Thursday, April 30, 2009

Nickel Music: The Sound of the Nickelodeons


Paul Eakins - Nickel Music: The Sound of the Nickelodeons

From the liner notes:

THIS RECORDING was made at the Gay Nineties Village in Sikeston, Missouri, which boasts the world's largest collection of nickelodeons. The Village was the creation of Paul Eakins, a mechanical engineer who used to operate a plumbing and heating business. Ordered by his doctor to slow down, Eakins started collecting and repairing old-time nickelodeons as a hobby, which eventually developed into an almost full-time job. The nickelodeons in this recording and the others at Gay Nineties Village come from all parts of the United States and 20 foreign countries. The smallest of Eakins' nickelodeons is known as a pianino, and measures three feet wide and five feet high. The largest is eight feet high, weighs 1,800 pounds and contains a piano, mandolin, 17 viola and 21 violin pipes, 38 flute pipes, xylophone, bass, kettle and snare drums, triangle, castanets and cymbals.

...

Step right up, folks, and welcome to the famous Gay Nineties Village. Hear the world's greatest collection of old time automatic music machines - the one and only Wurlitzer Fascinator, designated by the United States Government as one of the greatest inventions of the decade 1900-1910. Hear the Encore Banjo, the Eakins Special, the K.T. Special and Mr. Sam, the world's greatest orchestrion - all unique instruments of their day. See the exciting Indian Trading Post, with its fabulous collection of shooting irons, bows and arrows, tomahawks and other relics of pioneer days. Ride in an authentic Wells Fargo stagecoach and thrill to the actual bullet holes that splintered the wood a century ago. Visit the Back Room Cafe, and see the kind of place where ladies of easy virtue met their hard-drinking, quick-triggered men folks. Drop a coin in a slot and have your fortune told; try your skill in an authentic shooting gallery, and see the award-winning movie of 1905 - "Nights of Shame in Gat Paree."
Nickel music, like nickel candy and the five-cent cigar, holds a secure place in American history. No one is quite sure how the phrase "You pays your money and you takes your chance" originated. But a fairly safe presumption is that it stems from nickel music - that characteristically American form of freedom of choice by which you put a coin in here and the music goes 'round and 'round and comes out there. The present-day ubiquitous juke box is further proof of the unique and permanent place the automatic music machine has in the American scene.
...
Nickelodeons come in all sorts of shapes, forms and sizes, and produce a great many different types of sound, depending on the kinds of instrumental effects built into them. Included in this recording are several which come from San Francisco, manufactured long before the earthquake of 1906, and in once-wild Chicago. Others heard here are considerably more modern and more elaborate. One, for example, is the Encore Banjo, patented in 1893 and first used in railroad passenger stations, restaurants and other places where large numbers of people congregated. The banjo plays four strings and ten notes on each of the strings, for a total of 44 notes. Picks are actuated by pneumatics capable of ten strokes per second. Each of the small pneumatics is connected to a tracker bar, which is equipped with 46 holes less than a tenth of an inch in diameter, with rubber tubing. A long paper roll is perforated with different types of music. When in operation, all motivation is supplied by pumping the entire chest assembly to 30 inches vacuum water gauge. When a coin is inserted, the motor and pump start, and simultaneously the paper roll is started through a combination of leather belts, wooden rollers, pulleys and gears to move over the tracker bar. As a perforation in the paper roll moves over a hole in the tracker bar, air rushes in through the hole in the paper, through the tracker bar, through the rubber tube to one of the small pneumatics which instantly opens and raises a lead valve which, in turn, opens a small tube leading to one of the finger button pneumatics. This pumps all the air from the finger button down firmly against the string. This action applies to each string pick - also to the nickel trip for which two holes are cut at the end of each tune, thus assuring only one play.

Other instruments heard in this recording include:

The Wurlitzer Fascinator, an orchestra piano with mandolin attachment, 38 violin pipes, 38 flute pipes, orchestra bells, bass and snare drums, and triangle.

The Coinola Orchestrion, which has solo flute pipes, xylophones, snare and bass drums, tympani, cymbal, Indian block, triangle, castanets and tambourine.

The Eakins Special, assembled by Paul (himself) Eakins from four different machines and consisting of 49 flute pipes of eight-foot tone, 37 quintadena metal pipes (eight-foot tone), 12 diapason pipes (eight foot tone), seven-and-a-third octaves of piano, a 61-note organ manual, and the same percussion instruments as in the orchestrion above. This, incidentally, operates by electric blower pressure plus a six-and-a-half-inch water column.

The Red K.T. Special is essentially a piano nickelodeon with mandolin attachment plus xylophone and percussion similar to the Eakins Special and the orchestrion. The Memory Lane Special, also heard in this recording, has the same features as the Red K.T. Special.

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. King Cotton {1:56}

2. Dixie {1:38}

3. Patriotic Medley {1:28}

4. Georgia Camp Meeting {2:21}

5. Hands Across the Sea {1:52}

6. The Jolly Coppersmith {1:57}

7. The Irish Washerwoman {1:45}

Side 2

1. Battle Hymn of the Republic {1:47}

2. My Wild Irish Rose {1:58}

3. March Medley {3:07}

4. Carry Me Back to Old Virginny {1:45}

5. Yankee Doodle & Ta Ra Ra Boom De Ay {1:21}

6. Over the Waves {2:24}

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

The New Trumpet


various artists compilation - The New Trumpet

Sonata for Trumpet & Piano (1955) by Peter Maxwell Davies

Performers: Gerard Schwarz - trumpet; Ursula Oppens - piano

Space is a Diamond (1970) by Lucia Dlugoszewski

for solo trumpet

Performer: Gerard Schwarz

Passages 13-The Fire (1970-71) by William Hellermann

for trumpet & tape

Performers: Gerard Schwarz - trumpet; Jacqueline Hellermann, Marsha Immanuel, Michael O'Brien, John P. Thomas - voices

tape realized at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center

text, "The Fire, Passages 13" is from Bending the Bow by Robert Duncan; This poem was first published in Poetry, April-May 1965.

