The New York composer Julia Wolfe won a Pulitzer in 2015 and a MacArthur ‘genius’ award the following year.
Among her recent works is this indefensibkle abuse of a stringed instruments.
Enjoy.
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Probably some cheap axes off ebay. You can get a playable violin there for $99. This may be the high point of their existence.
But if anyone is proud of their Pulitzer, remember that they gave one to Charles Wuorinen.
Dear oh dear. I’m sure I tried making quite a few of those sounds, as a kid. Not desperately interesting results. And I can’t think why anyone actually wants to record or watch this.
But does it do any harm to the instruments ?
She would demonstrate the difference between a viola, and an onion.
So avant garde… Mon Dieu.
indefensibkle indeed!
I don’t think there’s ever been such a light-weight composer of mediocrity who has garnered as much attention and acclaim as Julia Wolfe. It’s puzzling.
Wrecking the varnish with guitar pick covered fingers was not nice to do — but doing the same motion with an orchestra’s amount of string player’s calloused finger tips on the open strings has been used in scary movies for decades.
Wot? no one bowed the tailpiece? (Cool sound — like a whale.)
That’s Wile E. Coyote tier genius.
Wile E Coyote usually falls down a cliff at the end. So to be continued?
The composer is surely a prize collector. Since she already has a ‘genius’ award, nor it is time to get an ‘idiot’ award.
Rule number one: Respect your profession.
Rule number 2: In case opf doubt, read rule number one.
That applies to all professions.
Pretty sad
This might have been interesting and avant-garde 70 years ago. Please…give it up and get a job.
Thanks for bringing it to my attention Norman, absolutely LOVED that!
My PA loves it as well, but it considerably affects her work quality.
And after a tightly fought contest the Pseuds Corner Award for Pointless Abuse of a Stringed Instrument goes to….
Quite beautiful, actually, and it creates an atmosphere. It is, practically, pop music with funny sounds. They do strike the body of the instruments at the very end; otherwise no abuse as such and the players are very skilled. And one assumes they use very cheap instruments, like with Max’s ‘Eight Songs for a Mad King’. Fred Frith has been doing this with his guitars for decades: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kivZMdCJ9Ok
New: ‘violin gang rape’.
Out of respect for the violin family surely a new instrument could be designed to make that sound.
Total garbage, she should never have received those prizes by the way, and is about as far from a genius as it’s possible to be. Yes, Julia, I mean you, since I know you’re here reading the comments by night.
The Jimmy Hendrix syndrome.
Her nose is firmly pressed up against the brick wall at the end of the musical cul-de-sac that has trapped attention-seeking ‘composers’ for the last 50 years, in their ‘groundbreaking’ exploration of sonority. Texture is only one aspect of music and yet it consumes these people as if it’s the only reason for being. Someone needs to politely take her to one side and explain to her that what she is doing is incredibly passé. John Cage was preparing pianos decades before she was even born. It’s desperately sad to witness, pathetic even. She should have every right to explore whichever avenue she pleases but what disturbs me is that she is rewarded for it by being lauded as some kind of genius. Now that is the very definition of charlatanism.
The irony is, of course, that such ‘works’ are presented as ‘modern’, while in fact they epitomize the apotheosis of conservatism – wanting to freeze a moment in time, in this case the moment (70 years ago) when such things were new, however silly and nonsensical. Why is that so? Everybody should know it’s terribly old hat and merely annoying as well. Answer: it is an entirely forgettable art form, ‘placebo music’, so it does not leave any recollection. And thus, it seems new every time, like experiences by alzheimer patients.
Abuse, not so much. What you may not see is that these are rudimentary factory made “trade” instruments, produced from third rate materials. The argument that ‘they may give a new player the wonder of music’ can be construed incorrectly if you have ever seen how a string instrument is treated by a child or student in the public school system. It’s a two way street, one with reverence on one side, and the other covered with profanity etched into the back, sides and top with a sharp tool and dim wit. The instruments here in question are neither abused nor destroyed and are instead playing a fairly interesting piece of sound art that evolves over it’s duration yielding something that will hopefully be played again and again…..but only on a factory made instrument…much akin to a mass produced sneaker that splashes around in a puddle for fun.
