Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Carl Ruggles

In the Blink of an Eye, Michael Tilson Thomas Is No More

This is one of those days I always knew would come – at least for the last five years or so – and now I am very sorry it’s here. For the conductor Michael Tilson Thomas has died.

In my memory, Tilson Thomas will always be the effusive, boyish protégé of Leonard Bernstein. There are many, I’m sure, who during those early years predicted he would inherit Bernstein’s mantle as the most recognized and beloved American conductor. Alas, it did not come to pass. It’s not that he wasn’t recognized and beloved, but there could be only one Leonard Bernstein. Still, MTT had a great career and a rewarding life. You can’t fault excellence for not attaining superstardom.

At one time or another, he held positions as music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, chief conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, founder and artistic director of the New World Symphony (an ensemble made up of gifted young musicians), and music director of the San Francisco Symphony. He also enjoyed a fruitful relationship with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, of which he was once assistant conductor and with which he made some classic recordings.

Over0 the course of his career, Tilson Thomas amassed a cabinet full of Grammys, a Peabody Award, a National Medal of Arts, and a Kennedy Center Honor. Like Bernstein, he was also a composer. A few of his works reflected his Jewish heritage and honored his grandparents’ experience in the Yiddish theater. (He was the grandson of Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky.)

There’s plenty in his discography that’s given me great pleasure over the years: recordings of the symphonies of Charles Ives; orchestral works of Aaron Copland and Igor Stravinsky; a colorful selection of “Bachianas Brasileiras” by Heitor Villa-Lobos; a fascinating curio, “The American Flag,” by Antonín Dvořák; an album of the late choral works of Beethoven (including “Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage”) that I acquired on vinyl from my local record store when I was in high school; of course his Gershwin records, especially the one with “Rhapsody in Blue” in its original version; and a knock-out disc of American orchestral works, including Walter Piston’s Symphony No. 2, Ives’ “Three Places in New England,” and that prickly masterpiece, Carl Ruggles’ “Sun-Treader.”

MTT recorded the complete works of Ruggles, a cantankerous, problematic composer, who wrote music of uncompromising integrity and dissonance. These were released on a two-LP set on CBS Masterworks. It must have sold about five copies, because the label never bothered to reissue it on compact disc, so that it became a kind of Holy Grail among collectors. It finally reappeared on the independent label Other Minds, 37 years later, in 2017! It would have been nice had they retained the design of the original album, but some of the elements were the same. Significantly, they were able to hang on to the program notes, which were supplemented by photos and an essay by Lou Harrison.

Tilson Thomas conducted the first concert I ever saw with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Mann Music Center in the summer of 1984, when he was joined by André Watts, the soloist in Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, and after intermission led the ensemble in Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra – with a thunderstorm looming, no less. Why they didn’t clear the lawn, I have no idea. You were just expected to pull your shirt over your head or run for cover in those days.

The last time I saw him was in Philadelphia in 2008, this time indoors at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, when he was joined by Paul Jacobs for Copland’s Organ Symphony and then, on the concert’s second half, he conducted Mahler’s Symphony No. 5.

As is so often the case, we tend to take what’s available to us for granted. So it was like a splash of ice water, when five years ago, Tilson Thomas was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. Although he scaled back his activities for treatment and to husband his resources, he continued to perform, and during the period, a sort of sustained victory lap, he was received by audiences everywhere with notable warmth.

His husband, Joshua Robison, died only two months ago. The two met in junior high school and were together for 50 years.

Tilson Thomas is one of those figures I will always remember in the summer of his youth. I recollect watching him play Copland’s Piano Variations on a PBS television documentary about the composer, broadcast over 40 years ago now, and his commentary about the piece, which he compared to a skyscraper in sound. I can’t get over how quickly time passes.

Michael Tilson Thomas was 81 years-old. R.I.P.

April 23, 2026
Cowell Ruggles American Mavericks

At the risk of instigating a slap fight between two of America’s foremost musical mavericks, I salute both Henry Cowell (1897-1965) and Carl Ruggles (1876-1971) on their shared birthday.

Actually, the two were good friends. Their circle of “ultra-modernists,” as they were dubbed, must have been swollen with cake this time of year. (Colin McPhee’s birthday anniversary is on March 15.) The surfeit of sugar made them all the more volatile, I’m sure.

Cowell pioneered the use of atonality, polytonality, polyrhythms, and non-Western modes. He was employing tone clusters (chords made up of adjacent keys on the chromatic scale, often played with a fist or forearm) in his keyboard music before Béla Bartók.

