[Note: the introduction to this post was updated later on 1/24/21.]
After spending some weeks on Larry Austin's New Music Ensemble, next I'd like to turn to Lukas Foss (1922 - 2009), who worked in the field of improvised music from about 1957 until 1963. Initially inspired by the Modern Jazz Quartet, he sought a process for musicians with 20th-century classical training to engage with each other through improvisation. Foss formed the Improvisation Chamber Ensemble (ICE), recorded an album with them, and wrote a book on the ensemble's processes (though it was apparently never published or circulated). The album, Studies in Improvisation, was recorded in 1961 for RCA/Victor (it is yet to be reissued on CD). Foss's work in improvisation in this period culminated in 1962 with Time Cycle, a composition which featured the ICE.
In 1960 Foss received a $10,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation for two improvisation workshop programs, 10-15 weeks in length. At least one of these programs culminated in a concert. In 1963 Foss accepted a position as Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, left his post at UCLA, and shifted his focus away from improvisation.
For the first entry in this series, I have included two articles by Albert Goldberg about the ICE's debut performance at UCLA's Schoenberg Hall on Thursday, February 26th 1959.
Los Angeles Times
 |
| Lukas Foss |
The motive force behind the experiment and the inventor of the idea is Lukas Foss, noted composer-pianist and UCLA faculty member, who is the pianist of the group. His associates in the venture will be Charles DeLancey on percussion instruments; Robert Drasnin, flute; Richard Dufallo, clarinet; William Malm, bass clarinet, and Eugene Wilson, cello.
At the concert Mr. Foss will offer an explanation and demonstration of the principles involved, showing, in his words, "how we stay together, how we make up melodies and harmonies without a given melody or harmonies and without a rhythm section on the job to keep us playing together."
Famous Composers Improvised, Too
 |
| Johann Hummel |
But since the middle of the 19th century solo improvisation has become practically obsolete in public performance; only an occasional pianist and a few organists indulge in it nowadays.
Idea Came When Listening to Jazz
Nor is ensemble improvisation unknown, as Mr. Foss points out. Harpsichord players were expected to fill out 18th-century ensembles from a figured bass that indicated harmonies; East Indian music uses ensemble improvisations based on traditional ragas, and contemporary jazz is a form of group improvisation. But in all these there is a given theme or set of harmonies or rhythms as a foundation. Mr. Foss and his group start from scratch, as it were.
"What we are doing has nothing to do with jazz," he said, "though the idea came to me when listening to the Modern Jazz Quartet. It occurred to me that these musicians had the chance to be really creative. So my idea was in part born of jealousy.
"When we first started out it was like trying to fly, but we had no wings. For six months we were helpless. We tried everything and nothing worked. Either the rules we contrived would constrict us to an extent where imagination could not function or we had so much freedom we did not know what to do with it.
"We kept remodeling the basis of our operations until now we have a system on which we can operate. The principles are so involved they make the 12-tone method seem elementary. Eventually I will publish a book explaining the method so that other people can form similar ensembles. We do not want to remain the only ones doing this sort of thing."
Specialization May Be Bane of Musicians
Mr. Foss feels that ensemble improvisation will open new vistas. "Specialization has done away with improvisation," he said.
"Musicians become either performers or composers, or performer - composers, but usually they keep these activities apart. We owe our great art to this specialization. But we may now have reached a point where specialization has dried us out and produced a kind of sterility.
"No one was ever meant to play just a cello, for example, and to play only printed notes all his life. The life work of a musician has become nothing but slavery to the printed note. I do not mean in any sense to do away with the printed note or with written-down composition. I think, on the contrary, that composition will gain from improvisation.
"And a performer will come to understand better how to play the compositions of other people if he knows how compositions are made and if he can pick his notes on the strength of what others do. As a more practical kind of solfege the system should prove invaluable and might eventually make our present way of training musicians antiquated.
"It must be understood that by improvisation I do not mean daydreaming at an instrument, but a very involved new scheme, the mastery of which will take years. At both the invention and the practice we still are only beginners.
"Performers learned 50 years ago to get along without new music and to subsist on museum pieces. And the composer has just learned how to get along without the performer by means of electronic music in which the composer works directly with sounds arranged on tape. All this indicates a breakup in music.
"But it will be a terrible society in which the composer and performer each learn to be self-sufficient to the point of getting along without each other - as bad as a society in which men and women do not need each other. It will be sterile.
'It's Making Music Together That Counts'
"All this is the result of specialization, the great cultural danger of our time. It is really what prompted me to attempt a merger of the performer and the composer. I would like to see a generation of composer-performers who literally make their music as they make music.
"In solo improvisation you can do anything you want, but that does not interest me. I like ensemble improvisation because we can make music together. If you want to be alone you might as well compose. I became a musician because as a child I was fascinated with the idea of making music with other people. I was not obsessed with sounds. I use sounds, but I am not obsessed by them.
