Avant garde music for that piece of furniture called a piano.

[T. D.]

Yes, Redgate is Ferneyhough-esque.

Well, that'd explain it.  Nothing against New Complexity, I heard a few pieces I like (for instance La Chute d'Icare and Lemma-Icon-Epigram by Ferneyhough, Spleen by Dillon), but far more that weren't to my taste, so I stopped exploring the field. So much music, so little time...

[Mandryka]

https://www.youtube.com/v/26Zj_dVONgs

Rain piece for three pianos, Peter Ablinger, like it, don't know how it's made, presumably a transcription of rain. On this CD

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Stockhausen's Mantra is just a set of variations on a melody (the mantra.) It is for two pianos, the piano tones are passed through a ring modulator which serves to bring out some of their overtones, creating a more varied timbre. There is also some occasional use of little cymbals, and woodblocks which mark the main structural junction - all done by the piano players. And occasionally the musicians have to make a sound with their vocal chords.  I love it, I think it is a masterpiece. But it's not really avant garde any more - it's half a century old! Roll over Stockhoven.

Glad to see a mention of Mantra. I find it a lot more comprehensible than other Stockhausen I've listened to. Almost catchy, a bit jazzy. I've got the Naxos recording and I'm listening to it right now!

That's a hell of a picture. Is that supposed to be Enno Poppe?

[Mandryka]

https://www.youtube.com/v/jC9Qr29IrsU&ab_channel=ccrmalite1

In Part A Alvin Lucier's Nothing is Real, for piano, amplified teapot, tape recorder and miniature sound system. the pianist plays some familiar tunes, which are recorded. In Part B the recording is played back through a teapot, and the pianist opens and closes the lid so the sound escapes like steam. It is gorgeous.

[Mandryka]

Glad to see a mention of Mantra. I find it a lot more comprehensible than other Stockhausen I've listened to. Almost catchy, a bit jazzy. I've got the Naxos recording and I'm listening to it right now!

That's a hell of a picture. Is that supposed to be Enno Poppe?

Have a listen to his lectures on it on youtube.

That's a hell of a picture. Is that supposed to be Enno Poppe?

Booklet doesn't say.

[Mandryka]

This expensive, hard to find CD from a relatively unknown composer and a relatively unknown jazz piano player is well worth the pain of purchasing it for the sound. The piano is like, really here! Both in terms of music and playing it's the most enjoyable for me by far of any piano cd of Fox's music.

Christopher Fox is a musician with a cult following. There's even a festschrift for him. It is true that his minimal, restrained music though initially underwhelming has really gotten under my skin. One of the long pieces on this CD, The Calm of the Mountains, is the closest thing I've heard to music directly influenced by The Well Tuned Piano - it's only 14 minutes though!  So that must show something - not sure what it shows, but it shows something.

[T. D.]

This expensive, hard to find CD from a relatively unknown composer and a relatively unknown jazz piano player is well worth the pain of purchasing it for the sound. The piano is like, really here! Both in terms of music and playing it's the most enjoyable for me by far of any piano cd of Fox's music.

Christopher Fox is a musician with a cult following. There's even a festschrift for him. It is true that his minimal, restrained music though initially underwhelming has really gotten under my skin. One of the long pieces on this CD, The Calm of the Mountains, is the closest thing I've heard to music directly influenced by The Well Tuned Piano - it's only 14 minutes though!  So that must show something - not sure what it shows, but it shows something.

John Snijders? Relatively unknown jazz pianist?
He's recorded with the relatively well-known (NL modern classical) Ives ensemble, I have his For John Cage recording.
Stuff on discogs looks "classical" to me: https://www.discogs.com/artist/847140-John-Snijders
And USA dealer Squidco offers the physical CD (I think ezz-thetics is the successor label to Hatology) on discogs at their standard price, US$ 17.95 not really expensive for such things.

[Mandryka]

John Snijders? Relatively unknown jazz pianist?
He's recorded with the relatively well-known (NL modern classical) Ives ensemble, I have his For John Cage recording.
Stuff on discogs looks "classical" to me: https://www.discogs.com/artist/847140-John-Snijders
And USA dealer Squidco offers the physical CD (I think ezz-thetics is the successor label to Hatology) on discogs at their standard price, US$ 17.95 not really expensive for such things.

