Henry BRANT (1913-2008)
The Henry Brant Collection - Volume 4
Meteor Farm (1981) [70:15]
Phyllis Bruce, Laura Cook (sopranos)
Susan Kidwell, Daniel Kolbert, Larry DeGarris (saxophones)
Amy Snyder (organ)
Wesleyan Singers/Neely Bruce
Wesleyan Concert Choir/Richard Winslow
Wesleyan Gamelan/Sumarsam, Sukanto Sastrodarsono
South Indian Trio
West African Drumming Ensemble/Abraham Adzenyah (master drummer)
Wesleyan Big Band/Bill Barron
Wesleyan University Orchestra/Roger Solie
Neely Bruce, Richard Winslow (conductors)
Henry Brant (principal guest conductor)
rec. 1982, Crowell Concert Hall, Wesleyan University, Connecticut
INNOVA 411 [70:15]
Let’s start with a question: how many conductors does Meteor Farm have? The question is simple enough, but the answer is anything but. According to the booklet credits (listed above), there are three. However, the booklet also says, “Each group [has] its own conductor”. So, how many groups are there? Having discounted the three individual performers (two solo sopranos and organist) and the saxophones (who are “with the choir”), there are seven. However, in the booklet text you will also find reference to “two percussion ensembles” (presumably drawn from the orchestra?), which brings the total to nine.
Clearly, there must be more than the three listed conductors, so let’s tot up how many other conducting rôles the list contains: three groups have directors, one has a conductor, one has two musical directors (which we can count as one) and one a master drummer. That comes to six. Hence the discrepancy is resolved: these six plus the three listed as conductors makes nine, yes? Well, no – not exactly, because looking closer we can see that two of those “conductors” are in fact the choral directors, and we can’t count them twice. That leaves us with nine groups, but only seven conductors.
I can see only one group for which no conducting rôle is designated, and that’s the South Indian Trio, comprising voice, mrdangam and tambura. If we assume that this operates as a “chamber ensemble”, then the conducting rôle will effectively be “built in”. But, even this stretching of the point leaves us one conductor short. Yet we can’t even conclude that one conductor must be “doubling up”, because “each group has its own conductor”, hasn’t it? The co-ordinating conductor can “double up” by conducting a group as well, but that doesn’t help because the co-ordinator must be one of the seven. Ergo, either I’ve somehow got my arithmetic snarled up, which is entirely possible, or there must be one conductor inadvertently omitted from the credits!
All this conductorial kerfuffle reminds me that, thus far in my reviews of this series, it may seem that I’ve been neglecting the conductor’s rôle. You could be forgiven for thinking this is a bit naughty of me – after all, when there is one, the conductor is usually the pivotal participant. In respect of spatial works, my apparent reticence is because I’m not quite sure how to appraise a “collective conductor”. For one thing, how they go about co-ordinating their largely independent forces remains something of a mystery and how well they do it is evident only in the lack of disruptions in overall continuity, which is only worthy of comment if they make a mess of it – assuming that it’s even possible in such music to distinguish an intentional from an unintentional mess! And for another, interpretation (however you care to define it) must in some degree be a communal process – which puts a daunting number of trees between me and the wood. And for yet another, in spatial music the important question of balance, which in “normal” music is determined by the conductor, is pretty well out of everybody’s hands.
There’s another, rather sneakier aspect. Brant may, and more often than not does, assign different materials to different groups and indicate that each group will play independently of all the others, limited only by the co-ordinating conductor’s signals to start and stop. This has two obvious consequences. Firstly, as implied in the previous paragraph, in any performance there are effectively several concurrent but not necessarily independent interpretations. Secondly, no two performances will ever be the same – and here I’m talking not about the mere nuances that may distinguish one performance of a “normal” musical work from another, but about wholesale divergences. Or, I should say, it does mean that, if they are live performances. Otherwise, on a recording, every “performance” is exactly the same as its predecessors, so that, as far as the listener is concerned, the groups – no matter how “complex” their relationships to one another – are apparently not playing their parts independently (which, of course, is a fate similar to that of a recorded improvisation).