Most of our modern instruments have antecedents reaching far back into antiquity, and the trumpet is no exception. Space does not allow discussion of whether or not the ancient Roman lituus or the much more recent cornetto or Zink are true ancestors of the modern trumpet, and it is better to limit our concentration to the simple narrow cylindrical tube of metal with a bell and a cup-shaped mouthpiece that the instrument essentially still is. This natural trumpet, without side-holes or valves, is capable of a simple overtone series; in this form, it is only in the upper partials that it becomes possible to produce the full scale. In the Baroque period a school of trumpet-playing developed using this portion of the instrument, but players equipped with sufficient lip and lung power to master this style were naturally somewhat rare. In Bach's time trumpet players were the prized athletes of the instrumental ensemble; highly-paid itinerants for the most part, they were called upon to add brilliance to ceremonial musical events. By 1750, however, with the rise of larger ensembles and the cult of the musical amateur, players capable of high, florid passage-work grew scarce, and the most common brass-writing of the Classical period was rather primitive tonic-and-dominant orchestral accentuation.

In the mid-19th century, the recently-invented valve-trumpet (actually at first a cornet) began to come into general use. This was, in practically every sense, a "new trumpet: whereas the earlier methods of varying the fundamental of the overtone series, thus the key, of the old trumpet - either to insert lengths of tubing ("crooks") into it, or to employ a slide-mechanism, like the trombone - were relatively cumbersome, the new trumpet was able, through valves, to open and close various lengths of tubing very quickly. Thus it became a totally chromatic and agile instrument throughout its practical range. The trumpet we possess today, like so many of our current orchestral instruments, is merely a refined and standardized version of the result of that incredibly active period of technological advance in instrument-building, the first half of the 19th century. To this new instrument has been added, much more recently an assortment of mutes: besides the common, centuries-old "straight" mute, the player now has as resource the Harmon mute, the plunger mute, the cup mute, the Solotone mute, the whisper mute, and other devices inserted into (or held against) the bell of the instrument for timbral variation. Many of the above were used principally in American popular music and jazz, and it is only recently, with the renascence of the trumpet virtuoso and the serious composer's growing interest in timbre as a compositional element, that the vast resources of the modern trumpet are beginning to be explored exhaustively in new music.

While not employing the various trumpet mutes, Peter Maxwell Davies' early Sonata forcefully demonstrates the advances in sheer playing technique in the last decades. With Lucia Dlugoszewski's Space is a Diamond, we enter a new sound-world. The trumpet suddenly has become a four-and-a-half-octave instrument: in its new incarnation, with the use of several mutes, unusual tonguing techniques, high, swooping glissandos, and simultaneous playing and singing through the mouthpiece, an instrument emerges capable, in the composer's words, of "gusts of delicate rain" and "violent plateaus," of "pure transparency, tenderness, nakedness, and radiance." Passages 13-The Fire, by William Hellermann, adds electronic sounds and spoken sound-modified text to the "new trumpet"; here, half-valving is prominent in the panoply of effects, but, most remarkably, the work exudes an air of great pathos, aided in this by the trumpet's quotation of a plainsong sequence (by Hermannus Contractus), Alma redemptoris Mater, near its end. Both the Dlugoszewski and Hellermann works were written especially for Gerard Schwarz. (William Bolcom from the liner notes)

Tracklisting:

Side One

1. Peter Maxwell Davies - Sonata for Trumpet & Piano: Allegro moderato {1:46}

2. Peter Maxwell Davies - Sonata for Trumpet & Piano: Lento {2:54}

3. Peter Maxwell Davies - Sonata for Trumpet & Piano: Allegro vivo {2:13}

4. Lucia Dlugoszewski - Space is a Diamond {10:28}

Side Two

1. William Hellermann - Passages 13-The Fire {25:09}

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Relax with Nature Vol. 9: Monastery Garden



Relax with Nature Vol. 9: Monastery Garden

I was sent this interesting recording (first nature sounds recording I've heard with Gregorian chanting and nicely blended with the environmental sounds, btw). However, no information about this was sent. There is hardly anything online about this either. Anyway, you'll just have to enjoy and not worry about anything. After all, you're in a monastery garden where everyday is Sunday.

Tracklisting:

1. Monastery Garden {58:10}

Friday, April 24, 2009

The Louisville Orchestra 110th Release


The Louisville Orchestra - The Louisville Orchestra 110th Release

The Louisville Orchestra released a series of LPs on their own label, First Edition Records, from the 1950s to the 1980s. The label was started in 1950 and the recordings focused on contemporary music (i.e. mid 20th century music). There were 158 LPs along with 10 CDs released according to this website. This orchestra may be the only one in the United States with its own label. It still performs contemporary music occasionally and it has a presence on the web.

Jorge Mester - conductor on this LP

DE NATURA SONORIS No. 2 by Krzysztof Penderecki

recorded May 17, 1972

The second De Natura Sonoris begins almost where its predecessor had left the argument, although the choice of initial percussion (including pennywhistle, musical saw, antique cymbals, and wind machine) suggest more exotic things are in store. The strings enter maintaining the lowest dynamic levels as they slide from a single pitch to tightly-packed sound bands and back again. A favorite device of the composer's is a massive crescendo for all players which leaves a novel texture at its sudden termination. Here it is used to introduce an awesome snazzle of four trombones in their lowest register spaced a semitone apart, the prelude to a series of strong contrasts of color ranging from fff to ffff. (Robert McMahan from the program notes)

Note: a performance of this piece conducted by Penderecki himself is also in this previous post

GENGHIS KHAN, OP. 37 by Gene Gutché

recorded March 16, 1972

It is scored for a full complement of winds (in threes), brass, and percussion but dispenses with all the strings except for the basses, thus giving to the orchestra the "hard-edged" texture beloved of Stravinsky and other contemporary colorists. The omission makes a certain sense. One hardly needs the lyric flow of orchestral strings as an accompaniment to the exploits of the Mongol conqueror (ca. 1167-1227) who parlayed daring and savagery into control of a kingdom that stretched half-way across the known world and managed the feat in less than two decades of campaigning. (Robert McMahan from the program notes)

MUSIC FOR PRAGUE 1968 by Karel Husa

recorded May 17, 1972

Three main ideas bind the composition together. The first and most important is an old Hussite war song from the 15th century, "Ye Warriors of God and His Law," a symbol of resistance and hope for hundreds of years, whenever fate lay heavy on the Czech nation. It has been utilized also by many Czech composers, including Smetana in "My Fatherland." The beginning of this religious song is announced very softly in the first movement by the timpani and concludes in a strong unison (Chorale). The song is never used in its entirety.

