A Message from the Management 12/28/07

Let's all give a welcome to the Closet's newest contributor, Telvin Bartruss. He'll make his debut here sometime very soon. He has some great and interesting stuff lined up.

While I'm here I would like to wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2008. Cheers.

Feldman: Elemental Procedures

"All extraneous perception suppressed, animal, human, divine, selfperception maintains in being. Search of non-being in flight from extraneous perception breaking down in inescability of self-perception. "

(text for "Elemental Procedures": Introduction to "Film", 1964, by Samuel Beckett)

Morton Feldman:

1 Principal Sound (1980) for organ

2 Words and Music (1987), radio play

for two speakers, two flutes, vibraphone, piano, violin, viola, cello

(Less Words Edit)

script by Samuel Beckett

3 Elemental Procedures (1976) for soprano, chorus and orchestra

"Words and Music"

There are two recordings released of this piece, one of Feldman's last completed compositions. The first one features the spoken text in English and is impossible to get - and I never had the chance to hear it. The second release is rather easy to get. The Ensemble Recherche does a good interpretation of the music. Problem is, tough - this production sucks. And it sucks big time.

Instead of delivering their texts in manners befitting Beckett's words and Feldman's music, the two speakers - stage actors of profession - intone and dramatize like it's the end of the world and they wanna show one last time how uber-dramatic and outburstingly expressive they can do their stuff. Before entering hell. Where they belong for this. Along with the vocal director and producers of this record.

Finding this recording unlistenable, I decided to make my own edit of the record, cutting out the speaker-only segments. And lo, behold! It worked. For me, at least. Judge for yourself. The few remaining kagel-lish vocal snippets (didn't want to leave any of the music out) seem a little irritating for a Feldman, okay. But hearing this rather short piece with its greater number of different patterns and pacings from 1987 is almost like discovering a new side of Feldman, after the large-scale reductionist patterning of works like "Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello" (from the same year). I hope you'll like it. "Elemental Procedures"
"... I was given a commission by the Köln Radio, and he thought I fit in fine - it was called the New Simplicity, twenty-five years, thirty years later, there was finally the New Simplicity, and of course my music and Steve Reich, and Phil Glass and the minimal music from Europe. So here he told me the title of the thing, and I got this nice commission, where I could bring in my own soloists, which I did and chorus and orchestra, and write a piece for the New Simplicity. But for some particular reason, that was, being that it was the seventies, and so mid-Seventies, and being that the mid-seventies was, as far as I could see a very - where middle age composers, painters and everybody became very competitive, and very worried, and I was no exception, and for whatever reason, not that I thought I was gonna knock 'em out in Europe, but I found out that the new simplicity was developing into the new complexity. And I wrote, for me, an unusually complex piece. And I was very embarrassed actually the fact that it was on that festival called the New Simplicity ..."

Morton Feldman Lecture, April 17th 1982, Mercer Union Gallery, Toronto, Canada

"Principal Sound"
This exciting piece has a rather strong alienating effect on the listener. Nothing less than "Feldman in Space". And not just on the Moon or Mars, but another Galaxy altogether, with cube-shaped planets and strange creatures that look like organ pipes. Abstract organisms.

Compilation and cover by H.C. Earwicker

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Ferrari - Skempton

1 Luc Ferrari: Unheimlich Schoen (1971)

2 Howard Skempton: How Slow The Wind (1989)
Mary Wiegold - soprano
The Composers EnsembleDominic Muldowney - conductor

3 Howard Skempton: Lento (1990)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Mark Wigglesworth - conductor
Some very different pieces by two very different composers which fit together wonderfully:

