Lukas Foss-Time Cycle

Notes from the back cover (enclosed):

TIME CYCLE marks somewhat of a departure from the composer's earlier music
 (though it is one of the very earliest of his works which has been posted here in the Closet-the only earlier work is here.) 
mainly because of the absence of the neo-classic or neo-baroque.The vocal writing is "Lied" rather than  "Aria". Furthermore,tonality is clearly defined only in some places,totally destroyed in others. Finally,form and content,organization and substance can no longer be distinguished one from the other. They have become synonymous. Each song develops its own serial devices (of which the twelve tone row is the least frequently used).

The four SONGS are not tied to each other by either motive or row.Only a chord,a single sound-C#,A,B,D#,which undergoes various alterations- serves as a unifying element.
Though there is no overall musical motive, there is a literary one: the "Time-motive". Each poem refers to time,clocks,or bells.The relationship between music and words in the individual songs goes beyond mood painting. The idea and structure of the poems are mirrored in the ideas and structures of the music. Text and music are fellow conspirators.

One of the principal musical techniques used in the cycle was suggested to the composer by the sentence (by Franz Kafka, Song 3) "The clocks do not synchronize-the inner one chases in an inhuman manner the outer one goes haltingly at its usual pace".
Foss says: "It was when I came across this sentence that I had the time song cycle idea".

The IMPROVISED INTERLUDES are not, properly speaking,part of the composition. The song cycle can be performed without them. They form,however,an added attraction, a spontaneous commentary on time,clocks,bells. The four improvising instruments remain silent during the performance of a composed movement, then conductor,orchestra and singer stand by and the improvising chamber group takes over- then the composition continues with the next song. At no time are composition and improvisation combined.
Foss discarded the obvious possibility of improvisations developing from thematic material of the songs.Instead,he conveived a variety of basic "textures" and basic "pulses" - a kind of pre-compositional raw material- then proceeded to put these "in order", assigning  "roles" to the four improvising instruments, according to a technique developed by him and his ensemble, a technique based on the study of the predetermined coordination of non-predetermined musical ideas. Furthermore,since recordings do not have the concert hall's advantage of visual distinction between the composed songs and the chamber improvisations, Foss structured the improvisations in their relationship to the composed parts in such a manner as to convey a feeling of "two performance levels". Each succeeding interlude appears to ignore the song which precedes it by retracing its steps,as it were.to the place where the previous interlude left off. Thus the interludes weave like a thread through the song cycle, connecting not with the songs but with each other.
In summing up the difference between composition and improvisation, Foss says "In composition all becomes "fate". Improvisation remains "chance", "hazard", corrected by the will".


Lukas Foss: Time Cycle (Orchestral Version)

Side One:

a1-I-We're Late

a2-Improvised Interlude No.1

a3-II-When The Bells Justle

a4-Improvised Interlude No.2

Side Two:

b1-III-Sechzehnter Januar

b2-Improvised Interlude No.3

b3-IV-O Mensch,Gib Acht

Leonard Bernstein conducting the Columbia Symphony Orchestra

Adele Addison-Soprano

The Improvisation Chamber Ensemble:
Lukas Foss-Piano
Richard Dufallo-Clarinet
Charles DeLancey-Percussion
Howard Colf-Cello


























(1) or (1)

Alice Cooper-PRETTIES FOR YOU (1969 Straight Records)

Today is Alice Cooper's 64th Birthday.

First, A True Story:
When I was a youngster in 1975 or so, I used to have to go to church on Sunday mornings. Mostly it was just Sunday-School; United Church style- which is to say; a pretty loose affair.
I used to enjoy exploring the innards and hidden places in the Church: The teeny hallways, small doors, and windey staircases.
One day, I found a turntable in a little closet: no speakers, but lots of albums I'd never seen before, with very plain covers.
The next week I brought in an l.p. (My first and favorite) to play.
When the right moment arrived, I snuck away from the common room, went into the innards of the church, and went to that cupboard.
I took out my favorite record, and I put it on the turntable, turning up the volume knob a bit from whatever it was set at, and put the needle on the record.

The effect was instantaneous, but hard to grasp for my 11 year old mind: The music seemed to be coming at me from a distance, but from everywhere at once.
It seemed both loud and not-loud at the same time.
It was at about the 15 second mark that I realized what I had done, and, ripping the l.p. off of the turntable I ran to get back to the common room as quickly as possible, to try to blend in.
AND SO: The point to all this is that I played Alice Cooper's "No More Mr. Nice Guy" from the l.p. "Billion Dollar Babies" through the bell tower of my neighborhood church for the local residents at 10:00 on a Sunday morning in lieu of the traditional Carrillion music.