The second idea is the sound of bells throughout; Prague, named also the City of "Hundreds of Towers," has used its magnificently sounding church bells as calls of distress as well of victory.

The last idea is a motif of three chords first appearing very softly under the piccolo solo at the beginning of the piece, in flutes, clarinets, and horns. Later it reappears at extremely strong dynamic levels, for example in the middle of the Aria.

Different techniques of composing as well as orchestrating have been used in "Music for Prague 1968" and some new sounds explored, such as the percussion section in the Interlude, the ending of the work, etc.

Much symbolism also appears: in addition to the distress calls in the first movement (Fanfares), the unbroken hope of the Hussite song, sound of bells, or the tragedy (Aria), there is also the bird calls at the beginning (piccolo solo), symbol of the Liberty which the City of Prague has seen only for moments during its thousand years of existence. (Karel Husa from the program notes)

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. De Natura Sonoris No. 2 [composed by Krzysztof Penderecki] {8:55}

2. Genghis Khan, Op. 37 [composed by Gene Gutché] {8:52}

Side 2

1. Music for Prague 1968: Introduction and Fanfare [composed by Karel Husa] {5:48}

2. Music for Prague 1968: Aria [composed by Karel Husa] {6:14}

3. Music for Prague 1968: Interlude - Toccata and Chorale [composed by Karel Husa] {10:47}

Exquisite Corpses from P.S. 122


Exquisite Corpses - Exquisite Corpses from P.S. 122

The game of exquisite corpses, the rendering of a collectively composed portrait where each player is only given a hint of the contributions of the other participants is both a child's game and favorite pastime of surrealists. It takes the form of a drawing or a piece of writing in which one person starts a piece, folds the paper over leaving only a word or a couple of lines showing, and each successive person continues the drawing or writing in the same manner.
...
All compositions were developed collectively at several meetings. They are essentially blueprints specifying time-slots to be filled by the musicians, the monitoring environment (what the player hears while recording tracks; this is always a small fraction of the piece), and some directives for mixdown. There were no instructions on what or how to play within the time-slots. Considerable thought went into the problem of translating a drawing game, which yields a concrete result, into sound, which is an ephemeral, temporally dependent form. One cannot, in an instant, apprehend the whole of a six minute piece of music as one might be able to apprehend a drawing. Further, one can look at all parts of a drawing in any order, without respect to the times of creation. Etc., and so on; we talked a lot. The results were pieces involving tracks recorded back-to-front, noise gates used to flash "windows" of sound in and out, and foot switches to alter the players' headphone mixes.
...
These are improvisations, and they are all first takes (no one was allowed to re-record their tracks). Meaning that above all spontaneity and invention inform specific sonic choices; and they inform the residue from scores and schemes, not the other way round. (from the liner notes)

Credits:

David Watson - shears, stick violin, guitar, trumpet; Judy Dunaway - guitar, balloons; Anthony Coleman - sampler; Raissa St. Pierre - drums; Guy Yarden - violin, piano; Leslie Ross - bassoon; Linda Austin - guitar; Bruce Kaplan - guitar; Doug Henderson - peckhorn, bass, toy piano; Sue Ann Harkey - 12 string guitar; Cinnie Cole - sampler; Mike Sappol - bass, busy box, tape loops; Nell - vox; Ruth Peyser- guitar; Chris Cochrane - guitar; Doug Seidel - guitar, congas; Nancy Campbell - saxophone; Ikue Mori - drum machine; Evan Gallagher - junk, percussion, toys, piano; Sue Garner - bass; Zeena Parkins - keyboard; Catherine Jauniaux - voice, flute; George Cartwright - saxophone, flute; Matthew Ostrowski - analog synthesizer; Bob Lipman - guitar; David Sardy - drums, bass; Paul Hoskin - contrabass, clarinet; Steve Peters - saxophone -- Santa Fe
Fred Lonberg-Holm - travicello -- San Francisco
Will Sternberg - guitar, tapes -- Paris
Bruno Meillier - saxophone -- St. Etienne

released in 1990

Tracklisting:

1. Template {6:07}

2. Burst {0:33}

3. Pushmepullyou C {1:31}

4. Ostrich A {2:07}

5. Crocs & Gators {3:36}

6. Absent Friends 2 {1:52}

7. Gators & Crocs {3:39}

8. Ostrich B {2:07}

9. Flip Flop A {5:24}

10. Bozoburst A {1:10}

11. Planarian Worm {7:10}

12. Pushmepullyou A {1:39}

13. After the tone {4:16}

14. Pushmepullyou B {3:12}

15. Flip Flop B {5:13}

16. Absent Friends 1 {2:11}

17. Duet Seeds {3:43}

18. Bozoburst B {1:07}

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Walking Tune


Charles Amirkhanian - Walking Tune

In the end, Charles Amirkhanian is really an anthropologist. His music is descriptive, specific, lush, and oddly exotic. Listening to his pieces, or falling into them, eventually becomes a visual experience. I'm reminded of Brian Eno's music for imaginary films, although Charles takes this idea much farther. While Eno creates a soundtrack, a mood, Charles uses things like thunderstorms, carousels, birds, and machines to create imaginary spaces filled with characters, voices, motion, and colorful magical drama.

It is the motion in these pieces that I find most fascinating. In Walking Tune, the listener's perspective is constantly shifting. This is literally a walk through a piece of music. The gravel crunches beneath your feet; you hear the sound of donkeys? pigs? chickens? squealing and braying. The point of view shifts and you realize you're not walking, you're watching things pass in front of you. You're at a parade. The camera tilts up to the sky where a violin is floating, drifting by.

The art of audio collage has been reinvented here. It's like a new kind of cinematography which can move from a wide shot to extreme closeup in one flawless tracking shot. No cuts, flowing, streaming with effortless dreamlike motion.

The lovely violin refrains and the voices are more disembodied than the landscapes and theyhover about, like a Greek chorus. The sampled aspect of the voices is acknowledged and beautifully used to make the voices live in the same half musical, half concrete realm as the clouds of birds that inhabit these places. The quickened quiver of a vocal sample played above its normal pitch, the throaty, lugubrious vibrato of a slowed-down sample remind you that this is not and never was quite a real world, a real place. The same thing happens with animal sounds. Just when you think you know what breed they are, they turn into squeaky toys that are being quickly inflated. Daffy Duck starts to quack.

