Part One: A Biography. Henry Cowell was born in Menlo Park, March 11, His parents were relocated from

Transcription

1 Luke Barnes Seminar Will Johnson Part One: A Biography Henry Cowell was born in Menlo Park, March 11, His parents were relocated from Iowa. His mother, Clarissa Dixon, was a schoolteacher and wrote some of the earliest feminist novels. His father, Harry Cowell, was an Irish immigrant. They were both political writers of sorts and neither believed in conventional schooling. Cowell s mother provided him with an education in the rural cottage they lived in. Musically, his father introduced the young Cowell to Irish folk music, whilst his mother introduced him to Ozark songs and other music. Cowell also had Asian playmates growing up, so songs and other music of the orient became familiar to him as well. In 1903, Cowell s parents divorced, and he lived with his mother till maturity. When he was five, he decided to take up violin. After three years, he quit when he was eight. Cowell later stated that his instructor was very old when he took up lessons with him. His teacher had no interest in modernism whatsoever. He even went as far as restricting Cowell from playing Schubert. His instructor thought Schubert was even too modern. Thus, stifled, Cowell quit the violin and moved on. With his interest in music, and very little training, Cowell started composing in his teenage years. In 1912, Cowell saved some money and bought a second hand piano. Dated in 1914, Cowell composed some of his earliest compositions. One of these was Anger Dance, a piano composition that is supposed to repeat as many times as the player wants (to get it out of his system). The story behind this piece involves an injured Cowell. He went to

2 the Doctor and had a broken leg. The Doctor insisted that he have it amputated (he did not believe it would heal), which Cowell refused. So, Cowell, on his crutches and went home. He went to the piano and pounded out the composition. He said it was what he felt after the Doctor s diagnosis. Also, in the fall of 1914, Henry Cowell was admitted into U.C. Berkley. He was enrolled to study (and be the protégé) of Charles Seeger. There, at Berkley, he had the first studies in music ever. He took harmony and general music studies from Seeger and Edward Stricklen. His counterpoint teacher is listed as Wallace Sabin. In 1916, Henry went to New York, where he intended to pursue further studies in music. He studied at the Institute of Musical Art. While in New York, he met another modernist Leo Ornstein, who was a pianist and composer. During his stays in New York, Cowell composed some of his earliest, most well known works. In 1916, he composed Dynamic Motion, a piano piece that uses many possibilities of the tone cluster. After a brief stay, he traveled back to California. In 1917, he composed the prelude The Tides of Manaunaun. It was his interest in Irish folk music (and mythology) that got him interested in doing it. His friend was John Varian, noted as an Irish Poet. The music Cowell wrote went to his play The Building of Banba. This piece was also made use of the tone cluster (used to simulate the waves of the ocean). This piece, is truly one of his most played of all his works. Throughout 1915 and 1919, Cowell composed some other experimental works. The most well known are the Quartets Romantic and Euphometric. In 1919, he began writing his book New Musical Resources. In the early 1920 s Cowell began his career by touring America, and then later Europe. He performed as a pianist and presented much of his innovative piano works. In Europe, atonality and non-western modes were already being looked at, but no one had ever seen

3 (especially an American) come up and play tone clusters on the piano. Seeing a man play with his arms and fists was a site to be seen. It is said that he made such an impression with his tone clusters Bela Bartok wrote him and asked him permission to use tone clusters. Another first, that Cowell came up with, was to play the strings of the piano (I suppose he called it string piano ). The best of example of this was the Aeolian Harp, where the performer brushes the strings like a harp. Another interesting thing he did was slide your fingers across the strings, a good example of this would be The Banshee. Another composer who took Cowell seriously was Arnold Schoenberg. In 1923, Schoenberg invited Cowell to perform for his composition class in Berlin. It is said that in 1928, Cowell was the first American composer to be invited to Russia. After giving a series of concerts in Leningrad and Moscow, he published some of his music in Russia. In the 1930 s Cowell continued with his developments in music. His book New Musical Resources was published in The same year, to help with his concepts in Rhythmic Harmony he commissioned Leon Theremin to build a machine that could play any overtone pitches with any rhythmic pattern desired. The Rhythmicon was the device that was built. According to sources it could carry up to sixteen individual rhythms at a time in it. It was the first Rhythm machine ever invented. Cowell composed some works for this machine, so he could look further into his ideas of rhythmic-harmony. Unfortunately, the device went into obscurity and was never used after a while. In the mid 1920 s and throughout the rest of his life Cowell became a known man in the avant garde composer circles. He continued his experiments in form and tonal structure. He became friends with many of the other experimental composers of the day. Those that belonged in his group of modernist composers were Leo Ornstein, Carl Ruggles, Edgar Varese, and Ruth

