After the explanation and introduction, on to the albums:

The influence my older brothers had (I have three of them 4-, 11-, and 15-years older) on my musical tastes cannot be overstated (we did our best on the youngest but I understand he mostly listens to lo-fi beats and dubstep [this is a joke {mostly}]). What thirteen-year-old is banging away to Philip Glass’s North Star or sitting through the long version of Gavin Bryars’s Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet? You don’t find these things on your own, especially when you don’t have internet access and you’re still looking for Great Illustrated Classics on visits to the library.

A lesson I learned from them early on is that interesting music tends to be found in a few reliable places. Nonesuch, ECM New Series, Argo, and Bis were the labels to look for. Another of these trusted sources is the Kronos Quartet. A Kronos record will always be interesting, some will change your life.

Much of the great quartet music of the last fifty years is thanks to their commissioning work, and the three string quartets of the Polish composer Henryk Gorecki are no exception. Of the many Kronos recordings I adore, String Quartet No.3 “…songs are sung” is probably my favorite. I listened to over and over again after it was released in 2005.

Gorecki’s career follows a trajectory somewhat common for composers born in the early 20th century. An upbringing in formal music education meant an expectation of learning and composing serialism. Once established he turned toward a quasi-tonal style influenced by pre-classical music. This later style (and his return to writing liturgical works) means he is often compared to Arvo Pärt and John Tavener, but his style is his own.

Though his career follows a familiar trajectory, it has one unusual characteristic: a massive hit recording with his Symphony No. 3. It has sold over a million copies, a ridiculous number for a contemporary classical CD. Remarkably, his composing style does not seem to have responded to fame and that remains his only widely known work. (My own first encounter with Symphony 3 work was on a trip to Phoenix of all places. I bought a used copy in a book & record shop. Back at the hotel that night I synced it to my iPod and listened to it straight through lying on the floor of the hotel room while everyone else was asleep).

All three quartets are works of melancholy, and even anguish, but very different projects structurally. The first is a single long movement following the model of Shostakovich’s 13th. The second is a four movement classical quartet in a highly dissonant sonority. The third (Op. 69) is on a massive scale lasting almost 50 minutes. Of its five movements only the third is at a faster tempo (and not that fast). The other four are slow, dissonant, mournful but not harsh, and with a distinct progression toward hopefulness in the last two movements.

The quartet (following an innovation of Bartok) is in a symmetrical arch form. Symmetry and balance are the preoccupying structural features. The four slow movements are each almost exactly ten minutes long, with the middle movement lasting five. Each movement has distinct sections that mirror one another. The central movement inverts the form of the work as a whole with a central slower section (introducing some of the first unambiguously major key material) surrounded by the agitated counterpoint of the outer sections. There’s something of a dialectic from minor key dissonance toward major key consonance broken by the activity of this middle movement. This large scale movement continues until the final chords which resolve with a flat 6 suspension reminding us of the minor key beginning of the piece before settling into a long, low-voiced major chord.

Kronos plays with a sustained intensity that never flags but also never overflows the banks of Gorecki’s introspective restraint. They are known for not over-polishing their sound with vibrato, and that effect gives a raw expressiveness to the melodies.

This is decidedly inward-focused music. It is a commitment, but repeated listenings reveal a work of psychological depth. It is one of many expressive touchstones I return to again and again.

If there is one lesson this album taught me, it is that music can go straight to your heart in a way nothing else can. A serious lesson to learn when you’re fourteen.

A project of personal musical formation.

One of the books I’ve most enjoyed reading the last few years was Brad Mehldau’s Formation: Building a Personal Canon Part I (I eagerly await the publication of Part 2). It is a remarkable memoir that weaves together his own life story up through his 20s with the experiences of music that formed him into the musician he is. With incredible forthrightness he chronicles the bullying of his childhood, the sexual assault he experienced at the hands of his high school principal, the many years of coming to grips with this through risky sexual activity, then his descent into a heroin addiction that dominated his 20s. It is not an easy read, but he manages all of this without being prurient or self-pitying.

Throughout he writes beautifully and insightfully about experiencing music from his earliest memories to playing in NYC clubs as an emerging force in the modern jazz scene.

Reading it has helped me reflect on my own musical formation a bit. The most influential forces in my life as a musician have been albums that captured my attention and drew me into their world over and over again, making irresistible the draw to make a life in music. Most of these were recordings, many were scores I played, and a very few were live performances. By far the larger part were recordings. This project is a look back at some of the albums that were most important to me as I grew up.

Part I: Introduction, A Life of Listening

I believe there have been two great historical declensions in Western music: before and after the development of notation and before and after the invention of recording. Of these two, I would argue that recording is a much more impactful invention. If nothing else, it has had a broader impact since it is not just a technology for composers and performers but for everyone who enjoys music.

For someone who grew up relatively far away from the centers of culture, recordings were the key to my musical formation. I started listening to music before the iPod, so CDs were my first way into music. With limited access to the internet (and too many scruples for piracy), a BMG membership was my portal to the world of sound. The hours I spent agonizing over what albums I would choose for my monthly $6.99 cd, or a 12 for $3.99 each deal. The chores I did so that I had the money to spend on these!

Christmas of 2007 brought me the 30GB iPod Video. This didn’t change my relationship to CDs as much as make them much more portable. From this point on I was listening to music all the time. There is some music I purchased digitally (before the Starbucks gift card was a standard small gift the iTunes gift card was preeminent), but the music I really absorbed almost all came to me on CDs, which I ripped to my computer, organized and labelled (the earliest iTunes couldn’t download track information, you had to sit there with the jewel case or liner notes and type in each track!), and synced to my iPod. This syncing of course required a cord, because the iPod video could not access the internet. This was a ritual of near religious importance to me.

I had it in white. It shipped with the worst headphones ever devised.

In my teenage years I was generally either playing basketball, playing the guitar, or listening to music while doing something else. An enormous advantage of being homeschooled was that I had music going basically all the time while doing schoolwork. It also meant I could do my school work quickly and leave more time for basketball and music. Even with that extra time, I was most often practicing from about 10PM-12 or 1AM. This was partly personal preference and partly that during sports seasons the days were just very full.

This was also before any kind of streaming service was available, so the music you had available to listen to was owned or borrowed. Our tiny public library had a remarkably good selection of contemporary classical records curated by one of the libarians who had very hip tastes (nearly a whole shelf of Argo, Bis, Nonesuch, and ECM New Series recordings). In a full circle moment, a few Christmases ago I was visiting and took my kids to the library to play in the children’s area (it was freezing cold outside). By the entrance was a table of CDs being given away for free. Gavin Bryars, Michael Torke, Alfred Scnittke, many of the same CDs I checked out as a high schooler were there with date stamps in the mid-2000s as the last time they circulated. That is to say, before they became part of my permanent collection I (or one of my brothers) was the last person the check them out.

So whenever the mood strikes me, I’m going to go to my record/CD cabinet and pull out something that was a huge deal to me as a kid and write a bit about it. I don’t have a list, I’m just going to follow my gut and my ear.