Mixing the real and the imaginary is a skill that very few composers have. Charles jumps back and forth between these worlds with delightful ease, his curiosity and humor always evident. But in Walking Tune - and many of the other pieces he's done over his long career - this skill is mixed with a sensibility that is elegiac. Each time the violin returns, it has a different meaning. It becomes a remembered thing. This is achieved, amazingly enough, without nostalgia.

Other pieces on this CD express the wide range of Charles's work. Chu Lu Lu is a brilliant, dense, plaid travelog, an energetic series of jump cuts that glimpses several cultures almost at once from pygmies to American Indians. In Bajanoom, instruments and machines leave long eerie comet-like trails of sounds that spin and echo. In other pieces, a mad carousel whirls while sirens restlessly ascent and descend. A sound like flipping through a giant dictionary works as an insistent percussive track. And just when you think you've got the picture, giant mosquitoes arrive and the landscape collapses into what feels like a birdcage.

In Gold and Spirit the composer's voice shouts out words like "pandemonium," "Barcelona" and 'Philadelphia." The places? Some sort of stadium where the game keeps changing. Sometimes it's tennis, sometimes baseball. A game with no rules, that's the one that Charles is playing here. He chants and cheers ("Just not so!") using his voice as one-man band cheered on by a one-man crowd. His choruses of "oos" and "ahs" are especially raucous and funny. At other points, his voice is so severely processed that it sounds like frogs who have just begun to speak.

Humor, colorful cinematography, and a brilliant sense of imaginary space are just some of the joys of this CD. (Laurie Anderson from the liner notes)

Tracklisting:

1. Chu Lu Lu {0:57}

2. Bajanoom {3:00}

3. Vers Les Anges {6:09}

4. Gold and Spirit {10:19}

5. Walking Tune (A Room-Music for Percy Grainger) {27:49}

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Music from SEAMUS Volume 1


various artists compilation - Music from SEAMUS Volume 1

This is the first in a series of annual releases that features the 'best of' works from the annual conferences held by the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS).

Founded in 1984, SEAMUS is a non-profit national organization of composers, performers, and teachers of electro-acoustic music representing every part of the country and virtually every musical style. Electroacoustic music is a term used to describe those musics which are dependent on electronic technology for their creation and/or performance. (from the about SEAMUS page)

Tracklisting:

1. James Mobberley - Spontaneous Combustion {9:13}
composition for saxophone with computer-generated accompaniment (1991); Timothy Timmons - saxophone

2. James Phelps - Chordlines {6:33}
composition for computer-generated tape (1990)

3. Anna Rubin - Remembering {14:56}
composition for soprano, piano and tape (1989, revised 1993); Judith Kellock - soprano, Karl Paulnack - piano

4. Stephen David Beck - Improvisation on Strange Attractors v1.0b {10:34}
composition for bassoon and Virtual Instrument Paradigm (1990); William Ludwig - bassoon

5. Bernardo Feldman - Still Life {15:11}
composition for tape (1986)

6. Kwok-ping John Chen - Ring Shades {10:44}
composition for solo percussion with two-channel tape (1990); Heung-Wing Lung - percussion

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

The Contemporary Composer in the USA [Rochberg-Imbrie-Waxman]


various artists compilation - The Contemporary Composer in the USA [Rochberg-Imbrie-Waxman]

released in 1973

George Rochberg - Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano

Performers: Kees Kooper - violin; Fred Sherry - cello; Mary Louise Boehm - piano

Following written by Rochberg: It is one continuous movement which is articulated structurally by an essential soloistic/ensemble dichotomy. Each instrument, therefore, has its own level of solo activity. Beyond that there are "duos" and "trios"; so in a sense the "conversation" between the three instruments is open and dynamic. Only at the very end of the work do they combine to produce one single gesture.
As in all my music - and my 12-tone works in particular - I tried in the Trio to discover a "harmony" special to the conditions of that work which would unify the sounds around a basic aural concept - whether that concept is analyzable or not - and produce, as a result, an identifiable, definable musical substance.

Andrew Imbrie - Dandelion Wine

Performers: Bert Lucarelli - oboe; Arthur Bloom - clarinet; Kees Kooper and Alvin Rogers - violins; Richard Maximoff - viola; Fred Sherry - cello; Mary Louise Boehm - piano

Following written by Imbrie: Dandelion Wine is the title of a novel by Ray Bradbury concerning memories of a boyhood spent in a small town. It describes the bottling of dandelion wine, with each bottle dated. These become symbols of memory, since each date recalls a particular summer day and its activities.
My piece attempts to implant and then, at the end, recall certain musical ideas in new contexts to give, if possible, the effects of poignant reminiscences, all "bottled" in a very brief container. It was written in Princeton, at a time and place quite conducive to a mood similar to that invoked in the novel.

Donald Waxman - Trio for Oboe, Clarinet and Bassoon

Performers: Bert Lucarelli - oboe; Arthur Bloom - clarinet; Donald MacCourt - bassoon

Following written by Waxman: Many composers, hearing an earlier composition, will often be flooded with memories of the time and circumstances when the work was written. I am, myself, more often taken back to the time of the rehearsals for a work's first performance rather than to its actual composition. After all, the composing of one's music so often takes place in the same room and at the same writing desk - but the rehearsals, the preparation for performance, are always different. My Trio for Oboe, Clarinet and Bassoon brings back memories of an unlikely site, the West Point Military Academy in the Hudson Highlands. For it was here that three young wind virtuosi, camouflaged as soldiers, prepared for that work's first performance in November of 1960. I can rarely hear the Trio now without being reminded of the bleak late Autumn drives up to West Point, where the imposing and almost forbidding grounds and fortress-like structures seemed such an incongruous setting for the rehearsals of this bright, tart and occasionally impudent wind music.

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. George Rochberg - Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano {18:18}

Side 2

1. Andrew Imbrie - Dandelion Wine {4:39}

2. Donald Waxman - Trio for Oboe, Clarinet and Bassoon: I - Comodo {6:27}

3. Donald Waxman - Trio for Oboe, Clarinet and Bassoon: II - Andante Cantabile {6:08}

4. Donald Waxman - Trio for Oboe, Clarinet and Bassoon: III - Allegro - Allegro vivace {6:42}

(1)  [link(s) may be back soon]

Monday, April 20, 2009

Brass Roots


Los Angeles Brass Quintet - Brass Roots

An LP of three works: "Nonet for Brass and Percussion", "Madrigals for Brass Quintet", and "Concertino for Piano & Brass Quintet".

