THE LSO AND THE PERFECT STRANGER: A MODERN COMPOSER

Following upon a vocally oriented accessable album "You are what you is" (1981), Zappa concentrated on his further establishment as a composer of modern music for the coming albums. After the "200 motels" recordings he had repeatedly tried to get some more performances of his orchestral scores. Most attempts failed for all kinds of reasons, except for the "Orchestral favourites" sessions (recorded in 1975, released in 1979). In "The real Frank Zappa book" he's using several pages to utter his frustrations about unfulfilled agreements. In 1982 however Zappa had enough means to hire the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) and Pierre Boulez commissioned him to compose a piece for the Ensemble Intercontemporain.
The LSO was given a large program of one and a half hour of music, that was originally released in two volumes. The first one of 1983 having new compositions, the second one of 1987 mostly containing large orchestra versions of music stemming from "200 motels" and "Orchestral favourites". With the Ensemble Intercontemporain three pieces of music were recorded, that together with computer performed music were released as "The perfect stranger" in 1984. Most of the new compositions show Zappa's atonal side full blown.
Zappa's music in general is not accessable, often sounding as loose ends when hearing it for the first time. The appreciation of his music is a matter of time and getting accustomed to his rhythmic and harmonic versatility. For the majority of CD buyers, who look for music for direct consumption, his name is familiar, but what he stands for remains obscure and inunderstandable. Inaccesability applies most of all to atonal music, when you loose all technical grip of music you're acquainted with. The better atonal music starts to work when, after listening more frequently, you start recognizing the structure building elements in it and the composition comes alive. Most of Zappa's atonal music has this effect, in some cases it's more experimental. His atonal music is of the free kind; apart from some early stuff, he doesn't apply preconceived things as serialism. His largest composition in this area is the three part orchestral piece "Mo and herb's vacation", for which I'm giving a melody that is repeated and varied upon on different places in the piece. It's an example of a sort of cross referencing figure on a macro scale (relationship at great distance), that builds coherence in such compositions.

Mo 'n Herbs vacation, part I, 2:18 till 2:25 (midi file)
Mo 'n Herbs vacation, part III, 1:41 till 1:48 (midi file)

Mo 'n Herbs vacation, part I, 2:18 till 2:25 and part III, 1:41 till 1:48 (transcription).

This melody is introduced by a clarinet in part I (starting at 2:18), where it is accompanied by two other clarinets, mainly playing parallel at varying interval distances. It is repeated by a solo clarinet in part III, starting at 1:41 and by a solo violin at 3:54, playing a fourth higher. On a micro scale motif variation can be detected in this melody in bars 4-7. The motif is here constructed as one starting note in the prior bar, one metric accent note, followed by a three times repeated note. The melodic line of the motif is mostly descending. Variations on this motif section of the melody return quite often:

- Part II, 2:46 till 2:57, 3:19 till 3:32, 3:39 till 3:51, 3:59 till 4:07, 5:03 till 5:04, 6:30 till 6:38, 7:21 till 7:43.
- Part III, 3:11 till 3:25, 11:40 till 12:17.

The last mentioned variation is given here beneath (the accompaying notes in the transcription are left out). It's played slowly at the end of part III, preceding the coda outburst. The three times repeating note is replaced by a twice repeating note.

Mo 'n Herbs vacation, part III, 11:40 till 12:19 (midi file)

Mo 'n Herbs vacation, part III, 11:40 till 12:19 (transcription).

