Lukas Foss- GEOD

GEOD (FOR ORCHESTRA) 1969
Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
Conducted by LUKAS FOSS

From the liner notes:

GEOD- A music without beginning or end, without development, without rhetoric, without 'events'.
The large orchestra is divided into four groups. Each has its own musical language. Each comes as if from far away, appearing, disappearing.
...Each group has its own conductor. He beats standing up while his men play audibly. He continues to beat, but in a sitting position during periods of inaudible playing. One does not stop, one submerges into inaudibility. The one who decides 'which' music emerges 'when', is the fifth or principle conductor.
...Could there not be a music, which, properly conceived and executed, will sound like "music happening of its own accord"?
...It took me a long time to arrive at a valid technique for such a music. My first step was "Elytres", a score which contains on every page more than is ever heard vertically at one time. Whenever that page is played, much of it is omitted. The next time that page is heard, only what was omitted before is played. New here is the concept of obtaining variation, via omission.
But in "Elytres" as well as in three subsequent works, omitting still meant stopping (tacet). Only much later (in the "Baroque Variations") did omitting begin to mean to me: submerging into inaudibility.
...By inviting the conductor(...) to mix the four musics of GEOD, the point is clearly made that this is not chosen-note (masterwork) music. It must not be performed that way, and it must not be listened to in that way.
...One could say that rather than "listen", one "listens In"on sounds in nature and/or memory, passing by in an endless, quiet parade.


















GEOD For Orchestra

Side One: GEOD (Beginning) (18:34)

Side Two: GEOD (Conclusion) (17:56)


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