"Nonet for Brass and Percussion": Composed by William Kraft. Performed with Los Angeles Percussion Ensemble. It is scored for brass quintet (2 trumpets, horn, trombone, tuba) and percussion quartet playing a wide variety of instruments.
Following notes from William Kraft: There are 6 movements: the first is a dramatic opening. Out of the din of the final chords emerges the ringing of an F# gong which connects the first to the second movement where the F# becomes an axial pedal point - never disappearing - around which the entire movement revolves. For the third movement, a solo trio of the heaviest instruments of the nonary ensemble - tuba, trombone and timpani - is isolated. As if to find gravity they thrust themselves into a virtuosic display of agility - rapid - pointillistic - hocket-like.
The fourth movement is central to the structure of the whole work. Lyrical and contrapuntal it opens - after introductory statements by the vibraphone - with solos by each trumpet with full accompaniment. The tremolo line of the glockenspiel and vibraphone which outlines the guileless middle section, raises images of a beautiful fantasy merry-go-round. This leads to an expansive adagio founded on a broad horn solo.
In its own way, the fifth movement is somewhat Proustian in its references to previous pieces of the composer. It is scored for the percussion quartet alone. Underlying the entire movement is a quasi-electronic sound created by playing on metal rods with a pair of triangle beaters.
The sixth movement is a climactic summation of the work. Most of the references to previous movements are devious, but not the parallel seconds at the end - they are obviously taken from the second movement.

"Madrigals for Brass Quintet": Composed by Frank Campo. Following notes by the composer: A common method of examining a work such as Madrigals is to isolate the basic pitch series, establish whether or not any other elements have been subjected to similar organization, then in road map fashion trace these materials throughout the score. Such an approach, though perhaps useful for pedagogic purposes, often tends to obscure certain other relevant issues. Suffice it to say that Madrigals is based on a structured row in which six tones subjected to continuous permutation serve as the sole melodic and harmonic material. Other elements such as rhythm and timbre are organized but not in any manner that could be described as serial.
More germane perhaps is the fact that when asked by the Los Angeles Brass Quintet to compose a work for them, the concept of the 16th century Italian madrigal struck me as a happy source of motivation. It will be recalled that these often innovative part songs, designed to interest both audience and participant, were intended for performers (five being a favored number) of great ability and sensitivity. Carrying the analogy further I decided to employ an alternating contrapuntal, pseudo-contrapuntal and homophonic texture with frequent pitting of one or more voices against the others. Adopting also the concept of "word painting" (depicting literary ideas in terms of musical sound), I gave each movement a title and proceeded by obvious means (the sound of rushing air in Aria perduta) and more subtle ways to employ this characteristic device.

"Concertino for Piano & Brass Quintet": Composed by William Schmidt. Performed with Sharon Davis - piano. Following notes by the composer: The Concertino for Piano and Brass Quintet was commissioned by the New York Brass Society and given its premier by Sharon Davis with the Fine Arts Brass Quintet in Los Angeles in 1969. The three movement work (Allegro con brio - Largo - Allegro con spirito) is a combination of classic form with post-impressionistic harmonies and rhythms peculiar to American jazz.

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Nonet for Brass and Percussion: Presto {4:47}

2. Nonet for Brass and Percussion: Andante {3:46}

3. Nonet for Brass and Percussion: Interlude 1 - Scherzo A Tre {1:08}

4. Nonet for Brass and Percussion: Allegretto; Quasi Scherzando {4:55}

5. Nonet for Brass and Percussion: Interlude 2 - Scherzo A Quatro {2:31}

6. Nonet for Brass and Percussion: Maestoso e Rubato {4:46}

Side 2

1. Madrigals for Brass Quintet: I. Indifference {2:43}

2. Madrigals for Brass Quintet: II. Unrequited Love {1:58}

3. Madrigals for Brass Quintet: III. Aria Perduta {3:03}

4. Concertino for Piano & Brass Quintet: Allegro con Brio {2:35}

5. Concertino for Piano & Brass Quintet: Largo {3:51}

6. Concertino for Piano & Brass Quintet: Allegro con Spirito {2:37}

(1)  [link(s) may be back soon]

Legend of the Jivaro


Yma Sumac - Legend of the Jivaro

This album contains the rare album of authenticity: the songs of the notorious Jivaro headhunters, learned by Yma Sumac in the tribesmen's South American mountain-jungle home, and sung by her in exotic native instrumental settings.

To unearth the Jivaro music - the stories their ancient songs tell, the musical instruments of their culture - Yma Sumac and her husband, Moises Vivanco, one of the foremost authorities on ancient music, travelled deep into the headhunters' native territory. There, her mastery of the Jivaro dialect (she was reared less then one hundred miles from their land) helped facilitate the research in that strange and obscure society.

In ancient times, the Jivaros, being neighbors of the highly cultured Incas, were comparatively civilized. However, the advent of the Spanish conquistadores in the 16th century greatly altered their lives. Their temples were looted, their treasures stolen, their villages destroyed. Thus it was that the Jivaros lived in their remote mountainous jungles, alone and bitter, hating the white man, reverting to a near stone-age existence, including the practice of head-shrinking, and doing all in their power to remain alive and free from the influences of the outside world.

Recently, Yma Sumac and Moises Vivanco, who serves as her composer, arranger, and conductor, went into the Jivaro country armed only with trinkets, good intentions, and a tape recorder. Fortunately, the Jivaros proved friendly and Vivanco was able to tape innumerable native sounds and melodies to use for reference in the composition of the songs for this album. (from the liner notes on the back cover)

