Out of Breath (Redux)

Dan Albertson

[December 2024.]

[The shortest article yet, more an expression of puzzlement than anything else. With special thanks to Matthew Evans and Wei-Han Wu, for the years behind and the years ahead.]

Effects are, by definition, supplemental, not integral, whether to a conversation, a film or a piece of music. It is therefore a source of considerable dismay to hear so much contemporary music – and listening to it, in all stripes, is part and parcel of this life – founded on nothing more than effects.

Some of these bonuses can withstand the weather of time and generate momentum and substance of their own yet best not to risk it. Much of what is considered standard in performance praxis, from appoggiatura to vibrato, pedaling to flutter-tonguing, derives its power precisely from careful and opportune implementation. Anything in excess loses its effect and cheapens what surrounds it.

Why, then, must every other piece (and at times, it feels like every piece) of contemporary music take a wind break? You know what is meant, these swoops, these jet whistles, these passages of heavy breathing, overbreathing, underbreathing, grunting, mumbling, these bursts of human gales down a fatigued shaft of wood or metal en route to even-more-fatigued ears. It is there, it will be there, for no reason, this tempest, this flatulence. The cliché of “when in doubt, trill” is now “when in doubt, take a wind break”.

What an apt metaphor, this excess of breath, for a time of inflation and overinflation, in multiple ways. To live is to indulge, though not this much.

Blame Lachenmann, blame Sciarrino, blame whoever, but make it stop.

[detail from the Last Judgement by Giotto, Cappella Scrovegni (Arena Chapel), Padua]