{"id":201603,"date":"2023-08-17T07:15:09","date_gmt":"2023-08-17T11:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=201603"},"modified":"2023-08-15T10:39:04","modified_gmt":"2023-08-15T14:39:04","slug":"whether-a-handwritten-note-or-musical-composition-fuchs-starts-with-pencil-and-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2023\/08\/whether-a-handwritten-note-or-musical-composition-fuchs-starts-with-pencil-and-paper\/","title":{"rendered":"Whether a Handwritten Note or Musical Composition, Fuchs Starts with Pen(cil) and Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even for Kenneth Fuchs<\/a>, a Grammy Award winner who\u2019s recorded at Abbey Road Studios and with the London Symphony Orchestra, every new piece starts with a sketch – pencil in hand, composition paper crisp and clean.<\/p>\n

The process hearkens to the days when Fuchs was an undergrad and later a young musician, when he\u2019d have fountain pen in hand, and would begin letters to artists whose works moved him: \u201cDear Martha Graham,\u201d \u201cDear Leonard Bernstein,\u201d \u201cDear Helen Frankenthaler.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t just writing a fan letter. It wasn\u2019t, \u2018I love your music. Can I have your autograph?\u2019 I never did anything like that,\u201d Fuchs, professor of composition<\/a> in UConn\u2019s music department<\/a>, says. \u201cThe first time I wrote to Stephen Sondheim in 1977, the summer before my senior year at the University of Miami, I wrote what must have been a four-page handwritten letter telling him not only why I liked his work but also what I learned from studying his scores. Those are the kinds of letters I wrote.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fuchs says that before penning that letter to Sondheim, he spent years poring over his musicals, memorizing their nuances and relishing their perfection. He\u2019d become engrossed in the work and felt compelled to reach out.<\/p>\n

He was young, impressionable, and seeking mentors when writing Sondheim and, around the same time, thanks to a visit composer Aaron Copland made to Miami in 1977, developing a friendship with Copland, arguably the best and most well-known of American composers.<\/p>\n

Fast-forward 39 years, and Fuchs felt compelled to write again.<\/p>\n

In the same way he devoured Copland and Sondheim\u2019s works, Fuchs says he now was fervently consuming U.K. conductor John Wilson\u2019s 2016 recordings of Copland\u2019s ballets and symphonies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were so original, like sandblasting the varnish off the interpretations that other people have done. They\u2019re thrilling,\u201d Fuchs says. \u201cThe music sounds brand new.\u201d<\/p>\n

And yet another letter-writing exchange began \u2013 one that\u2019s led to today.<\/p>\n

Dear John Wilson<\/strong><\/p>\n

With the John Wilson Orchestra, Wilson restored some of the lost scores from \u201cThe Wizard of Oz,\u201d \u201cAn American in Paris,\u201d and \u201cSingin\u2019 in the Rain,\u201d taking what he could find – the conductor\u2019s piano score, a violin part, or a scratchy recording – and recreating the music note by note.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m amazed by his ability in both classical music and standard repertoire, early 20th century works by Korngold, Rachmaninoff, Ravel, and Respighi,\u201d Fuchs says of Wilson. \u201cI\u2019m equally moved by his intuitive interpretations of American music.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Fuchs heard Wilson\u2019s Hollywood renditions and later his Copland albums, he says he knew he needed to work with the British conductor one day. So, yet again, he put together pen and paper to express his admiration and hope they one day could meet.<\/p>\n

\"Composer
Composer and UConn music composition professor Kenneth Fuchs, left, looks over the musical score for the album “Cloud Slant” with Sinfonia of London conductor John Wilson. (Courtesy photo by Benjamin Ealovega)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In December 2018, two months before Fuchs won the Grammy for Best Classical Compendium, he wrote Wilson to tell him he\u2019d be in the Netherlands just before Christmas and would like to stop in London to meet him.<\/p>\n

Another meeting came in October 2019, shortly after Wilson had reestablished the Sinfonia of London<\/a>, which, for several decades beginning in the 1950s, recorded nearly all the music for British film and television \u2013 think British spy movies – and comes with a reputation for hosting the finest musicians in the world.<\/p>\n

Fuchs was working on music for his sixth album, he says, and wanted to ask Wilson if he could send him some scores, just for review: \u201cI couldn\u2019t even finish the sentence, and he said, \u2018Ken, I promise I\u2019ll record your next album.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The album, \u201cCloud Slant,\u201d<\/a> was released July 14 by Chandos Records, debuting in the Top Ten of two Amazon U.K. classical bestseller charts \u2014 Most Wished For at No. 3 and Best Sellers at No. 8.\u00a0 It also has received numerous four- and five-star reviews, including one in The London Sunday Times.<\/p>\n

It includes \u201cSolitary the Thrush,\u201d a concerto for C and alto flute and orchestra based on a Walt Whitman poem; \u201cPacific Visions,\u201d an eight-minute piece for string orchestra; and \u201cQuiet in the Land,\u201d described as a poem for orchestra.<\/p>\n

The title work is a concerto for orchestra, using for inspiration three Helen Frankenthaler canvases, \u201cBlue Fall,\u201d \u201cFlood,\u201d and \u201cCloud Slant\u201d \u2013 a 19-minute ode to a longtime friendship between Fuchs and the abstract expressionist painter whose words of encouragement inspired a young Fuchs to find his musical voice.<\/p>\n

