Lawrence Ball: There's no Madness in this Method Music

Lawrence Ball: Method Music
Imaginary Sitters/Imaginary Galaxies
Navona Records

I’m generally suspicious of mathematically-generated music. A lot of what I’ve heard sounds academic, mechanical, and lifeless. Not so with Lawrence Ball’s compositions Imaginary Sitters, and Imaginary Galaxies.

The liner note attempt to explain in part the algorithms (harmonic math) behind the music, but it really doesn’t matter. What counts is that Method Music works.

Ball worked with Pete Townsend (of the Who), who produced this two-disc set. Disc one is a set of short, five-minute Imaginary Portraits, created by feeding data about the subject into a computer, which then used the Method Music algorithms to convert them into sound.

The first track, Meher Baba Piece is a morphing variation on the opening to the Who's hit Baba O’Riley. Almost as soon as the listener recognizes it,though,  the theme starts to stretch and change.

The remaining portraits (ten out of a much larger set), are similar in structure. All are electronic works, and have a basically tonal structure. Superficially, they sound like the minimalist compositions of Steve Reich, with repeated motives gradually moving out of phase with each other. But there’s more to it than that.



Although I couldn’t say exactly what Method Music was, I could decidedly hear it at work. These pieces have an underlying logic to them that’s different than minimalism. And that logic is apparent throughout the pieces. This is highly organized music that’s moving towards a goal – although it’s getting there through an unfamiliar path. People who enjoy contemporary classical music as well as progressive and experimental rock should find common aesthetic ground in Imaginary Sitters.

Imaginary Galaxies, which makes up the second disc of the set, might appeal more to the classical rather than the rock listener. Although the compositional organization is the same, these are much larger and complex works. Each of the three pieces runs about twenty minutes. The pacing is slower, and the changes are more subtle. Timbre becomes more important, and if Imaginary Sitters were painted with primary colors, Imaginary Galaxies would be a wider spectrum of pastel and blended colors.

Ball writes, “I hope the listener feels as if held in a sonic cradle, watching an intricate musical mobile.” It’s an apt description, and I certainly did.

Happy 327th Birthday, Johann Sebastian Bach (21 March 2012) (1685-1750)

Bach's final unfinished fugue.

Over the next three Sunday mornings on my show Classical Sunrise (6 to 9 AM EDT), I will be featuring J.S. Bach’s monumental works: Die Kunst der Fuge, BWV 1080 (The Art of Fugue); the Mass in B minor, BWV 232; and the St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244; three of the greatest classical works of all time.

Bach was the undisputed master of fugal writing, and the Art of Fugue is the culmination of his skill and artistry. The work consists of 14 fugues and four canons. The inventiveness and genius of the piece is breathtaking. It was his last major composition; Bach died before he could complete it. The abrupt ending in the middle of the last fugue, and the profound silence thereafter, speaks to my soul in a way that no other single piece of music can match.

Bach’s Mass in B Minor, BWV 232, is in some ways the vocal equivalent of the Art of Fugue: the Mass was his last choral composition, representing the crowning achievement in this genre. He completed it in 1749, the year before he died, although parts of it were composed decades earlier.

Bach’s setting of the Passion According to St. Matthew, BWV 244, was composed for Good Friday 1727 in Leipzig. Every year at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, a Passion traditionally was performed on Good Friday. It was the high point in the church calendar, particularly coming as it did after Lent during which no music was performed in the church. Bach, as a cantor at St. Thomas church, had earlier composed the St. John Passion, BWV 245, but it lacked the unity that Bach achieved in the St. Matthew Passion. Only these two Passions survive of the five passions that were mentioned in his obituary. The St. Matthew Passion, known as the “Great Passion,” in Bach’s family, according to Christoph Wolff, surpassed all that Bach had previously composed in sacred music.

Bach’s compositions were all intended for the glory of God. Perhaps nowhere is Bach’s intention more evident than in these three grand-scale pieces.