Frank Rothkamm is an unusual and interesting figure by all accounts.
He trained as an actor, has studied bionics and been a computer
programme creator and website builder, as well as having a vibrant
creative life making music in a variety of forms. Flux Records
is Rothkamm’s own label, on which he has produced a number of
albums. Opus Spongebobicum is the latest of these, having
the subtitle ‘40 variations on the Secret Formula from Spongebob
Squarepants’.
For those of you
without children, I can tell you that Spongebob Squarepants
is an improbable cartoon character who lives in a pineapple
under the tropical sea, working as a humble but uniquely talented
‘krab-burger’ chef. Having grown up with those excellent Fred
Quimby produced Tom & Jerry cartoons, and the dry wit and
slower pace of other work such as ‘Top Cat’, Spongebob Squarepants
initially drove me up the wall with its manic childishness.
The creator Stephen Hillenburg is no fool however, and once
one has become acquainted with the characters and the surreal
nature of the cartoon, there is in fact much quite sophisticated
humour to be enjoyed. The title music on which much of Opus
Spongebobicum is based is a deliberately banal sea shanty
with a good deal less musical development potential than Diabelli’s
‘cobbler’s patch’, the Beethoven variations which are referred
to in the booklet notes. Rothkamm writes that “Opus Spongebobicum
continues the noble tradition of piano music as a form of sitting
contemplation, or Zazen, full of emotional ritardando,
aimless wanderings, unpredictable dynamics ...”.
This is one of a
number of problems I have with this piece. The limited potential
of the Spongebob theme is, as already mentioned, deliberately
banal in its frothy bounciness and incurable, almost aggressive
optimism. Creating 37 minutes worth of ‘aimless wanderings’
on such a theme seems to me a rather futile exercise, unless
there is some kind of additional point one is attempting to
make – either in a humoristic sense, or with at least a hint
of irony. The only really ironic aspect of this work is, as
far as I can hear, the title, which pokes directly at Sorabji’s
remarkable Opus Clavicembalisticum, a piece on an entirely
different scale and plane. I find Opus Spongebobicum almost
as hard to take as Sorabji’s Opus, despite its comparatively
brief duration.
This is piano solo
music, but created entirely in the digital domain. The piano
sound is acceptable, if rather electronic sounding if you are
used to real piano sound. While the sonic quality is fairly
good there is a distinctly narrow soundstage which gives an
impression more of mono than stereo. This is a weakness which
I feel could probably quite easily have been remedied in a final
mix. Rothkamm writes at some length about the background, theory,
and content of the piece, but as with the music it is hard to
decide whether the composer is hoodwinking us with an intellectual
smokescreen for pretentious nonsense, or providing serious commentary
for a painstakingly prepared and deeply felt expressive vehicle
for his creative art. One of the comments he makes on his own
website makes me suspicious: “Originally each variation was
conceived to be 33 minutes long and there were to be 32 of them
(just like Beethoven’s Diabelli variations), but after recording
20 of these half hour variations, I changed my mind; each variation
was to be 1 minute long.” In other words he’d already given
up on and ditched 11 hours worth of music from a piece which
would have been over 17 hours long, and what we get is a minimal
compromise, or an intensely compact masterpiece in dubio
– unless of course he’s having a joke at our expense with that
original proposal, which I also suspect.
I note that the
Nickelodeon trademark character Spongebob Squarepants appears
nowhere on the design for this release, probably due to copyright,
and possibly because the company would have nothing whatsoever
to do with this project. Either way, it’s a blessing in disguise,
since anyone buying such an item expecting a fun time with one
of their favourite TV themes would be in for a surprise, and
most likely a severe disappointment. This is ‘heavy going’ in
the Lisztian, Sorabjian sense of the phrase, and I can’t imagine
it going down a storm with many people. Had I seriously embarked
on such a project myself I think I would have been tempted to
delve a little deeper – utilising some of the intriguing possibilities
offered by, for instance, Squidward’s clarinet playing, Spongebob’s
foghorn alarm clock, that marvellous intermezzo music or some
of the bizarre songs which crop up during the series, most of
which share a similar inane quality with the main theme, but
possess a compulsive character due to an inbuilt ironic self-awareness.
I think the final track, the 40th variation which
just has the sound of a needle ticking repetitively on a virtual
vinyl LP, tells us all we need to know: plenty of stylish pretension,
very little genuine substance. I admire Rothkamm’s brass neck
and apparent hard-work ethic, but if this is a joke I don’t
get it, and if anyone considers this a work of genius then they
are very silly indeed.
Dominy Clements
Frank Rothkamm
(computer generated piano)
