Topic: Pauline Oliveros

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

What do you think of her music?

Here is an interesting article from a few years back in The Guardian, the article has more to say on about her ideas since the 80s than her earlier works, but it's worth a read: https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2012/may/07/guide-contemporary-music-pauline-oliveros

There is a link in that to something I have only been more aware of recently and that is the idea of the 'Expanded Instrument System' which has been incorporated in a terrific piece of hers called 'Sound Geometries' which I urge anyone who has an interest in music which combines electronics with acoustic instruments to hear.



This is also a brilliant compilation of some of her earlier electronic works:

[Crudblud]

Oliveros' Crone Music is wonderful. Looking forward to checking out Sound Geometries.

[PotashPie]

I've always admired her electronic works. Recently I got this one, and was surprised. Called "Deep Listening," they (with Stuart Dempster) go into a chamber with a long echo…it reminds me of this time when I went inside a large oil storage tank, and the echo was incredible. This is like that. A very long, natural echo. It might strike some as "new age-y," but I see it as her 60s legacy of spirituality. All music is traced back to a drone anyway.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

'Deep listening' is I think a musical process for Oliveros which she advocates in listening, performing, improvising etc.

[snyprrr]

That's A Man, Baby!!

[Brewski]

Sad news today: Pauline Oliveros died on Wednesday morning -- from the early reports I'm hearing, peacefully, in her sleep. She gave me one of my first contemporary music experiences, around 1970, when the Dallas Symphony Orchestra's GAMUT new music series presented one of her early works, Theatre Piece (1966), with trombonist Stuart Dempster climbing around a piano, and also using candles, funnels, trombone mouthpieces, and garden hoses and sprinklers. Fast-forward to the last few years, when the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) worked closely with her on a number of interesting projects.

EDIT: Here is the first performance of Theatre Piece, with Dempster, taped in San Francisco:

https://archive.org/details/OliverosTheatrePiece

--Bruce

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Very sad to hear this. She has been a wonderful composer and has an extraordinary and extraordinarily interesting output. Tonight I'll be listening to her works.

Two pioneers in electroacoustic music have departed in the last week.

[Mandryka]

Pauline Oliveros has a couple of recordings called "The Space Between"

What are they? Improvisations or composed or something . . . between?  (Have I just answered my own question?)

[T. D.]

Pauline Oliveros has a couple of recordings called "The Space Between"

What are they? Improvisations or composed or something . . . between?  (Have I just answered my own question?)

The recording with Jöelle Léandre is likely improv, recorded with Deep Listening technology. I'd categorize it as improv/microtonal/Deep Listening fwiw.
The other one also seems to be improv/microtonal, but it was recorded live so I dunno about the Deep Listening part.

Google dredged up a blurb:

The Space Between brings together the freedom of spontaneous improvisation with a number of diverse traditions and ideas, not the least of which is the legendary Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening concept. In the Cadence review of their 2001 debut, The Space Between with Barre Phillips, Frank Rubolino wrote, “As a unit, they speak in a broken tongue of rarified beauty that is demanding but fully rewarding." This release [2002]  once again pairs this esoteric trio with a world-renowned bassist in Jöelle Léandre.

I haven't heard either one.

[Mandryka]

The recording with Jöelle Léandre is likely improv, recorded with Deep Listening technology. I'd categorize it as improv/microtonal/Deep Listening fwiw.
The other one also seems to be improv/microtonal, but it was recorded live so I dunno about the Deep Listening part.

Google dredged up a blurb:

The Space Between brings together the freedom of spontaneous improvisation with a number of diverse traditions and ideas, not the least of which is the legendary Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening concept. In the Cadence review of their 2001 debut, The Space Between with Barre Phillips, Frank Rubolino wrote, “As a unit, they speak in a broken tongue of rarified beauty that is demanding but fully rewarding." This release [2002]  once again pairs this esoteric trio with a world-renowned bassist in Jöelle Léandre.

I haven't heard either one.

Thanks. I’m enjoying exploring these CDs, whatever the degree of improvisation in them. I’ve learned something the past few days: Pauline Oliveros is a much more interesting composer than I believed.

[T. D.]

Yes, she's definitely interesting. I started out with some early electronic recordings, which are good, but prefer later work.

Embarrassed to say that I only own one recording,


Recent posts motivated me to look for orchestral music.

The composition TO VALERIE SOLANAS AND MARILYN MONROE IN RECOGNITION OF THEIR DESPERATION got my attention. Released on vinyl only, 2 extant performances with 14- and 43-piece ensembles.
I'm listening on Youtube to the 1970 version with 14 instruments. It's rather good (some reviewers invoked Scelsi's name), so I now feel compelled to track down the 1977/43-piece rendition. [They're both on Youtube]

Here are blurbs from the Roaratorio site. The remarks about "open composition" are interesting.