Just testing to see if anyone was reading.

It's difficult to get in the UK, you have to pay to get it imported from Holland, or pay a premium to Amazon,  odd given that Fox is based in the UK I think.

[T. D.]

More Snijders credits:
https://www.discogs.com/artist/847140-John-Snijders?type=Credits&subtype=Instruments-Performance&filter_anv=0
He's also performed with the Nieuw Ensemble and Schönberg Ensemble.

[Mandryka]

Very good and well recorded performance of Alvin Curran's Inner Cities 9 by its dedicatee here. Enjoyed it very much. I think it has what Stockhausen called Moment Form.



and while we're talking Alvin Curran, there's an extraordinary long performance of For Cornelius by Kees Wieringa here , not sure if it's really successful

[Mandryka]

There are some incredible, astonishing, things on this one -- the best new discovery for a long time. Traces for piano and live electronics, Fantasy for piano, Less than Two. This is a magnificent album.

[Mandryka]

This is, IMO, a major, serious, important contribution to "traditional" piano music. What I mean by traditional is that it's using techniques which are basically those found in Liszt and Beethoven and Debussy - the piano player does not wear maracas on his wrists or gloves on his hand or sing, he doesn't play with his elbows or stroke the insides of the instrument, there's no electronics.

Listening to the whole thing over the past few weeks it's clear to me that expressively this is a match for the greatest cycles of piano music.

But there's a huge problem which, I think, is preventing its acknowledgement for the work of genius it is. You can only hear it through Ian Pace's performance with sound which is, in my opinion, poor. Poor dynamic range, poor capture of timbre and attack - poor in all the things which matter for piano. The sound is dead.

[Mandryka]

And this shows how good Ian Pace can sound when he's well recorded -- I'm talking about the seven Dusapin etudes




There's another recording of these agreeable pieces, by Vanessa Wagner -- I much prefer Pace in every important way: sensitivity to nuance and quality of tone. Pace can come up with the goods sometimes.

[Mandryka]

More from Nicolas Horvath, who was the pianist in Alvin Lucier's Music for Piano XL I have enjoyed so much. This is in the same vein, but if anything even more interesting. Denis Johnson's November was a big inspiration for La Monte Young when he composed The Well Tuned Piano. Here it's enhanced by a moody electronic background, with a piano part (which sounds to me as though it's sometimes been processed in some way) in counterpoint. Like it!

November has been recorded before, by Jeroan van Veen, and I've just found a recording by R Lee Andrew which I'll try to hear soon.

[Mandryka]

I've got it now, and it turns out to be about as long as The Well Tuned Piano 


Very good essay by Kyle Gann on it -- and it also makes sense of the word "deconstructed" in the title of the Lustmord CD

https://recordings.irritablehedgehog.com/album/dennis-johnson-november-2

[Mandryka]

James Tenney's Bridge is for two pianos, eight hands. The pianos are tuned in a nonstandard way. It was, I think, composed partly using a total serialist type procedure with some choices generated by random processes. It is in two parts, the second is over 20 minutes long, and it is very fine indeed, beautiful music.

[Hobby]

What about Sorabji's 100 Transcendental Studies played by Fredrick Ullen. I've only had time to listen to a few but found them interesting.

[Mandryka]

What about Sorabji's 100 Transcendental Studies played by Fredrick Ullen. I've only had time to listen to a few but found them interesting.

I've never heard them, but I just sampled one. It made me think that you may enjoy this

[Hobby]

I had bookmarked Trinity but hadn't yet sampled. Thanks.

[Mandryka]

I had bookmarked Trinity but hadn't yet sampled. Thanks.

i listened to it again today. I think it's fine music, expressive and imaginative, but the composer, Flynn, has probably missed the boat, he's a footnote in a Ph.D. at best, a brief mention every ten years on a social media site for nerds. Is it true that the cream always rises? I don't think so.