The friendliest new piece recorded with the L.S.O. is probably "Sad Jane". Though not a regular tonal work, there can be diatonic material reckognized in it. Possibly for this reason Zappa used it as the album opener on volume I. It was written however as part II of a two part ballet with "Bob in Dracon" as part I. On the CD release volumes I and II are mingled and reordered. Now "Bob in Dracon" and "Sad Jane" are coupled as originally intended. The following excerpt from "Sad Jane" shows a mix of regular and irregular rhythms in a 4/4 meter. The irregularity shows itself in the form of a quintuplet, but more so in the difficult clarinet-drumset part of the last bar.
The tone for "Pedro's dowry" is set right at the beginning. Instead of devellopping a melody, it opens with a dissonant chord followed by various individual notes and percussion. Quite bizarre to begin an orchestral piece this way. The whole piece is extremely versatile, up to being aggressive, with all sort of sections following upon each other overnight. It can be calm chamber music at some moments, in other bars half the orchestra is playing dissonants along an energetic drum part. The following section shows a larger theme in 4/4 over a vamp, out of the blue followed by a chord in bar b). At this point it's polyrhythmic. The drumset and the brass part #2 continue in 4/4, while the celli and the brass part #1 are playing in 12/8. In all probability Zappa took one meter as leading to improve the readability, but I don't know which one (the sections of the L.S.O. in this study are transcribed; the original scores are available at Barfko Swill).

Sad Jane, section (mide file)
Pedro's dowry, section (mide file)

Sad Jane, section (transcription).
Pedro's dowry, section (transcription).

The co-operation with the Ensemble Intercontemporain worked well for both sides for the publicity aspect, but not for building a good relationship. Some members had expected arranged pop music and doubted whether Zappa could write scores himself. The atmosphere changed to the bad when the ensemble found itself sweating on the compositions and Zappa demanded perfection, sending away musicians that weren't performing up to his standards. The European continental world of modern music used to be full of intellectualism and leftism. It only survived on government subsidies. Boulez used to call himself a communist in his younger years and, more recently, Stockhausen was videotaped calling the September 11th attack a masterpiece of art (flirting with communism was fashionable among European intellectuals during the seventies and the death rates under Mao and Pol Pot only became better known in the nineties).

"The perfect stranger" includes seven individualistic pieces, much different from each other in character:
- The perfect stranger. The piece that Pierre Boulez originally commissioned and got the project going. It follows directly upon the material on "The LSO Vol. I", stylistically and in orchestration. It's more loosely constructed than the LSO pieces and Zappa left his drumset home this time.
- Naval aviation in art. A large sequence, moving motives over a changing chord texture. According to Gail Zappa it dates from the "200 Motels" period. It got first recorded in 1975 for the "Orchestral favorites" album. As with more of Zappa's works it's a one time only type of compostion, adagio all through and dealing intensely with harmonies. Quite uncharacteristic for Zappa.
- The girl in the magnesium dress. A composition build upon digital dust, see below.
- Dupree's paradise. The theme from the song was first used in the seventies to set off soloing of the group members. Here it has become an elaborate composition. See below.
- Outside now again. Here Zappa typed in an improvisation over one of his favorite vamps. It goes much as a guitar solo, though there are some differences. First there are no dynamics per note, the dynamics are here achieved via doubling parts in different staffs. Secondly - I can't say this for certain - I have the impression that at this point the synclavier could only perform triplets as a irregular grouping. It is for sure that that would change drastically later on. See "Get whitey" for an example of what the synclavier ultimately could do in the nineties. Eventually the "Outside now" vamp became used for five different solos.

Outside now again, 1:26 till 1:49 (midi file)

Outside now again, 1:26 till 1:49 (transcription)

- Love story. A short and energetic synclavier composition.
- Jonestown. A synclavier piece experimenting with sounds.

In the Guitar Player special issue Zappa! of 1992, Zappa explained the origins of "The girl in the magnesium dress": "The piece was made from Synclavier digital dust ... [explains the existance of this dust as G numbers, inaudible musical parameter data]. So we converted this dust into something I could then edit for pitch, and the dust indicated a rhythm. So what I did was take the rhythm of the dust and impose pitch data on the dust and thereby move the inaudible G number into the world of audibility with a pitch name on it".
Originally the piece went directly from the synclavier onto the tapes for the album. Later on the scores were printed, reworked upon and orchestrated. In 1993 the Ensemble Modern opted for inclusion of the piece for their concert program. The piece moves around between relative ease and, if you ask me, complete irregularity. Zappa prescribes a constant high tempo. Bars 48 and 97 below are two opposite sides of the piece.

