Student report : Holley Dobson Sp '99
Morton Subotnick's The Key to Songs
Morton Subotnick is a man who has influenced, if not driven, the world of electronic music. From the beginning, he has sought for new and distinctive ways to merge art and technology. His piece The Key to Songs served to combine these two facets.
Introduction to Morton Subotnick
Morton Subotnick was born in Los Angeles, California on April 13, 1933. He had been battling with bronchitis when his family doctor suggested he take up a wind instrument. He began playing the clarinet and within a few years he was playing concertos and composing music of his own. Subotnick was now twelve years old.
When it was time to attend college, Subotnick chose the University of Denver where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree. While attending the University, Subotnick was also playing the clarinet with the Denver Symphony. He received his masterís degree from Mills College while studying composition with Leon Kirchner and Darius Milhaud. After receiving his masters, he began teaching at Mills College and during these seven years, Subotnick was the Music Director of the Ann Halprin Dance Company and the San Francisco Actorís Workshop. Also during this time, he co-founded the San Francisco Tape Music Center with Ramon Sender. Several years later, Subotnick moved to New York City where he served as a professor of music at New York University. He was also a Music Director at the Lincoln Center Repertory Theater and served as Director of Electronic Music at the Electronic Circus at St. Markís Place. He has also held positions at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Maryland, and the California Institute of the Arts.
Works Leading up to The Key to Songs
His first major work was called Silver Apples of the Moon, commissioned by Nonesuch Records specifically for the LP recording medium. This was the first time a piece was commissioned calling for solely electronic music. The album did very well, becoming an American bestseller (in the classical music section). The next year, 1968, Nonesuch Records commissioned another piece called The Wild Bull. It was similar to Sliver Apples of the Moon and dance companies later choreographed both. Over the next seven years, Subotnick composed several more songs for LP: Touch, Sidewinder, and Four Butterflies.
In 1975, Odyssey commissioned Until Spring, a work written for solo synthesizer. For this piece, Subotnick "recorded" control voltages onto a separate tape representing setting changes that he could then use to reproduce a performance (or change it). This piece led the next phase of Subotnick's compositions. Subotnick's next major development was the "ghost box." Using a "ghost score" comprised of control voltages stored to tape (or later EPROM), Subotnick would have a live performer play into the box and modify the sound in this way. Using the ghost box and having the performer read the ghost score, Subotnick could now blend the live sounds with the modulated sounds on stage. The first piece to apply this technology was Two Life Histories. Over the next six years, Subotnick composed Parallel Lines, Liquid Strata, The Wild Beasts, Axolotl, The Last Dream of the Beast, and The Fluttering of Wings all using the ghost box technology.
After 1981, many of Subotnickís works were mixtures of instrumentals, dance, projection of visual images, acting, and speaking. One significant work was Ascent into Air. It was composed for the 4C computer IRCAM and used quadraphonic speakers. This composition also used the sounds of one instrument to modulate the timbre of other instruments on stage again using ghost boxes. His next notable piece, The Double Life of Amphibians, was used at the 1984 Olympics Arts Festival in Los Angeles. This piece used dancers, visual images, and speakers and utilized the expertise of director Lee Bruer and visual artist Irving Petlin. Jacobís Room was a multimedia opera taking advantage of the talents of Joan La Barbara, a noted soprano. Jacobís Room was written about the Holocaust and premiered in San Francisco in 1985.
The Key to Songs
The Key to Songs was a fairly technologically sparse piece considering the other compositions Subotnick produced around the same time. The Key to Songs was commissioned by the Fromm Music Foundation and was premiered in 1985 at the Aspen Festival. It was music to go with an imaginary ballet based on a novel written by Max Ernst in 1933. The novel called The Seven Deadly Elements, was in the form of a collage–no words; only pictures. The novel has seven chapters and each one represented a day of the week. Each of the days was associated with a deadly element. The elements were Mud, Water, Fire, Blood, Blackness, Sight, and Unknown. Before each chapter, there was a small motto. The last chapter, Unknown (Saturday), contained this label: The key to songs.
Subotnickís The Key to Songs was orchestrated for two pianos, a marimba, a xylophone, a vibraphone, viola, cello, and the YCAMS or Yamaha Computer Assisted Music System.
The novel was full of images that have a very fine line between reality and fantasy and Subotnick did the same thing using the mixture between electronic and authentic musical instruments. At times, the electronic sounds could be mistaken for the sounds coming from the instruments on stage. There were parts in the score where Subotnick specified that the musicians exaggerate their playing so the audience would be sure to know where the sounds were coming from. There are also times when Subotnick created new sounds by blending the acoustic ones with the electronic ones. For example, there is a mallet sound that gradually changes timbre and soon begins sounding like some kind of plucked instrument. Later, the piano begins to sound like a cello, and at another point, one is sure that there is a person singing, but in fact it is an electronically modulated cello.
Then suddenly, one would hear a familiar theme. Donít I know this song? Well, you probably have, or at least part of it. Subotnick took two songs by Schubert and incorporated them into this piece. Mark Swed describes why Subotnick chose to include these songs.
The basic structure is very rhythmic at the beginning, with a series of repeated chords. This is the Power section that corresponds to Mud in Ernstís novel. The chords are altered slightly for Blood and the rhythms are more rigorous. The next section is Fire and it contains many glissandi, while Water is characterized by the marimba and is very flowing. There is then a short coda that is not related to Ernstís novel. The second part begins with Black represented by slow strings followed by Light (Sight in Ernstís novel). Light is the only section that does not contain any electronic material however this section is the most fantastic. The end of the song incorporates very obviously Schubertís Die Schone Mullerin.
Works Following The Key to Songs
In 1986, Subotnick wrote Return to celebrate the return of Halleyís Comet. This piece included a show at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. All My Hummingbirds Have Alibis was released in 1992 and was released only on CD-ROM. Five Scenes for an Imaginary Ballet was also released in 1992 and was the first song written exclusively for CD-ROM. A critic from the New Your Times praised Subotnick stating that Subotnick was someone who understood the potential of the CD-ROM medium.
In conclusion:
From the time of Silver Apples of the Moon, Morton Subotnick has been inventing new ways of making music and combining the talents of musicians with the power of technology. He has won numerous awards including six National Endowment of the Arts grants, a Meet the Composer grant, a Guggenhein Fellowship, two Rockefeller grants, an American Academy of Arts and Letter Award, a Brandeis Award in Music Composition, and most recently, the SEAMUS Award for contribution to the art of electro-acoustic music. However, not everyone thinks highly of his music. Mark Stryker from the Detroit Free Press has this to say about Subotnickís All My Hummingbirds Have Alibis:
Morton Subotnickís music may not be played on the radio or make it to MTV, but his work has accomplished much more than simply making him "famous." By pushing the boundaries of technology in the arts, he has broadened the horizons of both art and technology, as well as those of his listeners.
Bibliography
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Stryker, Mark. "Morton Subotnick." http://detroitfreepress.com/fun/sj/qsound08175.html. Downloaded: April 17, 1999.
Swed, Mark. "The Key to Songs." CD Insert. New Albion Records. 1986