Processes, Paradoxes and Illusions: Compositional Strategies in the Music of Hans Abrahamsen

Hans Abrahamsen’s recent music has been the subject of much critical and public acclaim, with his output of the last decade finding a new directness of expression even as it incorporates and develops elements of his musical language that have remained consistent over many years. This article examines the use of compositional processes within a number of these large-scale works – Schnee (2008), Wald (2009), the Double Concerto (2011) and Let me tell you (2013) – and explores the ways in which Abrahamsen generates and controls material through a variety of techniques of transformation and repetition. How smaller-scale systems interact to create music of great allusive complexity is considered through discussion of the variation form of Wald; finally, Abrahamsen’s embracing of types of paradox and illusion are presented as strategies to unlock broader aesthetic issues within his music.

Papineau-Couture, Jean (1916–2000)

Grandson to Quebec’s art music scene pioneer Guillaume Couture (1851–1915), composer Jean Papineau-Couture (1916–2000) played a major role in the development of the province’s musical life throughout the century. A composer, pianist, pedagogue, and administrator, Papineau-Couture’s contributions range from his involvement with the foundation of the Canadian League of composers (Toronto, 1951) to the fulfilment of his academic function as Dean of the music faculty at Université de Montreal (1968–1973). He also participated in the creation of both the Society for Canadian Music (Montreal, 1954) and the Montreal bureau of the Canadian Music Centre (1973)—the former being a music society dedicated to the performance of Canadian music, the latter one of today’s most active institutions in the dissemination of Canadian art music—and acted as an administrator of the Société de musique contemporaine du Quebec, founded in 1966 and for which he served as president starting that very first year up to 1972. His teaching of music is stringed across these many accomplishments. The catalogue of Jean Papineau-Couture includes many stylistically diverse works. His music evolved throughout his life, moving from a form of neoclassicism most probably influenced by the composer’s many encounters with Igor Stravinsky—some by way of Nadia Boulanger, whom he studied with, along with Quincy Porter, at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts—to an atonal idiom. Papineau-Couture composed many concertante-style works, as demonstrated in his Clair-obscure (1986), a double concerto for contrabassoon, double bass, and orchestra. The composer also wrote many pieces of chamber music, most often for soloist and piano accompaniment (Caprices, 1962; Discussion animée, 1997), as well as a substantial number of orchestral works.

An Old Story in a New World

During the Cold War, American private foundations subsidized American modernist composers, supporting their work through commissions, underwriting recordings and concerts, and promoting their ideas in radio programs and periodicals circulated at home and abroad. From its establishment in 1952, the Fromm Music Foundation (FMF) acted as an important player in this field. Using archival material and interviews with people who worked with the founder Paul Fromm, I show how Fromm’s involvement in his foundation, and his reliance on professional advice, constituted a unique patronage model that enabled select composers to participate actively in the promotion of their music. Fromm’s relationship with Elliott Carter provides an especially complex example of a mutually beneficial and successful partnership. Fromm’s goal was to integrate contemporary music into American musical life by supporting the production and dissemination of new compositions. Fromm sought to play the role of patron, fostering close relationships with composers who received funds and acted as his artistic advisers. Fromm’s partnership, and consequent friendship with, Carter illustrates the many ways the FMF served composers. In 1955 Fromm commissioned what became Carter’s Double Concerto for piano, harpsichord, and two chamber orchestras (1961). Fromm’s subsequent help, administered through his Foundation and personal connections, enabled Carter to secure high-quality premieres of this piece and other difficult-to-perform repertoire, helped facilitate repeat performances and recordings of these compositions, and allowed Carter, together with his wife Helen, to establish a system to fund musicians who performed his music—and also reap tax benefits. Among the recipients who benefited from Fromm’s largesse were Charles Rosen, Paul Jacobs, and Jacob Lateiner. Fromm’s actions spawned a familiar fable. Carter’s career and the way he talked about it reinforced many persistent falsehoods about an artist’s relationship, or lack thereof, to potential listeners and audiences—a source of financial support for artists since the advent of public concert life. Fromm’s financial support and Carter’s ability to supplement it helped buttress the late-Romantic myth of creative autonomy. The details of this partnership—the words exchanged, the other figures involved, and its variegated benefits—harbor broad implications for the study of Cold War-era patronage networks and for our view of Carter’s career.