakis asks the cellist to pressure the instrument into a sputtering
explosion of harmonics and noise. The unearthly beauty produced seems
borne of a planet in constant, seething turmoil, where snarling, lunging
glissandi are the sounds of the day. I can’t imagine a cellist applying
more dedication than what Waterman unleashed, like Bartók on steroids.
The Title of the Day award went to Nick Didkovsky for If Reptile’s
Organs Thrive, which also seems to resemble some of the subject lines
in recent Internet spam. The multitalented Didkovsky is a software developer
at The Rockefeller University, and the principal author of Java Music
Specification Language. What emerges from his parameters are hundreds,
perhaps thousands of compositional choices, from which he selects the
most interesting ones to organize and notate. Most of these appear to
be short, including one just four or five seconds long; the six sections
last scarcely five minutes. With her superb focus, violinist Andrea Schultz
often seems to be able to play anything, and she and Carrick made these
agitated fragments teem with inner life.
In high contrast after the break, Beat Furrer’s Lied is an outright
homage to Morton Feldman, albeit considerably shorter than the average
Feldman journey. With Carrick in deliberate, squarely planted chords on
piano, Schultz offered quiet tremolos, and occasional pizzicato while
Carrick plucked the strings from the inside. The result had the hushed
simplicity of listening to a lover, whose sleeping breaths fall on a pillow
nearby.
Energy increased again with London-based Christopher Fox and Generic Composition
#3, part of his installation Everything You Need to Know, premiered by
the Ives Ensemble. This portion is written “for a plucked instrument,”
with Mr. Waterman first executing waves of tightly ordered pizzicato patterns,
followed by strummed open strings and loud tapping sounds. By this time,
I suspect that the territory covered by Either/Or had snapped into focus.
But perhaps most astonishing was Mr. Shively in Michael Gordon’s
relentlessly effective XY, a study in varying rhythms for each hand for
five snare drums. Playing it must be nonstop rhythmic torture. (Afterward
I asked Shively about carpal tunnel syndrome, and he confessed that he
had to curtail practicing it for awhile.) Each hand pelts out rhythms,
one phrase swelling over the other, back and forth, Shively’s balletic
foot motions only added to the joy of watching a great musician play an
incredibly demanding piece. At one point Shively sent a drumstick flying,
causing a small gasp in the audience, but he miraculously produced a replacement
and continued without a hitch. Afterward, some of those in the audience
were pondering what New York City percussionists might have the chops
perform it, and only a handful of names came to mind.
The evening ended with Tenso, a study in fury by Mauricio Rodriguez for
percussion, violin (here, the agile and alert Jennifer Choi) and cello,
with all three players offering short bursts of violent noise, separated
by silences. Not coincidentally, Rodriguez studied with Xenakis. Percussion
seems to explode, with violin and cello in intense fortissimo scratches,
creating not so much chords as clouds of harnessed electricity.
Seen
and Heard International Concert Review April 7, 2007
Either/Or Festival Concert #2
by Bruce Hodges
About
halfway through the second of the Either/Or Festival’s two nights,
a friend next to me whispered, “They seem to have found an aesthetic
space that no one else inhabits.” The founders, Richard Carrick
and David Shively, exercised consummate curatorial skill in locating works
that might be lost in other contexts, but seemed strengthened in these.
And if much of the work seemed to explore the fringes of dynamics and
what it means to produce sounds, silence played a crucial role.
Keeril Makan describes 2, for violin and percussion, as “Two performers
locked together as if one, playing music that is too extreme, in which
one section goes to the next without logic, form, gesture, narrative,
or tension and release.” With Shively attacking brass rods
resounding like anvils, and Jennifer Choi matching him in fervent violin
crunches, Makan’s concept reminded me somewhat of the rhythmic virtuosity
of Louis Andriessen’s Workers Union. Later Shively bowed a
large square of rusting steel, in ephemeral union with Choi diving down
to the violin’s lower strings, the two of them ultimately grinding
to a halt as if having moved a huge piece of furniture into place.
Trills are the focus of the first of Massimo Lauricella’s Due Studi
for piano, although as the trills get slower and slower, space appears
in between the rocking notes for small gestures to appear. The second
part is distinguished by cluster chords heavily pedaled, with each finger
releasing its pressure one by one until only a single note remains.