His experiments with aleatory (chance elements) and the “string piano” (reaching inside the piano to play the strings) influenced generations of composers. He was an autodidact who adopted established musical techniques only as he felt he needed them.

Cowell was so bad-ass that when he was sent to San Quentin on a “morals” charge, he kept right on churning out music at his usual prolific pace. He taught his fellow inmates and organized a prison band. There’s got to be a movie in this, the musical equivalent of “The Shawshank Redemption.”

That said, Cowell did not emerge from the experience unscarred. His later works take a more conservative tack. No longer was he quite as radical, either musically or politically. It is his music from this era that is usually deemed radio-safe.

Cowell and Carl Ruggles were two-fifths or the “American Five,” which also included John J. Becker, Wallingford Riegger and Charles Ives. Ives was a good friend of both, supporting Cowell’s experimentation before he himself became well-known.

He famously defended Ruggles by leaping to his feet, following a performance of “Men and Mountains,” to confront a heckler with, “You g**d*** sissy! When you hear strong, masculine music like this, get up and use your ears like a man.” This would likely be received even less favorably today than it was then. But these guys existed before political correctness.

In fact, Ruggles was so incorrect, he eventually alienated even Ives. Even so, Ives was seemingly the only one of Ruggles’ acquaintances never to be on the receiving end of his ire.

Ruggles disdained music theory and composed by ear, painstakingly, through trial and error. He did adhere to a kind of dissonant counterpoint. Because of his perfectionism, he left only ten authorized works. He found it to be much less labor-intensive to paint. Over the course of his lifetime, he sold hundreds of his paintings. (Curious to see some? Google is your friend.)

There’s no question that Ruggles was a world-class S.O.B., but he did manage to leave behind some fascinating, even breathtaking music.

Happy birthday to two American originals.

Henry Cowell, “The Banshee,” for string piano:

Carl Ruggles, “Men and Mountains”:

IMAGES: (left) Henry Cowell and friend; “The Sun Treader (Portrait of Carl Ruggles)” by Thomas Hart Benton

March 11, 2025
Herrmann Ruggles Maverick Composers

The only composer crankier than Carl Ruggles was probably Bernard Herrmann. Everyone recognizes Herrmann as the genius film composer he was, but whenever he was in front of an orchestra, he made it his mission to champion works by neglected composers.

Ruggles, the cantankerous American modernist, was the creator of a handful of meticulously-crafted, uncompromising works. His complete, authorized output can be accommodated on two LPs. We know this, because Michael Tilson Thomas recorded just about everything for the Columbia Masterworks label in 1980.

Ruggles’ method was described by musicologist Charles Seeger as “dissonant counterpoint,” a system wherein all the traditional rules of counterpoint are reversed, so that dissonance, rather than consonance, is the norm. The very practice smacks of contrarianism!

Not surprisingly, Ruggles was beloved by Charles Ives. When someone had the audacity to boo one of Ruggles’ works at a concert given in 1931, Ives berated the critic as a sissy: “Why can’t you stand up before fine, strong music like this, and use your ears like a man?!”

Ruggles also created hundreds of paintings. In contrast to the agonizing process of composition, his paintings were usually tossed off in an afternoon. They were deemed good enough that he was invited to hang shows and even sold many of his canvases.

Ruggles died in 1971, about three months after this Herrmann interview was broadcast. He was 95 years-old.

Herrmann got his start in the medium of radio in 1934, when he was hired as a conducting assistant at CBS. It wasn’t long before he was providing original music and serving as musical director of its resident orchestra. Among his duties there was providing incidental music for Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre broadcasts. In fact, he was in front of the orchestra for possibly radio’s most notorious hour, Welles’ hysteria-inducing adaptation of “The War of the Worlds.”

As would ever be the case, Herrmann did nothing by halves. Then only in his 20s, he possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of both music and literature, and filled his programs with works by Ives, Henry Cowell, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Alexander Gretchaninov, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Hermann Goetz, Joachim Raff, Niels Wilhelm Gade, Richard Arnell, Lord Berners, Edmund Rubbra, and countless others. Even Schoenberg and Webern could be heard over CBS during those years.

Herrmann had known Ives personally since he was in his teens. He had discovered the composer’s “114 Songs” in the New York Public Library and was instrumental in shopping them around, even introducing them to Aaron Copland.