The danger (if we may put it that strongly) is that the recording beds into the listener’s memory a particular set of fixed relationships that may well play havoc if he or she should ever hear a different rendition of that particular work. For spatial music this is (I’d imagine) rather more pronounced than, though no different in principle to, the reaction of someone closely familiar with any work through one particular recording; hearing it played by someone else for the first time it will almost inevitably sound “wrong”. Nor does it help that your perception of a spatial work is heavily dependent on where you are sitting. Of course, all this probably wouldn’t be so if Brant’s spatial works were “core” repertoire – but then, bearing in mind the foregoing, imagine the difficulties of comparatively reviewing two (or, perish the thought, more) competing recordings of the same Brant work!
I’m sure you’re as aware as I am that this preamble, lengthy as it may seem, is far from exhaustive; I can only hope that I may have managed at least to nudge you onto something near the right track. That said, let’s first have a look at the recording itself:
This recording is two-channel stereo, with all its limitations in respect of spatial music (for details, see this review). The overriding impression it conveys is of sitting in the middle of the back row, with all the forces ranged before you, along either side of the auditorium. On the left are one percussion group, the gamelan, two choirs, the orchestra and one solo soprano; on the right are the other percussion group, the Indian trio, the African drummers, the big band, the other two choirs and solo soprano. In between there’s practically nothing perceptible, other than some rather depleted ambience – even the reverberant tails of loud sounds on one side are more clearly audible on the opposite side than they are in the middle.
Did Brant lay it out that way? Quite honestly, since Brant was a spatialist non-pareil for whom the placement of performers was an integral part of his compositional process, and since this is far from being an early spatial work, I cannot bring myself to believe that he’d have perpetrated such a major boo-boo. In any event, the stereo image as I’ve described it strongly suggests that the recording was made using a crossed/divergent microphone pair set at far too wide an angle. Its saving grace is that some sense of perspective depth remains – my listing of the “left” and “right” groups in the previous paragraph runs from nearest to furthest, excepting that the solo sopranos somehow sound also to be aloft. And, as ever, stereo cannot tell us which groups are arrayed in front of us and which behind. However, it isn’t entirely as bad as it might seem: in passages where the music features predominantly one group on the left and one on the right, the intended spatial effect is pretty well intact – the downside being that things are only occasionally that clear-cut.
My curiosity drove me to feed the recording to an audio editor, to spend an evening experimenting with crosstalk. I found that 25% crosstalk (which, considering that 50% crosstalk adds up to mono, is a lot!) gave me a palpably improved stereo image, with the groups spread more naturally across the “field of audition”, some occupying the middle area but still with some at and/or near the extremes. It’s no surprise to find that the symphony orchestra has moved into the middle ground, the percussion groups have moved away from the extreme left and right, and the choirs are now spread more or less across from left to right; it’s more of a surprise to find that the left- and right-side percussion groups now seem to be beyond the gamelan and the south Indian trio respectively, whilst the choirs seem to have returned to their traditional stalls, behind the orchestra – all of which actually make more sense, and thus tend to support my hypothesis.