It is a study in repetitive ostinatos, and also in resonance, and Carrick
took great pains to ensure that each effect was meticulously realized.
The word “qualia” refers to the qualitative features of people’s
perceptions, i.e., the feelings of experience rather than the quantitative
or factual material. Mr. Carrick has penned a sheaf of short sections
totaling roughly fifteen minutes, each using different materials that
are somehow related by his treatment of them, rather than the raw elements
themselves. A rough-hewn ostinato fades into delicacy. An
innocuous beginning lurches into an intense climax. Tiny wisps,
seemingly fluttering directionless, suddenly reach a furious conclusion.
Delicate tapping sounds again seem to hover on the edge of some chasm
overlooking a world of quietude. Open-stringed intervals have the
resonance of an ancient chant. Carrick, Choi and Shively were joined
by Alex Waterman on cello for what I heard as one of Carrick’s most
intriguing, enigmatic and eloquent constructions.
But then Carrick and Shively may have trumped themselves with an astonishingly
fluent reading of Helmut Lachenmann’s Salut für Caudwell, for
two guitarists – specifically, two speaking guitarists, and in this
instance, at least one of the musicians only marginally plays guitar.
Lachenmann’s intent was to “systematically dismantle the techniques
and mechanics of Spanish guitar performance practice,” and how he
achieves this makes for mesmerizing listening, but it was equally riveting
watching exactly how the sounds were being formed.
Within a strictly defined rhythmic spine, the two musicians tap the strings
and strum them near the bridge in short bursts, using pieces of metal
or glass to harden the timbres. In the final few minutes, as a sort of
whispering coda, each player used the palm of his hand to pat, rub and
scrape wood in delicate detail around the guitar’s sound hole, all
precisely notated. Afterward I went up to examine the score, marveling
at Lachenmann’s detailed instructions, bar by bar. One friend was
taken aback that the results weren’t aleatoric in the least; every
last second had its tiny place.
Somehow the composer takes elements that could be mundane, and receives
the sublime in return, especially with astute players able to command
exquisite control over almost a half-hour. Acknowledging the staggering
amount of rehearsal time under their belts, I could only shake my head,
and hope that we have another chance to observe this small bit of magic.
Seen
and Heard International Concert Review April 7, 2006
Zorn, Carrick, Sharp, Felsenfeld, Kurtág: Either/Or
by
Bruce Hodges
Once again an unorthodox menu proved successful for Either/Or, fast building
a reputation for intriguing concerts constructed from works rarely heard,
even in the music mecca of New York. Composer John Zorn describes Gri-Gri
as “a very challenging and very difficult polyrhythmic piece for
13 tuned drums.” (Emphasis on the word “very,” used
twice.) Zorn begins with a gleeful moto perpetuo that is soon interrupted
and transformed into complex rhythmic patterns, all with slight variations
in timbre thanks to the variety of instruments. Surrounded by drums, virtuoso
David Shively was in balletic form, effortlessly moving from one to another,
while swapping sticks and turning pages at the same time. This kind of
physicality holds its own magic.
Richard Carrick penned In Flow for violinist Andrea Schultz, who gave it a rapturous, emotional reading. Begun in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, the title refers to the “Flow theory” of psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, “which maps the ideal performance activity onto an x-y chart relating skill level vs. task difficulty.” What Carrick has created sounds in essence like a lyrical etude with vaguely Baroque overtones, as if Bach found himself temporarily transplanted to the top of a Tanzanian cliff. Ms. Schultz was striking in her command, playing with faultless intonation and an exquisite calm.
Perhaps the most unorthodox was Oligosono by Elliott Sharp, here exploring the inherent resonance of piano strings. From a few sequences that constantly mutate and leave overtones in their wake, the illusion gradually develops of a microtonal instrument, even when there is none. Polyrhythmic tremolos surge and ebb, often creating a dense, fuzzy texture that eventually disintegrates into silence. If to my ears it could have been a tad shorter, Sharp’s experiments are almost always fascinating, and Mr. Carrick was (at appropriate times) a demon at the piano, strumming the patterns with an almost obsessive concentration.