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Jivaro {2:52}

2. Sejollo (Whip Dance) {1:40}

3. Yawar (Blood Festival) {2:29}

4. Shou Condor (Giant Condor) {2:21}

5. Sauma (Magic) {3:39}

6. Nina (Fire Arrow Dance) {2:10}

Side 2

1. Sansa (Victory Song) {2:48}

2. Hampi (Medicine) {3:06}

3. Sumac Soratena (Beautiful Jungle Girl) {1:40}

4. Aullay (Lullaby) {3:41}

5. Batanga Hailli (Festival) {1:32}

6. Wanka (The Seven Winds) {3:03}
(1)  [may be reposted soon]

Friday, April 17, 2009

Music Boxes In Stereo


Rita Ford - Music Boxes In Stereo

Most of us when we think of music boxes, think of the short, simple tunes built into commercial powder or cigarette boxes. But it's a far cry from the demure tinkle of those fragile table models to the scope, variety, and incredible beauty of the music produced by the machines represented here, captured in stunning ultra high fidelity.
These machines stand from six inches to a towering seven feet high, with mechanisms ranging from the simplest cylinder-and-comb arrangements to five-instrument combinations, and are valued individually as high as $2,000. Whether they have a deep, rich resonance or a light watery tinkle, all of them have a quality of wistful nostalgia and haunting beauty.
The music box is man's first automatic music, first devised for bell tower clocks by 14th century monks, a form of music box represented today by the popular cuckoo clock. But it took the Swiss to perfect the fabulous machines that swept the world in the 18th and 19th centuries. Though Edison's cylinder caused their decline early in this century, they are today treasured by collectors everywhere. Fittingly, it falls to the music box's latest and finest descendent, high fidelity recording, to bring to all music lovers the pleasure of these rare old treasures.
These examples were recorded on the spot at the antique shop of Rita Ford on Manhattan's East Side. Miss Ford specializes in music boxes and is considered a foremost collector and authority. These troubled times, Miss Ford believes, stimulate an interest in an older, more stable way of life. "Music boxes seem to have a different meaning for everyone", she says. "For some, it is the pleasant memories of grandparents and the old homestead. For the romantic they mean 'I love you'. For the high fidelity fan, it is a fabulous sound. For me, it is all of these plus an awareness of their limitless possibilities for acquainting children and grown-ups alike with good music. The charming but simple rendition of the operas, the semi-classics, and fine old traditional folk music recorded here cannot fail to capture the most untrained ear. Once you listen to these music boxes, you'll forget all about Sputniks, trips to the moon and the problems of outerspace. This music of the spheres suffices." (from the liner notes)

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Overture Matrimonio [Swiss Overture Box] {1:52}

2. Blue Danube [Orchestration] {1:37}

3. Mandolin Mazurka [Manopan] {0:53}

4. An Evening in the Fields [Orchestrion] {2:30}

5. You Are the Rose of Wartesy [Beer Garden Juke Box] {1:27}

6. Des feuilles au vent [Swiss Clock Box] {0:52}

7. Roses from the South [Manopan] {1:00}

8. Der Freischutz [Swiss Box Overture] {2:00}

9. The Fiddle King [Manopan] {0:51}

10. Gallop-La California [Swiss Clock Box] {0:51}

Side 2

1. March [Orchestrion] {1:33}

2. La Paloma [Beer Garden] {1:26}

3. Introduction Overture "Les Huguenots" [Swiss Box Overture] {2:01}

4. High above the Mountains [Orchestrion] {1:36}

5. Les Chasseurs [Swiss Clock Box] {0:56}

6. Over the Waves [Ariosa] {0:51}

7. Money Musk [English 18th Century Organ] {0:39}

8. Aria 85-Rigoletto [Swiss Clock Box] {0:55}

9. Skater's Waltz [Manopan] {0:57}

10. Les Georgiennes [Swiss Clock Box] {0:53}

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Iannis Xenakis/Krzysztof Penderecki split release LP


Iannis Xenakis/Krzysztof Penderecki - split release LP

performed by Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Lukas Foss - conductor; Paul Zukofsky - violin on "Capriccio for Violin & Orchestra"

Recorded at Kleinhans Music Hall, March 1968, during the 2nd Buffalo Festival of the Arts Today.

"Akrata" was compoed [by Xenakis] in 1964-65 in response to a commission from the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation. It is scored for sixteen wind instruments: piccolo, oboe, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet in B flat, contrabass clarinet in B flat, bassoon, 2 contrabassoons, 2 horns, 3 trumpets, 2 tenor trombones, and tuba. The title is the neuter plural of the Greek word for "pure", and the composer explains that the work is of an extra-temporal architecture based on the theory of groups of transformations. It makes use of the theory of Sieves, which annexes the congruences modulo Z and which is the result of an axiomatic theory of the universal structure of music. It also uses complex (or imaginary) numbers.
"Pithoprakta", dedicated to Hermann Scherchen, was composed in 1955-56 and is scored for an orchestra of 50 instruments - two tenor trombones, xylophone, wood block, twelve first violins, twelve second violins, eight violas, eight cellos, and six basses - each of which has its own individual part. The title means "actions by probabilities", and the musical material is organized by various laws of large numbers (Laplace-Gauss, Maxwell-Boltzmann, Poisson, Pearson, Fisher). Like all Xenakis's music - which embraces a wide variety of forms and media - it was composed on graph paper and then transcribed into conventional notation. Confrontations of continuity and discontinuity are sought: along with sustained sounds and individually calculated glissandi, there is frequent use of pizzicato and col legno tapping of the bow, and in places (especially at the beginning) the string players are directed to strike the bodies of their instruments with the hand.
...
The two works recorded here demonstrate something of Penderecki's broad expressive range and are especially valuable in showing that the stark drama of the "St. Luke Passion" and the "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima" is far from being the only string to his bow. This is, naturally, more strikingly true of the 1967 "Capriccio" for violin and orchestra, which is everything that one would expect a modern synthesis of capriccio and concerto ideas to be - brilliant both in emotional character and in technical demands. The work was first performed at the 1967 Donaueschingen Festival. It is scored for solo violin, 4 flutes (two doubling piccolos), 4 oboes (one doubling English horn), 3 clarinets (doubling soprano and alto saxophones and E-flat clarinet), baritone saxophone, contrabass clarinet, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 6 horns, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, tuba, electric bass guitar, harmonium, piano, harp, a large percussion battery, and strings.
As its title suggests, the 1966 "De natura sonoris" (a sort of treatise "On the Nature of Sound") is slightly less exuberant in mood - but only slightly. It too includes an almost skittish section over a jazzy pizzicato bass solo, and it makes frequent use of Penderecki's favorite technique: the free combination of prescribed phrases, repeated by the instrumental groups with cumulative effect and gradually spreading through the orchestra. The scoring is for piccolo, 4 flutes (two doubling piccolos), 3 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 alto saxophones, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 6 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, piano, harmonium, flexatone, percussion, and strings. (Bernard Jacobson from the liner notes)

Tracklisting:

Side One

1. Iannis Xenakis - Akrata {10:33}

2. Iannis Xenakis - Pithoprakta {9:06}

Side Two

1. Krzysztof Penderecki - Capriccio for Violin & Orchestra {10:05}

2. Krzysztof Penderecki - De natura sonoris {7:19}

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

4 Butterflies


Morton Subotnick - 4 Butterflies

Though the majority of Subotnick's "butterfly" pieces were to be composed later during his "ghost score" period, this electronic canvas was the first outbreak of his preoccupation with that enigmatic insect to surface on LP. Set in four brief sections separated by two tiny interludes, Four Butterflies finds Subotnick burrowing further inward, restricting his palette of electronic colors ever more economically. The silences are longer, the overall volume level is low, and sometimes one thinks that these floating, mysterious, pitchless butterflies have vanished altogether. More crucially, the dramatic pacing that marked Subotnick's more exciting earlier electronic scores for the phonograph record is mostly lacking here, though there is structure in the form of a three-part development (larva-cocoon-butterfly) that he would use extensively in the future. "Butterfly No. 3" rises to a nice climax and reprises an agitated idea from "Touch," and "Butterfly No. 4" begins with a quietly insistent repeating ostinato, but for the most part these are very reticent creatures. The original LP has yet to be reissued. (Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide)

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Butterfly No. 1 {7:41}

2. Interlude {1:20}

3. Butterfly No. 2 {9:10}

Side 2

1. Butterfly No. 3 {7:19}

2. Interlude {1:33}

3. Butterfly No. 4 {7:03}


(1) or (1)

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Bell, Drum and Cymbal . . .


Saul Goodman - Bell, Drum and Cymbal . . .

Saul Goodman was a timpanist and head of the percussion section in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra when this percussion demonstration LP was released. He and someone named Leonard Sterling are narrators as they explain the percussion instruments in the two main percussion categories, membranophones (sound is produced when the head is struck, e.g. drums) and idiophones (sound is produced by vibrations throughout the body, e.g. marimbas, bells). Saul demonstrates the sounds of the instruments. Then Saul closes the LP by playing versions of the traditional tune "My Country, Tis of Thee" and Camille Saint-Saens's "Danse Macabre" where Saul plays 14 instruments that were demonstrated on the LP.

The copy I have is an ex-library copy (which explains the due date pocket taped on the cover). I couldn't take off the tape and pocket without doing severe damage to the cover. Speaking of the cover, when I was looking for more information on this LP, I found available pricey used copies. The covers were different as they each had a cover that is a photo of Saul Goodman playing his instrument. I did not come across any copy with the same album cover as the one I have. I have not been able to find out the story behind the different covers I have, but I'm guessing that this copy could be a first pressing and subsequent pressings had a different (perhaps more marketable) cover.

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Introduction {4:22}

2. Membranophones {7:04}

3. Idiophones (Part 1) {2:33}

Side 2

1. Idiophones (Part 2) {8:32}

2. Theme and Variations on My Country, Tis of Thee {3:29}

3. Danse Macabre {4:53}

(1)

Monday, April 13, 2009

The Contemporary Composer in the USA: Donald Erb


Donald Erb - The Contemporary Composer in the USA: Donald Erb

Symphony of Overtures

The plays that have been used as a basis for the Symphony of Overtures are The Blacks by Jean Genet, Endgame by Samuel Beckett, The Maids by Jean Genet, and Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco. It has been asked how such a piece can be called a symphony. The answer is simply that, although each movement is an overture, the four movements combine into a rather conventional symphonic pattern. The first movement opens slowly, then develops into an allegro. The second movement is a conventionally placed adagio. The third resembles a scherzo and trio, and the last, a brutal march-like movement provides a noisy climax.
The form of each movement is, in a very general way, dictated by the dramatic structure of the play upon which it is based. There has been no conscious attempt to use any of the conventional musical forms, although a resemblance is apparent in the third movement. In essence, the work marks a return to the long dishonored ways of 'program music'; yet it can also be heard on purely musical terms.
The motives and textures which begin each overture are almost immediately treated in a developmental fashion. The divisions of each movement into sections are created more by changes in texture than by other more traditional means, such as cadences or changes in tonal areas. Texture, then, is of primary importance and is used as a basic organizing factor, rather than as an effect. (Donald Erb)

The Seventh Trumpet

The title refers to a section in the Book of Revelations.

The composition is in one movement divided into three large sections. The first section opens with a quite free cadenza for flute, clarinet, bass clarinet and string bass. The material presented in this cadenza is present in various guises throughout the piece. The first section has a static quality. The strings enter stand by stand and proceed to hold the note they land on for the rest of the section. Other musical figures are superimposed on this relatively inactive mass.
The second section is very rhythmic and consists of most of the players in the orchestra performing on their instruments in unusual ways. The last section begins slowly and gradually speeds up. It is basically cumulative in nature. (Donald Erb)

Concerto for Solo Percussionist

The orchestra does function in this piece in much more than its traditional role of accompaniment. The individual orchestra parts are, in places, virtuoso passages in their own right.
Music today is undergoing drastic changes. Many of the time-honored concepts of music are being cast aside. The composer of a generation or two ago would have included such terms as melody, harmony, and counterpoint as being essential ingredients in the structure of any good piece of music. Many composers today feel that this is not so. Music is, in its broadest sense, sound. Sound is endlessly fascinating in its own right. It does not need the traditional use of melody or harmony to make it interesting. Nothing in the symphony orchestra has as much appeal from the standpoint of pure sound as does the percussion section with its enormous variety of instruments. One percussionist is capable of producing a veritable kaleidoscope of color. (Donald Erb)

Music performed by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Marvin Dahlgren, percussion on Concerto for Solo Percussionist

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Symphony of Overtures: The Blacks {4:17}

2. Symphony of Overtures: Endgame {4:04}

3. Symphony of Overtures: The Maids {3:22}

4. Symphony of Overtures: Rhinoceros {4:01}

Side 2

1. The Seventh Trumpet {13:12}

2. Concerto for Solo Percussionist {9:27}

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Waterfall



Moods Gateway Recordings - Waterfall

Relax this Sunday at the waterfall. (You'll have to use your imagination as there is no information provided where this was actually recorded.)

Tracklisting:

1. Waterfall {24:22}


Both sides of the cassette are the same.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Inca Taqui


Yma Sumac and Moises Vivanco - Inca Taqui

Down from the towering Andes comes the exotic music of an ancient civilization, sung by a fabulous Princess of its people. The lovely singer is YMA SUMAC and her music is INCA TAQUI, Chants of the Incans.