Luc Ferrari: "Unheimlich Schoen" - musique concrète featuring the voice of Ilse Lau. Realised in 1971 at the studios of the Südwestfunk, Baden-Baden. Part of the Collection "Cinéma pour l’oreille", curated by Jérôme Noetinger. Released 1993 as a mini-CD.
Howard Skempton's "Lento" was released 2000 as a CD single and became something like an instant hit for the British New Music label NMC. As with nearly all of Skempton's works (mostly much shorter than "Lento"), there's an irresistible force behind the Satiesque simplicity, which most listeners can hardly escape.
"Lento owes much of its character to its original context; to the elevating proximity of Wagner's prelude to Parsifal, with which it was preceded at its first performance by the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the Barbican Hall in March 1991. Lento is monolithic, major and minor triads generate a sequence of processionals, and the tempo is more or less constant. ... Most of Lento is scored for strings only, and a central episode turns the spotlight on the trombones and the bassoons. ... This is a powerful work that demonstrates the timeless beauty of Skempton's writing." (Oxford University Press)
The "Online Journal of Experimental Music Studies" features two excellent articles on Skempton by Michael Parsons:

Howard Skempton: Chorales, Landscapes and Melodieshttp://www.users.waitrose.com/~chobbs/ParsonsSkempton2.html
The Music of Howard Skemptonhttp://www.users.waitrose.com/~chobbs/ParsonsSkempton1.html
 
Compilation & cover art by Earwicker

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Satie - Debussy

Candide CE 31024 - LP, released 197?

Claude Debussy: Chansons de Bilitis (1897)

for speaking voice, two flutes, two harps and celesta

Erik Satie: Socrate (1918)

Part I - Portrait of Socrate

Part II - The Banks of Ilissus

Part III - The Death of Socrate

Marie-Therese Escribano - speaker, Socrate

Michele Bedard - Phedre

Emiko Iijyama - Alcibiade

Gerlinde Lorenz - Phedon

Ensemble "Die Reihe"

Friedrich Cerha - conductor

Two extremely beautiful works, inspired by Ancient Greece, each one amazing in its unique way. Debussy dives deep into mythology, showcasing a playful and serene musicality, complete with Egyptian courtisanes dancing and an invocation of Pan, god of the winds. Some of the melodies also occur in Debussy's "Six Epigrammes Antiques". The poems were written by Pierre Louys.
Satie's symphonic drama, "Socrate", radiates a quietness and plainness that seem to have more in common with Zen than with anything of western tradition. John Cage wrote an adaptation for two pianos in the 50s, and in 1969 he even composed his own "cover version" of it, "Cheap Imitation".

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JAMES BEAUDREAU

Wow, that was fast. Christmas already, again. My best wishes to all Closet-visitors, and of course to my co-posters, Grey Calx & Telvin.

Beginning 26th or 27th, the kids in my hood will be shooting their firecrackers again, interrupted only by periods of sleep & eating, and they will keep on shooting until the 3rd or 4th of January, as long as their supply lasts.

I've prepared a few fine posts for the next few days: there's a vinyl rip of an old Satie/Debussy split LP, two compilations of single tracks by Morton Feldman, Luc Ferrari & Howard Skempton, and something unreleased (AFAIK) by Toshio Hosokawa, "New Seeds of Contemplation", a mandala for Shomyo & Gagaku. Keep watchin' this space.

But first of all, something special. This one I got sent by guitarist/composer James Beaudreau himself, with kind permission to post it here on the Closet. It's his first solo album "Java St. Bagatelles", released 2006 on Workbench. Thanks, James, for a very interesting addition to our usual unusual postings.

"Java St. Bagatelles", recorded between 2000 and 2006, takes the listener on an entertaining trip through 24 miniatures, somewhere between com-provisation and im-position. Delicious, and delirious, too - if you give in to the strange flow of the music. If you just listen to the sequence of "Walnut Star", the wonderfully casual electric "The Robot Prince", "Spanish Moss" and the spirited "Under the Tree on the Hill", it's like the spectres of Nick Drake, Anton Webern, Morton Feldman, Florian Fricke, not to forget a couple of unknown Flamenco players, seem hover around your speakers, conjured-up by some magick combination of tones, all listening for what's gonna come next...

Here's what Eugene Chadbourne said: "The combination of pretty picking patterns, squeaking fingers and what sound like background birds are an alluring "Welcome" to the Java Street Bagatelles… Guitarist James Beaudreau, playing both improvised and composed pieces and using editing as a way of making one appear to be the other, or else not, has made an impressive debut with this effectively recorded collection."

If I'm not mistaken, most of the tracks were recorded in the kitchen of Beaudreau's Brooklyn home, and the varying background sounds - birds, planes, co-residents and the cat, among other unidentified noises - add to the intimate charm of the music, which will grow on you after each listen. Highly recommended.