First Scenes from Red Room is an intense study for violin and piano, each now joined in synchronicity, then seemingly trying to destroy each other. (It’s not quite as violent as that sounds.) Daniel Felsenfeld uses language that is gently romantic, even intimate, with an abrupt glissando gesture on the violin that keeps reappearing like a water sprite. I found it haunting, especially as delivered by Ms. Shultz and Mr. Carrick. One is left with the feeling that the complete story reveals itself more slowly – that there are other emotions just below the surface – and not a bad reason to hear it again. It’s a tribute to Carrick and Shively (the group’s founders) that much of the evening would make a welcome re-listen.
The cimbalom is an unusual Hungarian instrument with some physical resemblance to the hammered dulcimer. When the strings resonate (here Mr. Shively used soft padded sticks), the twang seems sort of a cross between a harpsichord and a mouth harp. György Kurtág expertly uses this cloudy jangle as a canvas on which to drop the much more focused tones of clarinet and violin, always with his trademark spareness. As in Sharp’s piece, silences are crucial, creating a unique, hovering delicacy. It is no accident that Kurtág is often mentioned in the same breath as Webern, and shares that composer’s preoccupation with the power of miniatures.
The three sets were played with only brief pauses between them (all fourteen segments comprise scarcely fifteen minutes). Using an instrument reconstructed from the best parts of two he had rescued, Mr. Shively was riveting on an instrument that probably not many people in the world even know how to play, and therefore it is unlikely that these little jewels will be performed again soon. Ms. Shultz was again mesmerizing in the tiny Duos, some just seconds long, and the outer sets were given their own peculiar majesty by Anthony Burr, a veteran clarinetist on the New York new music scene. Among his many virtues, Burr has control to spare. It was almost worth the entire evening to watch him end the Three Other Pieces, op. 38a with a spellbinding softness, the room in silent awe as he lowered the bell of his clarinet – a hushed, gripping ending to a concert that in effect, made a much louder noise.
Seen
and Heard International Concert Review April 2005
Voigt, Birtwistle, Ligeti, Feldman: Either/Or
by
Bruce Hodges
The world premiere of Steve Voigt’s blistering Mercury Mirror
made a sensational opening for the latest concert by Either/Or, a New
York group born in 2003 by Richard Carrick and David Shively, who are
making a splash with superb programming etched by some the city’s
best musicians. Voigt’s title comes from Cocteau’s film Orpheus,
in which “a giant tub of mercury was used to create the mirror through
which Orpheus passes into the underworld.” The work opens with a
messily invigorating spray of beaten cymbals, but no instrument is left
unscathed, whether bongos, wood blocks, bells or others – all are
hammered within an inch of their lives. Standing on either side of the
long line of percussion instruments, Al Cerulo and Mr. Shively all but
battered them to a metallic pulp. It may not be a work for the aurally
squeamish, but I found it thrilling.
Next up was an eye-opening Birtwistle piece, also new to me. The title,
Ring a dumb carillon, is extracted from British poet Christopher
Logue’s On a matter of prophecy, excerpted here:
One slow turn of the world. The cromlech
Whirled once nodding and the buttercups
Ring a dumb carillon of gold in his ear,
Chiming against the twist of the world
A wind-honed prophecy, wake him half
Up to see the moon’s white flotsam.
Birtwistle’s intriguing instrumentation uses bass clarinet and percussion
to accompany an intensely difficult vocal line, which soprano Jennifer
Cobb presented with searing accuracy. As I’ve said before, I am
happy to indulge many interpretive choices, but have a narrow tolerance
for fluctuation in intonation, and Ms. Cobb just nailed a part that is
filled with tricky (and wide) intervals illuminating Logue’s knotty
text. Anthony Burr was the superb clarinetist, from an all-but-silent
opening to some of the more frenzied outbursts later, and Mr. Shively
as the alert percussionist.