The girl in the magnesium dress, bar 48 (1993 CD: 1:55 till 1:58) (midi file)
The girl in the magnesium dress, bar 97 (1993 CD: 3:56 till 3:59) (midi file)

The girl in the magnesium dress, bars 48 and 97

Bar 48 is relaxed, as good as following a scale. The E jumps in octaves en then forms the E chord. Octave jumps and repeating notes return frequently in the score. Bar 97 at the end of the piece is the opposite, a total frenzy, deliberately irregular. Zappa thought of the piece as unfit for human performance, but the Ensemble Modern preferred to proceed. To make it performable changes were made during rehearsels, in bar 97 for instance notes were skipped.

"Dupree's paradise" today exists in three quite different versions in Zappa's catalogue. The theme was first used for the 1974 tour to introduce a large experimental improvisation block for the group members. In 1988 it returned for incorporating a trumpet solo over a vamp, followed by synclavier-rock band "jazz noise". In the version presented to the Ensemble Intercontemporain it's a 8 minutes piece composed all through without any improvisation. An exciting masterpiece mixing diatonic and atonal material as presented in the following two examples. The first contains bars from the opening with varying meters. It's played over E pedal and follows the E Lydian scale. The other stems from the middle section with two pianos playing in straight 3/4 over a bass counterpoint line. Here it's all atonal. The movement is a sort of chromatic dance in a waltz meter, full of second intervals where the larger intervals serve to keep repositioning the tiny seconds phrases.

Dupree's paradise, opening bars 5-13 (midi file)
Dupree's paradise, bars 167-184 (3:45 till 4:11) (midi file)

Dupree's paradise, bars 5-13
Dupree's paradise, bars 167-184

The performances of Zappa's orchestral works were haunted by low budgets, limited rehearsal times and union regulations. The first recording stems from 1961 with the Pamona Symphony Orchestra for the "World's greatest sinner" movie. It had a very poor budget and the whole orchestra went on a single track. Zappa called the result rancid. The recordings for "Lumpy gravy" and "200 Motels" also suffered from low budgets. At the end of the seventies talks were held with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Resedence Orchestra of The Hague for doing sponsored concerts. In both cases Zappa got confronted with unannounced extra costs along the way. The projects were annulled, but Zappa had by now all his scores copied at his own expense.
After the ill-fated 1982 European tour, he decided not to wait for another chance, but to get his scores performed one way or the other by hiring an orchestra himself. The LSO was a self-governed orchestra that volunteered to take this opportunity. In Kent Nagano Zappa had found an enthusiastic conductor (photo to the left by KassKara). The way Zappa describes the event in The real Frank Zappa book is good reading stuff but tendentious. The aim was to get as much recordings as accurate as possible in the about eight days that were available. That was an inner conflict of course. It came to a head during the last hour that was reservated for the final take for "Strictly Genteel". The trumpet section came in 15 minutes late after a break in the pub and Zappa, who was paying for every minute, hated it seeing the chance for a better performance lost. It's a pity that this has become to overshadow that in general everything went well. I personally consider Vol. I a masterpiece. Zappa had impeccable ears and apologizes for the mistakes in the recordings, but the avarage listener probably won't notice (including myself). His sense for accurracy also inhibited some further performances to appear on record as the concert including "Sinister Footwear" by the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra in 1984. When rehearsal times were too short, he wouldn't even allow a performance at all.

Pierre Boulez has followed a triple career in music. He is best known as conductor of the modern classics from Wagner onwards. Secondly he was the driving force behind the Paris IRCAM institute for exploring modern music, to which the Ensemble Intercontemporain belonged. Thirdly he is a composer himself. Zappa for instance was well familiar with Boulez' composition "Le marteau sans maître" (photo downloaded, source unknown).