"Electronic composers make the mistake of thinking they can become composers because of their sound obsession. I don't believe that. I think that the techniques of ensemble improvisation may prove to be a valuable countertrend. It is not something which will eliminate electronic music but it may help to strike a proper balance. The two things are opposites.
Improvisations Will Always Be Different
"Electronic music exists on tapes and the tapes will always be the same. Our improvisation will always be different. It will restore the performer and it entrusts him with an unprecedented creative task. Electronic music only does away with the performer.
"Electronic music is ideal for background purposes. Human beings are ideal for foreground. I would like to help in restoring our vanishing foreground. In our lives we fill our daily routine with so much background that most of us are not 100% alive. Chamber music improvisation is one way of becoming more musically alive for the composer and performer as well as for the listener.
"I am not trying to do away with anything. I am trying to add something to our present musical scene - a more informal type of chamber music, offering both the composer and the performer a new hunting ground; ultimately, possibly, a much-needed new career."
Improvised Music Performed at UCLA
Concerts at which new music is performed are no rarity. Nor is there any dearth of concerts at which new music is played once - and never again. But a concert consisting entirely of new music which could never be repeated even if anyone wanted to, because it is all improvised, ranks as a major novelty in the present scheme of things. Such was the debut appearance of the Improvisation Chamber Ensemble in UCLA's packed Schoenberg Hall Thursday night.
Lukas Foss is the mastermind and pianist of this revolutionary experiment and his colleagues are Charles DeLancey on the percussions; Robert Drasnin, flute; Richard Dufallo, clarinet; William Malm, bass clarinet, and Eugene Wilson, cello. They have been working at Mr. Foss' system of "controlled chance" for a year and a half at the results proved to be extraordinarily provocative, though naturally still in a formative state.
Not Like Jazz
Jazz, of course, is to an extent ensemble improvisation, but this differs from jazz in that there is no given tune, rhythmical scheme or predetermined set of chord combinations. Both the mood and the content are spontaneous, although in the course of preparation a fairly definite and complicated set of rules has been evolved to serve as guide posts in the search for freedom.
As Mr. Foss explained the system at some length, though none too clearly, it primarily consists of six "rows" or complexes of four tones each, presumably chosen arbitrarily, and a corresponding set of six inversions, all of which serve as tonal centers, the various notes of which may be used either as melodic or harmonic components, apparently much on the order of Schoenberg's 12-tone system, but with the addition of primary and secondary notes.
And to assist in formal organization there are formulas which indicate the order in which the players are to improvise the solo part, the counterpoint and the harmony. These are written on cards which the players follow in performance, and any player who does not happen to be busy at the moment conducts and indicates the lapse of measures in what seemed to be mainly four-bar patterns.
Apart from these restrictions, which did not appear to be very restrictive, each player is on his own to improvise freely and to fit his ideas together with those of his partners.
Varied Results
The music that emerged took many forms. Most frequently it sounded like the pointillistic music of the Webern school, and generally it was atonal in the Schoenbergian sense. Sometimes it developed the swing of jazz; sometimes a player would hit upon a diverting tune which his colleagues would echo or develop, and now and then the music proceeded in straightforward rhythmical patterns. And always it was free and imaginative.
Obviously the system works, primitive though it may be in its present state of development. But equally obviously, it requires gifted musicians to make it work.
The possibilities are fascinating. Mr. Foss hopes that it will give rise to a new generation of composer-performers who will make music together spontaneously, freed of slavery to the printed page. That is a larger order, but there is no doubt that he has struck out on a new path, and one which may lead to unsuspected discoveries. At least the foundations have been laid - and with surprising success.
 |
| The Modern Jazz Quartet L-R: Milt Jackson, Connie Kay, Percy Heath Seated: John Lewis |
"What we are doing has nothing to do with jazz," he said, "though the idea came to me when listening to the Modern Jazz Quartet. It occurred to me that these musicians had the chance to be really creative. So my idea was in part born of jealousy.
"When we first started out it was like trying to fly, but we had no wings. For six months we were helpless. We tried everything and nothing worked. Either the rules we contrived would constrict us to an extent where imagination could not function or we had so much freedom we did not know what to do with it.
"We kept remodeling the basis of our operations until now we have a system on which we can operate. The principles are so involved they make the 12-tone method seem elementary. Eventually I will publish a book explaining the method so that other people can form similar ensembles. We do not want to remain the only ones doing this sort of thing."
Specialization May Be Bane of Musicians
Mr. Foss feels that ensemble improvisation will open new vistas. "Specialization has done away with improvisation," he said.
"Musicians become either performers or composers, or performer - composers, but usually they keep these activities apart. We owe our great art to this specialization. But we may now have reached a point where specialization has dried us out and produced a kind of sterility.
"No one was ever meant to play just a cello, for example, and to play only printed notes all his life. The life work of a musician has become nothing but slavery to the printed note. I do not mean in any sense to do away with the printed note or with written-down composition. I think, on the contrary, that composition will gain from improvisation.
"And a performer will come to understand better how to play the compositions of other people if he knows how compositions are made and if he can pick his notes on the strength of what others do. As a more practical kind of solfege the system should prove invaluable and might eventually make our present way of training musicians antiquated.