For three thousand years music has played a vital role in every activity of Inca life, and musicians have been the most honored members of the Inca community. Yma Sumac brings to the outside world the fullness and beauty of her people's spirit, singing traditional chants in a voice of magnificent range and emotional power. The language of the chants is K'eshwa, still spoken today by twenty million South Americans.

MOISES VIVANCO is an eminent authority on ancient music; he has drawn carefully upon native Incan melodies and rhythms in composing and directing the selections for this unique album.

Information above is from the liner notes. There is more information about this amazing vocalist at the official site and the Wikipedia page. Also there is some information about Moises Vivanco (Yma Sumac's husband) at this site.

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. K'arawi (Planting Song) {3:14}

2. Cumbe-Maita (Calls of the Andes) {3:04}

3. Wak'ai (Cry) {2:26}

4. Incacho (Royal Anthem) {3:06}

Side 2

1. Chuncho (The Forest Creatures) {3:36}

2. Llulla Mak'ta (Andean Don Juan) {2:24}

3. Malaya! (My Destiny) {3:22}

4. Ripui (Farewell) {2:57}

(1)  [may be reposted soon]

Friday, April 10, 2009

Shree Rag


Ali Akbar Khan - Shree Rag

The Shree Rag is of late afternoon, intended to be played in the brief, fragile time between sunset and the end of twilight. It is, in my experience, a most vulnerable and revealing time - if, as a Westerner, you stop long enough to know that that time has come and to become part of it. I remember separate instances - in a park in Paris, at Big Sur, in the dusk of Central Park - when, being alone, the shading of light into darkness took me out of usual time (time consumed) into time itself (time experienced as a continuum, time felt, actually felt.)
...
Nearly all Indian music, I confess, is capable of bringing me into this time of twilight, and that is why I am so drawn to it. Making a space in time, it gives me a dimension of time I find in no other music. I cannot pretend that on internal musical evidence I would have known, without being told, that the Shree Rag is specifically of twilight. But knowing it, I find the music all the more - if I may use the word - precious to me.
...
The performance here - by Ali Akbar Khan [sarod] and Shankar Ghosh [tabla] - requires little explication. Shankar Ghosh and Mahapurush Misra (who has appeared on previous Connoisseur Society albums) are interchangeably, Ali Akbar Khan's regular accompanists. Ghosh, as you will hear, tends to be more forceful, one of the consequences of which are occasional heavy, low bass, forte attacks. When playing with Ghosh, Ali Akbar Khan appears to become, in the slow sections, more introspective and his melodic line more delicately ornamented.
...
Listening to this recording, I was immediately seized by the quality of the sound itself - not only the clarity but also the remarkable presence, the penetrating immediacy of this search into time and self at twilight. The recording was made in St. Paul's Chapel at Columbia University and is regarded by Ali Akbar Khan as having the best sound yet of any of his recordings.
And now there is the music, into which you can go as far as you permit yourself to go into your self. And beyond. (Nat Hentoff)

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Alap in Two Parts and Gat (beginning) {20:02}

Side 2

1. Gat (conclusion) {19:18}

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Thursday, April 9, 2009

Music of the Orient


Music of the Orient

This is a 2 LP collection that is a broad introductory survey of the music from southeast Asia to northern Africa. This collection was intended for people in the Western world who have heard little to no Eastern music as this music was considered exotic to the West as mentioned below in the explanation of this compilation from the compiler. This compilation is definitely worthwhile even for those already familiar with this music although I guess that those who compiled this could not have been bothered to give credits to the performers. Just in case you're new to this blog, there is some more Eastern music presented in the archives.

Widely varying interests - among the musical and educational, no less than the general, public - are calling for examples of Exotic Music. The material collected for scientific purposes in the various phonographic archives, though most valuable for research work, does not always come up to the present-day high standards of recording and artistic reproduction. Further, records taken in the various countries of the Orient are not marketed in Europe and it is almost impossible to obtain anything but indiscriminate selections and that by the merest chance. We have sought to overcome these difficulties by publishing a small but truly representative collection of such records. The records have been chosen to give within the smallest limit as complete a survey as possible of the principal musical products of all high Oriental Cultures. Not only have the interests of musical science been considered, but also historical, cultural and ethnographical aspects, so that the collection provides valuable help in the teaching of history and geography in schools and colleges. A certain prominence is given to the Indonese Orchestras out of consideration for the interests of modern musicians no less than of modern dance students. (Dr. E. M. von Hornbostel)

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. JAPAN Naga-uta "Urashima" {3:13}

2. JAPAN Ha-uta "Umenimo haru" {3:07}

3. JAPAN Shinnai "Sekitori Senryonobori" {3:05}

4. JAPAN Matsumae-Oiwake {2:59}

5. CHINA Classical Drama (Kun ch'u) "P'i-p'a-chi" {3:17}

6. CHINA Modern Drama Erh-huang (Hsi-pi) "Tso fang Tsao" {3:01}

Side 2

1. CHINA Modern Drama Pang-tse "Nan-tien-men" {2:32}

2. JAVA Sundanese song "Udan mas" {2:51}

3. JAVA Gamelan Slendro. "Sekar gadung" {2:49}

4. JAVA Gamelan Pelog. "Kinanti madumurti" {3:02}

5. BALI Gender Wajang. "Selendero" {2:48}

6. BALI Gamelan Anklung. "Berong Pengetjet" {2:52}

Side 3

1. BALI Gamelan Djoged. "Tjetjing-Kereman" {3:01}

2. BALI Djanger. "Putih putih saput anduk" {2:36}

3. BALI Gamelan Gong "Lagu Kebiar" {2:53}

4. SIAM Musical Drama. Scene from the Rama-Legend {2:51}

5. INDIA Art-song from Meerut. Raga Bhairavi {3:01}

6. INDIA Art-song from Jummoo. Raga Bilaval (?) {3:22}

Side 4

1. PERSIA Popular Song {3:36}

2. EGYPT Art-song. "Maqam Sika." {3:09}

3. EGYPT Baschrav "Kuzum," Maqam Hijaz {7:04}

4. TUNIS Art-song. Maqam Mezmum {2:45}

5. TUNIS Song of the Dervishes, Maqam Dil {2:45}

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