CDOTD 4/08/2023

 Henry Brant: The Henry Brant Collection, Volume 1 (Innova)

I don't recall where and how I got this, possibly Sound Cat Records.

Her I sit to write again, knowing I should be spending the time on my own music and playing. I'm staying with the commitment though.

Henry Brant. I know just a little about him. I've heard some early music of his (he was born in 1913, so it's going back some decades) that seemed to border on novelty music. It is work he wrote later that is more notable: unusual groupings of instruments, and acoustical spatialization of music, often both at the same time. "Orbits" might be the best known, a work for eighty trombones, organ, and very high soprano obbligato. "Ghosts and Gargoyles" is for flute choir and jazz drummer. 

I don't know how "Orbits" came about. Was it his choice for write for so many trombones (each with a unique part) or was it requested of him? What I know is, if you can't find something interesting to do with eighty trombones, you can't be much of a composer.

I came across this two disc set while looking over my collection. I'm pretty certain I hadn't sat down with it before, at least in its entirety. The 96 minute work, "Northern Lights Over the Twin Cities: A Spatial Assembly of Auroral Echoes" takes up most of its length. The piece dates to 1985, making it a later work in Brant's oeuvre. I don't see how anyone but an older, respected composer could have pulled off such an immense work. The notes only list the premiere performance, November 23, 1985. I assume that's when this was recorded, and I doubt it's been played a second time. But, Stockhausen's "Helicopter String Quartet" has had more than one run, so who knows?

The work took six conductors, and involves orchestras of strings, winds, and percussion, several jazz bands, choirs, vocal soloists, bagpipes, and I'm probably leaving something out. It's divided into twelve movements, and movements are marked off by changes in instrumentation and density. 

It would probably surprise nobody that it's all over the place musically. The first several movements are slow, and all have a harmonic feel that seems to center on a particular mode. Things start to vary in the fourth movement, set for two jazz ensembles (no doubt separated physically in the space). By the end you'll hear intoning voices, multiple simultaneous events, harmonized bagpipes, among other things. 

Henry seems to like writing very high voice parts, something in common between "Orbits" and this piece. 

The intonation is sketchy at times. Sometimes it's clearly out of tune, sometimes I had to wonder if it was intentionally microtonal. But, considering how challenges of staging such a work (I haven't mentioned dancers too), the spatial separation of the ensembles, it's no wonder that maybe everything isn't tight in that respect. And far, far better that an imperfect performance be made available than none at all. This sort of work could easily be lost to time entirely, an odd, tiny footnote in the larger history of music of the past century. 

A 1975 work, "A Plan of the Air", concludes the second disc. It requires two conductors, for instrumental ensemble and voices. More spatialization, and there are definitely intentionally microtonal passages in the instrumental parts. Only the premiere date is listed; only a single performance? It seems like a pity that would be the case.