From Contemporary Music Review, Volume 10, Part 1, (1994)
Excerpt from the Article:
Three Points on the Spectrum:
The Music of Louis Karchin, Lois V Vierk, and Paul Dresher
by
Robert Carl
Hartt School of Music
University of Hartford
West Hartford, CT
Louis Karchin
It is natural to begin with Karchin because he is the most "traditionally
modern" of these composers, defining one end of a stylistic spectrum. While that
description may seem like an oxymoron, in fact it is accurate, as Karchin comes from a
tradition that by now is universally known as "modernism" - academically based,
largely chromatic in sound, often serial in structure. A graduate of Harvard and Eastman,
he has taught for over a decade at New York University, directing the Washington Square
Contemporary Music Series and actively organizing concerts for the U.S. Section of the
League of Composers-International Society for Contemporary Music. From undergraduate days
on, his music has been deeply influenced by serial practice; he cites his encounter with
the work and writings of Charles Wuorinen as seminal to his
development. He is closely tied to performance ensembles, artists, and support
organizations usually identified as "uptown," "Eurocentric,"
"modernist" - labels that he proudly accepts, that today are loaded with
controversial connotations as never before, and that seem to fit his music well.
Appearances, however, can be deceiving, especially if by the above terms one suggests a music that is written in order to overturn previous norms, or to satisfy an a priori structure, regardless of the sound itself. With Karchin, this is definitely not the case. The first work of his I encountered was Capriccio for Violin and Seven Instruments, written in 1978, which spoke in the mixed accents of American serialism and grand traditional gestures. In particular, I remember its cadenza, which resolved a growing harmonic and gestural tension with an outpouring of notes reminiscent of Bach and Brahms.
Karchin has stated that he was "looking for a tradition" early in his career. This turn of phrase is revealing, because it helps to differentiate his generation of modernist composers from that of their immediate elders. For Karchin, serialism was attractive not because it erased previous structures but because it extended them. He has stated that serialism provides a "background" for pitch structure that is as "serious" as that of functional tonality.
An important articulation of this philosophy occurs in an article Karchin wrote for Theory and Practice, "Pitch Centricity as an Organizing Principle in Speculum Speculi of Charles Wuorinen" [Vol. 14/15, 1989/90]. Such a text need not be a dry exercise for a composer who lives in an academic setting; it can become a model through which certain fundamental beliefs are articulated obliquely. In the introduction to the paper, Karchin quotes Schoenberg and draws a crucial inference:
"It seemed in the first stages of composing with serial techniques immensely important to avoid a similarity with tonality." Thus Schoenberg left open the possibility that in later stages of the development of the twelve-tone system, various elements previously associated with tonal music might again be accommodated. [emphasis added]
In a footnote, Karchin goes even farther to draw a connection between the practice of serialism based on "pitch-centricity" and functional tonality:
In Speculum Speculi, description of stability and instability, as well as consonance and dissonance, are not as difficult to characterize as they often appear to be in other non-tonal works. In cadential areas in particular, materials often project the qualities they assume in a tonal setting, e.g., fifths and fourths are more consonant than seconds and sevenths, etc. As in tonal music, stable chords are constructed from combinations of more consonant intervals, while less stable chords derive from more dissonant configurations.
For a theorist, such a remark is a little risky, opening up a topic that could easily grow to book length. But as a composer it is entirely appropriate for Karchin to make it, as it reveals his own deep belief in an acoustical reality of music, a sense that certain sounds have an innate, substantive weight that is different from others. The fourth and fifth are in fact intervals that occur frequently as important vertical sonorities in Karchin's work, and he recognizes that their early appearance in the overtone series probably has something to do with this. It is important to emphasize that Karchin is not trying to "recapture" tonality; he simply is concerned that certain aspects of music that he finds meaningful (such as clearly perceptible structure) be renewed in a fresh form. His is a view of artistic progress that, while still highly teleological, sees a certain core practice as transforming itself throughout musical history, rather than history being a sequence of discrete practices, one replacing another with no "trace residue."