Call it payback for the Reverend Smithee's punch in the nose.
Happy Birthday, Alice.

And Now, The Music:
This is the Alice Cooper group's first album.
In this debut,(and in the band's second album- "Easy Action") the "Alice Cooper as Villain/Monster" concept has not yet been thoroughly developed.Ambiguity is the theme here.Even the name of Alice Cooper identified both the band and the singer, all of whom were confrontationally androgynous.
Wiki- "One night after an unsuccessful gig at the Cheetah club in Venice, California, where the band emptied the entire room of patrons after playing just ten minutes, they were approached and enlisted by music manager Shep Gordon, who ironically saw the band's negative impact that night as a force that could be turned in a more productive direction. Shep then arranged an audition for the band with composer and renowned record producer, Frank Zappa, who was looking to sign bizarre music acts to his new record label, Straight Records. For the audition Zappa told them to come to his house "at 7 o'clock." The band mistakenly assumed he meant 7 o'clock in the morning. Being woken up by a band willing to play that particular brand of psychedelic rock at seven in the morning impressed Zappa enough to sign them to a three-album deal. Another Zappa-signed act, the all-female GTOs, who liked to "dress the Cooper boys up like full size barbie dolls," played a major role in developing the band's early onstage look."

The identity of the protagonist in virtually all of the songs is entirely unidentifiable, and often contradictory, as are the lyrics. The violence of the later albums' horror narratives is here mostly absent and the lyrics are more "stream of consciousness" and nonsensical; the Words are often used primarily for their sound, or their ability to confound the listener and their expectations: Time and again, the lyric being sung at any moment is cancelled out by the lyric sung at the next moment- through wordplay, surrealism and other poetic devices: enjambment,metonymy and synedoche (No- I didn't know these terms; I had to look them up).
(I have included lyrics, sourced from the web-I corrected the mistakes which I could).
The guitar work is decidedly angular and interwoven- each guitarist, taken singly, often plays lines and figures which are,in themselves, irrational and often atonal.
(sort of like a slightly less capable and more accessible Magic Band. This band also seems to have been as well-rehearsed as the Magic Band: Check out "Live at the Whiskey 1969" and you'll hear many of these songs played identically to this record- with minor lyric differences).
The bass is played like a third guitar and not as a member of a "rhythm section"- the drums are sometimes played more like a percussionist's batterie than a traditional rock drum kit, Smith often playing 'lines' rather than 'beats', (Cooper later said that Bob Ezrin, who produced their "breakthrough" third album re-taught the group how to play their instruments, helping to create their more popular 'signature sound')

The music is, nonetheless, often melodic and even rather psychedelic.
Wiki: The band have later claimed that this period was highly influenced by Pink Floyd, and especially the album Piper at the Gates of Dawn. the late Glen Buxton could listen to Syd Barrett's guitar for hours at a time.

This album and the one which followed it are unique in that they are usually ignored or disliked by fans and met with critical indifference and commercial failure.
























Alice Cooper-PRETTIES FOR YOU (1969) Straight

Side One:

1- Titanic Overture (1:13)
2- 10 Minutes Before The Worm (1:38)
3- Sing Low, Sweet Cheerio (5:43)
4- Today Mueller (1:47)
5- Living (2:55)
6- Fields Of Regret (5:47)

Side Two:

7- No Longer Umpire (1:59)
8- Levity Ball (Live At The Cheetah) (4:37)
9- B.B. On Mars (1:13)
10- Reflected (3:14)
11- Apple Bush (3:07)
12- Earwigs To Eternity (1:18)
13- Changing Arranging (3:04)












Music,Lyrics,and Arrangements by Alice Cooper
Produced by Alice Cooper
Engineered by Dick Kunc
Bizarre Business by Herb Cohen

(1) or (1)

Lukas Foss-TWO RECORD PREMIERES 1964 (?) Epic Monaural LC 3886

Lukas Foss-TWO RECORD PREMIERES commissioned by the Fromm Music Foundation.

ECHOI (FOR FOUR SOLOISTS)
TIME CYCLE (CHAMBER VERSION)

Today is the third anniversary of the passing away of Lukas Foss at the age of 86.
He was born on August 15th, 1922.

