On March 20th I attended a performance during the Wednesday noon hours at the UBC school of music by the duo of Mark Takeshi McGregor, flute, and Adrian Verdejo, Guitar. The program was a selection of avant-garde compositions for flute and guitar. This music was very different from anything I had heard before, and took me by surprise at how unconventional it was. Most of the songs the duo played didn’t seem to have a comprehensible meter or key structure, with the flute often playing in a guttural and piercing way, with the player often creating a glottal sound with the flute with a forceful push of air. Sometimes it didn’t even seem like discernible pitches were being played, using the flute for more rhythmic effect, and without an emergent melody line. Though this was definitely far from the more structured music that we have looked at in class, as we learn more about the breaking from structural convention that happened during the 19th century, I thought it was astonishing to see the type of musical transformation that has happened since then, with these music totally throwing out any kind of musical structure.
The first song played was “Toward the Sea”(1981) by Toru Takemitsu. The duo compared the composer to Debussy, saying that he was the Debussy of Japan because of the way he used dissonance in his pieces. Despite saying this, in listening to the piece I still thought this was far from anything that I had heard of Debussy as it did not have a melody line that I could really hold onto. However I did think that the piece did capture the imagery of being at sea and created a quite mysterious and powerful sound. The piece consisted of three movements: The Night, Moby Dick, and Cape Cod. Looking at 19th century programatic music, I thought this piece achieved the same aims that that musical movement strived for. By naming the piece and the movements with imagery that will be recognized by the audience, and where the audience will use their own ideas to build the story while hearing the music, the piece achieves the extramusical meaning of programatic music.
The last piece played, “Histoire du Tango” (1986) by Astor Piazzolla was quite different from the other pieces played, as it had a clear key structure, and a sense of meter. I think because of this more recognizable musical structure, this was by far my favourite piece performed. Like the other pieces played, the piece tried to tell a story, in this case the historical progression of the Argentinian tango and how it changed over time. The duo gave some background on the piece and author, speaking to how the author was informed by their own experience in writing the piece through living in both Paris and Argentina, which allowed the audience to keep this in mind while they listened to the piece. The piece consisted of the movements: Bordel 1900, Cafe 1930, Nightclub 1960, and Concert d’aujourd’hui. As the composer conveyed both the history of the tango and his own life, I can now recognize that this practice in composition also grew out of the 19th century practices of composers trying to catch their interior life through their music, as music became more of a reflection of the identity of the composer.
This music definitely challenged my expectations, but I appreciated what it tried to achieve and the skill of the musicians in trying to convey these musical ideas through their playing. Though I don’t think that I will be listening to this type of music in my daily life, I would encourage people in this class to listen to music that really steps outside the box and challenges our preconceptions of what music should sound like.