This leads, of course, to Karchin's music. While there are many aspects of his work that bespeak a tradition commonly called "New York uptown" (a largely chromatic palette; sharp, jostling attacks and timbres; rhythmic irregularity and complexity), there are also several characteristics that distinguish it from much of the music usually associated with that style. In particular, three stand out: motivic clarity, open sonorities, and clearly defined return of material.
One example illustrates these qualities in dramatic fashion. In Karchin's 1990 Sonata for Cello and Piano, a climactic moment is reached in the first movement, distinguished by a long open-fifth pedal tone (see Fig. 1A). First of all, the gesture of the abrupt cello fifths against the piano is impossible to miss on first hearing; second, the fifth itself provides a sense of stability and anchoring to the gesture; and third, the return of the material at m. 99 (see Fig. 1B) articulates a sort of sonata-allegro recapitulation, further emphasized by the material's transposition by a fifth from its original pitch level. While this is one of the most obvious examples of Karchin's "progressive traditionalist" practice, it is not atypical - even the serial violin/cello Duo of 1981 has the same clarity of motivic construction in an even more chromatic context, resulting in clearly audible returns.
Like that of many composers of his generation, Karchin's music has grown increasingly free in its technique and more open to tonal reference. His taste for clearly defined materials would seem well suited to the demands of vocal writing, and several of his most significant works are for this medium. The Songs of John Keats (1984) is a crystalline, concise work for soprano and six instruments; even on first hearing, there is a remarkable congruence between the linear and harmonic materials of the music. In Fig. 2 the vocal line emphasizes the interval of the fourth, while the instrumental accompaniment creates a backdrop of minor sevenths and major ninths in mm. 15-16. This accompaniment then progressively includes the fourth in its vertical sonorities, first in the F#-B of m.18, and ultimately in the phrase's climactic sonority of C-Eb-F at m.19, one that combines and balances the two interval classes. This passage is typical of the piece - one hears certain types of intervals highlighted in a passage both melodically and harmonically. When I first heard this music, this highly audible parity between horizontal and vertical convinced me that it must be serially constructed, perhaps in a manner similar to Dallapiccola. Karchin surprised me, however, by stating that the piece was based rather on his instinct for motivic and intervallic coherence. In short, Karchin has internalized certain principles of serialism and integrated them with his own aural preferences.
This approach is stretched even farther in the Songs of Distance and Light (1987) for soprano and eight players. The work begins with two poems by Elizabeth Bishop, the first made of highly contrasted and abruptly juxtaposed gestures, the second a brilliantly orchestrated scherzo that evokes Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky, albeit in modern guise. By the time we reach the third song, however (to a text by Jennifer Rose), the music has taken on a sound reminiscent of traditional tonality. Fig. 3 shows a sample, in which a descending chordal progression is transposed and inverted in patterns derived from functional harmony, and in which the overall sound seems to derive as much from a modal underpinning as from intervallic choice. The materials are similar to those of the Keats songs, but the feel is different. In Karchin's earliest acknowledged works, one hears the interval class as the determining factor; in subsequent works from the eighties, such as the Keats songs, the actual interval has risen in importance (e.g., while obviously closely related, a fourth and a fifth are not always the same thing). More recently, in a work such as Songs of Distance and Light, the harmonies resulting from complexes of intervals are the prime focus, suggesting an even richer deep structure.
Thus, by the late eighties Karchin had succeeded not only in adapting a serial technique to a more intuitive practice, but he had also extended his expressive/ technical range to allow for transformation of materials over the entire course of a piece, along a multiple spectrum that includes dissonant/consonant, serial/modaltonal, contextual/functional. This is not to suggest that Karchin must next compose traditionally tonal music; he is not like some of the earlier generation of serialists who became disenchanted with the system and rejected it outright. His approach is progressive, creating from a chosen tradition and technique the capacity to embrace increasingly rich and diverse musical materials.
