All Lines Are Still Busy
Composed: 2019
Premiere: Western Reserve Fire Museum, September 23, 2019, Mari Sato - violin
Duration: 6 minutes
Instrumentation: solo violin
PROGRAM NOTES
All Lines Are Still Busy is a satirical musical monologue in which the performer portrays a person making a telephone call and also an answering electronic voice. Beginning with touch-tone phone number pitches, the movement goes through a typical business phone routine. The composer could not resist taking the opportunity to poke fun at public radio stations' incessant airing of Pachelbel's Canon when the caller is connected to a radio station while "on hold." The caller tries, earnestly at first, to listen to the Pachelbel, but becomes bored and distracted as well as increasingly frustrated by the imposed demands of this so practical and yet so dehumanizing one-way conversation.
performed by violinist Mari Sato
video by Erica Brenner
REVIEWS
“Balancing the serious messages of pandemic and ecology, the disc’s finale is a humorous account of an experience we all share: the lengthy telephone holds that build the caller’s frustration. ‘All Lines Are Still Busy’ has the violinist/narrator Sato “dialing” a line that is eternally busy while the message intones, “Hello! You have reached our automatic answering system!” And then come the lines of that perpetual “on hold” music: the Pachelbel Canon, while the assurance that “All lines are still busy” gets humorous musical answers from Sato as soloist/narrator/actor. This piece may well make a tasty encore for many future violin recitals.”
- Melinda Bargreen, EarRelevant, Reactions CD 2022
Concluding the album is the satirical All Lines Are Still Busy, mimicking what it’s like to be stuck on hold during a phone call. Musical phone rings, the growing frustrations at the unhelpful person on the other line, and the endless, looping hold music of Pachelbel’s Canon in D are all portrayed vividly by Sato in both music and narration. The piece contributes some levity to an otherwise somber album, one that provides insight into how the world has been wrangling with the last few years.
- Nicolette Cheauré, ClevelandClassical, Reactions CD, 2022
“Arriving as it does after pieces dealing with such weighty themes, the comical ‘All Lines Are Still Busy’ comes as something of a relief, even if the situation it recounts is an annoying one most of us have endured at one time or another. Speaking as well as playing, Sato plays solo violin as she waits to connect with a real person and suffers through being repeatedly told “Your call is important to us” by an electronic voice before reaching an actual human being—who then just as quickly re-directs and disconnects the caller.”
- Textura, Reactions CD, 2022
All Lines Are Still Busy is a humorous monologue dealing with another great contemporary problem: how to get in touch with a human being, when all lines are busy. Mari Sato speaks and plays her violin, and I believe everyone, who has once tried to call a company with a switchboard, will recognise the situation. After all the serious reactions in this programme, this amusing encore comes as a kind of relief. But all the problems we have encountered have been solidly etched into our minds.
- Göran Forsling, MusicWeb International, Reactions CD, 2022