If you like the record, please support the artist & buy it at his website:

http://www.jamesbeaudreau.com/

Vingt regards sur l'enfant Jésus

Olivier Messiaen - Vingt regards sur l'enfant Jésus

Performer:

Håkon Austbø - piano

Recorded in St. Martin's Church, East Woodhay, England

from 11th to 13th August, 1993 (CD1) and

from 16th to 18th August, 1993 (CD2)

Tomorrow is Christmas, which is not only the day to open presents and hope that they are what is desired but the day has been declared the birth of the religious figure, Jesus Christ. With that in mind, this album is posted.

Background from liner notes:

The Vingt Regards were written in 1944 and dedicated to the pianist Yvonne Loriod, who became Messiaen's second wife in 1962, after the death of his first wife, the violinist Claire Delbos, three years earlier. She continued as a leading exponent of his music. The work is a meditation on the Infant Christ, conceived in musical language of some complexity. The theme of God, which appears first in the opening bars of Regard du Pere, Contemplation by God the Father, is used again in sections of the work that refer directly to the Deity, the Contemplation of the Son, of the Spirit of Joy, God the Creator, the kiss of the Infant Jesus, the communion of the Virgin and the final Chruch of Love, with a theme of the Star and of the Cross identical in that they open and close the earthly life of Christ, his birth foretold by a Star and His life ended on the Cross. A further theme of chords is used in various ways in a texture that uses a variety of technical devices with the utmost originality. Messiaen claimed here the influence not only of bird-song, directly quoted in a number of sections, but also of bells, spirals, stalactites, galaxies, photons and the writings of Don Columba Marmion, St. Thomas, St. John of the Cross, Saint Therese of Lisieux, the Gospels and the Missal.

Background of Messiaen:

The French composer Olivier Messiaen is among the most influential figures in the music of the present century [the 20th], at first alarming and shocking audiences but later winning an unassailable position, repsected universally for his achievement through a language that is intensely personal, emotional and informed by a deep Catholic piety. Messiaen had his musical training at the Paris Conservatoire, where his teachers included the organist Marcel Dupre, Maurice Emmanuel and Paul Dukas. He was appointed organist at La Trinite in 1931 and continued to play there until his death. A number of important organ compositions were written in this early period of his career. He was taken prisoner in 1940 and in a prison camp in Silesia wrote his Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of the World), returning, on his release in 1943, to the Conservatoire, where he taught harmony, but exercised even greater influence in the following years through his teaching at the Conservatoire, where he held classes in analysis, and various centres abroad. As a composer his attention was now turned to composition for the piano, inspired by his pupil Yvonne Loriod. He became professor of composition at the Conservatoire in 1966 and a member of the Institut in the following year.

Messiaen's musical language, one all his own, is derived from a number of sources. His interest in bird-song is directly evident in his Oiseaux exotiques and Catalogue d'oiseaux, but is also found in the Vingt Regards. Describing himself as a "rythmicien", he had a profound interest in Greek verse rhythms, Hindu rhythms and the rhythms of major Western composers, from Claude Le Jeune to Stravinsky and Debussy. His harmony is derived from a combination of sources, from serialism and atonality, tonality and modal writing, while he takes an equally idiosyncratic approach to orchestral colour and organ registration.

Tracklisting:

CD1

1. I. Regard du Pere {8:09}

2. II. Regard de l'étoile {3:09}

3. III. L'échange {3:24}

4. IV. Regard de la Vierge {5:21}

5. V. Regard de Fils sur de Fils {8:15}

6. VI. Par lui tout a ete fait {10:49}

7. VII. Regard de la Croix {4:21}

8. VIII. Regard des hauteurs {2:22}

9. IX. Regard de temps {2:45}

10. X. Regard de l'Esprit de joie {8:49}

CD2

1. XI. Première communion de la Vierge {7:38}

2. XII. La parole toute-puissante {2:31}

3. XIII. Noël {4:22}

4. XIV. Regard des Agnes {5:08}

5. XV. Le baiser de l'enfant Jésus {14:06}

6. XVI. Regard des prophètes, des bergers et des mages {3:09}

7. XVII. Regard du silence {5:36}

8. XVIII. Regard de l'onction terrible {7:03}

9. XIX. Je dors, mais mon coeur veille {11:00}

10. XX. Regard de l'Eglise d'amour {14:35}

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I would like to wish everyone Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas.