In addition, on seeing the audio waveforms, I couldn’t help but notice that there’s a lot of clipping. In all the places that looked clipped (i.e. where the peaks of the waveform appeared to have been very neatly decapitated), the maximum amplitude was not 0 dB., but -0.29 dB. I suspect that “backing off” like this was once thought to be a quick fix, to ameliorate the effects of clipping (which, of course, it isn’t). Fortunately, in this recording, it mostly occurs in places where the percussion are making a right old racket, which tends to mask the effects of the clipping distortion. Generally though, the quality of the recorded sound, apart from being somewhat bass-light, is very listenable and quite acceptable to all but the most critical ears. And with that, let’s move on to the music:
Like Northern Lights over the Twin Cities (Volume 1 of this series, see review), Meteor Farm is designed to utilise the entire musical resources of an American University, in this case Connecticut’s Wesleyan University. Although Northern Lights, which was written six years earlier, is an even more ambitious work than Meteor Farm, the resources employed in the latter turn out to be rather more diverse, including as they do a gamelan, a South Indian trio, and a group of West African drummers. If you’re tempted to expect some sort of “fusion” or “crossover”, or whatever is the latest fad for mixing the musical world’s wonderful diversity of styles and colours down to a uniformly drab shade of dark brown, I should mention that Brant’s express intention was to create “an image of a culture in which the most diverse elements remain unassimilated. Any synthesis beyond pure juxtaposition remains the task of the audience.” And more power to his elbow, I say.
Relatively unusually, Brant provided some sort of explanation of the music. Even more unusually, it’s expressed somewhat tongue-in-cheek: “Of course, it’s mainly in the mind. The meteors are chips from great galactic ice blocks of ideas. They come hurtling down from the nebulae where they’re grown, and on Earth they strike human brains and impel processes to action, providing plenty of material for four separated choirs, each polyphonically sounding off in a different direction, each announcing itself raucously in its own dialect and accent, abetted everywhere by multiple, sequestered brass and percussion groups in frictional collisions, both polyrhythmic and polyharmonic – All this on the Great Terrestrial Meteor Farm where Meteor cows give Meteor milk!”
It’s as well to hang on to whatever import you can distil from that statement, because it’s pretty well all the help you’re going to get. The titles of the 17 movements are “1”, “2”, . . . “17”; over and above that, the booklet merely lists the durations of the movements and their total timing. The booklet does mention that the choirs, some of the time, are singing words: we’re told that No. 17 features “Meteor Farm songs . . . with texts adapted from the Encyclopædia Britannica [I’m having no truck with the booklet’s ‘Encyclopedia’, especially not when it’s followed by ‘Britannica’!], Geo Magazine and Carl Sagan. Little of the text will be perceptible, but all of it concerns meteors.” I’d perhaps qualify “little” with “if any” since, thus far, other than the mesmeric repeated intonations of “Meteor Fa-arm”, I’ve discerned not even a single word.
I’ve listened to Meteor Farm, in whole or in episodes, more times than I care to count. At first, I was completely nonplussed. However, with each hearing, I become more convinced that Brant’s “explanation”, for all its tongue-in-cheek, is actually a bang-on-the-button serious statement. Seekers after the intellectual exercise of formal processes and such-like will be sorely disappointed. But those who grasp the concept behind “chips of ideas coming hurtling down to strike [sparks] in human brains” will be, to adopt the soccer commentators’ catch-phrase, “over the moon” – for, to all intents and purposes, Meteor Farm is simply a huge, riotous jamboree, bristling with exciting and/or intriguing incidents, sometimes giving you room to breathe and sometimes jostling for your attention like eager vendors in some multicultural bazaar.
Curiously, if Meteor Farm could be said to have any binding thread, it is – perhaps paradoxically – the very diversity of the forces. Brant so arranged things that each movement featured its own unique combination of groups (as far as I can tell, only in the final and longest movement does everyone pitch in). Yet, as in a theme and variations, in each “mix” you can feel a sort of common ancestry at work. It’s not “structure” in the ordinary sense, but it does have the flavour of a structure. Other than that, this is the sort of music you just have to absorb through your pores, basking in all those chips of ideas striking sparks in human brains.
As to the performance, or should I say performances, it’s not easy to comment. The general impression is of an army of fearless, mostly young people giving it all they’ve got, which is quite a lot – the performances are marked by immense (occasionally unbridled) energy, enthusiasm, and quite prodigious technical resource. Rather than attempt the “traditional” approach, I’m going to comment on each group separately. Whenever I mention combinations of groups, you should assume “it seems to me” – there are some mind-blowing textures, and much of the time I’m making an (I hope) educated guess as to exactly what is and what isn’t present in the mix!
