Report from New York: The New Virtuosity

Abstract

AN ATTEMPT to rethink the continuing role of performance is evident in much recent music. The compositions presented on a recent (September 1961) New York Fromm Foundation concert were particularly interesting from this point of view. Leon Kirchner's Concerto for violin, cello, ten winds and percussion, Elliott Carter's Concerto for harpsichord and piano with two chamber orchestras, and Milton Babbitt's Vision and Prayer for soprano with synthesized accompaniment clearly differ from one another in style, conception, and musical thought. But they also share certain remarkable characteristics, principally in that they all project, through the use of multiple sound sources, a spatial or stereophonic conception. The Babbitt has a single soloist accompanied by a two-channel tape played through a number of loudspeakers spread around a hall. Both the Kirchner and the Carter have dual soloists together with concertante and ripieno clements; in the Carter, both soloists have their own independent ensembles with an indicated physical arrangement for separation in space. The solo parts in all three works are treated in a highly developed, virtuoso manner with carefully elaborated rhythmic and melodic detail. And, most significantly, all of these characteristics tend to function as basic aspects of the musical thought, not as merely decorative or coloristic treatment of more essential ideas.