He was also unfailingly outspoken. Once, when CBS president William S. Paley balked at one of his proposals, Herrmann snapped, “You’re assuming the public is as ignorant about music as you are.” That’s just the kind of guy Herrmann was. Totally tactless, but usually right. After that, he was given near-unlimited freedom over musical programming at CBS.

It had always been Herrmann’s ambition to be recognized as a great conductor. Leopold Stokowski was his hero. While he never realized that ambition, it was not for want of trying.

During the conversation at the link above, Herrmann draws an unexpected connection between Ruggles and “Moby Dick.” Herrmann was an enormous admirer of Melville’s magnum opus, setting it as a cantata in 1936-38, also predating his career in film. It was given its debut at Carnegie Hall in 1940, with Sir John Barbirolli conducting the New York Philharmonic. Herrmann dedicated the work to Ives.

So as to leave you with a bit of Herrmann’s film music, here’s one of the composer’s personal favorites, and another piece that breathes the sea air – his score for the 1947 film “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.”

Happy birthday, Bernard Herrmann. Would it kill you to smile on your special day?

June 29, 2022
Composer Painters: Art & Music Collide

For some people, being a master in one field, it seems, just isn’t enough. This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll hear works by three successful composer-painters.

Carl Ruggles (1876-1971), a friend of Charles Ives, lived 95 years. The cantankerous American modernist was the creator of a handful of meticulously-crafted, uncompromising works. His complete, authorized output amounts to four times the length of an LP side. We know this, because Michael Tilson Thomas recorded just about everything as part of a two-LP set, issued on the Columbia Masterworks label back in 1980.

Ruggles’ method was described by musicologist Charles Seeger as “dissonant counterpoint,” a system wherein all the traditional rules of counterpoint are reversed, so that dissonance, rather than consonance, is the norm. The very practice smacks of contrarianism!

Not surprisingly, he was beloved by Ives. When someone had the audacity to boo a work by Ruggles at a concert given in 1931, Ives berated the critic as a sissy. “Why can’t you stand up before fine, strong music like this, and use your ears like a man?” he challenged.

In addition to his activities as a composer, Ruggles created hundreds of paintings. They were deemed to be successful enough that he was invited to hang shows and even sold many of his canvases.

His musical composition “Sun-Treader” was inspired by Robert Browning’s poem, “Pauline” – in particular the line, “Sun-treader, light and life be thine forever!”

In contrast to Ruggles, a gifted dilettante who tossed off paintings in an afternoon, Mikalojus Čiurlionis (1875-1911) is considered every bit as important a painter as he was a composer.

In his 35 years, Čiurlionis managed to compose about 400 pieces of music and to paint about 300 canvases. A pioneer of abstract art in Europe, he was an exemplar of the symbolist and art nouveau movements, a representative of the fin de siècle epoch, and a major figure in Lithuanian culture. Interestingly, Čiurlionis was also a synesthete; that is to say, he perceived colors and music simultaneously. We’ll hear his vibrant symphonic poem, “The Sea.”

Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956), on the other hand, is known almost exclusively as a visual artist. Born and raised in New York, he moved to Germany at the age of 16. There, he became a leading practitioner of German Expressionism and the Bauhaus. With the rise of the Nazis in the 1930s and the party’s campaign against modern art, Feininger was driven out of Germany, and after 50 years returned to the United States, where he met with great success.

Feininger had no formal music studies, beyond a few years of violin lessons. Regardless, he composed thirteen fugues (with extant sketches for a fourteenth). These, he wrote by ear, with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach being an undisguised influence. Feininger claimed that the influence of Bach was equally evident in his paintings.

Prepare to see double this week. It’s an hour of music by ambidextrous artists. Join me for “Fixtures at an Exhibition,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

“Sonata of the Sea: Finale” (1908), by Mikalojus Čiurlionis

April 3, 2022
Carl Ruggles’ Sun-Treader on WWFM

If I said March would be going out like a lamb, I’d be lion! Get ready for the ecstatic dissonances of Carl Ruggles’ “Sun-Treader.”

“Sun-Treader” kicks off tonight’s edition of “The Lost Chord,” an hour of music by composers who were also devoted painters (and one visual artist who also happened to compose).

That’s “Fixtures at an Exhibition,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

Ruggles with a cigar and three of his paintings (left to right): “Flowers,” “The Church,” and “Forebodings.”

March 31, 2019

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