Solo sopranos: Phyllis Bruce and Laura Cook, who appear together but sing independently, don’t play a huge part, but it is an extraordinary one. In [3], amid an atmospheric wash of gamelan, percussion, distant trumpets and murmuring choirs, they sing exotic “bird calls”: sweeping slides and swoops – all fluttertongued! In [7], short slides and swoops doubled rapidly back on one another give the impression of “yelping”. In [11], sailing over a bed of swarming strings (“bee-strings”, perhaps?), they sing simple held notes, crescendo. In [13], against a modern jazz-style “blues” they revert to “bird calls”, but with a more varied repertoire of attacks. Some of these sounds are mind-boggling; some are beautiful; all are impeccably executed.
Saxophones (with the choir): Their presence is obvious on one occasion only, in [4], where they lead off and underpin with massive solemnity the choirs’ robust, ecclesiastical-sounding chant.
Organ: I have to admit, rather abjectly, that nowhere in the entire work could I unequivocally detect the sound of the organ. Was this because from the microphones’ “viewpoint” the organ was out of earshot? Somehow, I doubt that. More likely it was because either, in the somewhat bass-light recording, the organ was being used simply to enrich sonorities, or it was being used only to help create “atmosphere” and hence wouldn’t exactly catch any limelight. Whatever, for me it was a pity – I’d been looking forward to hearing the organ slugging it out with some of that belligerent brass and percussion! In the following, I’ve suggested a couple of places where the organ was possibly involved.
Choirs: the two – or is it four? – choirs make some remarkable contributions. The above-mentioned ecclesiastical chant [4] is answered by vocalisations reminiscent of (for want of a better analogy) a huge crowd of skiers setting off in a volley of yelling and whooping as they try to keep their balance, then sweeping away with a massed descending scream – a theme which is subjected to considerable variation. They sound to be having the time of their lives. In the vague rondo of [9] they contribute firstly a curious oscillating phase consisting of uncouth “yeah”s and “wa-oo-wa-oo”s and secondly a much more euphonious lyrical phrase; subsequently, these two are juxtaposed. In [11], the choirs intermittently chatter among the swarming strings, whilst in [12], amid a din of drumming, their held notes complement those of the baleful brasses. They put in a brief appearance in [15], singing what strikes me as an angular proletarian marching song. In [17], the long, final movement, the choirs are almost constantly busy, their emergent chants of “meteor fa-arm” alternately surging and degenerating into babel or, perhaps I should say, disintegrating into profusions of meteoritic ideas.
Gamelan: I get the impression that Brant is considerate of the relatively gentle nature of the gamelan (and even more particularly the South Indian Trio) – it would after all be pointless for them to play when around them all hell has been let loose. The gamelan is first heard at the start of [3], its characteristic rounded “bonging” laying the foundation for that movement’s wonderful atmosphere. Similarly, it opens [8], becoming part of a very different texture. In [14], it sets off quite quickly before, over a period of more than half a minute it gradually slows almost to a standstill; after a while it accelerates again over a similar period. I found myself wondering: it must be tricky enough holding a fixed tempo against conflicting surroundings; would effecting such smooth tempo changes take be even trickier? In [17], the gamelan has to be a bit more forceful, still exercising its tempo flexibility even when challenged (as it is) by the early stages of the growing tumult of the “meteor fa-arm” festival.
South Indian Trio: This features only in otherwise relatively lightly-scored situations. Coming from close on the right, it provides an intimate opening for the whole work, forming as it were a cultural point of departure; it is gradually joined by delicate percussion (including, I think, the gamelan) and whispered threads of orchestral sonority. In my early listening sessions, I did feel that it “went on a bit”, but with increasing familiarity its distinctive, hypnotic quality gradually won me over (if you’re already a fan of Indian music, you won’t have any such acclimatisation problem). The SIT returns in [10], lightly brushed by gamelan and occasional ghostly chords from the left-hand choir. Finally, in [17], the SIT again initiates proceedings (i.e. preceding the gamelan’s entry), this time much more agitated, with lots of that characteristic, rapid-fire “patter-song” vocal phrasing, crisply executed and jostling with heavier percussion and the slow murmuring of the choirs.
