A while ago I wrote a post praising the music of Daniel Dorff – Dorff has composed music for a number of children’s tales for narrator and chamber orchestra. My kids simply adore the pieces, and love to listen to them in the car. More importantly, I adore the pieces because they are fun to hear and aren’t the typical “check your brain at the door” children’s music which quite frankly is the bane of my existence.

After spending many hours in the car with my two kids this summer, I want to take a few posts to highlight some of the music which has made those journeys a bit more enjoyable. Along with the Dorff CD, Bridge Records also has released a CD of the music of Stefan Wolpe which has another of our favorite musical tales. The story is similar to Pete Seeger‘s “Abiyoyo”, but the music is infinitely more interesting. Seeger’s tale is essentially two phrases of music that repeat ad nauseam. Wolpe, on the other hand, has written a 20-minute tone poem / opera. The narrator speaks the story while the piano paints the pictures; the characters have their own short arias; there are musical leitmotifs; the piano score is not simple – modern, but playful.

I think we adults are often foolish in believing that children are incapable of understanding or enjoying complex things. It’s a disservice to them to expose them only to Barney songs, rather than music that they can continue to enjoy now as well as when they are old and gray. So when the kids are whiny, put this on and everyone will be a little bit happier.

Mention the name John Cage, and you’ll get a smirk out of every former music appreciation student.

“John Cage? Oh yeah, I like his music. I especially like his 4’33”, heh heh.”

Even if Cage’s music isn’t exactly the kind of stuff you turn on to relax at the end of a difficult day, he does make you think. Another of his famous philosophy-based compositions is “Music of Changes“. There is an ancient Chinese divination book, the I Ching, in which you toss three coins six times to determine your fortune. (you can use the I Ching online!) Cage took this idea and translated it into a compositional device. So instead of thinking, “I think this piece needs a quarter-note G here,” Cage used the I Ching to tell him what notes to put where – in a manner of speaking, removing the composer from the compositional process, and leaving every choice to a coin toss.

This idea of reducing the control of the composer is known as Indeterminacy, and was a reaction to a style called Serialism, in which the composer carefully organized everything with inflexible mathematical structures. The irony is that both the random Indeterminate music and the ultra-organized Serialist music both sounded the same – inhuman, confusing, and difficult.

So, what happens when a composer says “Let It Go!” and writes music based on chance alone? Listen:

I was having a discussion this weekend with some friends about a choir that sings to people as they are dying. I suppose some people would find this morbid, but to me (and my musician friends) there is nothing more natural. It turned out that a number of us not only had our funeral music picked out, but we also had “last pieces” picked out for our final hours of consciousness.

A friend of mine, in her early 20’s, needed a very risky surgery; the doctors said she had a 15% chance of dying during the procedure. She asked if the “Agnus Dei” from Faure‘s Requiem could be playing as she was given anesthesia; if she died, she wanted her last thought to be of the music she loved. She survived the procedure, and a year later, I was honored to participate in the performance of the Faure Requiem that she conducted. Now, when I hear that piece, I can’t help but think about her bravery.

If I had to go through what she did, I’d choose Chopin‘s Nocturne in Db. Oddly, this piece doesn’t have any significant meaning to my life. I just think that the last 16 bars (4:48 to the end) would be the perfect soundtrack for a sweet death.