Christian Wolff's lair

[Mandryka]

https://www.youtube.com/v/XVFJaYI_VUE

A piece I very much like here for trombone and piano, from 1991, called For Ruth Crawford or maybe just Ruth. The whole album's intreresting, it's streaming on many platforms. Does anyone have the booklet? Does it say anything interesting?

And the piece called Peggy, from 1993, is if anything even more striking than For Ruth. This is an outstanding CD.

[Mandryka]

Long Piano is a solo piece which lasts about an hour. The score lets the performer decide tempo, and sometimes pitch and rhythm. It is a collage of 95 patches. There are, according to the composer and indeed to John Tilbury, references to other composers' music Ives, Schumann, Beethoven and Bach, L'homme armé -- I hardly noticed that myself.

The problem with this sort of thing is to make it flow and cohere. Otherwise it could sound like 95 boring piano exercises. Thomas Schultz does a remarkably good job in that respect.

Listening to it I was reminded of something very enigmatic in Cage's writing, which is the idea of form. He defines it as  "the morphological line of the sound-continuity." He expanded on this

At the time I considered form as the aspect of mystery in which the life of an organism sometimes cloaks itself. If you attempt to organise it, you kill it.

I guess what I'm saying is this apparently random juxtaposition of piano pieces is given a life line by Schultz's performance. Of course it helps that you know you're in for an hour of music, it sets expectations.

[Mandryka]

Very successful music making here, I guess improvised but I don't know how freely. It works not by being fast and furious, and not by unexpected timbres, but communicating a sort of quietness and intensity, it's like eavesdropping on a personal moment between three friends.

[Mandryka]

https://www.youtube.com/v/YBbfZ3mKUaM

Christian Marclay, Yasunao Tone, Christian Wolff – Event.


Written 15 years ago for dance I think, to me it feels so fresh and thrilling it's as if it was written yesterday. A timeless classic.

[Mandryka]

https://erstwhilerecords.bandcamp.com/album/looking-around

Two  improvisations with Michael Pisaro. That's where Wolff is may well be most impressive IMO, in improvisation. The duo of Wolff and Pisaro present music which appears reflective, inward looking, and they give the impression of working together in an encounter which is both an exploration of ideas, and a session of creative music making. This is quiet, immersive music, with no swagger. Somehow as it moves forward through time  it does so naturally and even logically. For me, really good stuff.

Pisaro on guitar and other things, Wolff on piano and other things, mostly (maybe all) acoustic. This does not feel like it is studio processed, it's like a live concert. Good sound.

[Old San Antone]

https://erstwhilerecords.bandcamp.com/album/looking-around

Two  improvisations with Michael Pisaro. That's where Wolff is may well be most impressive IMO, in improvisation. The duo of Wolff and Pisaro present music which appears reflective, inward looking, and they give the impression of working together in an encounter which is both an exploration of ideas, and a session of creative music making. This is quiet, immersive music, with no swagger. Somehow as it moves forward through time  it does so naturally and even logically. For me, really good stuff.

Pisaro on guitar and other things, Wolff on piano and other things, mostly (maybe all) acoustic. This does not feel like it is studio processed, it's like a live concert. Good sound.

Nice ideas, but the amplifier hum is a bit much.

[Mandryka]

Nice ideas, but the amplifier hum is a bit much.

I didn't find the hum annoying yesterday, but now that you mention it . . . bastard.

I've realised that there's something I love, which is very simple and common but I love it nonetheless. I like electronic sounds with indeterminate pitch, field recordings especially, with acoustic melodic instruments on the top.

[Old San Antone]

I didn't find the hum annoying yesterday, but now that you mention it . . . bastard.

I've realised that there's something I love, which is very simple and common but I love it nonetheless. I like electronic sounds with indeterminate pitch, field recordings especially, with acoustic melodic instruments on the top.

Umm ... sorry. 

[Mandryka]

 

The above is the first two page of the score of For 1,2 or 3 People.