4 Crawford. Cowell helped found the New Music Society, an organization where the press is not invited and composers can stage their own works. It was for other newer composers to hear each other. Among those involved was none other than Arnold Schoenberg, who had difficulty getting things performed also. In 1927, Cowell founded the publication New Music that was supposed to introduce scores of all new composers for those I interested to see. Even Aaron Copland was published in this magazine. All music was welcome. To get financial backing, Cowell went to a composer who had gone silent by that point. His name was Charles Ives. Ives, who had much success in the insurance field, gave Cowell the financial backing he needed for the periodical (as well as his own projects). In return, Cowell helped publish Ives music, including the Songs and the Fourth Symphony. Ives and Cowell had a friendship for the rest of Ives life (I think there was one point of fallout though). Cowell even went as far as getting some of the new works performed, with the label he helped create New Music Recordings (1934). If there was one thing that Cowell cared about, it was international music. From his childhood, Henry was used to hearing non-western sounds as he lived with many other nationalities. Growing up, he heard music from Ireland, Japan, China, and Tahiti. In the 1920 s Cowell as investigated Indian Classical Music and the effect has been heard in many of compositions since. Middle eastern music interested him also (as in his Ode to Iran). A good example is his 13 th Symphony Madras. It has two movements, but the first movement makes use of a set scale patterns that seem to be improvised around. The biggest change is the second movement, which is written in 16/4, and includes a tabla-tintal in the percussion section. In his piece Ostinato Pianissimo, he explores asian scales and techniques with a percussion ensemble. One of the defining characteristics of this piece are the different

5 sized Chinese Soup Bowls that are played with sticks (I swear they re chopsticks). Another piece, the 4 th String Quartet United, uses many ideas from the nonwestern musical sources that Cowell encouraged others to use. In the Quartet, one can hear the improvised Rag-like texture in the first movement. Another movement uses a tabla-tintal which changing rhythms. Cowell went on to teach courses in Ethnomusicology in San Francisco and New York. He was also involved in the musicologist movement that was starting. He was awarded the Guggenheim Foundation grant in He went to Berlin and studied Musicology with Erich von Hornbostel. He even took a course in Gamelan Music and Carnactic Theory. Composition was a field he taught also, despite his interest in World Music. Among his most well known students are George Gershwin, Lou Harrison, and John Cage. Cowell s exploration of chance (alleatory ) music had a big impact on the ambitions of Cage. One engagement of international importance was his hand in forming the Pan-American Association of Composers. This group included some well known composers like Carl Ruggles, Edgar Varese, and Carlos Chavez (from Mexico). There was an inaugural concert in New York in The concert, for the time it was not common at all, featured music from Latin America. Among those present and performing were Chavez, Villa Lobos, Caturla, and Roldan. Cowell, and other American composers also gave performances of new works. For the first time, an international association was set up to try to combat borderlines and make world music more available to everyone. Cowell visited Cuba, Brazil, and Mexico as he continued to support and learn from his colleagues. Cowell once said I want to live in the whole world of Music. What wouldn t be complete in an artist s life if it didn t have some type of struggle of scandal of some sort? Cowell, though his music was considered outrageous, was a very mellow, low key character. Strange enough, in 1936, Cowell was incarcerated on Moral grounds he was

