Projects_Canetti-menagerie

Projects:

Canetti-menagerie:

This project began in 1997, with a handful of short solo pieces based upon characters in Earwitness: Fifty Characters (Der Ohrenzeuge: Fünfzig Charaktere), a collection of surreal character studies written in 1974 by the Bulgarian-born British-Austrian writer Elias Canetti (1905-1994). Canetti was a versatile writer whose body of work reflects his rich and varied interests in philosophy, psychology, sociology, and literary criticism, taking the form of novels, memoirs, essays, plays, and non-fiction writings. His most well-known work is perhaps Crowds and Power (Masse und Macht, 1960), an idiosyncratic yet penetrating study of group dynamics and power structures within various societal contexts. Canetti was the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1981, “for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas, and artistic power.” The ironic paradigms of human behavior contained within Canetti’s Earwitness have occupied my interest for nearly three decades now, and have served as the catalyst for this collection of solo instrumental reinterpretations:

No.	Title (German)	Title (English)	Instrument	Year	Dedicatee	Premiere
#1	Der Leichenschleicher	The Corpse-skulker	contrabass	1997	Michael Hartt	Todd Markey
#2	Die Tischtuchtolle	The Tablecloth-lunatic	violin	1997/2000	—	Nagina Stoyanova
#3	Der Wasserhehler	The Water-harborer	ocarina	1998/2000	Helen Bledsoe	Helen Bledsoe
#4	Der Leidverweser	The Woe-administrator	contrabassoon	1999	James Rodgers	Monica Fucci
#5	Die Silbenreine	The Syllable-pure Woman	glass harmonica	1999	Thomas Bloch	Thomas Bloch *
#6	Der Ohrenzeuge	The Earwitness	bass flute	2001	Helen Bledsoe	Helen Bledsoe
#7	Die Müde	The Tired Woman	alto saxophone	2004	Eric Nestler	Eric Nestler
#8	Die Königskünderin	The King-proclaimer	trumpet	2006	John Holt	John Holt
#9	Die Sternklare	The Starry Woman	percussion (metallophones)	2006	Christopher Deane	Christopher Deane
#10	Der Demutsahne	The Humility-forebear	guitar	2008/2013	Matthew Elgart	Joseph Mirandilla
#11	Der Schönheitsmolch	The Beauty-newt	bass saxophone	2000/2008	Andreas van Zoelen	Andreas van Zoelen *
#12	Der Hinterbringer	The Tattletale	piccolo	2013	Elizabeth McNutt	Elizabeth McNutt
#13	Der Gottprotz	The God-swanker	organ	1999/2014	Jesse Eschbach	S. Andrew Lloyd
#14	Der Tückenfänger	The Wile-catcher	basset horn	2014	Kimberly Cole Luevano	Kimberly Cole Luevano
#15	Die Schadhafte	The Defective	violoncello	2015	Madeleine Shapiro	Madeleine Shapiro
#16	Der Saus und Braus	The Fun-runner	piano	2017	Redi Llupa	Redi Llupa
#17	Der Fehlredner	The Misspeaker	cimbalom	2018	Christopher Deane	Christopher Deane
#18	Der Heroszupfer	The Hero-tugger	trombone	2019	Andrew Glendening	Andrew Glendening
#19	Der Tränenwärmer	The Tear-warmer	viola	2020	Michael Capone	Michael Capone
#20	Die Geruchschmale	The Narrow-smeller	harpsichord	2022	Elliot Figg	Elliot Figg
#21	Der Maestroso	The Maestroso	carillon	2022	—	Joseph Min
#22	Die Mannsprächtige	The Man-splendid Woman	harp	2023	Jaymee Haefner	Jaymee Haefner
#23	Der Wortfrühe	The Early Worder	marimba and woodblocks	2025	Gregory Beyer	Gregory Beyer
#24	Der Mannstolle	The Man-Mad Man	percussion (membranophones)	2025	Dave Hall	Dave Hall
#25	Die Archäokratin	The Archaeocrat	Heckelphone	2026	James Rodgers	—
#26	Der Blinde	The Blind Man	toy piano	(in progress)	Eunmi Ko	—

* CD release premiere.

In 2015, after having completed about a dozen solo works in this collection, I began contemplating how these distinctive characters might interact with one another in a group setting. While considering a variety of structured and fixed ways that these musical materials might be reconstituted in a chamber setting, I determined that a more modular and open-form approach would yield the most interesting and unpredictable possibilities. The result was Canetti-menagerie, a semi-improvisational work for two to eight performers, based on this collection of solo character studies. In this context, the performers improvise in various combinations, developing musical fragments from their respective solo studies, which are used as raw material for a variety of musical conversations—not unlike the interaction of distinct personalities at a social gathering.

Whereas the solo works in this collection consider the psychological aspects of the individual characters portrayed in Canetti’s Earwitness, Canetti-menagerie is a sociological exploration of these characters’ interactions with one another, in the spirit of Crowds and Power. Together, these writings—and the works they inspired—explore the foibles of human nature individually, as well as the dynamics of human behavior collectively.

Since its initial conception as a freestanding work, Canetti-menagerie has developed into an evening-long program accompanied by several of the solo works, with readings from Canetti’s Earwitness and Crowds and Power as well as projected images of these characters created by artists Jessica Leza and Michael Kvium. The modularity of this project allows a great deal of flexibility in instrumentation and, from a practical standpoint, requires minimal production time.

An in-depth discussion of the Canetti-menagerie project is the subject of a December 2024 interview with Michael Cooke as part his YouTube series Music from Humans.