Addendum: GENTLE FIRE

BRITISH ELECTRO-ACOUSTIC MUSIC FROM THE 70s

Last week, while scanning the Blogosphere from the East, the West, the South, and the North, I came across this likkle blog:

http://protectingterrorists.blogspot.com/

I was stunned - not only does this blog offer interesting and un-mainstreamy musical rarities - no, it also features visual material and textpieces, rather informative & written with wit, about various phenomena & topics: society, politics, science, whatever. In short: a blog made to bookmark.
While looking around, I discovered a post from September 07 which presented a very rare recording from the British electroacoustic ensemble Gentle Fire (I posted their only released studio LP, along with some unreleased group compositions some time ago here on the Closet - please check the archives for details).
What I found on this blog was a very rare & unreleased LIVE-RECORDING of Gentle Fire's "GROUP COMPOSITION IV (Glastonbury Fair)" from 1971/72. With more than 60 minutes of WARPED sounds from Gentle Fire's electric gong tree, mixed with traditional instruments - filtered and tweaked through VCS-3 synthesizers and a self-designed array of electronics, this piece guarantees a DEEP DIVE into the unique ELECTRIFIED soundworld that was Gentle Fire:

http://protectingterrorists.blogspot.com/2007/09/gentle-fire-group-composition-iv-1972.html

The download also includes a very info-heavy & detailled article on Gentle Fire, written by founder-member Hugh Davies, who sadly passed away some time ago - much too early.

Go & get it now.

The Indian Sitar: The Language of the Raga

Pramod Kumar - The Indian Sitar: The Language of the Raga

From the liner notes:

Certain essential characteristics of Indian music have captured the interest of Western listeners: the ragas' power of emotional evocation; the Indian musicians' freedom of melodic and rhythmic improvisation; the influence that the interaction between performers and audience has on the evolution of a raga.

In spite of the "classical" label that is often applied to Hindustani music, numerous factors indicate that it is still a vital tradition. Another confirmation of this dynamism lies in the continuous but substantial growth contained in the concept of a raga, which is fundamental to Indian music.

The term "raga" designates primarily two different entities. The first is the musical form which most often serves as the vehicle of Indian music - the intertwining of a slow, free rhythm known as the "Alap" (where the musician attempts to transcend the particular raga's most familiar melodic motifs) with another motion accompanied by a rhythmic instrument - the "Gat" - during which the musician offers a composition in a fixed metre that provides a point of departure for improvised rhythmic and melodic variations.

The other meaning of the word is more difficult to pin down because it refers to a musical entity with no precise identity but nonetheless one having a presence so real to the minds of numerous musicians and listeners that a short melodic phrase is enough for a practiced ear to identify the raga in question with the greatest possible assurance, so that the exposition of any raga of whatever length (several hours during the course of some musical gatherings) never totally exhausts its melodic potential.

Raga Purya Kalyan

Puryan Kalyan is a raga which is played most frequently at the end of the afternoon before nightfall. Here it is played in the Khyal style, originally a brilliant court style. The Khyal makes use of a rich ornamentation based on the rhythmic plan, and it requires great virtuosity from the musician, permitting his imagination a wide range.

Shudh Sarang

This raga is very characteristic of a happy, sunny spring afternoon and is also treated in the Khyal style.

Thumree Sindhi Bhairavi

The Thumree is a lyrical and romantic style, in terms of the freedom of composition and the use of accidentals. It gives the musician the opportunity to express delicate nuances as much on the musical as on the sentimental plane. Here Pamrod Kumar has displayed a spontaneity of accent which is not commonly found in the context of a recording.

Dhun

The dhun is a musical form on the borderline between classical style and folk music. In contrast to the raga which is usually a search for coherence and unity, the Dhun allows for great melodic versatility.