Notes from the cover (enclosed):

The title ECHOI (echo in plural) has several connotations: Echoi were ancient Arabian modes, but it is obvious that the title is also reflected quite literally in the many echo sounds, imitations, instruments shadowing one another canonically, as in ECHOI II, or echoes from the distance as in ECHOI III, where a children's tune (vibraphone) is heard in the background (the past), then distorted, violated in the foreground (the present), faintly emerging again in the distance (triangle beaters inside the piano strings a la mandolin)., only to be annihilated, cancelled out by the menacing activity in the foreground. Finally, echoes result from "hearing double and triple" at the end of ECHOI IV. Here the clarinet and cello imitate their own performance as it emerges from two loudspeakers (two pre-recorded tape tracks). It could be argued here that the echoes do not follow, but precede, anticipate.
Throughout ECHOI the four musicians play from the score. Where bar lines are absent, the rhythmic notation is proportional. They stay together by following the score and by listening to one another. Considering the high speed of ECHOI I and the complex simultaneities of ECHOI III and IV, a special skill is demanded here.
Another difficult performance task occurs in ACHOI IV when the players jump back and forth between different pages in the music (much like a phonograph needle on a defective record). This is done on cue from the percussionist, who strikes an anvil at random moments within a given stretch. This is the signal for the players to skip from the moment of interruption to an earlier place in the music (idee fixe) and back, invalidating the carefully organized macro-structure. From the start of the obsessional piano monologue to the moment (climax) the percussion resorts to what is a literal invasion of the piano strings (the only way to bring the piano to a stop), ECHOI IV is a commentary on total organization with the piano acting as protagonist. Though the aleatoric notion and the "musical happening" are easily detected here, no share of the composition per se is ever relinquished to the performer- or to chance. Even the improvisatory moments toward the end are limited, directed, texturally controlled via footnotes or inserted symbols.

TIME CYCLE is a group of four songs, two English and two German, each referring to time, clocks or bells.The piece was originally composed for piano and orchestra. At the premiere given in 1960 by Adele Addison with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic , as well as in the first recording by the same artists, on Co;lumbia Records, improvised interludes were introduced between the orchestra songs by the Improvisation Chamber Ensemble, a group of four virtuosi (clarinet, cello , piano, percussion) I founded in 1957.In the present chamber version of TIME CYCLE the the orchestration is rewritten for clarinet,cello,piano and percussion. Interludes are not included. The Improvisation Chamber Ensemble accompanies the soprano in the four songs. These are composed; notated in every detail. There is no improvisation.
The orchestra songs and the chamber version are too different in their dynamic range to be compared. The latter has the advantage of greater precision. But it neither supersedes the orchestra version nor is it an arrangement of an original. The occasion, and the size of the hall call for one or the other.Lukas Foss-TWO RECORD PREMIERES

Side One:

ECHOI (FOR FOUR SOLOISTS)

Echoi I (3:52)
Echoi II (4:25)
Echoi III (8:23)
Echoi Iv (11:52)
Group For Contemporary Music At Columbia University:
Charles Wuorinen, Piano
Raymond Desroches. Percussion
Arthur Bloom, Clarinet
Robert Martin, Cello
Side Two:

TIME CYCLE (CHAMBER VERSION)

1- We're Late (Auden) (4:16)
2- When The Bells Jostle (Housman) (4:50)
3- From Franz Kafka's "Diaries" (Sechzehente Jauar) (5:41)
4- "Oh Man, Take Heed! O Mensch, Gib Acht!" (F. Nietzsche) (5:47)Improvisation Chamber Ensemble:
Lukas Foss, Piano, Celeste
Richard Duffalo, Clarinet
Charles De Lancy, Percussion
Howard Coll, Cello
Grace-Lynne Martin, Soprano





















(1)

The Soft Machine-VOLUME TWO (1969) Probe

Soft Machine-VOLUME TWO (Probe Records CPLP-4505) 1969

Today is Robert Wyatt's 67th birthday.

Wyatt is the one laughing on the left in the photo below.
(From left to right- Wyatt, Hugh Hopper and Mike Ratledge.














This Soft Machine record is the last where Wyatt's vocal and songwriting duties are still fully integrated into the band's sound and presentation. The next- "Third" is a double album with Wyatt's only song having most of the basic tracks played by Wyatt alone, and the next- "Fourth", has no Wyatt-penned numbers or vocals on it at all. Around this time, before being kicked out of the group he made a solo album- 'End Of An Ear"
crediting himself- "Robert Wyatt : Out of work pop singer".

After being expelled from Soft Machine in 1971 he formed a "very bad" (in his own unnecessarily harsh words) band called Matching Mole ("Machine Molle"; get it?) releasing two albums: "Matching Mole", and "Little Red Record" (produced by Robert Fripp).