6 bisexual. He was sentenced to a decade (and a half) in prison. Where he went: San Quentin. He spent the next four years there, but it did not slow him in the least. He took music where perhaps it was needed he taught fellow inmates music and even directed the prison s band. He continued to compose throughout his this period. Most noted are his works in chance music. Many of the pieces of the time allow the performers to make decisions about what to play and when and how long they want to play a movement of piece for. These ideas in chance music were along the lines of a younger composer at the time: John Cage. In 1940, with the help of Sidney Robertson and Olive Cowell, he was paroled and released. He moved to White Plains, New York and took a job being Percy Grainger s assistant (who also had a fascination with world music). In 1941 he married Sidney Robertson. In 1942, he was given a Full Pardon from the California Governor. Most speculate it was so he could take the appointment of Senior Music Editor for the U.S. Office of War Information. The imprisonment has been said to have deeply affected Cowell. He became more conservative, and his compositional output became lower. His pieces took on a more introspective and personal feel to them. One thing to note is that he focused more on folk music and his experiments became less radical. A friend remarked the experience left him paranoid about his position politically. The biggest problem for Cowell is that the imprisonment damaged his public career. After all, even with a pardon, people s opinions don t change for a long time. Despite this setback, Cowell continued to lecture and teach throughout the U.S. He lectured and taught for Columbia University, The New School for Social Research, and Peabody Conservatory. In 1951, he was elected into the American Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1955,

7 he published Charles Ives and his Music. This was an important book in getting more of Ives story to the American public. They never knew what they had in Ives (for another time though). He also spent his last years working with recordings and documenting collections of Folk Songs. He even made recordings of his performances and piano and a few interviews and documentaries. He went on one last World Concert tour from He toured and stayed in Japan, Iran, and India. In 1960 he went back to Japan and India to be the representative at the International Music Conferences in Teheran and Tokyo. In his last years he wrote some of his most intriguing works, among them is the 26 Simultaneous Mosaics, which was his last major peace of alleatory music. Henry Cowell died December 10, He was living in Shady, New York at the time. His importance was recognized only until after his death. Cowell, though made reserved in the end, left a musical legacy for Americans to be proud of. He was one of the first proponents (other than Ives) to be boldly modern, and made efforts for other newer composers to hear their music. He made non-western music known in the United States while preserving western traditions. He even helped create an bridge for countries to hear each others music. He taught some of the next generation of famous composers. He did indeed make the whole world his musical scene. Part Two: A Further Look at Cowell s Music (or what I found) Horatio Parker once told the young Charles Ives (upon looking at a piece he wrote) Don t hog all the keys at the table! For Ives case, he just used many different directions and keys in a brief amount of time. What Henry Cowell decided to do, gives hogging the keys a completely different meaning what he created by literally hogging the keys on the piano were

8 tone clusters. Tone clusters were one of the many ideas Cowell had in music. Here is a closer look at some of his tone cluster pieces (all are written for piano). The Tides of Manaunaun was one of Cowell s first tone cluster pieces. It was written as the prelude for a stage production Varian s The Building of Banba. Cowell, on recording, described the piece: In Irish mythology, Manaunaun was the god of motion and of the waves of the sea. And according to the mythology, at the time when the universe was being built, Manaunaun swayed all of the materials out of which the universe was being built with fine particles which were distributed everywhere through cosmos. And he kept these moving in rhythmical tides so that they should remain fresh when the time came for their use in the building of the universe. It was premiered in the summer of 1917 in the San Luis Abispo area of California. The piece became an instant success and was played widely. It was first recorded on piano role in 1925 by Margaret Nikoloric. It is said that it was performed for President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the Whitehouse by Edward Hughes. Percy Grainger, whom Cowell worked for as an assistant, frequently performed the work. It has been documented that Leopold Stokowski orchestrated the work under the name of Deep Tides. It was one of four pieces in a recording he did in 1941 called Tales from the Countryside. Henry Cowell himself recorded an original version of it. He did one for Pleyel on piano roll and another for Folkway Records. It is a known fact that Cowell, in his later years pushed the date of composition back to 1912 or even 1911 to make it sound more precocious in nature. The piece is fairly simple in structure. The bass clef on the grand staff has the tone written as the treble stave contains the irish ballade in the key of Bb minor. The tempo marking is Largo, with rhythm. The dynamic scheme starts at ppp and reaches fff; it then dies into ppp

