Ólafur Arnalds, Nils Frahm, Max Richter, Poppy Ackroyd, Peter Broderick, Joana Gama… In recent years, these popular names have all been grouped under the vast and imprecise label “neoclassical”. In truth, this “scene” looks more like a motley crew of curious artists who mix classical instruments with electronic production. Drawing influence from American minimalism, these musicians tantalise the senses and expand horizons on both sides of the musical spectrum.
The spread of computer music software has had an unexpected social impact by freeing hundreds of classical music students from the Conservatory’s straightjacket. Having grown tired of interpreting the works of great white men, over the past twenty years many of them have searched for their own style, using computers and machines to aid their creative output. Before, these people used to drag their music into smoky free-jazz clubs; now, they are free to express themselves however they see fit. Many people decide to return to their training after a few years of making synthetic beats and bass lines. This was the case for the German producer David August — after releasing a few EPs for clubs on the label Diynamic (owned by Solomun, the boss of European tech-house), August returned to the piano. This can be heard on his latest album D’ANGELO. He even treated himself to a collaboration with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra for a Boiler Room session in 2016. The same goes for the Boston-based South Korean musician MMPH; having trained as a cellist at Berklee College of Music, he released an electronically produced album this year entitled Dear God. The record was conceived as “a collection of deconstructed Wagnerian suites in miniature”. It just goes to show; the leopard can’t change its spots…
Over the past few years, many individuals have experimented with the border between electronics and acoustics. These artists include Ólafur Arnalds, Nils Frahm, Francesco Tristano, Max Richter, Luca D’Alberto, Poppy Ackroyd, Peter Broderick, Joana Gama (who electrified Erik Satie in 2016 on the album Harmonies), Max Cooper, not to mention their elders Chilly Gonzales and Johann Johannsson. They constitute a wave of migrants who have fled the conservatories to take refuge in a free area where no one instructs them on how to make music. They’ve been tagged with various labels — neoclassical, post-minimalist, contemporary classical or even non-classical — but the truth is that they’re unclassifiable. They each have their own individual methods of working, borrowing techniques from classical, contemporary, concrete and electronic music.
Christian Badzura, the New Music Director at Deutsche Grammophon (which signed Ólafur Arnalds and Max Richter among others) thinks that “terminology is becoming less and less important: There are many terms that you could use — neoclassical, alternative classical, post-classical, or classical indie. But it’s not so necessary anymore to strictly categorize various genres, especially in a time when few people go leafing through records in record stores.” And to rule out any rumours about a musical revolution: “For Deutsche Grammophon, this musical direction is not exactly new, if we take into account records by Steve Reich, Stockhausen and Philip Glass that our label released in the ’60s and ‘70s.” Badzura adds that something that these artists all have in common with each other is a similar approach towards composition. “It seems that more and more composers are less afraid to write tonal music. And since most of them write and work in their studios, it’s natural for them to combine classical scores with electronic production. In some cases, there’s a link with minimalism, which is also very close to minimal techno and electronic music in general. There are also influences from krautrock and early ambient music. If you look back even further, you can find roots in baroque music, which seems timeless with composers like Satie, Liszt, Ravel and Debussy. Adding layers of instruments is very easy today, but it was much more complicated to use loops of magnetic tape as Steve Reich did back then.”
The minimalists’ shadow
Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Terry Riley… These pioneers of American minimalism are the usual suspects that any newcomer turns to when trying to dig up the roots of techno. This is because the whole concept of their art is based on repetition. These ideas were embraced by the first generation of techno producers (in the broad sense), with Aphex Twin collaborating with Philip Glass and The Orb sampling Steve Reich. American minimalism attracts a lot of attention from the electronic music community — they’re a curious crowd who are comfortable with transgression. In records by Nils Frahm or Ólafur Arnalds we find exciting hybridisations in the same line as the San Francisco Tape Music Center pioneers, founded in 1962 by Morton Subotnick, Pauline Oliveros and Ramon Senderto “develop music using magnetic tape”. The centre went on to host Reich, Glass and Riley and lead to the creation of the Buchla, the first modular analog synthesizer in 1963. This model was soon followed by the Moog, used today by Nils Frahm and Max Richter in their compositions.
The minimalist influence can be clearly heard on Nils Frahm’s latest album, All Melody. The track #2 includes overlapping melodies and percussion that both intertwine and move away from each other, while the rhythm slows down and accelerates again over nine hypnotic minutes. It’s a more modern version of the phasing technique invented by Steve Reich, who came up with the idea by desynchronizing two tape recordings. The concept consists of playing the same composition on two tape recorders but at slightly different tempos, creating a divergence/convergence effect that brings out new melodies and musical interrelations.
