Frank Zappa, Classical Composer

[7/4]

February 5, 2007

Music Review | Composer Portraits: Frank Zappa

The Other Frank Zappa, Chamber Music Composer

By ANNE MIDGETTE

Members of the Fireworks Ensemble playing works by Frank Zappa.

Frank Zappa was a kind of Rev. Howard Finster of music: an outsider artist eventually discovered and embraced by the establishment without ever losing his outsider cachet. A brilliant self-taught musician, Zappa needed to justify what he did as serious music at a time when rock was not seen as serious, and he produced a string of “classical” pieces that were taken up by European luminaries like Pierre Boulez and the Ensemble Modern.

The pieces are fiendishly difficult to execute, with lots of surface complexity to dazzle the ear, as was demonstrated at the composer portrait devoted to Zappa at the Miller Theater on Friday night, two weeks after another concert devoted to one of his idols, Edgard Varèse.

The program had three parts. First came music for smaller chamber ensembles, played by Zephyros Winds and a string quintet, including music originally written for the Aspen Wind Quintet (“Times Beach II” and “Times Beach III”) and the Kronos Quartet (“None of the Above”). Then came music for chamber orchestra, conducted by Jeffrey Milarsky, some of it, like “The Girl With the Magnesium Dress,” arranged from pieces Zappa wrote on an instrument called the Synclavier. Finally there were arrangements of music for rock ensemble — including “G-Spot Tornado” — performed by the Fireworks Ensemble, the eight-member group that set up the whole concert.

Despite the program-note allegations that these pieces were equally just plain music, the sense that rock had to assume some kind of classical mantle to gain respect still lingered around the first two parts of the program, which felt like a dinner jacket pulled out of mothballs for a formal occasion, not least because the players seemed on their best, slightly subdued behavior. And while the music was filled with striking gestures — breathtakingly fast unison passages, moments when the supporting instruments held a note while a flute scampered off on a rapid phrase, plenty of adroit quotations echoing other composers — its complexities didn’t weave together to make a coherent statement.

Epitomizing this tendency was “The Perfect Stranger,” Zappa’s longest work for chamber ensemble, an illustrative piece about a door-to-door vacuum-cleaner salesman (opening with the doorbell’s ring) that disintegrated into a pile of isolated individual moments. Like an ornate frieze adorning a simple one-room house, the decoration was more sophisticated than the architecture.

But with the change of nomenclature and mood in the rock part of the show, a whole new feeling came into the auditorium, as if, formalities now concluded, everyone could kick off shoes and dance till dawn. Brian Coughlin, Fireworks’ director and bass player, produced some hell-for-leather arrangements that the players, now relaxed and grooving, played the heck out of, down to show-stopping solos in “The Purple Lagoon/Approximate.” Finally labels did indeed cease to matter: this was just music, and it sounded like music to keep.

Edited March 1, 2008 by 7/4

[7/4]

David Ocker worked for Frank Zappa:

  Quote

As my three readers must know by now, I worked for Frank Zappa during his "late middle period" beginning just after the break with Warner Brothers and ending a year or so after he acquired the Synclavier. That's roughly 1977 to 1984.

Mostly I worked on his music for conventional acoustic ensembles - meaning pieces for symphony orchestra. I'm grateful for the opportunities he provided me. I learned many things; much of it still useful in my current life..

• Mixed Meters blog by David Ocker
  
• In My Perfect World
  
• The David Ocker Internet Interview
  

Edited January 19, 2008 by 7/4

[7/4]

FRANK ZAPPA's classical work, an Amazon list.

[Bluerein]

Just finished listning to the second disc of the London Symphony Orchestra Vol.1 & 2 CD set. Not really convinced yet. Some interesting lieces but also some cheezy ones. I'm not a Zappa fan to begin with so maybe that's the thing.

Disc one grabbed me more but of course repeated listning will help as well.

[AllenLowe]

what strikes me about Zappa's so-called "classical" works (something of a misnomer) is how connnected they are to life - they breathe a sense of the composer's life force, if I may use a cliche, in contrast to so much I hear coming out of the academy (think of David Baker's sad works) - and if they don't, perhaps, match up to certain formal requirements it matters less than how strikingly original they are -

[7/4]

for those who somehow missed it...

Edgard Varese: The Idol of My Youth

By Frank Zappa

Article taken from Stereo Review, June 1971. pp 61-62.

Edited April 5, 2008 by 7/4

[Ken Dryden]

Regarding the London Symphony recordings, Zappa mentioned on more than one occasion that he had inadequate time to rehearse the LSO, while the trumpet section overstayed at a pub during a break and caused other performances to suffer. Ex-Zappa drummer Terry Bozzio, who studied classical percussion at length, compared the most difficult classical works to some of Zappa's easier works.

There's also a live bootleg circulating of a complete symphonic version of "Sinister Footwear."

[Ken Dryden]

Not long after I got interested in Edgard Varese through the quotes on my Zappa records, I happened to mention Varese to my father. He proceeded to pull out a copy of the very same LP The Complete Works of Edgard Vareses, Vol. 1, that Zappa had sought back during the 1950s. He gave it to me and I've kept it for over 35 years and eventually found a reissue of it with new liner notes by Zappa.

