Now here's the thing, when Ethan Iverson wrote that he wasn't into Kapustin's work I "did' point out that there were/are theoretical reasons to explain how Kapustin's piano sonatas can go in one ear and out the other without lodging in the memory (which, of course, was a complaint Haydn privately registered about a few of his contemporaries). I suggested that what can misfire in Kapustin's piano sonatas is a lack of clarity in thematic presentation and thematic differentiation.
Now maybe Iverson will understandably not want to use his own work as case studies but I think the opening movement of his new Clarinet Sonata is actually a good example of how to present two themes that are clearly differentiated from each other. There's even a score to read along with as the audio plays.
Theme 1 traverses 00:00 to 00:38 (let readers remember that I have invoked L Poundie Burstein's warning to never expect initial themes to end with tonics when they can just as easily end on non-tonic harmonies (often dominants)). So let's say, for discussion, Theme 1 ends at 00:38 and there's some transition by way of metric destabilization and harmonic stabilization. Iverson stops using steady eighth note patterns such as 5+4 over 8 and has 9/16 and other meters driven by the sixteenth note alternating with meters like 2/4 and 3/4. This destabilizes the eighth note pulse driving Theme 2. So that's why I regard that short section as transitional.
Theme 2 appears at 00:59. How Iverson got there is, if I may, a sustained D flat major 7th chord with a sharp fourth that just rests a whole measure and is answered by languid E flat chords in a chorale style. This kind of subtonic to tonic shift works perfectly well. The new theme starts on E flat without any need for a dominant preparation chord in the galant sense of a dominant chord. Theme 1 had been a restless C minor and here we get a theme in the relative major, albeit with many jazz influences rather than 18th century ones. This is an Ethan Iverson sonata and not something by Clementi or Kozeluch, for instance.
Now this is the part where thematic differentiation comes in. The presentation has been established by a sustained D flat to E flat shift that gives us a pitch-region (not to say "tonal" in the freighted way) distinction. We've worked out we're in a new key. There's also steady common time phrasing, which means that the meter and rhythms are far more stable than the asymmetric 5+4 pattern dominating Theme 1. Iverson scores here on both presentation and differentiation with the two themes in his sonata exposition.
The development kicks off at 01:36 and culminates in a recapitulation at 03:17. Most of the development could be described as derived from Theme 1 with interrupting asides evoking Theme 2 in the piano. There's no "need" to have a sonata development make use of all the thematic materials in an exposition. I wrote about how Beethoven dispensed with any development of his Theme 2 ideas in Op. 111's opening sonata form, preferring instead to shift the center of gravity for his secondary materials into the transitional passages of his recapitulation. So Iverson not even using his Theme 2 materials in the development of his opening sonata movement is fine. There were a lot of fun possibilities to explore just with the Theme 1 and transitional materials.
Theme 2 returns at 04:08 and is lent help by the clarinet this time, which is a beautiful touch since in the exposition we heard nothing from the reed instrument. A 04:47 we get a new episode (this would be in the Coda) of new material derived from an inversion of Theme 1. The Coda runs along to the conclusion by 05:20.
So, all in all, a fun little sonata form. I don't say that with any derogatory intent. One of the things I've most hated about 19th century music is how bloated and giant it is. Iverson's exposition in his sonata comes off as just barely 01:30 but that's fine. That's great, I say! If you go back and listen to tons of Haydn you'll discover that very often his expositions in his piano sonatas and string quartets were actually not very long.
One of the more tedious canards I have seen within classical music journalism and punditry is the implication, or direct statement, that you just "can't" make sonata forms with the materials of jazz or blues or country or ragtime or any American "vernacular" music or "pop". The most brutal way to translate that is to say we've got a bunch of jerks who think American black music is inimical with "large scale form" or "musical argument". Yeah, well, I keep coming back to the observation that Theodor Adorno could still explain why "Deep Purple" was good, as pop songs went, but "Two in Love" sucked because it was (to Adorno) an obvious cheap knock-off of "Deep Purple".
Adorno contended that pop music didn't make sustained musical arguments and was full of identikit interchangeable parts (and, let's be fair, you could really substitute a few of Scott Joplin's V-I alternation B strains in a few of his rags and not lose the raggy effect, much as I love Scott Joplin's music). It was Roger Scruton who took a step or two further and insisted that American pop music couldn't sustain musical arguments. Adorno didn't say "couldn't" he said "didn't" and I say that as someone who has slogged through Aesthetic Theory; Introduction to the Sociology of Music; Philosophy of New Music; and even hunted down Current of Music. I've read Adorno, okay! "On Jazz" remains one of the most infuriating reads of my life but I have read him. And all attempts to create jazz/classical fusions must, at some point, address in theory and practice that Adorno was completely, disastrously wrong. I know what he said and I also know he was wrong. Is Iverson's Clarinet Sonata one for "the ages"? Does it have to be? I have had fun listening to it and he clearly demonstrates an ability to present and differentiate his themes in an opening sonata movement. I could even say that sometimes he reminds me of Hindemith's Clarinet Sonata (which I love, not that you asked!).
Iverson mentioned that figures like Bolling leapt in when maybe they should have hesitated. I think I can intuit what Iverson has meant by that. Too many people on the jazz side of the jazz/classical divide have not grasped how clearly and simply themes in something as putatively complex as a sonata form can be distinguished from each other.
Since claims that jazz and classical are inimical tend to come from both sides of the divide but classical partisans say jazz is incompatible with "large-scale form" I've restricted myself to just discussing Iverson's initial sonata form. I think it's fairly obvious that he pulls off sonata forms as a core concept.
One of the things the classical purists tend to sniff about is that musical fusions must already be "for the ages" or "for all time" or "timeless". Since most of them are not actually religiously observant types, in my observation, I'm going to roll out a punctuated equilibrium suggestion, that maybe a whole lot of jazz/classical fusion works made in the last century have been intermediate or transitional species and that a successful hybrid may take a few generations to emerge. Classical snobs tend to presume that such a synthesis is not only categorically impossible but undesirable but they presume this upon dogmatic grounds. I don't, and if it's just a game of dogmatics I've got books on Christian dogmatics by Emil Brunner, Herman Bavinck, Charles Hodge, and the history of Christian dogma by Adolf von Harnack I'm meaning to get to. So nobody assume I don't know or care about dogmatics. One of the most enjoyable reads I had in the last ten years was Ephraim Radner's brutal take-down of post-Moltmannian pneumatology called A Profound Ignorance. So when I say that it seems purely dogmatic for classical purists to say jazz and classical can never be inter-married I am writing as someone who does have an interest in Christian dogmatics and biblical literature and ecumenical discussions between Christians and Jews and has been splitting the difference between the Calvinism of my Native American dad and the semi-Pelagian Pentecostalism of my white mom most of my life.
So there.
What I think we're in the process of is cumulatively and collectively bringing forth jazz/classical fusions that, in the long run, will actually work out. I think Iverson's work constitutes a viable step forward to that end. I don't always agree with all of his stances or takes on things but that would be obvious to anyone who has read ten pages of him and ten pages of me!
Anyway, Ethan Iverson's Clarinet Sonata is worth your attention. I might get to writing thoughts about some of his other chamber sonatas. Since I admit I'm a fan of Hindemith's giant cycle of chamber sonatas that might skew my perspective but it takes all kinds to make a world and I do actually like a lot of Hindemith. I don't know if Iverson's chamber sonatas will get that extensive as to cover every instrument in the symphonic tradition the way Hindemith's cycle did. But if Iverson goes there I would be willing to go along for the ride a while to see where he goes.
