10
Mar
Austrian composer Georg Friedrich Haas (b. 1953) truly experiments with sound. His extraordinary constructions of micro-intervals and pure harmonics create beautiful and opalescent soundscapes that move in ways that seem at once mysterious and obscure.
Here is the String Quartet No. 2 [1998] played by the Kairos Quartett.
Thanks to NewMusicXX channel on You Tube.
10
Mar
Ivo Malec: Pulsations
a movement from Exempla for Large Orchestra (1994)
2
Mar
Tactus performs Arabia Felix by Charles Wuorinen at the Manhattan School of Music. Mary Kerr - Flute, Rachel Field - Violin, Anne Rainwater - Piano, Jakob van Cauwenberghe - Guitar, Mike Perdue - Vibraphone, Matthias Kronsteiner - Bassoon, Conductor: John Ferrari
Tags: wuorinen1
Mar
Morton Feldman: De Kooning (1963)
Morton Feldman’s elegant chamber work dedicated to the painter “De Kooning” and scored for horn, percussion, piano, violin, and cello was composed in 1963.
After composing works in the early 1950’s that were in graphic notation and left most of the musical parameters (pitch, duration, timbre, event occurence) to the discretion of the performers, Feldman became dissatisfied with the result because although this manner of composing freed the sounds it also freed the kind of subjective expression of the performers that could not create the kind of pure sound-making that Feldman envisioned.
He briefly returned to strictly notated works, found these too confining, and then created works in which most of the parameters were given except for duration and, consequently, coordination among the parts (”The O’Hara Songs” [1962], “For Franz Kline” [1962]). Following this, Feldman began to create works, like “De Kooning”, “False Relationships and the Extended Ending” (1968) and others, which alternate fully determined and indeterminate sections within the same work.
In “De Kooning”, there are coordinated chords (verticalities) and isolated events (single tones and intervals … verticalities stretched out horizontally or melodically) of a duration determined by the performers. The sequence of these single events is given however and players must enter before the last event has died out. These open sequences alternate with traditionally notated measures of rest with exact metronome markings, treating sound and silence in equivalent importance.
The total duration of “De Kooning” is open but tends to be between 14 and 1/2 minutes and 16 minutes. Tiny bells, tubular bells, and vibraphone are mixed with high piano tones and icy string harmonics creating a crystalline texture, that contrasts with a more muted texture of low tympani and bass and tenor drum rolls, pizzicati, low cello tones, low vibraphone notes, lower piano aggregates and sustained horn pitches. The materials are limited to a few gestures on each instrument and create “identities” of a sort (for example, the repeated “foghorn”-like horn notes, the percussion rolls, and so on) that can easily be followed by the ear. The variety of timbre combinations is astonishing and the tempo of their unfolding gives the listeners plenty of time to appreciate their quality. No particular programme is intended, but the changing timbres may spontaneous stimulate imagery for the listener. Or, for another listener, the joy may simply be in sheer richness of the sonic experience, for the sounds themselves.
[”Blue” Gene Tyranny, All Music Guide]
Tags: feldman23
Feb
The Wet Ink Ensemble is a New York-based new music collective. Our mission is to present innovative programs of contemporary music, with a focus on creating, promoting, and organizing adventurous American music.
Pendulum V - Alex Mincek - Wet Ink Ensemble from Wet Ink Ensemble on Vimeo.
No tag for this post.24
Jan
Tom Johnson is really a minimalist composer; in fact, he coined the term while serving as the new music critic for the Village Voice.
He works with simple forms, limited scales, and generally reduced materials, but he proceeds in a more logical way than most minimalists, often using formulas, permutations, predictable sequences and various mathematical models.
The Four Note Opera (1972) is a work written using four notes only (D, E, A, B). It is scored for 5 singers and a piano (no orchestra) and the singers play the role of singers in a way similar to Pirandello’s Six Characters In Search of an Author:
The only sure thing is that the crucial moment in the evolution of the piece was that evening very long ago when I read, with great excitement, Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters In Search of an Author. Normally characters are not even conscious of their existence on a stage. They are completely obedient to the author, they conform totally to the world the author creates, and they have no thoughts of their own. But Pirandello’s masterpiece was different. His characters knew they existed in a theatrical space, and only for a couple of hours. They were aware of the audience, and of the author as well. It was not the kind of theatre that asks you to believe something that is not true. It was the kind of theatre that you have to believe, because everything is true.
Pirandello’s vision had a strong impact on me, and for years one question lingered in the back of my mind: what would happen if, instead of Six Characters in Search of an Author, there happened to be some opera characters looking for a composer? It happened that some opera characters were looking for a composer, and about 10 years after reading Pirandello they found me and came to life in The Four Note Opera.
[Tom Johnson]
Here are some excerpts in french and italian:
Tags: minimal10
Jan
John Cage, Freeman Études for solo violin (1977). A piece whose form is due to a set of misunderstanding.
In 1977 Cage was approached by Betty Freeman, who asked him to compose a set of etudes for violinist Paul Zukofsky (who would, at around the same time, also help Cage with work on the violin transcription of Cheap Imitation). Cage decided to model the work on his earlier set of etudes for piano, Études Australes. That work was a set of 32 etudes, 4 books of 8 études each, and composed using controlled chance by means of star charts and, as was usual for Cage, the I Ching. Zukofsky asked Cage for music that would be notated in a conventional manner, which he assumed Cage was returning to in Études Australes, and as precise as possible. Cage understood the request literally and proceeded to create compositions which would have so many details that it would be almost impossible to perform them.