No self respecting violin luthier would describe her as a genius.
I did enjoy. I think this is extremely interesting and that many of the passages are quite beautiful. As with some other percussion pieces there is visually almost an element of dance to it.
Given that these violins all seem to have four tuners on the tailpiece these would appear to be student level violins and thus the abuse was not “indefensibkle” or even indefensible compared to what school kids do (or what their parents do in amateur attempts to “repair” the instrument).
No, I won’t look at this. Nor LPs being scratched. Nor kittens or puppies being kicked.
My niece’s son makes these sounds and he’s only 4. Does he get a ‘genius’ grant?
Would a man writing such musical drivel have gotten a Pulitzer or a MacArthur? I recall uproar here when Kendrick Lamar won the Pulitzer; I may not be his most devout fan but I can say I think
he is far more deserving than a violin-sadist.
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should; especially if nothing is your best.
“Would a man writing such musical drivel have gotten a Pulitzer or a MacArthur?”
Listen to the male-composed, Pulitzer Prize-winning “Time’s Encomium”.
No fair skipping through it, you have to sit through the whole thing.
Understand your point, but he didn’t get the Pulitzer because he’s a man—it was 1970.
Wolfe—just another Cage…a charlatan, getting by with small scale trickery fooling the large scale industry gatekeepers.
Her acting degree has gotten her far.
Caroline Shaw is a real composer. She deserves more prizes than currently exist.
To be fair, Mrs Wolfe also writes Social Justice Pieces:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg_FTqkNAN0
That horrific cacaphony of scratches, plucks, scrapes pings and other offensive audio is as far from social justice as one might find oneself. Someone on the web gives an annual ALDA price, “Avoid Like Death Award”. I herebye nominate this work.
About 3 minutes into this I discovered that it’s 38 minutes long. “Oh hell no,” quoth I.
I remember in the 1970s members of the London Sinfonietta (England’s premier performers of Avant Garde music at the time) refusing to abuse their instruments in the ways demanded by a particular composer!
Indefensible? Really? They’re fitting sticks between the strings and buzzing them about. Then they’re batting the strings exactly like ordinary battuto col legno. I thought there would be damage to the wood and construction, which would be the proper definition of indefensible. But there is no contact with any varnished areas as far as I can see, maybe a bit of tailpiece tapping. Sounds like you’re simply offended by the sounds of the piece, in which case Stravinsky and Ginastera would also count as indefensible!
I’m starting to think that between today’s New music and what we think of as the standard repertory there is a distinction between music as communication and music as an act of doing. The Wolfe piece is clearly in the latter category.
By the way, there are many of us who think that her woke social justice pieces make her less of a composer, not more. What is left when the ‘message’ is removed, those messages will seem dated and irrelevant at some point in the future.
I much prefer Julia Wolfe to “swim in Mendelssohnian waters” when composing.
Intellectual onanism.
Ingenious and innovative work. The unique harmonic combination is obtained by a determined scordatura. Striking the strings with wooden sticks does no harm to instruments. The is equivalent to con legno battuto frequently used in music of 22th century.
Mirel Iancovici, 22nd Century? That could explain it!
From her website:
“This work is currently unavailable due to performance exclusivities.”
ok……
Have a listen to Tapper by Alvin Lucier. This work is tame by comparison.
we’re too busy sitting in a room …..
I actually quite liked this piece. The method is avant garde but the overall feel was of a piece from the Romanic era. There was the initial attraction, the fear of rejection, the angry frustration, the illicit act then a kind of defiance. Not hard to understand if not exactly a piece to listen to with a glass of brandy and a warm fire (or maybe it is for some).
Yes that was also my experience! I love it, it gives you a feeling of romance, and drama, and all the stuff of life, although I found the end quite sad. But so is life, isn’t it?
Sally
Percussion piece really rather than violin. Intriguing.