9 at the end. A note is that the clusters are written in the key of Dm. Perhaps this is a good example of polytonal writing as well. However, all the chromatic tones are used, so it doesn t matter. The effect Cowell creates with this piece doesn t slap one in the face. Instead, the tone clusters at the bottom of the keyboard (played properly) create a gentle sound mass, like that mass of sound you get from the waves in the ocean (at least the intended affect is). Another interesting note is Cowell had to invent new notation for this piece. To represent tone clusters, Cowell lists two notes, to create the range of the cluster, and fills in the space between to connect them. Quarter notes and less are darkened, and half notes and more are left open with a linking line between them. Another innovative piece was The Banshee. Written in 1925, it is another piece based on Irish Folklore, which Cowell had a great interest in. This piece is interesting because it makes use of actually reaching into the piano and plucking, scraping, or sweeping the strings with your finger. The directions to play the piece, are quite unique also, here is the excerpt from the collection book: The Banshee is played on the open strings of the piano, the player standing at the crook. Another person must sit at the keyboard and hold down the damper pedal throughout the composition. The whole work should be played an octave lower than written. It is written in 2/2 and marked Rubato. The entire work is only 60 measures long, but contains a wealth of indications. Cowell, to produce more different tones in the piece, has at least 12 different ways of manipulating the strings. They are labeled alphabetically. These tell the performer which direction to sweep their finger in, whether to play it with the flesh or nail of the finger, whether to just slide down the length of one string, how to pluck a string, dampen the strings with your hand as you sweep, or just use your hand flattened against the bridge. The

10 combination of this array gives the music the unearthly quality that Cowell was looking for. It is amazing how many tones you can get out of one string. An earlier piece like The Banshee is a joint-piece written in It is called Aeolian Harp and Sinister Resonance. Both of these pieces make use of brushing and plucking the strings. This piece can be done with one person. However, one hand must press the keys down that are brushed with the other hand. This gives sounds the chord, and leaves a weak afterglow of the strings around it. Cowell indicates whether or not the sweeping should occur on the near the pegs of the strings or near the center. The pedaling directions are interesting too. Cowell requests that the only times you use the sustaining pedal are: A) when pluck a melodic line in the strings, and B) only put the pedal down after the chord has been brushed, and repeat every time a sweep is made. It can be speculated that Cowell was trying to get somewhere with sympathetic string vibrations (or overtone relations) by pedaling like this. In his piano piece Dynamic Motion, he makes use of tones clusters and silently depressed keys. It is an experiment with the overtones on the piano. Moving on to Sinister Resonance, Cowell does something quite interesting. It is an experiment with plucked strings that are dampened at the same time. The tones of the strings do take on a solid and rough sound, however, there is something more interesting that comes through. It can be duly noted that Cowell heard Orient Music growing up, and by this time he had taken Ethnomusicology studies. The tones produced in the lower register of the piano sound really close the Chinese Qin, and the higher register sounds like the Japanese Koto. The scales used in this piece sound similar to an improvisation on those instruments. Nonetheless, it was an interesting thing to listen to.

