Arts
If you're a composer and you at least partially acknowledge the musical history that came before you, you're left in a tough position. How can you even put pen to paper when so much profound music already exists? Do you disregard it? Build upon it? Scrawl graffiti on its pages or bow in reverence? In this episode we hear music that does a little bit of each in three movements from the solo piano suite Parlour Diplomacy by Brooklyn-based composer Ted Hearne. The composer is joined by pianist-composer Timo Andres for whom the piece was written. They discuss the anxiety of manipulating source material by Johannes Brahms, and compositionally speaking, how to disassociate completely. Special thanks to Ted Hearne and Timo Andres for their use of "Excerpts from Parlour Diplomacy".