Last year was a good year for music and classics professor Christian Wolff. His most recent recording, "Christian Wolff: Ten Exercises," has been named among the 50 best albums of the year in the annual list compiled by The Wire, a popular alternative music magazine. The album, released in September on New World Records, features 10 classical pieces best described as experimental, with the electric guitar often taking on as big a role as the piano and the trombone.
Although Wolff composed his "Exercises" over 30 years ago, he had very little to do with the original recording of the pieces and was never happy with the finished product, he told The Dartmouth in an interview.
No two performances of Wolff's music are ever quite the same, and trying to capture a piece to set down on an album can be a difficult and unsatisfying process.
"I really don't like recordings very much. I much prefer live music," Wolff explained. "Recordings turn out to be one version of the piece."
In spite of these difficulties, Wolff still hoped to make his own recording of "Ten Exercises," and thanks to his persistence, he was able to finance the entire project and choose all of the musicians he wanted to play on the album.
Wolff, who had already been composing for 20 years when he came to Dartmouth by way of Harvard in 1970, has taken his music in different directions over the years.
"They did come at a sort of transitional point," he said of "Exercises." "Up until the late '60s, early '70s, I wrote pretty esoteric music."
Wolff described much of his work as "a lot of silence, just a few sounds here and there." In comparison, "Exercises" is much more traditional.
"There are some pieces that are closer to what classical music is like," he said.
As a musician, Wolff has always been difficult to classify. With a classical background in piano, he started to compose around age 14. Through his piano teacher, he met the famously experimental composer John Cage, who took him on as a pupil. For a time he became interested in tackling political themes and contemporary social issues through music.
Through all these permutations, Wolff keeps returning to what he does best, and he has become well-known in the classical music world for his use of complex rhythms and aural cues. Before retiring from teaching six years ago, he taught an experimental music course at Dartmouth and would occasionally try out new pieces there, although Wolff usually kept teaching and composing separate.
Rather than struggling to balance teaching and composing, Wolff used off-terms and vacations to write music.
"Mostly [composing]'s fun," he said. "I can't imagine carrying on with my life if I weren't able to do something with music."
Wolff's aim is simple enough: He wants to make music that is accessible to a variety of listeners, from professional musicians to people who know nothing about classical music. Some of his material is written in symbols rather than traditional musical notation.
These days, Wolff is keeping very busy. He will soon begin work on two pieces he has been commissioned to compose -- one for a chamber orchestra based in the Czech Republic and one for a new music group in Philadelphia.
"I regard myself as very lucky to have found something like this," he said.