In 1980 Cage abandoned the cycle, partly because Zukofsky attested that the pieces were unplayable. The first seventeen études were completed, though, and Books I and II (Études 1-16) were published and performed (the first performance of Books I and II was done by János Négyesy in 1984 in Turin, Italy). Violinist Irvine Arditti expressed an interest in the work and, by summer 1988, was able to perform it at an even faster tempo than indicated in the score, thus proving that the music was, in fact playable. Arditti continued to practice the études, aiming at an even faster speed, apparently misreading Cage’s indication in the score to play every measure in “as short a time-length as his virtuosity permits”, in which Cage simply meant that the duration is different for each performer. Inspired by the fact that the music was playable, Cage decided to complete the cycle, which he finally did in 1990 with the help of James Pritchett, who assisted the composer in reconstructing the method used to compose the works (which was required, because Cage himself forgot the details after 10 years of not working on the piece). The first complete performance of all Études (1-32) was given by Irvine Arditti in Zurich in June 1991. Négyesy also performed the last two books of the Etudes in the same year in Ferrara, Italy. [wikipedia]
Tags: cage2
Jan
Dmitri N. Smirnov: String of Destiny (Piano Sonata No.4) Op.124 (2000). Alissa Firsova - piano
One-movement piano Sonata No. 4 was completed on 15th of April 2000 at St Albans. I played it to my daughter Alissa Firsova whom I dedicated it. Alissa liked the piece but criticised me for the boring title. She suggested immediately “String of Destiny”, explaining that she feels the piece as an expanding string, which leads to some important point. I did not argue and accepted the new title. Alissa played the Sonata publicly for the first time on 10th of February 2001 at The St Albans Music Club. She also recorded it on CDs (Megadisc MDC-7818, Meladina MRCD-40).
No tag for this post.26
Nov
Daphne of the Dunes, by Harry Partch, is here recorded for the first time live. Originally the sound track for Madeline Tourtelot’s film Windsong, Partch recorded it alone, by the process of overdubbing. The film, a modern rendering of the ancient myth of Daphne and Apollo, is a classic of the integration between visuals and sound. Partch explains his approach to the score:
“The music, in effect, is a collage of sounds. The film technique of fairly fast cuts is here translated into musical terms. The sudden shifts represent nature symbols of the film, as used for a dramatic purpose: dead tree, driftwood, falling sand, blowing tumbleweed, flying gulls, wriggling snakes, waving grasses.”
Melodic material is short, haunting, and reoccurs motivically. Arpeggiated harmonic texture contrasts melodic sections. Meter is ever changing, almost measure for measure, with pulse sub-divisions of five, seven, and nine common. A trio of the Bass Marimba, Boo. and Diamond Marimba written in 31/16 meter is structured with 5 unequal beats per measure, the beats sub-divided into sixteenths of 5-5-7-9-5. A duet of the Boo and Harmonic Canon is written in a polymeter of 4/4-7/4 over 4/8-7/8. - Notes by Danlee Mitchell
The instruments heard in this recording:
DAPHNE OF THE DUNES
Adapted Viola
Spoils of War
Kithara II
Gourd Tree
Surrogate Kithara
Diamond Marimba
Harmonic Canons II and III
Boo (Bamboo Marimba)
Chromelodeon I
Bass Marimba
Cloud-Chamber Bowls
Pre-recorded Tape
(Note: No more than four instruments are used simultaneously.)
Harry Partch - Daphne of the Dunes (1967)
Tags: partch26
Oct
Toru Takemitsu: “Rain Tree Sketch” (1982) - Roger Woodward, piano.
Di Takemitsu abbiamo già parlato. anche perché, sebbene non sia un compositore fondamentale per la musica occidentale (anche se è un personaggio chiave nel suo paese), mi piace. Il suo è uno strano caso: quello di un autore che riesce ad esprimere l’animo orientale utilizzando un linguaggio così lontano dall’oriente come è quello della musica contemporanea occidentale. Ne risulta un’atmosfera che non è né occidentale né orientale, ma conserva dei tratti di entrambe le culture.
L’origine di questo brano per pianoforte solo risale ad un’altra opera di Takemitsu: Rain Tree, per trio di percussioni, del 1981. Quest’ultima, a sua volta, si ispira a una novella di Kenzaburo Oe in cui è descritto un albero con molte piccole foglie, in grado di trattenere l’acqua della pioggia mattutina, tanto da rilasciarla gradualmente durante il giorno, cosicché, anche se il temporale è passato, sotto quell’albero piove (頭のいい雨の木, racconto del 1980 non tradotto; il titolo significa L’intelligente albero della pioggia).
Rain Tree Sketch è fortamente influenzato da Messiaen, compositore che Takemitsu ha sempre amato, tanto da dedicargli un Rain Tree Sketch II dopo aver appreso della sua morte.
Qui Takemitsu usa i modi a trasposizione limitata del compositore francese per definire le altezze. Dinamiche e accenti, così come la pedalizzazione, sono precisamente notati al fine di creare una varietà di sfumature e di risonanze.
From: NewMusicXX channel on YouTube
Tags: takemitsu
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