One of the great advantages of this venue, the white-walled, high-ceilinged
Tenri Institute, is the joy of being able to observe musicians up close
– in this case, close enough to notice that the score to Ligeti’s
Three Pieces for Two Pianos seems to resemble pages from polygraph
test results. Pianists Sandra Brown and Richard Carrick fairly blazed
through these superbly introspective studies, which are typical of the
composer’s trailblazing explorations of timbres and intervals. In
the second (whose title invokes Steve Reich, Terry Riley and Chopin),
the range of pitches is extremely limited, with a long passage using just
five notes in close proximity, rapidly repeated between the two instruments,
producing a buzzing snarl. Notable is the composer’s use of “ghost”
notes, in which the pianist depresses a key with the left hand, while
“playing” it and other notes on either side. (Ms. Brown confided
afterward that it is actually a bit fatiguing on the fingertips to repeatedly
“press” a key that doesn’t move.) The result of this
technique is twofold: an almost inaudible tapping sound is added to the
cloudy mix, as well as a faint sympathetic vibration from the inner “ghost”
string, its hammer constantly touching it – supremely uncomplicated
ideas producing highly complex results.
I feel lucky to have heard not one, but two performances of Morton Feldman’s
Why Patterns? in the same season. Last November the New York
New Music Ensemble paired it with Grisey’s wild Vortex Temporum,
placing the Feldman first, but Either/Or used it to end its program, in
tranquil contrast to the nonstop energy in the first half. With Jane Rigler’s
soft pulsing on flute, Mr. Shively’s meticulously placed glockenspiel
strokes and Mr. Carrick’s carefully modulated piano, the three conjured
up Feldman’s trancelike state with a disarming delicacy.
Tenri is an excellent venue for small events, with a clear and intimate
acoustic and the opportunity to sit just a few feet from the performers.
My eye also wandered, pleasantly, to the current exhibition called Cursive,
by artists D. Dominick Lombardi, Creighton Michael, David Rubin, Hilda
Shen, and Rebecca Smith. Notes on the evening were included in a beautifully
designed printed program – a narrow booklet enclosed in translucent
green paper. Good design is not essential for a great musical experience,
but in this case it seemed like a subtle hint that this is a hot new group
to watch.
NY
PRESS Vol 18 - Issue 13 - March 31-Apr 6, 2005
Either/Or
Last year’s debut recital by Either/Or featured John Cage pieces, several compositions by the then-trio’s cofounder, Richard Carrick, and the work of three other new music composers. This time out, they’ve beefed up their ranks and taken on a startlingly ambitious program. Morton Feldman’s Why Patterns? for flute, piano and percussion was that maverick’s first foray into a grouping he’d use again, not least for the epic For Phillip Guston. Carrick pairs pianos with Sandra Noreen for Gyorgy Ligeti’s Monument-Selbstportrait-Bewegung, the arch-modernist’s nod to avant-gardists like Terry Riley and Steve Reich. Harrison Birtwistle’s Ring a dumb carillon is for clarinet and percussion backing soprano and cofounder Jennifer Cobb’s bracing reading of poet Christopher Logue’s text. Then percussionist Al Cerulo joins the other original Either/Or member, David Shively, for a Steve Voigt duet.
Once Either/Or was underway, Carrick and his cohorts found “almost no literature for our ensemble,” he said on the phone. So in addition to trolling for what could accommodate piano, soprano and percussion, they started getting other musicians aboard (the Birtwistle clarinet part’s played by Anthony Burr, whose double CD of Alvin Lucier pieces in collaboration with cellist Charles Curtis hits next month on Antiopic/Sigma Editions) and setting their sights on some extraordinary music. Carrick noted that the Birtwistle piece gets “pretty dramatic; it’s almost torturous what he does with the text.”
The Ligeti is from 1976, “when he was quite successful but not content to keep doing the same thing,” according to Carrick. “It was his way of looking at the influence of American experimental music. The first movement has octaves everywhere. Then ostinatos come, really dense and exciting. It’s minimalism, but engaging and complex in Ligeti’s way.”
Carrick’s
admiration for Feldman is palpable: “The demands he put in his music
can be incredible. We don’t play all in the same time signature
in the entire piece, and its relationships to free improvisation are pretty
vast. He enjoyed being a permanent outsider in the music world and, like
his late works, Why Patterns? is all about sound.”
***