“Much of Oliveros’s aesthetic is best understood as environment, areas of aural doldrums providing momentary and slightly queasy resting points, like the requisite standing back from a massive architectural work to take in the whole before venturing back in. In To Valerie Solanas and Marilyn Monroe, the hallmarks of Oliveros’s later philosophy and aesthetic are brought into direct play with politically-charged expressionism. Kudos to Minneapolis-based Roaratorio Records for uncovering such a significant work, a piece of music that will probably scare the living shit out of you. Valerie Solanas would be proud.” – Clifford Allen, Paris Transatlantic

“…it’s beautiful and strange, emotionally articulate, and I also believe it succeeds as a much less stilted approach to open composition than Cardew, Cage or Stockhausen. It is truly natural and unforced organic music, semi-scored and collaborative, making efficient use of the energy of the musicians she works with.” – Ed Pinsent, The Sound Projector

**** 4 stars : “Oliveros’ magnum feminist opus has a protracted tonal structure comparable to the work of Giacinto Scelsi. Its tenebrous expressivity is beautifully matched by the cover art…” - All Music Guide

[Brewski]

Following all of these comments with great interest, thank you.

As an aside, on its opening night in September 2019, the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin performed "The Tuning Meditation" from Four Meditations for Orchestra. (In another world, I might have been there, but the New York Philharmonic opening was the same night.)

From the program notes:

"The American experimental composer Pauline Oliveros wrote her imaginative 'Tuning Meditation' in 1971. The piece is not traditionally notated, but rather consists of a set of instructions for performers. They are told to start playing a pitch they imagine in their mind and then listen to another player’s pitch and begin to match it as closely as possible. A gentle and luminous sound unfolds during this meditative experiment in 'deep listening.'"

https://old.philorch.org/sites/default/files/concert/pdfs/OpeningNight.pdf

--Bruce

[Mandryka]

This one’s another goody - dance music, clearly I have a penchant for her theatrical music

[Mandryka]

Yes, she's definitely interesting. I started out with some early electronic recordings, which are good, but prefer later work.

Embarrassed to say that I only own one recording,

This is on Qobuz so I’ll listen to it later.

[Mandryka]

The second piece here, sound geometries, is hard but interesting, a sort of structured improvisation I think.

[T. D.]

Thanks. I’m enjoying exploring these CDs, whatever the degree of improvisation in them. I’ve learned something the past few days: Pauline Oliveros is a much more interesting composer than I believed.

I found this review/blurb of the Marilyn Monroe /Valerie Solanas piece, added to earlier post on the subject:

it’s beautiful and strange, emotionally articulate, and I also believe it succeeds as a much less stilted approach to open composition than Cardew, Cage or Stockhausen. It is truly natural and unforced organic music, semi-scored and collaborative, making efficient use of the energy of the musicians she works with.

So maybe "improv" is not an accurate label. I have to look into this further; lots of Oliveros's writing must be readily available. The piece mentioned did (especially the version for larger ensemble) sound "like Cage" in places.

[Mandryka]

I found this review/blurb of the Marilyn Monroe /Valerie Solanas piece, added to earlier post on the subject:

it’s beautiful and strange, emotionally articulate, and I also believe it succeeds as a much less stilted approach to open composition than Cardew, Cage or Stockhausen. It is truly natural and unforced organic music, semi-scored and collaborative, making efficient use of the energy of the musicians she works with.

So maybe "improv" is not an accurate label. I have to look into this further; lots of Oliveros's writing must be readily available. The piece mentioned did (especially the version for larger ensemble) sound "like Cage" in places.

I have transfers of these recordings which I can let you have. They do sound good - music and performance and sound - and they do sound a bit Scelsi ish.

[Benji]

I stumbled across her music last year and it was a revelation in a sense. The deep listening music has an extremely calming effect on me, so I often turn to it late at night if I'm struggling with insomnia (and I don't mean to suggest it's dull, it's absolutely not).

[Rinaldo]

The deep listening music has an extremely calming effect on me, so I often turn to it late at night if I'm struggling with insomnia (and I don't mean to suggest it's dull, it's absolutely not).

Same here, Oliveros is one of my go-to 'ambient' artists (e.g. Éliane Radigue, William Basinski) and some of her music helps to soothe my ADHD brain.

[Mandryka]

I'm going to have to try again with deep listening, there's something slick and loud about the first track on that CD which put me off.

Radigue is a different matter, at least in the electronic music.