Dear Helen Frankenthaler<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI think about her a lot,\u201d Fuchs says. \u201cWhen I\u2019m writing a Frankenthaler piece, I remember how she talked to me about taking risks. She always said, \u2018There are no rules,\u2019 and what just knocked me out was when she said of her work, \u2018You learn everything that painting is about, craft and technique and artists whose work inspires you, and then you throw it all out.\u2019 And I thought, what an inspiring idea, to gain the craft and then not be burdened by it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Composer
Composer and UConn composition professor Kenneth Fuchs draws inspiration for his music from abstract expressionist painter Helen Frankenthaler. He says that when he saw his first Frankenthaler canvas, “Out of the Dark,” he found his sound: “It was like a visual impression of what I wanted my music to sound like.” (Courtesy art) (Helen Frankenthaler: “Out of the Dark,” 1983. Acrylic on canvas, 5 feet 11 inches by 8 feet 5 inches.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Frankenthaler and Fuchs became friends in 1983, when he was a grad student at The Juilliard School in New York City and still developing the type of music he wanted to write. He says that when he saw his first Frankenthaler canvas, \u201cOut of the Dark,\u201d he found his sound: \u201cIt was like a visual impression of what I wanted my music to sound like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frankenthaler, who died in 2011, was a second-generation abstract expressionist painter, and layered wall-sized canvases with turpentine-thinned paint to create a color wash mimicking the look of watercolor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw \u2018Flood\u2019 at the Whitney Museum for the first time in 1984 and went back countless times to study it. I\u2019d stand in front of the painting, imagining which gestures came in what order,\u201d Fuchs said. \u201cI could see that she poured this here, and then she stained that over there, and then she created this veil.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much like Fuchs composes music.<\/p>\n

\u201cI play a chord on the piano, write that down, and keep making harmonic sketches of different variations on that chord,\u201d Fuchs says. \u201cWhile I\u2019m doing that, I hear the music in my head. That\u2019s a gift, nobody knows where it comes from, but you respect it. When I start sketching, I begin with a harmonic idea, then a melodic idea will occur to me, and I\u2019ll write that down. Then, I\u2019ll write \u2018flutes and violins\u2019 on the paper, just as an idea. I keep doing this, little by little, over three, four, five, six weeks at the piano and end up with 20 pages of sketches. Only then do I make the score in music-notation software and start composing directly into the score at the computer from the sketches I made.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continues, \u201cWhen the score is done, I look through all the parts \u2013 the woodwinds, brass, percussion, and strings – from start to finish, one at a time, to see if there is enough music for that instrument or whether I left something out. I always ask myself, \u2018Does the part by itself make sense to the player?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cMy gift, I hope, to any player is when they\u2019re in the practice room that they\u2019re playing something that is gratifying and idiomatically composed,\u201d he adds. \u201cThere\u2019s no sin in writing difficult music. The sin comes when you write music that doesn\u2019t fit the instrument and the player wastes their time figuring out how to make it sound good.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Fuchs uses a Frankenthaler painting as inspiration \u2013 like with \u201cCloud Slant\u201d – he says he lays the work nearby, most often the open pages of an exhibition catalog, to draw from its emotion.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just trying to write music that imitates what the painting looks like,” he says. \u201cIt\u2019s deeper than that. I try to get to the substance beneath the surface and transform that into musical language \u2013 creating understandable gestures, which is what abstract expressionism is all about. It\u2019s what music is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2003, as Fuchs started to record his compositions, he turned to Frankenthaler in a letter to ask whether he could use her paintings. She agreed.<\/p>\n

Since then, they\u2019ve not only been muse for song, but also have served as cover art for the five American Classics albums Fuchs recorded for Naxos Records, including the Grammy Award-winning \u201cPiano Concerto, \u2018Spiritualist\u2019\/Poems of Life\/Glacier\/Rush.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t own an original Frankenthaler, but what I do have is friendship,\u201d he says of her influence. \u201cShe always invited me to her gallery shows in New York. I was awestruck to be in the same room with someone who not only was famous but whose works I admired so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fuchs recently donated 30 years\u2019 worth of handwritten correspondence between the two to the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation<\/a> for preservation.<\/p>\n

\"Composer
Composer and UConn music composition professor Kenneth Fuchs released his latest album, “Cloud Slant,” in July. The album cover features the Helen Frankenthaler painting, “Cloud Slant,” which she painted in 1968.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Meanwhile, this summer and into next winter, as Fuchs and Wilson continue work on a second volume with the Sinfonia of London, expected in June 2024, Fuchs is engaging in another letter-writing campaign \u2013 this one for a chance at Grammy nominations for \u201cCloud Slant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch things don\u2019t happen by themselves,\u201d he says. \u201cAs with film studios and actors campaigning for awards, it\u2019s the same for classical music. I\u2019ve learned that if you want to get serious about winning one of these awards you, too, have to develop a campaign. You can\u2019t just put it out there and hope that people will vote for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

While this letter-writing effort might be more business-focused right now, it\u2019s no less full of admiration than the other notes Fuchs has penned over the years. He says he\u2019s humbled to be considered among the top 21st century American composers, and even to be a peer in a class of friends he\u2019s made along the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cMusic is about dramatic narrative and storytelling. It\u2019s about a dramatic throughline that\u2019s understandable,\u201d he says, \u201cin much the same way as a well-written letter.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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