Christian Wolff Concert Review 4-7-11 at UVA

Christian Wolff is an experimental and classical music composer who was largely self-taught in his musical education. This being said, there are relatively few "traditional" compositional paradigms which he adheres to; creating both a unique and jarring listening experience for the audience. Immediately upon the outset of the concert, his novel approach is blatantly obvious with songs that provide the performer an incredible amount of freedom - so much to the point that not any two interpretations of the same piece are performed, or heard for that matter, in the same way. A manner to approach the music in, from the perspective of a nubile experimental music listener (such as I am), would be strictly avant-garde. As with any pioneering music composer, the music has an exploratory tone to it; there is a palpable pushing and feeling around for boundaries that do not exist.

Periods of silence marked by brief outbursts, both identifiable in source and otherwise, followed by more traditional classical feeling sounds, are all common in the work of Wolff. Certain compositions, such as Play (1968) or Stones (1968) are completely unstructured, providing both performers and listeners with an abundance of freedom that can be overwhelming to those who have little experience with the world of early experimental music. At the same time, there is, paradoxically enough, a very natural feel to many of the compositions that is somewhat soothing to the audience, despite the abruptness of the pieces.

Although what I have been saying about the concert appears to go back and forth between the extremes of musically jarring and oddly comfortable, these, it appears, are entirely appropriate sensation combinations when listening to experimental compositions. In fact, there is an air uncertainty about the performers, looking about from one to another, which helps put the audience at ease with their own internal clashing of feelings and interpretations about the compositions.

The influence of his contemporaries is apparent in his compositions. The open form of Paris (1968) seems to be inspired by Earle Brown. The freely floating, unfocused, and asymmetric rhythms of Morton Feldman as appear to have entered Wolff's compositions. In all of Wolff's works, the autonomy of interpretation associated with John Cage could be felt along with other avant-garde influences from the experimental New York School, of which they all were an integral part.

Influences from abroad are also apparent, as Wolff borrows from the electroacoustic styling of the French based GRM. More specifically, Play (1968) had the influence of Pierre Schaeffer and musique concrete - as the sound was based off many unidentifiable, nontraditional "instruments" and the piece was devoid of any traditional musical elements. Despite the fact that Wolff is not associated with the minimalist musical movement, I could not help but hear some elements of the movement in his music - silence, brevity, directionless or non-goal driven, conceptual aspects. Also, as a matter of statement, although electronic aspects are frequent in experimental pieces, there was a marked absence of those sounds at this concert.