In 1973 Wyatt had an accident which left him paralyzed below the waist and decided the direction of his musical life. No longer able to play trap drums, he concentrated his energies on his song- writing and vocals, creating "Rock Bottom". This was the beginning of the type of work Wyatt releases to this day: Self-penned, often solo-performed for the basic tracks with the addition of musicians-to this day a huge roster which reads like a "who's who" of avant rock: Brian Eno, Fred Frith, Ivor Cutler, Chris Cutler, Phil Manzanera, Mike Oldfeild, and in recent years Paul Weller.

At the time this record was recorded, The Soft Machine had finished a major tour opening for the Jimi Hendrix Experience (Who are thanked personally in the song "Have You Ever Been Green?").
The music is more jazz-oriented than the music of most of the other psychedelic bands of the time, though not yet the thorough jazz-rock "fusion" of the later albums. The song structures and psychedelic touches make it more interesting then the post-"Third" albums. Though the later albums may be argued to be more technically 'accomplished' This line-up have more chops than their friends in Pink Floyd, for what it's worth.
The lyrics are usually observational, sometimes whimsical or humorous ("Hulloder","Pig") and often strangely mundane for such psychedelic music- But, as Wyatt sings in "Hibou Anemone and Bear":
"If something's not worth saying, SING IT"

Soft Machine-VOLUME TWO (1969)

Side 1:

"Rivmic Melodies":

1: Pataphysical Introduction Pt. I (1:00)
2: A Concise British Alphabet Pt. I (0:10)
3: Hibou, Anemone and Bear (5:58)
4: A Concise British Alphabet Pt. II (0:12)
5: Hulloder (0:52)
6: Dada Was Here (3:25)
7: Thank You Pierrot Lunaire (0:47)
8: Have You Ever Bean Green? (1:23)
9: Pataphysical Introduction Pt. II (0:50)
10: Out Of Tunes (2:30)

Side 2:

"Esther's Nose Job":

1: As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still (2:30)
2: Dedicated To You But You Weren't Listening (2:30)
3: Fire Engine Passing With Bells Clanging (1:50)
4: Pig (2:08)
5: Orange Skin Food (1:52)
6: A Door Opens And Closes (1:09)
7: 10.30 Returns To The Bedroom (4:14)

PERSONEL:
Hugh Hopper- bass, alto sax
Mike Ratledge- keyboards, flute (10)
Robert Wyatt- drums, vocals
with
Brian Hopper- tenor & soprano saxes (uncredited)























Note: I have not split the tracks: the two suites play continuously. I have also included lyrics.

file under repair

Steve Lacy Seven-PROSPECTUS (1984)

Steve Lacy Seven- PROSPECTUS (1984) Hat ART

From the inside cover (enclosed):

We start the set with STAMPS, the ice-breaker in honor of Mr Miles Davis, Based on the open notes
of the strings, it allows us to warm up, and you, to tune in.

WICKETS is a blue tale (tail?) on the trail, to Bobby Timmons, a blues blown in be natural.

Another kind of blues, THE WHAMMIES is our fastest moving item. Based on based on selected licks
from Fats Navarro. Once the chart is played, we get out quickly. When it is over you will have really
had it.

PROSPECTUS is an invitation to a voyage and is dedicated to McCoy Tyner.The words are by
Blaise Cendrars, who used a real travel brochure, slightly modified: "Come and see out little isle/
it's all the way down South/ in the Japanese possessions/ this little country is certainly mostly unknown
in Europe/ it merits a bit more attention/ fauna and flora have great variety/and hardly have been
studied up to now/ and this you'll find everywhere you look/ a picturesque point of view/ and in the
interior/ some ruins of Buddhist temples/ which are, in their genre/ pure marvels." (Translated by
Steve Lacy) This kind of collective improvisation is only possible when one has the luxury of being
able to work with the same group of gifted individuals over a long period of time. That is the REAL
Prospectus.

THE DUMPS (TAKE 1) Is a be-bop rag, a la Jelly Roll Morton. A tough number, we're still working on
it after 10 years. Note the forward-looking exchanges toward the end.

The second record contains our CLICHES. This piece began as an African postcard from Aline Dubois,
who visited Senegal. It was done in one take. We were lucky enough to be able to recruit some talented
young guests in the studio for the "rhythmic village". In memory of a dear friend and great musician,
Joe Maka.

TAKE 2 of THE DUMPS starts out more gayly, gets into some trouble, recovers well, and then at the
reprise loses its footing and crashes to a halt. After the last groan of anguish, we make a good insert,
repairing the damage but allowing the souvenir to remain.

