missing case: Loren Rush
listening without scores to the music of a composer who functioned without deadlines
Dear lecteur•rice,
Comment ça va chez toi? It feels like it’s been ages since my last post. Life is life-ing, and the world keeps world-ing, and both bring delightful & wild surprises. No further comment, your honor. I believe most of us have subsequently 3 pressing questions in the back of our minds: what’s the purpose of music-making these days, how to sustain its creation and diffusion in times where it keeps falling lower & lower in the list of the priorities (legitimately so), and also, what are we having for dinner tonight. That last question keeps nagging me every, single, day.
Dinner aside, today’s plan is to write about a composer I didn’t know much about before ± a month ago: Loren Rush.1 His music is somewhat very close to my compositional practice so I quite don’t understand how his works have escaped my radar until now. Naturally, the detective in me is maximally intrigued. Was Loren Rush accidentally or ‘rightfully’ forgotten from our experimental music history e-books? And, more importantly, who is Loren: a serialist killer or a hopeless post-romantic composer? Ich bitte euch, let’s solve the mystery together by getting to know his pieces without scores or much conventional music theory knowledge/vocab, but good ears & a big, slightly broken heart.
Dear reader, what do you say: do you also feel... the Rush? [ you had to see the pun coming ] [ at least i didn’t commit the crime to title this post ‘Loren Order’2 ]
The crime scene: SF Bay
Loren Rush is an American composer (b. 1935), who studied music in the US and Europe and was mostly active in the Bay Area / San Francisco new music scene since the late 50s. Together with Terry Riley, Pauline Oliveros, Robert Erickson and Bill Bultler, they formed an improvisation group with a focus on an aleatoric and improvisational techniques. That’s cool. After receiving a 2-year scholarship to go to Rome in 1969, he co-founded the Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) in 1975. Also cool. For all this time, he only had 3 releases in total: one in the 70s, one in 2021 and one in 2024. Ah? In the notes accompanying his CD releases, the label Recital writes: “Though few of Rush’s compositions have been published, he has garnered deep respect from his peers and colleagues over the decades.”3 Let’s face it, that sentence reads a bit like: “Rush may have garnered deep respect from his peers & colleagues, we’re afraid no one else knows about him”. From a Wiki-bird’s view, one can note Rush mostly wrote for orchestra and piano, and electronic at times. In general, it is said Rush’s applies in his pieces “a whole spectrum of modern techniques, including serialism, spatial distribution, controlled improvisation, and pointillistic (🕵️ ) exoticism (🚨).”4 Red flag? Let’s dig in.
Exhibit A: Dance (Dans le Sable)
Written in 1968, Dance is part of Rush’s actual first LP: Dans le Sable [ yes, dis ce que keeps being involved with sand & desert ]. No trailer, no blabla, no political correctness, just kyosaku-ing your shoulder like the Zen master that I am not: here is the piece:
[ & do listen until the end — i promise it’s worth it ]
When I heard the first seconds of this piece, I wasn’t sure if the music was weird, brilliant or brilliantly problematic (‘exotic’). Truth is: Dance subsumes all those adjectives and many more. The piece is an amazing blend of algorithmic, serialist, XXth century modern orchestration and maqam-modal thinking. It’s powerful, energizing, effective, its orchestral grandeur almost brushing the bad taste but not quite so. Never in my life did I have a stronger urge to write a megalomaniac piece for orchestra and spatialized electronics. Cherry on top of our mega cake: the end of the piece is hilarious.
As a detective, I continued investigating this strange monument, gathering clues to begin discerning the type of composition we were dealing with. Exotic or not, Rush’s integration of maqam sonorities in a conventionally orchestrated piece is successful thus respectful. The piece feels like waves of repeating patterns assigned to each family of instruments—strings, brass, and percussion in particular—alongside the wild, undoubtedly algorithmic electronics. There’s a constant alternation of crescendos and decrescendos for each part, until one suddenly surges to the foreground, sometimes signaling a shift in mode, confronting the listener head-on.
Investigating further [ to the max actually ], I’ve found out later on the initial version of the piece featuring the electronics and a piano part replacing the orchestra, originally named A Little Travelling Music. Quite an enlightening finding:
The computer-based electronic part features a vibrant plucked-like synthesis (Karplus?), generating randomized arpeggios and ornamentations that cleverly anchor the piano’s melodic lines and repeating pitches/trills. The spatial ("in your face") aspect of the piece becomes particularly evident here, with the electronics continuously swirling in all directions while the piano remains centred—static yet diffused. Apparently, the piece was realized with the Mus10, a software designed by John Tovar at the CCRMA at Standford. The computer synthesis incorporates two digital techniques developed at CCRMA: the simulation of moving sound sources and a method for controlling the spectral evolution of each sound. It all starts to make sense.
Report from Exhibit A: Rush’s alien style already feels magnetic, & his music undoubtedly smart. One question remains: was Loren only into massive pieces? The suspense being unbearable, we better move on to Omaggio a Giuseppe Ungaretti to find complete the profile of our missing composer.
