Topic: Avant garde songs

[Mandryka]

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/fhgHqhdoGc0&amp;ab_channel=You%27veprobablyneverheardofit." target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/fhgHqhdoGc0&amp;ab_channel=You%27veprobablyneverheardofit.</a>

Phillipe Manoury, En Echo. It's a song sequence, this is the first. It sounds like he's made a line for the singer which is a bit like Berlioz, well that's not fair but it's got a bit of truth in it, and then he's given her a funky space age  avant garde accompaniment with electronics. How lame is that?

[Mandryka]

And now I see that Catalogue Irraisoné is somehow related to Schwitter's Ursonate -- very good too!


<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/cqHaJsqlmzg&amp;list=OLAK5uy_mbVn-EgBvh0dRe5bgA8hDQlFSk1HZ4Bk0&amp;index=26&amp;ab_channel=Sprechbohrer-Topic" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/cqHaJsqlmzg&amp;list=OLAK5uy_mbVn-EgBvh0dRe5bgA8hDQlFSk1HZ4Bk0&amp;index=26&amp;ab_channel=Sprechbohrer-Topic</a>

[Mandryka]

I may be pushing the concept of song again, but I think Florian Hecker’s A Script for Machine Synthesis is not totally without interest.


<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/eCZXRzaDDIo" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/eCZXRzaDDIo</a>

[Mandryka]

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/KzitgQrp8J8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/KzitgQrp8J8</a>

John Croft wrote a pair of songs for soprano and flute called méditions d’une furie. Cora Schmeiser has a most distinctive voice, it has a fragility which I think is attractive. These are worth hearing, they’re a bit special.

And Croft has a song cycle, for soprano and electronics, it’s so sensual it must be bad for you.



Well, if this music is representative of what composers are up to now, postmodernism is dead. Some of this is as decadent and unctuous as Richard Strauss, some of it as magico-spirituo-mystico-whatever as Jonathan Harvey.

https://static.qobuz.com/goodies/52/000139125.pdf

http://john-croft.uk/

[Mandryka]

What am I supposed to do with this?

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/ZgZfD3JogT8&amp;ab_channel=ScoreFollower" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/ZgZfD3JogT8&amp;ab_channel=ScoreFollower</a>

[mabuse]

What am I supposed to do with this?

Getting more !

I suggest Matthew Shlomowitz's Letter Piece #5 "Northern Cities" (2009) by Chiara Saccone & Chiara Percivati:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4TQRC18ix0
<a href="https://youtu.be/l4TQRC18ix0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://youtu.be/l4TQRC18ix0</a>

[mabuse]

A recent publication :

« Resonant Bodies »
New Focus Recordings (2021)
→ https://newfocusrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/resonant-bodies

"The Resonant Bodies festival, founded and directed by mezzo-soprano Lucy Dhegrae, ran for three nights of performances in a row at downtown Brooklyn's Roulette Intermedium each year from 2013-19. The broad mission of Resonant Bodies was to highlight adventurous vocalists in programs of their choosing. The collection of live performances from the festival features performances by several prominent vocal performers across the spectrum of diverse practice including Julia Bullock, Tony Arnold, Pamela Z, Charmaine Lee, Lucy Shelton, Caroline Shaw, and Sofia Jernberg."

Very varied works which offer a quite stimulating program in my opinion... 

[Mandryka]

A recent publication :

« Resonant Bodies »
New Focus Recordings (2021)
→ https://newfocusrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/resonant-bodies

"The Resonant Bodies festival, founded and directed by mezzo-soprano Lucy Dhegrae, ran for three nights of performances in a row at downtown Brooklyn's Roulette Intermedium each year from 2013-19. The broad mission of Resonant Bodies was to highlight adventurous vocalists in programs of their choosing. The collection of live performances from the festival features performances by several prominent vocal performers across the spectrum of diverse practice including Julia Bullock, Tony Arnold, Pamela Z, Charmaine Lee, Lucy Shelton, Caroline Shaw, and Sofia Jernberg."

Very varied works which offer a quite stimulating program in my opinion... 

Thanks, listening now.

[Mandryka]

These are late pieces principally for up to four voices written for Electric Phoenix. As with the songs in the Song Books, each performer is instructed to be unaware of the others are doing. In this case, they recorded their contribution in a studio and the results were later assembled.  It’s not clear to me how much “artfulness” was involved in that assembly - whether this is the result of an auteur’s decisions.

Each of the six pieces are quite long, and have more or less distinct characters. So far 93 has really caught my imagination - I like the singer’s northern English accent! There is some instrumental sound and I don’t know how it got there. There is, of course, silence - well judged IMO. This is something to explore, potentially impressive I think.