The last tune RETREAT.Thomas Gainsborough, 18th centuyry painter, made this remark: "Enough
of portraits!/ I wish I could pack my Viola Di Gamba/
And go off to some charming village/ to paint landscapes/ And savor the end of my life/ In tranquility/
And peace." (re-translated by Steve Lacy) A little rhapsody for Bob Marley, based on a mode from
the far East in tick-tock time.
STEVE LACY, January, 1983.

Steve Lacy- Soprano Saxophone
Steve Potts- Alto and Soprano Saxophone
George Lewis- Trombone
Bobby Few- Piano
Irene Aebi- Violin, Cello, Voice
Jean-Jaques Avenel- Bass, Thumb Piano on CLICHES
Oliver Johnson- Drums
(and Cyrille Few and his friend- Percussion on CLICHES
Sherry Margolin- Percussion on CLICHES and RETREAT)



















Side One:
1- Stamps (6:56)
2- Wickets (11:43)
3- The Whammies (5:16)

Side Two:
4- Prospectus (6:05)
5- The Dumps (Take One) (17:23)

Side Three:
6- Cliches (22:58)

Side Four:
7- The Dumps (Take Two) (15:52)
8- Retreat (7:54)

Recorded November 1 and 2 1983 at Ircam-Espace Du Projection, Paris.

re-up:
(1) (2)

Boris Blacher- MUSIKVERLAGE

Boris Blacher MUSIKVERLAGE

(All sleeve notes in German.)
These Notes excerpted from external sources:

Memories of Boris Blacher
by Harald Kunz

Blacher certainly took great pleasure in experimenting. This began already in the 1920s with the Dadaistic opera Habemeajaja. The high point was reached with music for Werner Egks meaningless but emotive artificial words in his Abstrakte Oper Nr. 1, which initially caused a scandal but went on to be a success. The end point was Ariadne, a duo-drama in which two speakers recite a text written in Goethe's time to an accompaniment by electronics in microtones of a third.

He also found great pleasure in jazz. Jazzy syncopation in Concertante Musik had made him unpopular with the Nazi press and later compositions often use chords that recall Blacher's liking for the Glenn Miller Sound of the 1940s. From time to time he wrote compositions for jazz ensembles like the Modern Jazz Quartet and the German All Stars. Blues Espagnola und Rumba for the twelve cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra demonstrates how elegantly Blacher combines jazz elements with the classical tradition.

The creativity of the musician Blacher was guided and controlled by the rationality of Blacher the mathematician. According to the laws of mathematics, he constructed his compositions and created the rhythmic serial principle of his „Variable Metrics“. Yet even in the most logical of his scores, there are always deviations from the norm, breaks in the rules; Blacher said of such „mistakes“ that they are what renders art human.
Intelligence and imagination, charm and humour, nonchalance and understatement were the hallmarks of his personality. With these congenial traits in his music, Boris Blacher's oeuvre will remain timeless and contemporary.

(translation: Gloria Custance)
Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes
(...) Blacher's is an idiom of striking originality,based upon free atonal counterpoint. His adherence to the neo-classic esthetic manifests itself in his fondness for terseness and directness of expression.His orchestral writing is bright, vivid, and thinned out according to a careful selection of instruments. The result is a lightness and transparency which is at the opposite pole from the fat sound of German postromanticism. The rhythmic subtlety of Blacher's music derives from a technique of "variable meters" that are worked out according to definite mathematical progressions. The meter changes from bar to bar according to a pre-existent series which applies to rhythm the tone-row principle of twelve-tone music.Yet Blacher does not transform the technique into a system, leaving himself free to vary it according to his needs.His penchant for satire and irony goes hand in hand with a suppleness and volatility that are not often found in German music.(...)

Joseph Machlis- Introduction To Contemporary Music (1961,W.W.Norton & Company, pp 251-2).

note: Blacher was married to the pianist Gerty Blacher-Hertzog.



















Side One:

ABSTRAKTE OPER NO. 1, OPUS 43 (1953) 27:21
(The University of Illinois Opera Group, Leitung- Ludwig Zerner)


Side Two:

ELEKTRONISCHE IMPULSE (1965) 2:50

SONATA FUR KLAVIER, OPUS 39 (1951) 7:54
(Gerty Herzog- Klavier)

APRESLUDE- 4 Lieder nach Gedichten von Gottfried Benn OPUS 57 (1958) 4:41
(Ernst Haeflinger- Tenor ; Gerty Herzog- Klavier)

WHAT ABOUT THIS, MR. CLEMENTI? 3 Stucke (1943) 3:05
(Gerty Herzog- Klavier)

re-up again:(1)