Exhibit B: In Memoria (Omaggio a Giuseppe Ungaretti )
Omaggio a Giuseppe Ungaretti is the second (!) (released in 2024) recital album of Rush, for piano and chamber ensemble. At first, one may think, “oh, just one of these JI pieces à la Monte”. Well. NEIN: I beg you to pause and closely listen. Like many pieces I appreciate most, Mattina is deceptively simple.
Contrasting the extroverted brilliance of Dans le Sable, Rush reveals his inner radiance in In Memoria—a profound sensitivity and perhaps a touch of melancholia, echoing that of Giuseppe Ungaretti. The latter was an Italien poet born in Egypt [ sand keeps surrounding us] who wrote in the trenches of WWI to maintain his humanity by recalling experiences of his earlier life in Alexandria. Rush translated Ungaretti’s poems into Just Intonation piano improvisations, treated with the Enhanced Piano in Just Intonation5 — an electronic process that enhances the piano’s natural resonant qualities, emphasizing its sustaining, coloristic, and expressive capabilities. This intriguing process was developed at Good Sound Foundation by composer Alfred Owens, and from the data I’ve gathered, the methodology is certainly effective in Rush’s piece [for the geeks: find more info in the foot note].6
But more importantly, In Memoria feels like a biography: it’s the sound of a composer who has mastered a vast array of musical knowledge, to the point of seamlessly integrating it into his work, and, what’s even more impressive, while improvising. In fact, the piece epitomizes a rich blend, fusing just intonation sonorities, maqam-like ornamentations and modes, and post-romantic chromaticisms that evoke the impressionistic touches of Frederico Mompou.
The tuning of the piano is delicately unveiled at first through its higher registers, combined with chords and mostly descending harmonic progressions. As the music reaches the mid-high register, Rush introduces ornamentations and modes closely resembling maqam, along with chords that showcase his rare skill in blending maqam and harmony. Rush’s pianistic talent allows him to seamlessly weave chords into ornamentations, and vice versa, with each type of material absorbing and transforming the other. Another striking aspect of the piece is the presence of semi-regular ascending, harmonized scales, which beautifully complement the free phrasing of the other melodic lines. At times, these scales are presented in their naked simplicity, while at other moments, they are blurred through a masterful, more complex harmonization. The end of the piece is equally remarkable. Maqam and Just intonation no longer the foregrounded features of the piece and we instead encounter a more mellow, tender, and romantic kind of Western piano. It’s kind of stunning to arrive at this result — like a meta-modulation between musical genres and histories, the familiar and the foreign/evocative.
Report from Exhibit B: Loren Rush knows his multidimensional compositional and improvisational craft, to the point where he can create/perform music that is both highly complex and softly beautiful.
Dear reader, the thing is: we’re not even done with Loren yet.
Exhibit C: Mattina (Omaggio a Giuseppe Ungaretti )
To drive the point home: here is one last piece, one last exhibit of Rush’s talent: Mattina, a piece for piano, violin and piano reflecting Ungaretti’s words: ‘I illumine me, with immensity’. [ listen with headphones bitte. ]
Similarly to In Memoria, Mattina is unassumingly intricate. The piece is structured around the weaving and reciprocal emergence of repeating, sustained chords on the piano and sustained tones on the violin and cello, with the resonance of each part leading to the sounding of the other. While the intervals present in the piece may feel conventional, the overall softness is anything but. Mattina's timing is particularly intriguing: the chords on the piano are repeated every 5 seconds on average, yet they are always slightly shifted, keeping the flow of the music fresh and engaging.
In terms of performance, the instrumentalists occasionally feel uncertain or raw in some of their articulations, but this 'human' fragility provides a perfect balance to the subtle, yet noteworthy artificiality of the recording and mixing process. The ± hard left-right panning violin and cello make their presences distant; in contrast to the piano which central and spatially diffused and recorded very closely to the instrument — a result of the Enhanced Piano technique. This contrast results in an overall recording that feels simultaneously intimate and distant. I also suspect that subtle fade-ins and fade-outs were added at the entrances and exits of the instrumentalists to emphasize the acoustic envelope of the instruments and the conceptual depth of the piece. Once again, Rush’s craft is tip-top-notch.
Report from Exhibit C: Rush not only knows his craft: he also obviously writes his music from the heart — something confirmed by:
Exhibit D: Loren Rush interviewed by Pauline Oliveros
Right before finalizing this post, I’ve stumbled across an interview Rush gave to Pauline Oliveros in 1978, so I’ll just share some excerpts as extra.