West African Drumming Ensemble: Brant didn’t need to make any concessions for the WADE: their contributions positively pulsate with high-octane energy – not only in drumming but also in their exultant chanting. In their first appearance, [6], they are dominant throughout, completely unfazed by the harsh interjections of the orchestral brass and piercing piccolos. I loved the way their final call was enthusiastically echoed by the choirs – was this spontaneous, I wonder? Perhaps not, since something very similar happens at the end of [12] after over six minutes of non-stop, frenetic action, punctuated by massive orchestral and choral repeated chords (which just might be bolstered by the organ). In [16] the WADE don’t quite have it all their own way – Brant slings repeated barrages of brutal tympani and steel drums (and god knows what else) at them; again unfazed, they cheerfully persist in their carefree carolling. Right in the middle of [17], they burst forth once again, adding a tremendous zest to the growing tumult – and getting the party going with a real swing.
Percussion Groups: These pop up all over the place, sometimes prominent, sometimes creating atmospheric colourations, even joining in with the gamelan. For example, in [5] they provide a tinkly, prickly counterpoint to orchestral horns; in [7] we hear a brutal antiphony of jagged tympani, steel drums and pianos; in [14] the percussion complements the gamelan with an array of exotic textures; then of course there’s the aforementioned extraordinary savagery of [16], where you feel sure that sticks or skins must be broken – and who knows, maybe some were, but I doubt that these superbly agile players would have missed even a beat.
Big Band: The thing I really like about this BB is that the players don’t sacrifice brash vitality on the altar of technical spit-and-polish: they pitch in with a will and, so to speak, let the neighbours go hang! Rudely interrupting the SIT, the jam session of [2] sees the BB trading riffs with a subset of the orchestra. Rather more briefly, the BB also gets in on the latter part of [4]’s “skiing action”. In [9], the BB furnishes a swinging prelude and postlude, whilst a brief intrusion of jazz-pizazz almost thumbs its nose at the generally solemn proceedings of [15]; and, the last to arrive in [17], the punchy BB adds its not inconsiderable influence to the culminating pandemonium.
Orchestra: Like the percussion, the orchestra plays many parts, by no means all of them conspicuous. It’s a very good orchestra, provided you don’t compare it with the NY or Vienna Phil. I feel bound to highlight the distinguished contributions of the horns – Brant throws many daunting gauntlets at them, and they just throw them all right back at him. Other than [2]’s riffs, the first time that the orchestra is palpably present is in [9], where it supersedes the BB with potent music of straining strings, shrilling woodwind, surging brass and declamatory horns, alternately developing this argument and providing a substrate for the choirs. [11] starts with those swarming strings, joined by weird woodwind, a passage that vaguely reminds me of 1960s-vintage Ligeti. As in [2], the blues music of [13] is tossed between the orchestra and BB. [15], by a short head the third-longest movement, is almost entirely the orchestra’s; choirs of strings, woodwind and horns weave a stern polyphony occasionally punctuated by the percussion (helped, I think, by the organ). Through most of [17], the orchestra is largely restricted to repeated braying of the horns, and unleashed only to join the BB in the work’s massive denouement.
So, there you have it. At rock bottom, Meteor Farm is an extravagant multicultural pæan. It is probably one of those works that folk will either love or hate – although be mindful that, given half a chance, it will grow on you. Notwithstanding its problems, the recording is quite listenable and gives a fair impression of Brant’s huge and hugely imaginative score – which is just as well, as it’s not likely that another recording will be along any time soon.
Paul Serotsky