[7/4]

  Ken Dryden said:

Not long after I got interested in Edgard Varese through the quotes on my Zappa records, I happened to mention Varese to my father. He proceeded to pull out a copy of the very same LP The Complete Works of Edgard Vareses, Vol. 1, that Zappa had sought back during the 1950s. He gave it to me and I've kept it for over 35 years and eventually found a reissue of it with new liner notes by Zappa.

I think it came out recently on CD. Did you check out the Edgard Varesé thread?

[7/4]

...

[Walt Richmond]

The Yellow Shark was really great. Zappa seemed to have finally found the musicians who could interpret his work fully. Before that I have to admit, although I am a huge Zappa fan, there always seemed to be something missing in most of the classical performances for me, although I appreciated their sophistication. Unfortunately, he died shortly after The Yellow Shark.

Has anyone seen Zappa's first television appearance, where he plays a bicycle on the Steve Allen show? Definitely hints of where his music was going to go even then.

[7/4]

  Walt Richmond said:

The Yellow Shark was really great. Zappa seemed to have finally found the musicians who could interpret his work fully. Before that I have to admit, although I am a huge Zappa fan, there always seemed to be something missing in most of the classical performances for me, although I appreciated their sophistication. Unfortunately, he died shortly after The Yellow Shark.

The Yellow Shark is beautiful, amazing.

I've been exposed to a lot of modern music since then, I still love it. His classical music from the 60s & 70s hasn't aged as well for me.

  Walt Richmond said:

Has anyone seen Zappa's first television appearance, where he plays a bicycle on the Steve Allen show? Definitely hints of where his music was going to go even then.

It's on Youtube.

[StarThrower]

The Yellow Shark concert was televised in Europe, and I have it on DVD. I'd also recommend the Studio Tan album. Music For Guitar And Low Budget Orchestra is a beautiful piece. The Adventures Of Greggery Peccary is wonderful as well, but due to the vocals will probably only appeal to Zappa freaks.

[mikeweil]

Zappa recorded some of Varèse's works with the Ensemble Modern, but due to some legal issues of either the Zappa or Varèse heirs (or both) a possible release is in the stars ....

I have always loved Zappa's so-called "classical" works, I think I have them all, he has a musical tongue all of his own that comes through even in transcriptions of classical musicians, of which there are quite a few, e.g.:

But these are essential:

Edited May 22, 2011 by mikeweil

[Д.Д.]

I think Dog / Meat from Yellow Shark would have pleased Stravinsky... The whole disc is great.

Dog / Meat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr3y2MUdq7U&feature=related

Edited May 22, 2011 by Д.Д.

[mikeweil]

Thanks for posting this - this is the so-called old opera house in Frankfurt - I still get mad when remembering that I had a free ticket for the concert but couldn't go as I had a contract to play during a week-long dance workshop in Italy at the time ...

[StarThrower]

The Ensemble Ambrosius album is a beauty! Any fans of 200 Motels? It features some wonderful orchestral writing.

[mikeweil]

I love the music as well as the movie, which of course was far beyond its time. Is there a DVD of this by now?

[StarThrower]

Yes, there is a DVD.

[mikeweil]

So why in all the world didn't I already get me a copy???

[MomsMobley]

classical Zappa and Ruth Underwood getting some mainstream media attention--

http://hilobrow.com/2011/05/23/ruth-underwood/

  On 5/23/2011 at 11:53 AM, mikeweil said:

I love the music as well as the movie, which of course was far beyond its time. Is there a DVD of this by now?

[Daniel A]

I'm not sure it really is of significance, but wasn't the 'Yellow Shark' album orchestrated by someone else?

Edited May 25, 2011 by Daniel A

[7/4]

  On 5/25/2011 at 9:34 AM, Daniel A said:

I'm not sure it really is of significance, but wasn't the 'Yellow Shark' album orchestrated by someone else?

Don't think so. I'm pretty sure he did arrangements himself. He did use people to transcribe solos for use as material for compositions and to copy parts (pre-computer typesetting days).

[7/4]

  On 5/22/2011 at 3:24 PM, starthrower said:

The Yellow Shark concert was televised in Europe, and I have it on DVD. I'd also recommend the Studio Tan album. Music For Guitar And Low Budget Orchestra is a beautiful piece. The Adventures Of Greggery Peccary is wonderful as well, but due to the vocals will probably only appeal to Zappa freaks.

I have the Yellow Shark concert on video! I love it.

Studio Tan and Sleep Dirt are in my top ten favorite Zappa albums.

[Д.Д.]

  On 5/25/2011 at 10:15 AM, 7/4 said:

  On 5/25/2011 at 9:34 AM, Daniel A said:

I'm not sure it really is of significance, but wasn't the 'Yellow Shark' album orchestrated by someone else?

Don't think so. I'm pretty sure he did arrangements himself. He did use people to transcribe solos for use as material for compositions and to copy parts (pre-computer typesetting days).

Ali Askin (website) was the guy. He also arranged the follow-up Ensemble Modern disc of FZ compositions "Greggery Peccary...", after Zappa's passing (which is much less successful than "Yellow Shark").

Regarding "200 Motels" DVD, I have read the sound on it is bad.