Curious to rehear the Concord Sonata, which I had not listened to since graduating from college, I went to listen on YouTube, finding the Gilbert Kalish recording. Right away, from the opening movement, it becomes apparent that Ives was liberated by the music of Claude Debussy, including the “ivesceration” (better than evisceration here!) of traditional harmony. Aided by the use of whole tone scales, one may hear this music as poly-modal, with no limit to possible harmonic embellishments of a predominantly horizontally (and emotionally) conceptualized music, including the American composer’s purposeful and original investigations of his inner and outer experience expressed through the newly revealed universe of musical textures and pianistic tone colors Debussy unleashed. All this was hatched by the fortuitous accident of hearing Indonesian gamelan, famously experienced by the French composer.

During my one semester at Stony Brook, promoted by Elliot del Borgo’s suggestion that I take advantage of an opportunity to study with Turkish electronic music pioneer, Bulent Arel, the subject of Claude Debussy was joyfully raised by Arel. He took great pleasure in relating how Debussy had created a music that was so original as to defy any explanation or analysis in previous templates, forcing people to rethink both the experience of listening to music, and the creative challenge of writing about music.

A favorite memory of Arel is how I once overheard him in the hallway saying in hushed tones about myself to a fellow student after an early electronic composition of mine was played: "He is a composer. I can tell!"

My original experience with the music of Ives, again after graduating from college, helped inspire me to compose many songs for voice and piano in the early eighties together with four one-act music dramas all from poems and plays by William Butler Yeats.

The subject of why some composers are reluctant to disclose the source of their inspiration is in some regards superfluous. Afterwards, working like Peter Falk in Columbo, its only natural to notice obvious influences, with others more difficult to discern. For example, who would have guessed that Break On Through to the Other Side, which opens the revolutionary first album by the Doors, was inspired by, according to my late friend, Ray Manzarek, the Stan Getz recording of The Girl From Ipanema!

The Columbo show has always been a favorite of mine since high school. I had the pleasure of meeting Peter Falk in the green room following a two-man play he did with Jason Alexander in Westwood. Generally amiable in this role, similar to his television series, at one point, Falk, who began his film career portraying gangsters, suddenly unleashed his full fury at Alexander, scaring the life out of the audience from the utterly unexpected volume and violence channelled through voice and gesture.

In the green room, Falks's persona was highly introspective and contemplative, even slightly menacing like he was a tough guy with lots of street smarts. At one point he did disclose how he enjoyed listening to classical music on the local KUSC FM station. (Martin Perlich and Titus Levi played selections from my Chinese Legend and Hamoa albums on KUSC shows they hosted.)

A week or so later, pretty late one night at Kinkos on Wilshire in Beverly Hills, I spotted Peter photocopying a number of his drawings of women. Heading over to say hi, Falk was polite, exchanging hellos, but clearly much too occupied for conversation, even frantic like he had a deadline to get the drawings photocopied as soon as possible, so I turned to do my own music photocopying. In real life, he was a million miles away from his television and film roles.

- Michael Robinson, August 2017, Los Angeles

© 2017 Michael Robinson All rights reserved

Michael Robinson is a Los Angeles-based composer, programmer, pianist and musicologist. His 199 albums include 152 albums for meruvina and 47 albums of piano improvisations. Robinson has been a lecturer at UCLA, Bard College and California State University Long Beach and Dominguez Hills.