We also find Steve Reich’s influence in Ólafur Arnalds’ music. The Icelandic musician initiated a new relationship between man and machine with his latest album re:member. Over the past two years he has worked on a software called Stratus, which allows two pianos to automatically play computer-generated music. When he presses a note on his piano, the software generates a sequence on the other two pianos installed in the studio. “I’m basically playing the piano, but I’ve created a different instrument out of the piano. And it often reacts in a very unexpected way. For example, when I play a C, the other pianos are going to play notes that I’m not necessarily expecting. So I’ll have a completely different reaction. Something like this really messes with the way you create stuff and affects the ideas that come out — you get ideas that you would never get otherwise.” Steve Reich would have no doubt clicked ‘like’ if he’d ever scrolled past this on social media!
Using musicians like samples was Terry Riley’s idea on his ground-breaking piece In C, released in 1964. He recruited about thirty musicians for the track, each of whom repeatedly played a short musical motif (in C, unsurprisingly). Poppy Ackroyd more or less used this technique for her latest album Resolve. However, her structures are more classical as she primarily worked with her own instruments (piano and violin, which she learnt at the conservatory). She invited soloists such as Manu Delago (who played with Björk and Cinematic Orchestra) onto the record, as well as Mike Lesirge (who worked with Bonobo and Andreya Triana) on the flute and clarinet and the British virtuoso Jo Quail on the cello. Each classical musician was then transformed into a sample on Poppy Ackroyd’s computer, before she assembled them with her sharp sense of composition.
The quest for ghost sounds
Poppy Ackroyd, much like Nils Frahm, also likes to extensively explore her instruments, using her fingers, a conductor’s baton or a pick, in search of those “ghost sounds” that were so dear to Terry Riley. As a true explorer of tape recordings, the American drew an almost mystical sound out of these tape recorders as they played on loop, repeating a single sound, something that he called “stationery music”. After a while, Terry Riley became almost more interested in the sounds made by the tape recorders than the sound loops themselves. The grain and crackles became a subtext of his music, like a kind of ghost inside the machines.
Almost fifty years later, Nils Frahm experimented with the same technique while recording his album Felt (2011) in his apartment-cum-studio in Berlin. So as not to disturb his neighbours, he put felt between the strings and hammers of his piano, placing the microphones right next to them. This meant that the haunting sounds of the mechanics of the piano, the creaking of the floorboards and even his breath are all audible. At the same time, the German pianist also adopted the ‘field recording’ techniques that were developed by the pope of ambient music, Brian Eno.
Eno also left his mark on Max Richter. The German-British prodigy touches on everything, from Bach and Vivaldi (on Recomposed: Vivaldi, the Four Seasons, which includes five tracks from Electronic Soundscapes) to more alternative popular musical styles. Let’s not forget that in the ’90s he played with the mythical Mancunian ambient/IDM duo The Future Sound of London, made up of Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans. Richter’s compositional science has made him one of the most popular soundtrack composers for television and film (having written about fifty scores in the past fifteen years, including the poignant theme of Damon Lindelof’s The Leftovers series on HBO). This cinematic dimension can easily be linked to Philip Glass’ music, who was nominated for an Oscar for the soundtrack of Kundun, directed by Scorsese in 1997. It’s a characteristic that can equally be applied to all the aforementioned artists, and which undoubtedly explains part of the success of this scene. The labels FatCat and Erased Tapes have flourished thanks to these aspects, the former signing Max Richter and the latter (which was founded by Robert Raths) homing the likes of Nils Frahm, Olafur Arnalds and Peter Broderick. “At first, it was simply a matter of supporting the music we wanted to hear”, Robert Raths explained to Loudandquiet.com. “Perhaps there was also a reaction to the pop culture that had become super noisy with productions that were made to have an instant impact. We wanted to hear longer songs, maybe with someone just playing a single instrument, or softer instruments, that make you listen closer.”
This quote recalls Terry Riley’s words about his experiences with magnetic tapes: “By keeping a fixed sound that changes a little with each repetition, your awareness of sound changes too. It’s a way to bring the ear deeper into the sound.” This is undoubtedly the main attraction for all these free musicians: they make us appreciate music on a deeper level. They ask us to listen rather than just hear.
Translated by Abi Church.
By Smaël Bouaici
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