Topic: James Tenney’s Tent

[Mandryka]

James Tenney’s harmonic ideas were praised by John Cage, who was his teacher for a while. And I guess he repaid the complement with this paper on Cage’s approach to harmony

http://www.plainsound.org/pdfs/JC&ToH.pdf

I have only started to explore his music, really in these two recordings. I know nothing about how they are designed, whether they were constructed using chance operations, what sort of interpretation challenges and opportunities the score offers the performers.

     

[Mandryka]

Tenney's notes for Changes (the 64 harp studies)

http://aum.dartmouth.edu/~larry/algoCompClass/readings/tenney/Tenney%20-%20About%20Changes%20.pdf

[Mandryka]

This is an interesting CD I think, with, among other things,  a Harmonium #2 with a harmonic language which makes me think of Feldman in his bleaker moods. Like it.

[Mandryka]

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/8Tpo2tCH-6I" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/8Tpo2tCH-6I</a>

This starts off very dull, but after 5 minutes or maybe a little more, the harmonies become really interesting and create a tension, which reminds me of the tension Beethoven creates in those trilling variations of op 111/ ii. Bozzini have a Tenney recording which I’m trying to obtain.

[Mandryka]

Here’s a live Koan piece from one of the Bozzini's Quartet's concerts. It starts off very tonal and rigid, you have to bear with it for the first half, but it’s worth doing because the second half is fabulous harmonically - incredibly tense - in the way that those trills in op 111/ii are tense.

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/8Tpo2tCH-6I" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/8Tpo2tCH-6I</a>

They have a Tenney CD which I've just ordered

[Mandryka]

Going back to this today, it's amazing music and I can see why I was so enthusiastic when I first found it. Contrapuntal, and very expressive, very similar in expression to those melancholic last pieces by Feldman. Written in two phases, three in 2001 and five in 1995 -- I'm not sure if there's a difference between the two vintages. This is music to explore over a lifetime, sort of thing.

One thing I like about it is that there aren't many chords, so it's airy. But at the same time, there are so many voices in counterpoint, it's dense. Airy and dense.

[Mandryka]

Paper on Tenney’s computer algorithms which were at work in so many of my favourite pieces

https://users.flatironinstitute.org/~ahb/papers/dc.pdf

[T. D.]

Paper on Tenney’s computer algorithms which were at work in so many of my favourite pieces

https://users.flatironinstitute.org/~ahb/papers/dc.pdf

Thanks, great stuff (I'm a nerd). Weird that the journal title doesn't seem to be given. I haven't had time to peruse the website that links to the .pdf.

[T. D.]

Changes: Sixty-Four Studies for Six Harps

Video of live performance at http://sassas.org/event/james-tenneys-changes/

Music starts at around 7'45" of "Part One"