The interview is a precious jewel in many ways [one of them being how confused or rushed the typist seemed to have been:
more crunchy stuff in footnote »].7
The biggest finding for me in the interview is that Rush composed music a) to keep himself entertained, b) without deadlines, c) for/with his friends. This resonates deeply with my compositional practice, validating an inner knowing that sometimes, cultivating a certain secrecy around one’s music serves the preservation of the music itself. At last, we’re touching on the reasons of Rush’s (in)visibility: Rush’s lack of outward/marketed attitude was, at least partially, intentional. [ Hear me sighing in relief — that’s so relatable]. In his interview with Oliveros, he mentioned the following:
I've resisted in getting involved having lots of performances and doing lectures and lots of recordings and all that kind of music business. And in the last few years, I've come to understand what that attitude is and to be comfortable with it. […] I'm basically just writing music for performers who are close friends and we work on it together. And that’s really about my total interest in getting performances and making music. […] I need to transmit a piece personally — because otherwise, the essence of the music doesn't get through. And that has little to do with developing a better notation or something.
His approach to creativity/ music-making and time management is also highly humbling and relatable to some of us:
For most of the work I've done, it turns out there's a very small amount of real creative thought, i.e. with an intense concentration. Other times periods are sort of conversations to myself that are fairly casual, where your sort of work things out. I have this sound image which may eventually become a composition. I know that in focusing on that image, there come stages, until I get the image pretty well worked-out. And then it’s a matter of bringing it into reality. So at one point, the compositional problems disappear, it clears up, and it then becomes the matter how you transcribe it. And although I can already hear the music at that stage, there's still nothing like the reality and pleasure of listening to real sounds. I need to get the sound image down to reality so I can enjoy the music I thought would be fun to hear.8
Investigation report: Loren Rush rocks (my world)
In brief: Loren Rush unexpectedly swept me off me feet, through his music, his philosophy and attitude towards the contemporary music scene. It is so refreshing to hear about composers who have ± continuously composed music, yet released very few pieces, and by doing so, have kept their integrity and curiosity fully alive. Rush’s compositional process (and to a certain extent, his aesthetics), feels personally like home and recall my own musical experience. For instance, the other day, my dear friend
and I spent 3 hours tuning one octave in his piano in a rationally tuned scale. That felt fun and luxurious. A few days later, joined by Joel, the 3 of us spent 5 more hours rehearsing and recording different versions of a piece I wrote for them, for kali [ recordings to be shared here soon…]. These kinds of experiences are profound. So, back to our initial question: what’s the purpose of music-making, especially these days? One simple answer= it reminds us friendships, beauty and softness matter.So, keep being soft & weird, & occasionally megalomaniac if that brings you joy
Lucie
To go a step further: some extra resources
a 2 hour long collection of his work on the great series Other Minds: here
an awesome, touching interview of Loren Rush from 1968: here
Rush’s early piano pieces:
the contemplative piece soft music: here.
A drone piece for 3 amplified pianos, Hard Music.
big up & gros bec à Jacob for the recommendation
For those who don’t get it: that was a reference to Law & Order. Speaking with authority here: I do not recommend Chat GPT for suggesting jokes.
Just intonation describes a system of tuning in which the greatest level of consonance and resonance is achieved by adjusting intervals to the whole-number ratios of the harmonic series.
Here’s what I’ve found from interview heard on the great series Other Minds, available here. The piano is equipped with a MIDI pickup under each key, which sends signals to a computer. The computer then enriches the sound by applying effects such as spatial diffusion and precise tuning adjustments. The goal of this process is to compensate for the audience’s physical detachment from the piano, simulating the experience of having one’s head inside the instrument—where its resonance can be fully perceived and sustained over time. By doing so, it further enhances Just Intonation tuning, which is already intended to bring out the piano’s natural resonances.
Source available here: https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb9050744m. As the interviews unfolds, the typing gets worse, to the point where the end is frankly disastrous or Cage-an like, and incidentally funny & poetic as you might see below:
A few more quotes/paraphrasing from the interview
on Rush’s relationship to computer generated composition, he said: “Computer programming is a nice, straightforward, clear process. You can't verbalize everything: not the ideas, and not some clever structures that I'm not to good at anyway like those clever strategies for programming. I learn from others by imitation and I do find a few things that work and I use those. … Computer music is an entirely different level of concentration: in a way, it’s kind of a relaxation from the concentration of music-making proper. You no longer have to hold the ‘sound image’ so much in your head, just maintaining a grip on the model of the piece. At the stage of using the computer, your process can become more mechanical.
on his piano pieces, Rush also said: “And as far as his piano pieces go, Loren described them as “developmental pieces where I need to try something out or learn how to do something — like as a composition exercise for myself to resolve.” We can certainly observe this process between Rush’s piano piece A Little Travelling Music, which led to the orchestra piece Dance.
About improvisation, Rush also mentioned the following in an interview you can find here: https://archive.org/details/C_1967_11_21: “One concern I have is to develop ‘significant contrasts”, i.e. musical ideas in the sense of musical personalities which are clear enough so that when we return to them in the music, we have the feeling of / perceive the return. […] In my previous music, contrast (in intervals, loudness or tempo for instance) was way too subtle, too often producing ‘continuous music’. And I feel that continuity in that sense is not very interesting and it’s too easy. After all, every musically organized person, when they sit down to improvise, it’s very likely to do something in which the continuity is very high. It is the contrast that is the more difficult thing to handle. […] In the best improvisations, this does happen.”