"It must be understood that by improvisation I do not mean daydreaming at an instrument, but a very involved new scheme, the mastery of which will take years. At both the invention and the practice we still are only beginners.
"Performers learned 50 years ago to get along without new music and to subsist on museum pieces. And the composer has just learned how to get along without the performer by means of electronic music in which the composer works directly with sounds arranged on tape. All this indicates a breakup in music.
"But it will be a terrible society in which the composer and performer each learn to be self-sufficient to the point of getting along without each other - as bad as a society in which men and women do not need each other. It will be sterile.
'It's Making Music Together That Counts'
"All this is the result of specialization, the great cultural danger of our time. It is really what prompted me to attempt a merger of the performer and the composer. I would like to see a generation of composer-performers who literally make their music as they make music.
"In solo improvisation you can do anything you want, but that does not interest me. I like ensemble improvisation because we can make music together. If you want to be alone you might as well compose. I became a musician because as a child I was fascinated with the idea of making music with other people. I was not obsessed with sounds. I use sounds, but I am not obsessed by them.
"Electronic composers make the mistake of thinking they can become composers because of their sound obsession. I don't believe that. I think that the techniques of ensemble improvisation may prove to be a valuable countertrend. It is not something which will eliminate electronic music but it may help to strike a proper balance. The two things are opposites.
Improvisations Will Always Be Different
"Electronic music exists on tapes and the tapes will always be the same. Our improvisation will always be different. It will restore the performer and it entrusts him with an unprecedented creative task. Electronic music only does away with the performer.
"Electronic music is ideal for background purposes. Human beings are ideal for foreground. I would like to help in restoring our vanishing foreground. In our lives we fill our daily routine with so much background that most of us are not 100% alive. Chamber music improvisation is one way of becoming more musically alive for the composer and performer as well as for the listener.
"I am not trying to do away with anything. I am trying to add something to our present musical scene - a more informal type of chamber music, offering both the composer and the performer a new hunting ground; ultimately, possibly, a much-needed new career."
[22 Feb 1959, p. 106]
The performance was reviewed, also by Goldberg, in Saturday's paper:
Improvised Music Performed at UCLA
 |
| UCLA's Schoenberg Hall |
Concerts at which new music is performed are no rarity. Nor is there any dearth of concerts at which new music is played once - and never again. But a concert consisting entirely of new music which could never be repeated even if anyone wanted to, because it is all improvised, ranks as a major novelty in the present scheme of things. Such was the debut appearance of the Improvisation Chamber Ensemble in UCLA's packed Schoenberg Hall Thursday night.
Lukas Foss is the mastermind and pianist of this revolutionary experiment and his colleagues are Charles DeLancey on the percussions; Robert Drasnin, flute; Richard Dufallo, clarinet; William Malm, bass clarinet, and Eugene Wilson, cello. They have been working at Mr. Foss' system of "controlled chance" for a year and a half at the results proved to be extraordinarily provocative, though naturally still in a formative state.
Not Like Jazz
Jazz, of course, is to an extent ensemble improvisation, but this differs from jazz in that there is no given tune, rhythmical scheme or predetermined set of chord combinations. Both the mood and the content are spontaneous, although in the course of preparation a fairly definite and complicated set of rules has been evolved to serve as guide posts in the search for freedom.
As Mr. Foss explained the system at some length, though none too clearly, it primarily consists of six "rows" or complexes of four tones each, presumably chosen arbitrarily, and a corresponding set of six inversions, all of which serve as tonal centers, the various notes of which may be used either as melodic or harmonic components, apparently much on the order of Schoenberg's 12-tone system, but with the addition of primary and secondary notes.
And to assist in formal organization there are formulas which indicate the order in which the players are to improvise the solo part, the counterpoint and the harmony. These are written on cards which the players follow in performance, and any player who does not happen to be busy at the moment conducts and indicates the lapse of measures in what seemed to be mainly four-bar patterns.
Apart from these restrictions, which did not appear to be very restrictive, each player is on his own to improvise freely and to fit his ideas together with those of his partners.
 |
| Anton Webern. Source: Mahler Foundation |
Varied Results
The music that emerged took many forms. Most frequently it sounded like the pointillistic music of the Webern school, and generally it was atonal in the Schoenbergian sense. Sometimes it developed the swing of jazz; sometimes a player would hit upon a diverting tune which his colleagues would echo or develop, and now and then the music proceeded in straightforward rhythmical patterns. And always it was free and imaginative.
Obviously the system works, primitive though it may be in its present state of development. But equally obviously, it requires gifted musicians to make it work.
The possibilities are fascinating. Mr. Foss hopes that it will give rise to a new generation of composer-performers who will make music together spontaneously, freed of slavery to the printed page. That is a larger order, but there is no doubt that he has struck out on a new path, and one which may lead to unsuspected discoveries. At least the foundations have been laid - and with surprising success.
[28 Feb 1959, p. 12]