11 Another experimental rhythm piece written by Cowell is the piano solo Fabric (1917). The most striking thing about Fabric is that he employs new types of note durations, and gives new designs to these notes. Cowell did not want to list note grouping of uncommon time in quintuplets and septuplets, instead he created note durations to match these. For example, we have the usual durations whole, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, and so on. With these new note shapes, Cowell creates durations of seconds, thirds, fifths, sevenths, ninths, elevenths, and so on. The notation is confusing at first, but once it is gotten used to, it reads more naturally than seeing a division bar above a note grouping. Lastly, the newest type of note head was diamond shaped. This note head requires the performer to silently depress the keys. These are also indications of Cowell using sympathetic vibrations, as most of these unique notes are accompanied by struck keys close to it/them. Moving on to other works, Cowell wrote a large number of ensemble works. He wrote trios, sonatas, concertos, quartettes, and symphonies. Of these works, there are two Quartettes that were based on an idea called rhythm-harmony. Cowell began these ideas when he first entered the University in Cowell wondered if there was an inherent relation between harmonic and rhythmic ratios. Cowell had experimented with such patterns as 3-2 or so on. When read his first theory book, he was struck by the fact that the lower reaches of the overtone series were expressed by the same rations I had been using to describe counter-rhythms. Could they be somehow the same? Cowell went on later to explain that he and a major from the physics department did an experiment with two sirens. When the sirens were tuned to the relationship 3:2, they sounded a perfect fifth. What they discovered when they lowered the frequency was that the beats in between the soundings gave off the rhythm of 3-2. This proved, as with other tunings that these

12 ratios express a single physical relationship which is heard as rhythm when slow and as pitch when fast. So Cowell went and made charts of these durations and identities. He then set to work to put these into musical contexts. He put these ideas into the two quartettes The Romantic and The Euphometric. In the Romantic, Cowell based the number of pulses per bar off of these systems. For example the bass plays two, the octave plays four, the 10 th plays five, and the 12 th plays six. Since some of these ratios weren t so consonant, bars occur where lines are playing 7.5 and 4.5 pulses. This made it impossible to play at the time. A note about the melodic lines used. Cowell used all 12 tones of the chromatic scale freely, supposedly so he could counteract dissonant with consonant passages. The Euphometric makes use of grouping notes that fit in the bar line according to their rhythmic rations. Another interest of Cowell was of elastic music and allaetory music. Both of these ideas give way to chance music, which is what interested the young John Cage quite a bit. The earliest example of elastic music was his Anger Dance for solo piano. The directions say to repeat as many times as you want (and perhaps stop). This gives rise to letting the performer dictate the outcome of the piece. The second example is one of his last works, the 26 Simultaneous Mosaics for Piano, Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and large percussion battery. Each one of the mosaics is a movement. The piano has six, the clarinet five, the violin five, the cello five, and the percussion batter has five. Each mosaic for the percussion battery is a unique combination of instruments; thus the total of 26 mosaics to be played in the ensemble. Here are the directions for performance: All the players start and stop as they please and choose the order of the movements as they please. Use repeats and/or da capo ad lib. Use lots of rest between movements so that everything is not always going at once There is no score; each is on his own. The pianist may give a sign when he feels that the last round has come (7 or 8 minutes) but each

13 player finishes whatever mosaic he is playing. HC This is a piece of chance and elastic music. Cage s Mantra (at least I think it s called that ) for piano, is similar in design. This is a great example of free music. It may have been really confusing to a lot of people at the time. Nonetheless it is an interesting idea. At last, the most common practice for Henry Cowell was his use of non-western musical ideas in his music. There are a few pieces that just use American and European folk song a good example is the Icelandic symphony that was commissioned by Finland. The body of the work makes use of finnish folk music. The 13 th Symphony, Madras, is a straight connection to the East. The most striking thing about the Symphony is the second movement. He recreates the tabla-tintal in the percussion batter, and it is written in Northern Indian Time: 16/4. His symphonies in general are an excellent example for Cowell s larger forms of music. It is known that most of his symphonies are simple, yet the musical ideas put into them are something. In his 11 th Symphony, Seven Rituals of Music, Cowell uses large bodies of string glissandi in the inner movements. He even uses the strings to play a basso continuo in glissando fashion. The greatest of these examples would be the United String Quartette. Since this was listened to in the seminar, I do not need to describe it. It is already acknowledged as a great piece of innovative music. As a final note, Henry Cowell did an amazing amount of writing and experimenting. If you are interested in his music, I would encourage you to go out and buy some recordings of his music. He is still not well known this day and age. If you are interested in looking into more of his musical ideas, his method book New Resources in Music, is still in print. Cowell is certainly one of America s great composers.