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Raga Purya Kalyan {19:48}

Side 2

1. Shudh Sarang {4:59}

2. Thumree Sindhi Bhairavi {11:09}

3. Dhun {5:55}

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Waking Dreams

Michael Burritt - Waking Dreams

Thought I'd put this up as this happened to be playing in the background while I was looking out the window staring at the aftermath of the icestorm that recently hit central Oklahoma. The marimba music seems fitting and appropriate for the beauty and devastation outside.


I lost power for a while, but now I'm one of the lucky people with power along with heat and running water. Not everyone can say that. I also was fortunate to not have my car smashed by a falling tree. However, the front yard of my home is almost covered with broken and leaning tree limbs.

There is some snow headed my way this weekend. It will be even harder to have power restored to some people as it would have taken seven to ten days to have it restored anyway without the additional weather. It will also be more difficult to navigate the streets and watch for the debris littering the roads as I have some Christmas shopping that has yet to be done.

I'll try my best to be around since it has been about a month since I last posted here. Thanks to H. C. Earwicker for holding down the fort while I was gone.



Tracklisting:

1. Scirocco {7:28}

2. Timeless {15:25}

3. Prelude 1: Moderate {2:58}

4. Prelude 2: Scherzo {1:31}

5. Prelude 3: Ballad {2:08}

6. Prelude 4: Song {1:34}

7. Prelude 5: Dance {2:38}

8. Azure {11:45}

9. Waking Dreams: I - Allegro Grazioso {6:14}

10. Waking Dreams: II - Recitative Cantabile {7:13}

11. Waking Dreams: III - Allegro Barbaro {8:04}

12. The Offering {2:37}

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Morton Feldman: Three Voices

Edition Michael Frauenlob Bauer
Recorded 1984 at WDR, Cologne

...

This composition from 1982 is scored for three soprano voices. Feldman specified that all parts be sung by one singer, meaning that one voice is performed live, while the other two have to be pre-recorded and played back via two speakers, one for each voice. The words used are from Frank O'Hara's poem "Wind", dedicated to Feldman.

Beth Griffith did a wonderful job on this recording, setting the overall tempo considerably slower than in some of the later released versions. Mediating a feel of unrest, it may not be the easiest listen among Feldman's later, longer pieces, but it's definitely a very interesting and unique one. "The variety of textures - heterophony, homophony, hocket, unison, fauxbourdon, coloratura, and a combination of pedal point with something that might best be described as 'voice-crossing on every note' - holds together an extremely delicate chromatic structure that recalls associations with close harmony as well as with the madrigals of Gesualdo."

- Paul van Emmerik in his liner notes of the LP.

... bad thoughts imprisoned in crystal

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VEXATIONS / DE LEEUW

Released by Philips on LP in 1983.
What can be said about this marvellous 3-part-miniature? That "le compositeur du musique" wanted it to be played 840 times in a row? That its enigmatic melodic and harmonic structure really gets to the listener after the umpteenth repetition? That it'll knock you out, slowly? Killing us softly, with his song?

 
I recommend that you listen to it as often/long as possible. Take your time, it's worth it. To me, the theme seems like some kind of interesting question which is answered by even more interesting questions, if you listen to it long enough (longer than you can stand?).
Go to sleep with it, wake up with it, or use it as an ambient soundtrack, turning the coming holidays into your own cozy Vex-mas. For hours and hours and hours and hours and hours ...

Reinbert de Leeuw is an excellent pianist - he's got "the touch", like Feldman would've said - and he's proving it here just like he did with his other Satie recordings.
"Vexations" is performed 35 times here. In order to hear the piece 840 times listeners should therefore play the recording 24 times.
Don't shoot the piano player.

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Addendum:
Learn all about the "Pianoless Vexations", an eight-hour performance, performed at The Sculpture Center in New York City on Sunday, June 11, 2006:

http://www.ubu.com/sound/vexations.html

Here's an excellent article by Stephen Whittington from the University of Adelaide, Australia. "Serious Immobilities: On the centenary of Erik Satie's Vexations": http://www.af.lu.se/~fogwall/article3.html

The Great Learning Orchestra from Sweden realized an orchestral marathon of "Vexations":

home.swipnet.se/sonoloco14/learning/learningframes.html